If it's not cloud, GTFO: Sage flogs payments business to US firm Elavon for £230m

UK accounting software biz Sage is flogging its payments arm to US firm Elavon for £230m, the latest asset offload of its "non-core" businesses in favour of those with a cloudier flavour. Sage Pay processes payments on behalf of the company's small business customers. But it contributed just £41m in revenue for the full year …

[Mage]

Sage is flogging its payments arm to US firm

Lots of Irish retailers use Sage Pay. Ireland isn't leaving the EU.

Has this got regulator approval, and if so why?

GDPR, Safe harbor, etc etc.

[Tom 38]

Re: Sage is flogging its payments arm to US firm

Elavon already have both Irish and British subsidiaries that are authorised merchant services providers by the relevant authority in each country, so I'm not sure on what basis you'd like a regulator to intervene?

Just because they are US owned doesn't mean the business will start operating out of the US.

[Mage]

Re: doesn't mean the business will start operating out of the US

It's not about operating out of the US, but lack of regulation and oversight of US companies in the US, control, privacy etc. Safe Harbor has proved to be an illusion.

Everyday big US companies ignore the laws outside of the USA.

Just because a US company already have both Irish and British subsidiaries that are authorised merchant services providers by the relevant authority in each country shouldn't mean automatic approval.

Maybe ALL US ownership of companies processing EU data needs looked at. Would the USA allow foreign citizens to own and run even a TV station?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: doesn't mean the business will start operating out of the US

Yes.

Fox.

[Lost In Clouds of Data]

Vantiv?

Ohio based Vantiv (which itself was an offshoot of the regional 5/3 Bank, and was known as 5/3 Processing Solutions until private equity slinger Advent Interaltional came a calling, brought out 5/3's stake and took the company public) brought Worldpay in 2017, and then assumed Worldpay's name. Then in June, Florida based FIS purchased Worldpay.

So, in the great scheme of things there is no Vantiv - Just FIS.

Sharks eat sharks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sage

I think you are listening to your accountants too much. They don't give a fuck about your employees or your company. If you went bust they would just go leech off someone else. Only 15 million quid profs? Oh dump it now and let someone else get the 15 million. Very sensible advice. /s

True story. I have a very small business. Me and 4 employees + accountant.

Instead of just doing the accounts , he would insist that I could get by with 3 employees + accountant.

So I got rid of an empoyee and replaced him with software.

Result? My profits are not huge, but I still have 4 employees. You see, I employed my people because they are people that can do what I need in order to be able to do my job. Without any of us there would be no business.. We don't need a fucking accountant. We replaced him with software

Moral? Accountants will destroy your company if it means more money for them. They are machines with tits or a dick but no heart.

Ishy

[katrinab]

Re: Dear Sage

You can no more replace an accountant with a copy of Sage than you can replace a journalist with a copy of Microsoft Word, or a computer programmer with a copy of Visual Basic.

Sage will add things up for you very quickly, which is useful, but you still need to tell it what to add up, and you need someone with accounting knowledge to tell it what numbers to add up.

[scoobie]

Protx

and not a mention of Protx, which is sad......

[Missing Semicolon]

Typical useless management

Gross margin for business=23%. Margin for SagePay=36%.

So, sell it because it's not 'core'?

Typical dim corporatist management, reducing workload instead of doing work. Sell.

And of course the actual service will go down the pan as well.

[Aqua Marina]

Re: Typical useless management

15 years profit in one transaction tho. Most businesses are sold for 5 X gross profit. 15 X is a dream come true for any business owner. Sage then now have 5 years to come up with a profitable alternative, and do the same all over again.

[ecofeco]

Accounts receivable/payable is "non-core"?

The world has gone mad. Mad I tell you.

[katrinab]

Can someone explain

An online payments gateway is not "cloud", but a locally installed bookkeeping program that was originally written in the 1980s for the Amstrad PCW, is "cloud".

How does that work?

[SageInsider]

Sage really has turned itself into a genuinely awful company over the last ten years

Since Stephan Kelly and the current dead eyed monster took over, the company has made bad decision after bad decision whilst simultaneously ensuring that none of the employees trust and like the company

This is another decision that will see employees thrown out of the company. A company that is so caring it sacks people by email or in masses

It's a company that moved IT and HR to Poland to save a few pennies at the complete removal of any functionality of those departments and one that pretends it's apps are cloud based, when they aren't and customers don't even want them to be

For 20 twenty years it has been trying to kill off it's main two products, yet still doesn't haven anything in their place to take over from them

Idiots and greedy men run this shit show and it's a terrible shame because Sage used to mean something to employees and customers, now it just means no loyalty and conning people into stuff they don't need