FIS to Buy Financial-Tech Firm SunGard

Fidelity National Information Services Inc. agreed to buy financial software company SunGard for $9.1 billion, including the assumption of debt.

That acquisition will end plans by SunGard's private-equity owners to take it public. The Wayne, Pa., company had tapped underwriters for an initial public offering with a target valuation of about $7 billion, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal earlier this summer.

The acquisition is made up of a combination of cash and stock, and FIS said it intends to refinance SunGard's debt.

The combined company is expected to have more than $9.2 billion in annual revenue and more than 55,000 employees. The deal is seen closing in the fourth quarter.

SunGard's private-equity owners, which include Bain Capital LLC, Blackstone Group LP and KKR & Co., acquired it for roughly $11 billion about a decade ago in one of the signature deals of the buyout boom that preceded the financial crisis. They have held the company for longer than such firms normally do in part because of its uneven results over the last several years.

During the financial crisis, SunGard was hit by the struggles of banks, its largest customers. SunGard in 2011 began a transformation to sharpen its focus on financial services that ultimately involved selling its higher-education business and splitting off another unit.

Fidelity National, which is known as FIS, offers banking and payments technology services. Its shares were inactive premarket and have increased about 5% this year through Tuesday's close, outperforming the broader market.

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