Weil, Gotshal & Manges has acted for Advent International and Bain Capital on their acquisition of a 80.01 per cent stake in the global merchant services arm of the Royal Bank of Scotland, with an enterprise value of up to GBP2.025bn.

The deal is subject to relevant regulatory approvals and is due to complete in the fourth quarter of 2010.

The acquisition by the private equity consortium includes the WorldPay and the Streamline cards operations. WorldPay provides credit-card payment processing services to clients including small- and medium-sized businesses and has operations in more than 40 countries.

RBS will hold a 19.9 per cent minority stake in the new global merchant services group. The sale of global merchant services operations is one of a number of disposals by RBS in order to comply with the European Commission’s state-aid ruling in 2009.

The Weil Gotshal team was led by Marco Compagnoni. The London-based private equity team has signed or completed 11 private equity deals since the beginning of 2010.