Värde Partners Completes Acquisition of WiZink

MADRID – Värde Partners and WiZink today announced the completion of the previously announced agreement for Värde to acquire the remaining 49% of WiZink from Banco Santander, S.A. and its subsidiary Banco Popular Español, S.A. (jointly “Grupo Santander”).

In 2014, Värde Partners acquired a 51% stake in WiZink, a leading independent digital bank specializing in deferred consumer credit in Spain and Portugal. With the completion of this transaction, Värde becomes the sole shareholder of WiZink.

About Värde Partners
Värde Partners is a $14 billion global alternative investment firm that employs a value-based approach to investing across a broad array of geographies, segments and asset types, including specialty finance, corporate credit, real estate, mortgages, energy, real assets and infrastructure. The firm sponsors and manages a family of private investment funds with a global investor base that includes foundations and endowments, pension plans, insurance companies, other institutional investors and private clients. Now in its third decade, Värde employs more than 300 people globally with regional headquarters in Minneapolis, London and Singapore.

Värde Partners has 20 years of experience investing in leading providers of consumer and commercial credit in the specialty finance sector.

About WiZink
WiZink is a bank that specializes in customer focused credit cards and savings solutions that respond to its customers’ day-to-day needs; a bank without branches that is designed to complement the bank used by its customers for the rest of their banking services.

WiZink operates with its own banking license and has a unique specialization model: the bank serves customers through specialized channels (online, telephone banking and stands). In addition, strategic agreements with key partners allow WiZink to offer co-branded credit cards adapted to customers’ particular needs (e.g. Cepsa).