FleetCor To Buy Comdata From Ceridian For About $3.45 Bln.

(RTTNews) - FleetCor Technologies Inc. (FLT), Tuesday said it agreed to buy payment processing company Comdata Inc. from Ceridian LLC for $3.45 billion.

FleetCor plans to fund the deal with about $2.4 billion of new debt and by issuing about 7.3 million of its shares to Ceridian, which is owned by Thomas H. Lee Partners and Fidelity National Financial Inc.

"We expect the acquisition to be meaningfully accretive to earnings in fiscal year 2015. While our financial leverage will increase, we expect to de-lever quickly from the combined cash flow of the businesses," said Eric Dey, chief financial officer of FleetCor Technologies.

Looking forward, FleetCor expects full year 2015 adjusted earnings of between $6.25 and $6.45 per share, with Comdata contributing $0.50 to $0.60 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters currently estimate earnings of $5.94 per share for 2015. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

Comdata processes fleet fuel cards, virtual cards, corporate spend cards and gift card solutions to over 20,000 customers. It has about 1,300 employees and enables over $54 billion in payments annually. Comdata was acquired by Ceridian in 1995 for $900 million.

Separately, Fidelity National Financial Ventures (FNFV), a subsidiary of Fidelity National Financial Inc. (FNF) that owns 32 percent stake in Ceridian LLC, said it will indirectly own about 2.3 million shares of FleetCor stock valued at around $300 million as a result of the transaction.

FLT closed Tuesday's trading at $129.44, down $2.10 or 1.60%, on the NYSE. The stock, however, gained $4.17 or 3.22%, on the NYSE.