Lesaka to acquire Touchsides, terms undisclosed

Lesaka announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Touchsides, a data analytics and, insights and merchant services company, from Heineken International B.V. Touchsides has an active base of over 10,000 POS terminals across South Africa’s informal licensed taverns, and processes more than 1.5M transactions per day. The business provides platform-as-a-service, or PaaS, and software-as-a-service, or SaaS, solutions to licensed tavern outlets, enabling the measurement of sales activity in real-time, management of stock levels and informing commercial decisions, such as pricing and promotional offers. The acquisition, funded by internal cash generation of the group, is expected to close in March and is subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions. As part of the acquisition, Heineken’s operating business in South Africa has agreed to a long-term renewable contract with Touchsides for access to Touchsides’ tavern data and services.