Global Payments' $40B Unsigned Buyout, Cresta's $2.7B Reported Price, and a $125M Deal the Seller Financed
Six transactions from October 28 to November 4, 2026: a reported $40 billion buyout of Global Payments that nobody has signed, a $2.7 billion price tag on Salesforce's Cresta deal, and a $125 million dialysis purchase the seller is financing in full.
Six transactions with enough public detail to compare were announced between October 28 and November 4, 2026. Five are signed. The largest number in the week sits on the only one that is not.
CD&R and GTCR are working on a buyout of Global Payments at an enterprise value of roughly $40 billion, according to a Financial Times report. Both firms declined to comment, Global Payments did not respond, and Reuters could not independently verify the report 1.
The signed deals cluster far lower: a reported $2.7 billion for a voice-AI company, and $495 million for two AI-security startups. Then a $475 million licence and a contract-manufacturing carve-out in the hundreds of millions of Swiss francs. Last, $125 million for a dialysis business whose seller is lending the buyer the whole purchase price.
The table runs from the largest headline value to the smallest. Two rows carry reported prices rather than company-disclosed ones, and the rows say so. Headline value is not cash committed at signing.
Deal snapshot
| Sector | Buyer / target | Date | Structure and status | Disclosed or reported value | What the buyer is buying |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fintech | CD&R and GTCR / Global Payments | Oct. 30 | Reported talks on a leveraged buyout; no agreement, no comment from either buyer, target did not respond | About $40 billion of enterprise value, reported; equity market value about $23 billion 1 | A card processor's merchant acquiring and processing network, already carrying the debt of its 2025 Worldpay purchase 2 |
| Software | Salesforce / Cresta | Nov. 2 | Definitive agreement; terms undisclosed; closing expected in the first quarter of Salesforce's fiscal 2028 | About $2.7 billion, reported 3 | Voice agents that resolve customer-service calls, plus the software that coaches the humans on the same calls 4 |
| Software | CrowdStrike / Fiddler AI and Dreadnode | Nov. 3 | Two definitive agreements announced at the same conference; closing expected in the fourth quarter of CrowdStrike's fiscal 2027 | $495 million combined, about $400 million of it for Fiddler and about $95 million for Dreadnode, reported 5 | Monitoring for AI agents already in production, and software that attacks them before they ship 6 |
| Biotech | BioMarin / GC Biopharma and Hanmi Pharm | Oct. 29 | Exclusive worldwide licence, excluding Korea; development and commercial milestones; no closing date | $70 million upfront and up to $405 million more in milestones, so up to $475 million, plus tiered royalties 7 | Rights to a long-acting, subcutaneous enzyme replacement therapy for Fabry disease, now in a Phase 1/2 trial 7 |
| Biotech | Lonza / Merck KGaA | Nov. 3 | Definitive agreement for five US sites and about 1,100 employees; closing expected mid-2027 | Enterprise valuation in the low- to mid-triple-digit millions of Swiss francs 8; about CHF 350 million, or about $428 million, at the midpoint of the range discussed with investors, this briefing's arithmetic 9 | A US contract-manufacturing network for antibody-drug conjugates, viral vectors and injectable drug delivery 10 |
| Biotech | Rockwell Medical / Vantive | Nov. 3 | Equity and asset purchase agreement; closing expected mid-2027; buyer withdrew 2026 guidance | $125 million base price, subject to adjustments, plus up to $45 million contingent, paid entirely by the seller in term loans and a convertible note 11 | A global in-center hemodialysis business: machines, concentrates, water treatment and the Italian plant that makes them 11 |
Deal notes
A $40 billion Global Payments buyout that nobody has signed
The Financial Times reported on October 30 that CD&R is looking to acquire Global Payments, which has an enterprise value of roughly $40 billion 1.
CD&R has teamed up with GTCR, the processor's largest shareholder, on a joint bid. Talks are ongoing and a deal may not materialise, the report said 1.
GTCR would roll the stake it already holds, worth about $10 billion, into the new structure rather than sell it, according to the same report 2.
The $40 billion is enterprise value: the price of the business including its debt. Global Payments has a market value of about $23 billion and about $17 billion of debt 12. Those two numbers add to roughly the headline.
The debt is recent. Global Payments bought Worldpay from FIS and GTCR for $24.25 billion in a cash-and-stock deal that closed in January 2026 2.
Investors disliked the price and the added leverage, and the shares fell. The stock has lost more than 60% from its 2021 peak 1.
Elliott Investment Management built a stake and installed two board directors, Patricia Watson and Archana Deskus, through a September 2025 agreement with the company 2.
Global Payments shares rose 11% on the report 1. On a market value of about $23 billion, that move added roughly $2.5 billion, this briefing's arithmetic.
The payments sector has been repricing for two years. Stripe and Advent International offered about $53 billion for PayPal earlier in 2026, and those talks reportedly stalled over the discount 1.
Salesforce pays a reported $2.7 billion for Cresta's voice agents
Salesforce signed a definitive agreement on November 2 to acquire Cresta, which it calls the voice-first operating system for customer experience 4.
Salesforce disclosed no price. The Information reported $2.7 billion, citing a person familiar with the deal 3.
Cresta's voice agents handle customer calls end to end. The same platform coaches human representatives in real time and analyses each interaction 4.
Its customers include Marriott, Comcast and Alaska Airlines 4.
Cresta is about nine years old 12. Sebastian Thrun, a co-founder of Google X, is a co-founder and board member 13.
Sequoia Capital led its $50 million Series B in 2021, with Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Allen & Company and Porsche Ventures participating 13. Ping Wu is chief executive 4.
Salesforce has now signed a string of these deals. It completed the roughly $3.6 billion purchase of Fin and agreed to buy Braze for about $5.66 billion 12.
Axios Pro counts Cresta as the twelfth deal Salesforce has done this year 3.
Kishan Chetan, the executive vice president running Agentforce and Service Cloud, framed the purchase around the hardest calls: "Voice is where service is hardest to get right, and where it matters most to customers" 4.
Closing is expected in the first quarter of Salesforce's fiscal 2028, subject to regulatory approval 4. Cresta will keep supporting the contact-center and telephony platforms its customers use today 4.
CrowdStrike buys two AI-security startups for $495 million
CrowdStrike announced two acquisitions from the stage of its Fal.Con Europe conference in Barcelona on November 3, and the pair cost about $495 million in total 514.
Fiddler AI accounts for about $400 million of that and Dreadnode about $95 million. CrowdStrike is paying mostly in cash, with part in stock subject to vesting 5.
Fiddler was founded in 2018 in Palo Alto and watches AI agents after deployment, tracing why an agent took an action. It becomes CrowdStrike Falcon Observe, generally available in the fourth quarter of CrowdStrike's fiscal 2027 56.
Dreadnode was founded in 2023 and attacks models and agents before they ship, running more than 100 known attack methods against them. Chief executive Brad Palm says the company was built on the idea that the people best at finding failures think like attackers 5.
Dreadnode maps its findings to published standards for AI risk, including the OWASP Top 10 for large language models and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework 5.
Chief executive George Kurtz described the buying rationale in one line: "When a regulator or your board asks what an agent did, saying 'the model did it' is not an answer" 5.
The risk being sold is specific. An AI agent can hold valid credentials and approved tools and still make a bad decision, ignore an instruction or claim work it never did, and conventional security testing does not catch that 5.
Both deals are expected to close in the fourth quarter of CrowdStrike's fiscal 2027 5.
BioMarin pays $70 million upfront for a Fabry disease drug
BioMarin signed an exclusive worldwide licence with GC Biopharma and Hanmi Pharm on October 29 for HM15421/GC1134A, an investigational enzyme replacement therapy for Fabry disease 7.
BioMarin pays $70 million upfront. The two Korean companies can earn up to $405 million more on development and commercial milestones, plus tiered royalties on sales 7.
That makes the maximum $475 million, and the upfront 15% of it. Both figures are arithmetic on the disclosed terms.
The drug is a long-acting version of alpha-galactosidase A, the enzyme Fabry patients lack. It is designed for subcutaneous injection, which would make it the first subcutaneous enzyme replacement therapy for the disease if approved 7.
It is in a Phase 1/2 trial. The US Food and Drug Administration granted it Orphan Drug Designation in 2024 7.
BioMarin takes over all later development, manufacturing and commercialisation outside Korea once the Phase 1/2 study finishes. GC and Hanmi keep commercial rights in Korea 7.
The licence builds on BioMarin's $4.8 billion acquisition of Amicus Therapeutics earlier in 2026 15.
Chief executive Alexander Hardy described the drug as a fit for patients "beyond those with mutations amenable to treatment with GALAFOLD", BioMarin's existing oral Fabry therapy 7.
Lonza buys Merck KGaA's US contract-manufacturing network
Lonza signed a definitive agreement on November 3 to buy five US manufacturing sites from Merck KGaA, taking its US network from four sites to nine 10.
The sites are in St. Louis, Missouri; Madison and Verona, Wisconsin; Carlsbad, California; and Indianapolis, Indiana. About 1,100 employees move across, taking Lonza's US headcount above 6,000 10.
What the sites make explains the price. St. Louis handles bioconjugates; the Wisconsin plants make high-potency payload-linkers for targeted cancer drugs; Carlsbad makes viral vectors for cell and gene therapy; Indianapolis makes lipid nanoparticles and liposomes 10.
Lonza put the enterprise valuation in the "low- to mid-triple-digit millions" of Swiss francs. On a call with investors and journalists, management put the price near the midpoint of a range of CHF 100 million to CHF 600 million 910.
That places the price near CHF 350 million, or about $428 million at the rate Reuters used, which is this briefing's arithmetic, not a company figure.
The acquired sites are expected to produce about CHF 250 million of sales in 2028, at a margin below Lonza's own; the company reports adjusted earnings as CORE EBITDA. Lonza expects the sites to reach the group margin by the mid-2030s 10.
Set against that CHF 250 million, the price is about 1.4 times forward sales, this briefing's arithmetic on two company figures from different years.
Lonza pays cash from hand and existing credit lines, and says the deal keeps its BBB+ rating 10.
Merck KGaA's group chief executive, Kai Beckmann, framed the sale as concentration: a narrower Life Science portfolio and more investment in "scientific leadership" 10.
Closing is expected in mid-2027. BofA Securities advised Lonza 10.
Rockwell Medical buys Vantive's dialysis business, and Vantive lends it the money
Rockwell Medical agreed on November 2 to acquire Vantive's in-center hemodialysis business: machines, concentrates, water treatment systems and consumables 11.
The base purchase price is $125 million, subject to customary adjustments, and Vantive can earn up to $45 million more on revenue and EBITDA milestones 11.
The structure is the story. Rockwell pays nothing in cash from its own pocket: the closing consideration is two $50 million term loans and a $25 million convertible note, all issued by Vantive 11.
The convertible note carries a conversion price at a 100% premium to the 15-day volume-weighted average price of Rockwell's stock. Vantive therefore takes the credit risk and keeps the equity upside 11.
The business comes with a factory. The Medolla campus outside Bologna covers more than one million square feet and makes dry concentrate cartridges, machines, parts and water treatment systems 11.
Rockwell says the combined business could generate $400 million to $450 million of annual revenue, on its own assumptions about operations, exchange rates and integration 11.
Against the top of that range, the $125 million base price is about 0.3 times revenue, this briefing's arithmetic. That is not a valuation multiple for Vantive's business alone, because Rockwell's own revenue is inside the range.
Vantive is the former kidney care segment of Baxter International. Baxter sold it to Carlyle for $3.8 billion, a deal agreed in August 2024, and the business launched as Vantive in 2025 16.
Vantive entered that separation with 23,000 employees and $4.5 billion of 2023 revenue. It kept peritoneal dialysis, organ support and the rest of kidney care, and is selling the in-center hemodialysis piece 16.
Chief executive Chris Toth said the priority was finding "the right buyer that understands the importance of continuity for customers, patients and employees" 11.
Rockwell, based in Wixom, Michigan, sells hemodialysis concentrates to dialysis providers. Chief executive Mark Strobeck called the deal a step in "Rockwell Medical's evolution" 11.
Rockwell withdrew its 2026 guidance for sales, gross margin, adjusted EBITDA and operating cash flow, citing deal and financing costs 11.
Closing is expected in mid-2027, subject to regulatory approval. That is a long time to carry $100 million of term debt with interest that rises every year.
Themes across the week
The buyer is not always the one putting up the money
Across the six deals, the money comes from four places: the buyer's balance sheet, borrowed cash, the seller, and the buyer's own stock.
Rockwell's purchase is paid for by its seller, in full. Vantive ends up as Rockwell's lender and its convertible noteholder 11.
Lonza is the opposite case. It pays cash from its own balance sheet and existing facilities, and states that the deal leaves its credit rating intact 10.
CrowdStrike splits the difference: mostly cash, with a slice of stock that vests. The sellers take part of the $495 million in CrowdStrike paper and only keep it if they stay and the integration works 5.
BioMarin's structure defers nearly all of the money: $70 million now, $405 million only if the drug gets through development and sells 7.
Global Payments is the leveraged version: a buyout in which GTCR rolls a $10 billion stake instead of taking cash, and the target's own $17 billion of debt sits inside the $40 billion figure 2.
Of the deals that say how they are funded, only Lonza is writing a cheque from cash it already holds. For a reader building a comparable, that is the row to price against.
The signed prices pay for future states
Lonza is paying for sites that will produce about CHF 250 million of sales in 2028 at a margin below the group's, and reach the group margin around the mid-2030s 10.
BioMarin is paying for a Phase 1/2 asset with 85% of the maximum consideration contingent on milestones that have not started 7.
Rockwell is paying for a business whose contribution is stated as a projection: $400 million to $450 million of combined revenue, on assumptions the company lists as operational performance, exchange rates and integration 11.
CrowdStrike is paying for products that do not carry its name yet. Falcon Observe is due to be generally available in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2027, after the deals close 6.
Cresta's $2.7 billion price has no published revenue behind it, because Salesforce disclosed no terms. A reader cannot compute a multiple from public information, and the reported figure is a report 3.
The exception is the deal nobody signed. Global Payments is priced against a business that already exists, with $23 billion of market value and $17 billion of debt, which is what makes a $40 billion buyout arithmetic rather than a projection 1.
The week's signed prices pay for future states: capacity not yet utilised, a trial not yet run, revenue not yet consolidated, a product not yet shipped. That is what makes them hard to compare, and it is why the structures carry as much of the price as the headline does.
What each seller kept back
Vantive took back a note convertible at a 100% premium and a $45 million milestone ladder. If Rockwell's projections hold, Vantive participates twice 11.
GC Biopharma and Hanmi kept Korea, the market they know, and handed over the rest of the world plus the cost of everything after the Phase 1/2 trial 7.
Merck KGaA kept nothing of the manufacturing business. It gave up five sites and about 1,100 employees to narrow its portfolio 10.
CrowdStrike's sellers took part of their price in stock subject to vesting, which ties the payout to staying 5.
GTCR sits on the other side of the table and behaves like a seller who wants the upside: it would roll its $10 billion stake rather than cash out 2.
Read together, three of the six sellers chose a slice of the future over cash at closing. The deals with the least disclosure ask the most patience from the reader: Cresta's price and its consideration mix, and whatever CD&R and GTCR eventually sign, are not yet knowable.
Coverage note
The week's largest transactions fell outside the three sectors this briefing follows.
Marvell Technology agreed on November 2 to buy Lumentum in an all-stock deal valued at $115 billion including debt, a semiconductor and optical-components transaction 17.
DoorDash agreed on October 29 to buy Instacart in a deal valued at about $17 billion, consolidating grocery delivery 18.
Thrive Holdings, Josh Kushner's permanent capital vehicle, agreed to take ADT private for $7.6 billion on the same day, a home-security transaction 19.
Three more items belong here for the record: one priced but outside the three sectors, one inside them with no price, and one that belonged to last week. Affle 3i agreed on November 1 to buy Perion Network, an advertising-technology company, for $11.70 a share in cash, an equity value of about $420 million. The agreement carries a 40-day go-shop to December 11, during which Perion can solicit rival bids 20.
Karyopharm Therapeutics filed for bankruptcy and announced a planned merger with Ayrmid Ltd on November 2, with commitments of up to $55 million of debtor-in-possession financing. No price was disclosed 21.
UMB Financial's $506 million purchase of El Dorado Savings Bank, announced October 27, belonged to last week's window and is not counted here 22.
References
- 1
- 2CD&R and GTCR reportedly weigh $40bn Global Payments buyout
fintechfutures.com
- 3
- 4Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Cresta
salesforce.com
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15BioMarin inks up to $475M deal to challenge Fabry ERT incumbents
fiercebiotech.com
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
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