Squire Sanders has advised Houston-based Cardtronics, Inc., on the acquisition of Cardpoint Services, Ltd., which trades as leading independent Automated Teller Machine (ATM) services provider Cashzone in the UK, and as Cardpoint in Germany.

Listed on NASDAQ with a market capitalization of $1.2 billion, Cardtronics is the world’s largest non-bank ATM operator. The company has substantial operations in North America, and an estate of 4,300 non-bank cash machines in the UK.

Headquartered in Northwich, Cheshire, Cashzone is a leading UK independent ATM provider. With its ATM estate numbering 7,100 free-to-use and pay-to-use machines, Cashzone ATMs are located primarily at retailers, service stations and food and drink outlets. In Germany, Cardpoint operates 800 retail ATMs, which is the largest ATM portfolio in the country.

The acquisition of Cardpoint Services reinforces and extends Cardtronics’ position as the world’s leading provider of retail ATMs. As a result of this transaction, Cardtronics now operates a global network of 80,100 ATMs, with machines in the US, UK, Mexico, Canada and Germany. In conjunction with the deal, Cardtronics has also introduced a new corporate identity for its European operations, Cardtronics Europe, which will combine Cashzone, Cardpoint and Bank Machine, Cardtronics’ existing UK subsidiary.

Cardtronics chief executive officer, Steve Rathgaber, said: “With this transformative acquisition of the Cashzone and Cardpoint ATM estates, Cardtronics establishes itself as the leading ATM operator in both the UK and Germany, laying the foundations upon which to build a Cardtronics Europe scale business to complement our North American operations.”

The Squire Sanders team was led by Manchester partner and EMEA chair of the firm’s Global Corporate Practice, Jane Haxby, assisted by Jonathan Prosser, Robert Shakespeare, Serena Wotherspoon and Victoria Carpenter (Corporate), Patrick Ford (Tax), Jason Kelly (Intellectual Property & Technology) all from the UK, and Volker Heidbuchel and Alexander Wolff (Corporate) from Squire Sanders’ Berlin office.

Earlier this year Squire Sanders advised Cardtronics on its takeover offer for AIM listed i-design group plc, a leading provider and developer of marketing and advertising software and services for ATM owners, which was announced to the markets on 13 February 2013.