Milan, March 5, 2026, 11:27 CET
- Nexi shares dropped as much as 20%, with the company now pushing any clear growth re-acceleration target out to 2028.
- Nexi is eyeing roughly 2.4 billion euros in “excess cash” between 2026 and 2028, and the company’s proposed dividend for 2026 comes in at 0.30 euro per share.
- For FY2025, results factored in a non-cash goodwill write-down of about 3.7 billion euros.
Nexi shares slumped as much as 20% to an all-time low Thursday, after the Italian payments firm rolled out a three-year plan aimed at addressing rising industry headwinds. Some analysts called the selloff excessive. “You don’t have to believe we can go to the moon,” CEO Paolo Bertoluzzo told investors. Reuters
This selloff hits as the market grows more tangled each quarter. Payments tech keeps evolving; merchants face falling prices. Major platforms push deeper into checkout, fraud prevention, and data, complicating the landscape.
Nexi’s crunch is more acute, after years doubling down on merchant payments processing and extended bank contracts. Now, investors want answers: how much longer will pricing and contract pressures drag on, and what steps in to offset the shortfall.
Nexi, speaking at its Capital Markets Day in Milan, projected roughly 2.4 billion euros in “excess cash” for the period from 2026 through 2028—this is cash available after accounting for items such as interest and taxes. For 2026 alone, it sees about 750 million euros left even after factoring in strategic investments and higher tax bills. The company is putting forward a 0.30 euro per-share dividend for 2026, totaling around 350 million euros. Nexi also outlined plans for that dividend to rise at least 5% each year, pushing total payouts above 1.1 billion euros across the plan, while maintaining its investment-grade credit standing. emarketstorage.it
Nexi posted its 2025 full-year results, showing net revenues of 3.585 billion euros, a 2.1% increase, with EBITDA rising 2.3% to 1.904 billion euros. The board is putting forward a 350 million euro dividend for shareholder approval at the April 29 meeting, with payment set for May 20 if it gets the green light. The company also booked a non-cash goodwill impairment of around 3.7 billion euros, which dragged the group to a reported loss of roughly 3.4 billion euros.
The plan banks on those contract effects fading as time goes on, targeting mid-single-digit revenue growth by 2028, and expecting EBITDA margins to start expanding again that year. Nexi, for its part, mentioned “strategic investments” during the period—a term that tends to make investors wary.
Technology factors into the story. On Wednesday, Nexi rolled out what it’s calling “agentic commerce” features—essentially, tools designed for automated AI agents to plug into Nexi’s payment rails and handle routine payment tasks. The company says it’s using something dubbed a Model Context Protocol. “The agentic commerce landscape is evolving rapidly,” said Sarah Barslund Lauridsen, chief product officer at Nexi. Nexi
Nexi’s rivals include France’s Worldline and Dutch-based Adyen, along with heavyweight international names. Competition has started to move beyond just handling transactions; now, it’s about delivering software, data services, and fraud prevention in one package. Pricing is shifting in response.
The risk scenario isn’t hard to imagine. Should bank contract talks drag out further, or aggressive newcomers squeeze out even bigger price cuts, that 2028 growth rebound might get knocked off course. Plus, ramping up with mid-sized businesses and pushing into e-commerce brings its own execution headaches—especially with heavier spending early on.
Nexi S.p.A., trading on Euronext Milan, covers merchant acquiring, card issuing services, and digital banking solutions. The market, for the moment, is signaling that Nexi needs to demonstrate its cash generation before investors will price in any long-term narrative.
