The sale of Realex Payments to Global Payments for €115m has minted over a dozen millionaires at the online payments processor

Chief among the beneficiaries is founder Colm Lyon (51), who will gross an estimated €72m from the transaction. His partner Niamh Lyon is also in for a windfall, with her gross amounting to €10m.

The Realex operating company Pay and Shop Ltd had 13 shareholders owning redeemable ordinary shares. They will share around €13m, with James Fox, John Graham, Peter Keenan, Pat McArdle, Michael McCabe, Kieran McDonnell and Enda Murphy each grossing over €1m.

The company created a new class of B Ordinary shares in 2014 as a staff incentive. The five holders of this class of equity will share around €5m, with Gary Conroy and Paul Davey each grossing around €2m.

Director John Mooney, who was with Realex at the start and now resides in California, will gross around €3.6m, with Owen O'Byrne in line for €3.5m.

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“Realex Payments represents a strategic investment to expand our international omni-channel technology offerings, enhancing our go-to-market strategy in one of our largest regions with industry leading value-added products and services,” said Global Payments CEO Jeff Sloan.

“We are excited to further invest in our European businesses, continue to leverage our multinational footprint and accelerate our growth opportunities at a favorable time in Europe.”

Realex Payments processes payments valued in excess of €28 billion per annum on behalf of 12,500 retailers throughout Europe, with clients in 30 countries.

Global Payments is prepared to pay a big premium to acquire Realex's market share, relationships, technology and expertise. The Dublin Irish company, chaired by veteran accountant Laurence Crowley, had turnover of €18m in the year to April 2014 and booked a pre-tax profit of €2.1m.

Colm Lyon is leaving his leadership role at the firm but will stay on as a non-executive director.