$1.19 Billion Winning Bid for Western Union Unit 144-Year-Old Financial Arm Sold

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First Financial Management Corp. won a bankruptcy court-supervised auction Monday of 144-year-old Western Union Financial Services by offering to pay $1.193 billion in cash for the New Valley Corp. unit.

After five rounds of bidding, Atlanta-based First Financial beat offers from leveraged buy-out firm Forstmann Little & Co. and First Data Corp.

It also topped a last-minute proposal at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Newark, N.J., by a group of New Valley bond and equity holders led by Gotham Capital and Cerebus Partners. The two proposed reorganizing the company in a transaction it valued at $1.364 billion.

For its money, First Financial will get a company …