Worldline - 2019 Universal Registration Document
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GROUP OVERVIEW Interview with Gilles Grapinet
Messsage from Gilles Grapinet [GRI 102-1] [GRI 102-14] A.3
Dear Madam, Dear Sir, Dear Shareholders, For Worldline, 2019 was a highly productive year. We delivered organic growth and profitability, launched innovative new offerings and smoothly completed the integration of SIX Payment Services’ sales and production activities, which substantially strengthened our European positions in merchant payment services. Over the past 12 months, we also continued to move forward on the social and environmental responsibility front, and we now rank right at the top end of most of the major independent rankings in this area. 2019 was also a year that brought major changes for our Group. We successfully bought out minority shareholders in our equensWorldline subsidiary and, even more crucially, became fully independent. Five years after our IPO, we exited the Atos Group’s scope of consolidation, which effectively marked the end of our time as a controlled subsidiary. This vital change in our ownership structure, which is also a testament to what we have already accomplished, opens a whole raft of new opportunities for Worldline to join in the consolidation underway in our sector across Europe. And we took full advantage of this in February 2020 with the announcement of a contemplated acquisition of genuinely strategic importance – a friendly takeover of the Ingenico Group. The two companies fit together remarkably well and would form a combined entity ranking immediately among the world leaders in the electronic payments sector. It would be remiss of me to end without saying how proud I am of the way in which Worldline has responded to the unprecedented Covid-19 situation, thanks to its careful planning and proactive measures. Our managers and teams immediately put into motion their plans to keep our employees safe and healthy. While fully complying with the recommendations and instructions issued by governments, they have also taken steps to safeguard the seamless operational continuity of our electronic payment platforms. These form the bedrock supporting the remaining business transactions in our economies, which have been so severely affected by this major crisis.
Gilles Grapinet, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
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Universal Registration Document 2019
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