Worldline - comment

On balance, positive for the bonds. Worldline was a little bit behind our expectations on Merchant Services but caught up with better cost control to beat our EBITDA expectations with €271m vs. our €260m. Taxes were lighter, but WC and One-offs meant that OCF was only €121m, €-10m light. However, two items differed from our expectations. The company booked a large outflow on payables - a one-time reset in the CFO's framing, although we doubt it was as voluntary as described. The other is substantially more disposal proceeds than in our model from WL North America and PaymentIQ (both closed Q1), Cetrel (closed May) and WL New Zealand (closed June). The MeTS disposal already landed in H1 proceeds received, putting cash at €1,847m. We expect revenues and EBITDA to fall a little further on the smaller perimeter, but concede that Worldline have been able to sell their holdings for good prices.