The French online payments specialist Worldline is considering job cuts affecting up to 8% of its 18,000 employees worldwide, or more than 1,400 positions, the company announced on Wednesday in a press release.
Of the 4,000 employees in France, 330 could be affected by these cuts, indicated a CFTC union delegate. Worldline did not wish to confirm this figure, while indicating that it wanted to “allow voluntary departures where possible”.
The move is part of a broader plan announced in October, called Power24, which aims to “accelerate the group’s transformation in response to macroeconomic changes” in the digital payments sector, according to the company. This plan is expected to cost up to 250 million euros, but could generate savings “of the order of 200 million euros in 2025, with an increase in power during 2024,” she said.
The “simplification of the organization” that the reduction in headcount will allow has the particular aim, according to Worldline, of “reducing the complexity” of its activities, “so that managers increase their scope of supervision and that teams are more autonomous “. Another part of this plan consists of strengthening the modernization of the company and offering new payment services, in particular via a partnership established in mid-January with Google.
“It’s quite sickening, because the company is doing well,” said a CFTC union representative from the company on condition of anonymity. “It all doesn’t make much sense. »
Manhandled on the stock market
At the end of January, Crédit Agricole announced its entry as a “long-term minority shareholder” in the capital of Worldline, which had been battered on the stock market for several months. The bank had taken 7% of the shares.
Often compared by investors to a technology company, Worldline took advantage of the rush in this sector in 2020 to see its market valuation double in around ten months.
The online payments specialist then took advantage of this prosperous period to buy Ingenico, world leader in the payment terminal market, for 7.8 billion euros.
Exit of the CAC 40
But since then, the rise in interest rates, less cash generation, some spectacular breakdowns and difficulties in Germany – an essential market for the company – have caused the price of this former subsidiary of Atos, independent since 2019, to plunge. The payment terminals inherited from Ingenico were also sold in 2022 to the Apollo fund, for 2.3 billion euros.
Last October, Worldline shares lost nearly 60% in one day after a downward revision of its annual targets. The company was removed from the CAC 40 at the beginning of December, when rumors were already swirling of the arrival of Crédit Agricole to the rescue.
The payments specialist experienced its first strike in France in 12 years a year and a half ago. This social mobilization lasted four months before employees obtained a salary increase of around 100 euros per month for the 75% lowest paid employees. “In 2022, it was anger. In 2024, we are disillusioned,” summarized this same union delegate.