PARIS (Reuters) – The Worldline action fell up to more than 15% during first exchanges on the stock market Wednesday morning, after the announcement of the group’s results, which must present more detailed prospects for 2025 in April.

For the fourth quarter, the French payments group, which has just appointed its new director general in the person of Pierre-Antoine Vacheron, reported results slightly below expectations, after a year marked by many difficulties.

At the Paris Stock Exchange, the Worldline title ceded 15.48% to 6.27 euros at 08:41 GMT, red lantern of the SBF 120 which advanced at the same time of 0.61%.

Worldline posted a quarterly turnover down 0.9% in organic while analysts were tabling on a decline of 0.1%, according to a consensus cited by the group.

Likewise, its annual turnover, at 4.63 billion euros, narrowly missed the 4.64 expected by analysts.

“2024 was a year of transformation and refocusing. In 2025, we were preparing to bounce back,” announced financial director Grégory Lambertie during a call with journalists.

Already excluded from the CAC40 since December 2023, the Worldline action had reached minimum values ​​in 2024, the year during which it lost approximately 46% of its value.

“The results (except cash flow available) and the prospects are disappointing. The appointment of a new external CEO is positive,” said JPMorgan analysts in a note published on Wednesday morning.

For 2025, the group announced predict a rate of growth in similar turnover compared to 2024, “with progressive acceleration” in the second half and after a performance in the first half “slightly lower” at the growth rate of the fourth quarter 2024.

“We find the objectives careful, which should leave a significant room for maneuver to the new CEO to restructure more,” STIFEL analysts said on Wednesday morning.

New DG

Worldline said that he would provide “more details” for his 2025 prospects when he was published in his first quarter results in April.

“The new CEO will work on the next Worldline strategic plan which will be presented in the fall,” added the group. This strategic plan has been expected for several months by the market.

Asked during a call with analysts Wednesday morning on the long time before the presentation of this strategic plan and about the uncertainty that results from it, Grégory Lambertie replied that “it is necessary to give time to the new CEO to arrive”, adding that the latter “knows the industry” and “will be there from next week”.

The group announced on Tuesday the appointment of Pierre-Antoine Vacheron as new managing director from March 1, replacing the temporary worker Marc-Henri Desportes.

Coming from the banking sector, Pierre-Antoine Vacheron was so far Director General of Payments of the BPCE group, one of the main French banks.

The departure of the previous director general, Gilles Grapinet, was announced in September, after the publication by Worldline from his second warning on results of the year.

Difficulties

Some analysts consider that large mergers of payment groups or joint ventures are a possible solution for the payments sector, in difficulty. In March 2024, Worldline announced a co-company with the Crédit Agricole bank. However, a few months later, BNP Paribas and BPCE announced the creation of their own joint venture in the payment sector, EstreeM, formalized in February 2025 – therefore favoring an internal and competing solution Worldline. “Estreem’s ambitions are very different from ours,” said Grégory Lambertie during the call with journalists.

The financial director called Estreem as “internal service”, the opponent of the Worldline solution.

Asked again about this competition during the call with analysts, Grégory Lambertie said: “We do not expect this business to have a significant impact on our activities”.

(Written by Florence Lève in Paris, Gianluca Lo Nostro and Alessandro Parodi in Gdansk, edited by Kate Entringer)

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