Worldline: Credit risk pushed out, but equity story remains challenged

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Worldline: Credit risk pushed out, but equity story remains challenged

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Worldline

Credit risk pushed out, but equity story

remains challenged

Rating Change: UNDERPERFORM | PO: 9.00 EUR | Price: 10.83 EUR

Credit risk pushed out, but equity story challenged 06 July 2026

We continue to see WLN facing a number of challenges and downgrade our rating to Equity

Underperform, driven by 1/ challenges in restoring commercial momentum both in its

core Merchant Services unit (80% of revenue, c1% revenue growth CAGR to 2028) and

Key ChangesFinancial Services (20% of sales, -2% 2028 CAGR), 2/ limited EBITDA growth and weak

FCF conversion, leading to 3/ no meaningful path to deleveraging, 4/ 2030 guidance at (EUR) Previous Current

risk, and 5/ uncompelling valuation vs Nexi at 4.8x 2027 EBITDA vs 4.6x, 9% 2028 FCFE Inv. Opinion C-2-9 C-3-9

yield vs Nexi 23%. Downgrade to Underperform, PO cut to €9.0 from €14.8 on lower mid Inv. Rating NEUTRAL UNDERPERFORM

term growth assumptions (0.8% top line vs 1.8% prior). Prefer Buy rated Adyen, Wise. Price Obj. 14.80 9.00

2026E Rev (m) 3,659.3 3,663.1

2027E Rev (m) 3,704.4 3,677.6Equity story: complicated catalyst path

The outlook remains complicated for WLN both from a top line and FCF perspective. 2028E Rev (m) 3,774.8 3,714.4

WLN has been structurally ceding share with a contraction from 7.3% European 2026E EPS 3.09 3.10

acquiring share in 2021 to 6.8% in 2025 (see Exhibit 1). We expect competition from 2027E EPS 3.46 3.41

Adyen, Stripe and Checkout.com to continue with increasing tech differentiation in an 2028E EPS 4.05 3.92

agentic commerce era. WLN revenue growth has slowed from 8% on average in 2021-

2023 to -2.4% in 2025. For 2026-2029, we expect growth to recover somewhat, but still Frederic Boulan, CFA >>