Linklaters advised SIX Group AG (“SIX”), a Swiss financial company, on the management of an equity-collar hedging transaction relating to its holding in Worldline, a French payment and transaction services company.

This hedging transaction is worth around €500 million. In order to establish the initial hedging position, the counterparty to this hedging transaction carried out a private placement of approximately 420 million euros. It is separate to the announcement by Atos, an IT services provider, of the sale of 22.65 million Worldline shares for approximately €1.2 billion (of which approximately €800 million worth of Worldline shares come from Atos). This represents approximately 12% of the share capital, as part of a private placement by way of an accelerated bookbuilding process.

Following this transaction, whose objective is to guarantee a certain flexibility and SIX’s continued participation in Worldline, the strategic partnership which links SIX and Worldline will remain intact and SIX will retain its seat on Worldline’s Board of Directors.

SIX and Atos have both agreed to a 120-day lock up period for their remaining share in Worldline.

The Linklaters Paris team was composed of Marc Petitier, Partner, and Olivier Pâris, Associate, for Corporate/M&A aspects; Sandra Fernandes, Managing Associate, and Elise Alperte, Associate, in Capital Markets, and of Patrice Doat, Partner, and Aurélien Fournier, Managing Associate, who acted on Banking aspects.