Company also Announces $0.125 Quarterly Dividend
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) held its Annual Meeting today and
reiterated its strategy while emphasizing its commitment to expanding
and evolving the business.
The Company also announced that its board of directors declared a
quarterly cash dividend of $0.125 per common share, payable June 28,
2013 to stockholders of record at the close of business on June 14, 2013.
Approximately 87 percent of the shares entitled to vote were represented
at the stockholders’ meeting in person or proxy. All voting results are
preliminary. Stockholders voted to re-elect Dinyar S. Devitre, Betsy D.
Holden and Wulf von Schimmelmann, and to elect Solomon D. Trujillo as
members of the board of directors. The elected directors will serve new
one-year terms.
Stockholders also voted to approve: (1) on an advisory basis, the
compensation of the Company’s named executive officers, as set forth in
the Company’s proxy statement for the 2013 Annual Meeting; (2) the
appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the Company’s independent registered
public accounting firm for 2013; and (3) amendments to the Company’s
Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation to provide
stockholders with the right to call special meetings of stockholders.
In addition, stockholders voted against a stockholder proposal regarding
political contributions.
“Western Union meets the needs of consumers and businesses alike by
bridging gaps in the financial services sector,” said President and CEO
Hikmet Ersek. “This year we are focusing on strengthening our consumer
money-transfer business, increasing customers and usage in
business-to-business, and generating and deploying strong cash flow for
our shareholders.”
About Western Union
The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) is a leader in global payment
services. Together with its Vigo, Orlandi Valuta, Pago Facil and Western
Union Business Solutions branded payment services, Western Union
provides consumers and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient
ways to send and receive money around the world, to send payments and to
purchase money orders. As of March 31, 2013, the Western Union, Vigo and
Orlandi Valuta branded services were offered through a combined network
of approximately 515,000 agent locations in 200 countries and
territories and approximately 100,000 ATMs. In 2012, The Western Union
Company completed 231 million consumer-to-consumer transactions
worldwide, moving $79 billion of principal between consumers, and 432
million business payments. For more information, visit www.westernunion.com.
Safe Harbor Compliance Statement for Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains certain statements that are forward-looking
within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and
involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult
to predict. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those
expressed in, or implied by, our forward-looking statements. Words such
as “expects,” “intends,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,”
“guides,” “provides guidance,” “provides outlook” and other similar
expressions or future or conditional verbs such as “will,” “should,”
“would” and “could” are intended to identify such forward-looking
statements. Readers of this press release by The Western Union Company
(the “Company,” “Western Union,” “we,” “our” or “us”) should not rely
solely on the forward-looking statements and should consider all
uncertainties and risks discussed in the “Risk Factors” section and
throughout the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December
31, 2012 and our other filings with the United States Securities and
Exchange Commission. The statements are only as of the date they are
made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update any
forward-looking statement.
Possible events or factors that could cause results or performance to
differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements
include the following: (i) events related to our business and industry,
such as: deterioration in consumers' and clients' confidence in our
business, or in money transfer and payment service providers generally;
changes in general economic conditions and economic conditions in the
regions and industries in which we operate, including global economic
and trade downturns and financial market disruptions; political
conditions and related actions in the United States and abroad which may
adversely affect our business and economic conditions as a whole;
failure to compete effectively in the money transfer and payment service
industry with respect to global and niche or corridor money transfer
providers, banks and other money transfer and payment service providers,
including telecommunications providers, card associations, card-based
payment providers and electronic and Internet providers; the pricing of
our services and any pricing reductions, and their impact on our
consumers and our financial results; our ability to adapt technology in
response to changing industry and consumer needs or trends; our failure
to develop and introduce new services and enhancements, and gain market
acceptance of such services; changes in, and failure to manage
effectively, exposure to foreign exchange rates, including the impact of
the regulation of foreign exchange spreads on money transfers and
payment transactions; interruptions of United States government
relations with countries in which we have or are implementing
significant business relationships with agents or clients; changes in
immigration laws, interruptions in immigration patterns and other
factors related to migrants; mergers, acquisitions and integration of
acquired businesses and technologies into our Company, including
Travelex Global Business Payments, and the realization of anticipated
financial benefits from these acquisitions, and events requiring us to
write down our goodwill; decisions to change our business mix; failure
to manage credit and fraud risks presented by our agents, clients and
consumers or non-performance by our banks, lenders, other financial
services providers or insurers; adverse movements and volatility in
capital markets and other events which affect our liquidity, the
liquidity of our agents or clients, or the value of, or our ability to
recover our investments or amounts payable to us; any material breach of
security or safeguards of or interruptions in any of our systems; our
ability to attract and retain qualified key employees and to manage our
workforce successfully; our ability to maintain our agent network and
business relationships under terms consistent with or more advantageous
to us than those currently in place; adverse rating actions by credit
rating agencies; our ability to realize the anticipated benefits from
productivity and cost-savings and other related initiatives, which may
include decisions to downsize or to transition operating activities from
one location to another, and to minimize any disruptions in our
workforce that may result from those initiatives; our ability to protect
our brands and our other intellectual property rights; our failure to
manage the potential both for patent protection and patent liability in
the context of a rapidly developing legal framework for intellectual
property protection; changes in tax laws and unfavorable resolution of
tax contingencies; cessation of or defects in various services provided
to us by third-party vendors; material changes in the market value or
liquidity of securities that we hold; restrictions imposed by our debt
obligations; significantly slower growth or declines in the money
transfer, payment service, and other markets in which we operate; and
changes in industry standards affecting our business; (ii) events
related to our regulatory and litigation environment, such as: the
failure by us, our agents or their subagents to comply with laws and
regulations, including regulatory or judicial interpretations thereof,
designed to detect and prevent money laundering, terrorist financing,
fraud and other illicit activity, and increased costs or loss of
business associated with compliance with those laws and regulations;
changes in United States or foreign laws, rules and regulations
including the Internal Revenue Code, governmental or judicial
interpretations thereof and industry practices and standards, including
the impact of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance provisions of the
Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act; liabilities resulting from
a failure of our agents or their subagents to comply with laws and
regulations; increased costs or loss of business due to regulatory
initiatives and changes in laws, regulations and industry practices and
standards affecting us, our agents, or their subagents; liabilities and
unanticipated developments resulting from governmental investigations
and consent agreements with, or enforcement actions by, regulators,
including those associated with compliance with, failure to comply with,
or extension of, the settlement agreement with the State of Arizona; the
impact on our business from the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and
Consumer Protection Act, the rules promulgated there-under, and the
actions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; liabilities
resulting from litigation, including class-action lawsuits and similar
matters, including costs, expenses, settlements and judgments; failure
to comply with regulations regarding consumer privacy and data use and
security; effects of unclaimed property laws; failure to maintain
sufficient amounts or types of regulatory capital to meet the changing
requirements of our regulators worldwide; and changes in accounting
standards, rules and interpretations; and (iii) other events, such as:
adverse tax consequences from our spin-off from First Data Corporation;
catastrophic events; and management's ability to identify and manage
these and other risks.
WU-F, WU-G

Source: Western Union