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 vision to be a recognized
leader in providing innovative solutions, high service levels, and
omni-channel integration for cross-border, cross-currency money transfer.
“Our goal at Western Union is to meet the needs of our customers by
providing new, innovative solutions,” said Western Union President and
CEO Hikmet Ersek. “We will continue to be proactive – anticipating,
adapting to and addressing the ever-changing needs of our customers.”
The company also announced that its board of directors declared a
quarterly cash dividend of $0.125 per common share, payable June 30,
2014 to stockholders of record at the close of business on June 16, 2014.
Approximately 88 percent of the shares entitled to vote were represented
at the stockholders’ meeting in person or by proxy. All voting results
are preliminary.
Stockholders voted to re-elect Dinyar S. Devitre, Hikmet Ersek, Jack M.
Greenberg, Betsy D. Holden, Linda Fayne Levinson, and Solomon D.
Trujillo, and to elect Frances Fragos Townsend 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 2014 Annual Meeting; and (2) the
appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the company’s independent registered
public accounting firm for 2013. Stockholders did not approve
stockholder proposals regarding (1) stockholder action by written
consent; (2) political contributions; and (3) the creation of an
additional committee of the board of directors.
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, 2014, the Western Union, Vigo and
Orlandi Valuta branded services were offered through a combined network
of over 500,000 agent locations in 200 countries and territories and
over 100,000 ATMs. In 2013, The Western Union Company completed 242
million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, moving $82 billion
of principal between consumers, and 459 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 “may,” “will,”
“should,” “would,” “could,” and “might” 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, 2013. 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 or significantly slower growth or declines in the
money transfer, payment service, and other markets in which we operate,
including those related to interruptions in migration patterns;
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, electronic and Internet providers, and
digital currencies; the pricing of our services and any pricing
reductions, and their impact on consumer demand for our services and our
financial results; our ability to adopt 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; our ability to maintain our agent network and business
relationships under terms consistent with or more advantageous to us
than those currently in place; interruptions of United States government
relations with countries in which we have or are implementing
significant business relationships with agents or clients; mergers,
acquisitions and integration of acquired businesses and technologies
into our Company, including Travelex Global Business Payments, and the
failure to realize anticipated financial benefits from these
acquisitions, and events requiring us to write down our goodwill; any
material breach of security, including cybersecurity, or safeguards of
or interruptions in any of our systems; 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; increased costs or loss of
business due to difficulty for us, our agents or their subagents in
establishing or maintaining relationships with banks needed to conduct
our services; 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; 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 attract and retain
qualified key employees and to manage our workforce successfully; 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; and changes in industry
standards affecting our business; (ii) events related to our regulatory
and litigation environment, such as: liabilities or loss of business
resulting from a failure by us, our agents or their subagents to comply
with laws and regulations and regulatory or judicial interpretations
thereof, including laws and regulations 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; 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,
including related to anti-money laundering regulations, anti-fraud
measures, customer due diligence, or agent and subagent due diligence,
registration, and monitoring requirements; liabilities or loss of
business and unanticipated developments resulting from governmental
investigations and consent agreements with or enforcement actions by
regulators, including those associated with compliance with or failure
to comply with the settlement agreement with the State of Arizona, as
amended; 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 and similar
legislation and regulations enacted by other government authorities;
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
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