Worldline Turmoil Hands Swiss Bourse a $300 Million Headache

Romeo Lacher was full of ideas when he sold the payment services division of Switzerland’s stock exchange SIX Group AG to French firm Worldline SA in 2018.

The 2.75 billion Swiss franc ($3.5 billion) deal gave SIX a 27% stake in Worldline and would provide SIX with an “extreme” amount of firepower to participate in Europe’s consolidating market infrastructure sector, Lacher, then chairman of SIX, said at the time. He later held the same position at Swiss wealth manager Julius Baer Group Ltd., before exiting earlier this year.