Western Union Delivers For FirstData

DENVER - (06/09/06) – First Data Corp. announcedThursday it expects to earn a $3.6-billion payout from its WesternUnion division after it spins-off the world’s leading moneytransfer operation into a separate publicly traded company laterthis year. Plans for the tax-free spin-off, detailed in a filingwith the Securities and Exchange Commission, show Western Unionwill assume $3.6 billion in debt to finance the payout to itscorporate parent. First Data said it has requested a ruling fromthe Internal Revenue Service to spin-off Western Union in atax-free distribution to shareholders, with one share of WesternUnion to be distributed for each share owned of First Data. WesternUnion reported $4 billion in revenues and $898 million in netincome for the first quarter through its 270,000 agents worldwide,including 19,000 at its recently acquired Vigo unit and 5,000 atits Orlandi Valuta subsidiary.