One of the main offshoots of the shareholder fight at fintech group Unifiedpost, was the appointment of Nicolas de Beco as its new CEO. A good 100 days after the launch, the Frenchman is talking for the first time. ‘I am not the CEO of Alychlo, and Hans Leybaert is not my mother-in-law.’
No company on the Brussels stock exchange experienced more turbulence last year than Unifiedpost. Its management and board suddenly had to contend with a shareholder revolt from its largest shareholder Alychlo, Marc Coucke's investment vehicle. The shareholder was fed up with the failing results and lousy balance sheet and tried to shake up the company's management.
While the shareholders' meeting initially stopped the mutiny from escalating, the demand had an impact shortly afterward. Unifiedpost cleaned up its balance sheet by selling some subsidiaries and using the proceeds to repay an extremely expensive loan. Moments later, founder and CEO Hans Leybaert announced that the board of directors was being thoroughly shaken up, and that he himself would hand over the reins to Frenchman Nicolas de Beco, who was recruited from French sector peer Quadient.
A good 100 days after de Beco's move to Belgium, the Frenchman, who had been based in Boston, USA, for the past 25 years, for the first time wants to explain his transition and his vision for the company. ‘Improving governance and strengthening the balance sheet were phases 1 and 2,’ de Beco says. ‘I'm here for phase 3, taking the next step with Unifiedpost.’
What does that entail?
Nicolas de Beco: ‘What we are doing now is streamlining and bringing more focus. In essence, we are transforming ourselves into a software company specialising in e-invoicing and payments, with which we will scale back to three core markets: Belgium, France and Germany. We have a unique solution in that field. Do you know how many entrepreneurs still go to the accountant with their shoebox full of invoices? Well, we sell a digital shoebox with our Banqup platform, with a rich amount of other features linked to it, from payments to e-reporting.'
Unifiedpost's annual figures for 2024 did show the same story as previous years: poor figures, with the promise of a better future. Why is it going to be different this time?
De Beco: The risk of delay is gone. Each of the countries we focus on is introducing e-invoicing by 2026, those plans are in place. And we are the only company ready to tackle those markets all at once. We are extremely focused on execution now, and the figures show that it is in an early stage, but the impact is already being noticed. Our sales activity is ten times higher than last year. Ten! That will translate into agreements in the last quarter, which will enable us to grow at least 25 per cent this year in subscriptions, the most important indicator for a software company. And from 2026, the real acceleration will follow.'
Unifiedpost's focus on software and its three core markets means that many of its current activities can no longer be considered core to its business.
De Beco: ‘That's right. We want to be a full-blooded SaaS (Software as a Service, ed.) company, reporting as a SaaS company. We can digitalise and integrate some of our existing business and products into Banqup, but we are going to phase out everything that is not subscription-based software at some point. We are constantly studying what we can divest to bring more focus. We need to be able to tell a clear story to the market. That is also why we will change the name to Banqup later this year. We are even going to change our ticker on Euronext Brussels.'
You took over from Hans Leybaert, who founded the company 25 years ago and led it all that time. Do you not fear that he will be looking over your shoulder like a mother-in-law, now that he will become chairman?
De Beco: ‘My mother-in-law, he will find that funny. No, we have good agreements. I deal with short-term execution, Hans is more concerned with long-term strategy. In the market, he is really seen as a visionary. He has the best sense of which direction the market is going to move, only his timing was a bit off here and there. In his current role, he can play to his strengths perfectly, while leaving the execution to me.'
Do you share his vision that Unifiedpost should remain an independent Belgian player?
De Beco: ‘I agree that we should be proud to be an independent Belgian company today. What happens tomorrow, we will see. We get a lot of calls, there is a lot of interest in the unique technology we have. If an opportunity presents itself, I will always act in the interest of the shareholders, and acknowledge what is good for them, I will recognise it accordingly. But I have the impression that all shareholders genuinely believe in the vision to create value for themselves. Nothing will give them more value than soon onboarding hundreds of thousands of customers on to Banqup. So let us focus on that.'
Appointing a new CEO was one of the gestures to Alychlo, to appease their dissatisfaction. So is there an Alychlo label attached to you?
De Beco: ‘Let me be very clear: I am an independent CEO, working in the interest of the company and all shareholders. If you ever catch me doing anything that goes against that, you can absolutely call me on it, because that is what I stand for. So I am not the CEO of Marc Coucke, and Hans Leybaert is not my mother-in-law. (laughs)'
The original article was written by Ben Serrure - Michaël Sephiha and published on De Tijd you can access the original article here: De Tijd - Unifiedpost CEO Nicolas de Beco.
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