Thomas Cook, a year after the company had gone public. At the time when MoneyGram International was established, MoneyGram Payment Systems owned 51 percent of the company, while the other 49 percent was owned by the Thomas Cook Group. MoneyGram International (1998–present) In April 1998, Viad Corp acquired MoneyGram Payment Systems Inc. for $287 million. MoneyGram was then folded into Viad's Travelers Express in Minneapolis. In November 2000, the MoneyGram brand and business was sold to Travelex as part of its acquisition of Thomas Cook Financial Services for £400m. In 2003, Travelers Express gained full ownership of the MoneyGram network, including MoneyGram International. Later that year, Viad spun off Travelers Express as an independent company. In January 2004 Travelers Express was renamed to MoneyGram International Inc. In June 2004, Viad sold MoneyGram and it became a publicly traded, individual entity. By 2006, MoneyGram International had expanded internationally to include over 96,000 agents in regions such as the Asian-Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Central America. The company had also introduced additional services such as bill payment and online money transfers. During the financial crisis of 2007–2008, MoneyGram's shares fell 96 percent from 2007 to 2009. It lost more than $1.6 billion from investments in securities backed by risky mortgages in 2008, and the losses led the company to sell a majority stake to Thomas H. Lee Partners and Goldman Sachs in exchange for a cash infusion. During the drop, U.S. Bancorp shifted its money transfer services to Western Union. The company became profitable again in 2009. Amid MoneyGram's turnaround, Pamela Patsley became the executive chairwoman of the company in January 2009 and was later named CEO in September of that year. In November 2010, MoneyGram officially relocated its global headquarters to the city of Dallas, Texas. The company continues to maintain global operations and information technology centers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 2013, MoneyGram began considering a sale. In 2014, MoneyGram lost a relationship with Wal-Mart Stores and then began restructuring to cut costs. From their peak in 2013 until late 2015, shares fell about 70%. MoneyGram closed a call center in Lakewood, Colorado resulting in over 500 layoffs. Furthermore, MoneyGram closed its 376-person Brooklyn Center operation in 2015. MoneyGram has moved numerous positions to Warsaw, Poland from its Colorado and Minnesota locations for cut costs further. In 2015, the company's agent network in Africa reached 25,000 locations, including an agreement with the