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Bank of America Securities Financial Services Conference 2024

Feb 21, 2024

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. I'm Mihir Bhatia. I cover consumer finance and specialty payment companies here at Bank of America Research. Welcome to our conference, and next, we have FLEETCOR Technologies. FLEETCOR is a specialty payments company that helps businesses manage spending. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Tom Panther, CFO of FLEETCOR. Tom, thank you for-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, Mihir. Thank you.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Joining our conference, and welcome.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Thanks. Good to be here.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

So maybe to kick things off, you're in a unique position with your business. You get to see goods and services moving around the country.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Right? So talk to us about what you're seeing in the broader economy. What are you... How is that what are you seeing on fleet volumes? Are you seeing people, things moving around, things getting better?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, no, I think we're very neutral with respect to where the economy is. I think 2023 was the overhang of the impending recession that at least never came in 2023, and it's not being forecasted to come in 2024. And so I think now you're kind of seeing some of those clouds that weren't putting a constraint on growth, but were putting a constraint on outlook, clear a little bit, and companies being a little more confident in terms of what's the environment that they're gonna be operating in. Nobody wanted to be on a high growth trajectory if they were on a mode where, well, interest rates may continue to hike.

You know, I need to keep some dry powder, or what if interest rates and inflation causes consumer demand to fade or worse, employment to get worse. So I think now that we're through, knock on wood, you know, some of those concerns, I think that's allowed the macroeconomy to be on a bit more solid footing. Our expectation is more kind of that soft landing glide path. It's not something where we're expecting something to be overly robust in 2024. But I'd say the other thing in terms of what we see, and you talk about spend management and the different corners of spend management that we touch, a lot of what we do is outside some of those discretionary areas where we can be economically, what I think of as economically resilient.

Every company is impacted by elements of the economy. But I think the areas of spend management where we help companies really tends to be areas that are in the non-discretionary space, that allows us to be somewhat agnostic as to whether or not GDP is up 2% or down 2%. I, you know, I don't change how we think about the company based on, you know, kind of that bandwidth of economic growth or mild slight recession.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Got it. Maybe, you know, before we dive into the future, let's just, just spend a couple of minutes on the 4 Q results.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Mm-hmm.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Right? I think you did call out some revenue weakness in the-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... quarter. Now, I understand some of it was weather related, so, you know, can't really control for that. But the corporate payments business also saw a little bit of weakness there. Talk a little bit, provide some context there. Where was the weakness with that-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Sure

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... channel? What happened?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep. Yeah, yeah, broadly, I'd say, you know, a lot of what we missed, call it a $30 million miss, 3% of revenue for the quarter. It was episodic kinds of things that we called out. You asked about, you know, corporate payments. The biggest driver to that miss, that decel of 15% growth rate, year-over-year on corporate payments, had to do with our channel business. Our channel business, call it, you know, full year, a $50 million business, 5% of corporate payments. You know, corporate payments is only, give or take, 25% of the company, so, you know, you can do the math. It's tiny relative to a $4 billion company.

But on the increment, when you're dealing with a $30 million miss, you know, a $10 million, you know, $7 million, you know, kind of miss here or there, you know, is hard to make up. So what do we see there is, you know, our channel business, it's, call it, 10 or 15 partners. And those partners use us generally for processing. It's high, you know, margin business 'cause there's not a lot of incremental variable cost that comes with it, but it is a business that, you know, can ebb and flow. It can ebb and flow based on volume that they switch on or switch off.

And 2023 was a bit of a transition year in terms of some of those relationships, some of it contractually related, some of it related to the businesses themselves and issues that they were dealing with. And those transitions, you know, net, net in the fourth quarter kind of caught us, you know, to the downside. And then I'd say, kind of linking the first question to the second question, you also many times have things that kind of can wipe that out. You always have in a business our size, and complexity, and geographic footprint, you know, that come up. I mean, that's just what happens. But, you know, we didn't have something break our way.

We had this transition thing with channel, but we didn't necessarily have anything break our way that offset it. What we are confident about looking forward is, when you only have, you know, 10 or 15 types of channel partners that you're dealing with, over the course of 2023, as different contracts were going through renewal and things like that, we were making sure that we were set up well for basically flat-ish in 2024. We're not anticipating that to rebound to pre-2022 levels. That's not a business, given that it's only 5% of corporate payments that we're overly focused on.

It is a business that at least we have shored up with respect to the contracts, whether or not when they renew, longer-term related, which ones have minimums, which ones are exclusive, you know, all of those types of things, so that we just won't have that variability as we look out into 2024.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Okay. And then on the lodging business.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Weather was, I guess, a good guy for the country, but bad guy for y'all.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... yeah, in Q4. Conversely, we've seen January be lots of other events in January.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Is that flowing through to, like, benefits for y'all or is that-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... on the airline operation? I know you've talked about airline operators have improved a lot, which-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Right. Yeah. Yeah, clearly, you know, Q4 did kind of, it was, you could almost set your watch to Q4, where both on our insurance business, where we're matching up insurers and homeowners who were displaced from their homes, for various, you know, ice storms, pipes breaking, the residuals of hurricanes, those things just did not materialize. Claims were down 20%, claims volume down 20%. And on the, you know, flight cancellation side, that's call it, you know, 10, 15% of our airline business, and, you know, they, you know, do particularly well when flights take mechanicals or flights take weather cancellations, and those didn't materialize to the same degree. In fact, I think they were down, I think I quoted something like 90%, quarter-over-quarter, Q4 to Q4.

So yes, I think, you know, it's not like we're rooting for bad weather out there, but it is something that, you know, we did see some things hit in January that caused, you know, flight cancellations and things like that. But overall, I think, you know, it was something that I think was, you know, we think unique to the quarter, and something where that component of our business will get back to kind of its normal ratable type trajectory.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Great. Before we start digging into individual businesses, I did want to touch on the strategic review.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

You just finished it. Talk about some of the key learnings from that process. Anything in that process surprise you? How is that impacting- How, how did that whole strategic review, going through that process, how is that impacting the strategy-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... as we think about, you know, 2024, 2025, 2026?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah. It was a positive experience for our company. No question about it, full stop. We are a better company, and know ourselves better, and have a clearer line of sight into the future than, say, 12 months ago, and I wouldn't say 12 months ago was foggy. It's just when you go through that introspection as deeply as we did it, you just come out the other side, better. So I'd say the number 1 takeaway, in terms of what the board and the executive team learned, is the importance of taking vehicle payments, the segment that we formed starting in the fourth quarter, and transforming that into where it can be a high single, low double-digit grower.

You know, you're talking about a business, a segment today that's over 50% of the company, $2 billion in revenue, extremely attractive margins. If the north star of the strategic review, and frankly, the north star of the company, is around value creation, the best way for us to create value is to be able to take that business and make sure that people recognize its durability, what we've done with respect to kind of EV assets that we brought into the portfolio, and our new products that we're introducing, and then our expansion and deployment of some capital in with respect to the addressable market associated with consumers.

So we think the best way to get the multiple up is to be able to demonstrate that that 50%+ of the business isn't something that's gonna be impacted from an EV overhang or just a, you know, a tired fuel card. It's something that is innovative, does bring new products, has cross-sell ability, all of those types of things. So we're excited about that. It'll take us some time. It's a big business. You don't turn a barge, you know, on a dime, but it is something that we're excited about. So that was the biggest learning. But then there were also some other nice takeaways that we gathered, that we gained. One, we got to talk to a lot of companies.

Obviously, when this is going on, it's public knowledge, and so it gives a platform for a lot of discussion that may not have been natural discussion before, and so that was very helpful. And I think we'll leverage that in terms of relationships that we're able to create. Secondly, I'd say, is just greater thought process around business combination structures. You know, we were able to work with our tax advisors. We were able to work with our bankers and think about things in ways that may have been outside of our normal playbook of you know, buy, integrate, and grow. Nothing wrong with that strategy. We're excited to get back to that.

But now we have a few more tools in our, in our tool belt to be able to think about maybe some other structures that do work, you know, at a different day and a different time. So I think it was a good process. We got lots of attention, which I love attention. Some positive, some negative, but attention's good, and so I think we're a better company for it, and look forward to going back to kind of running the company, and taking the things that we learned and applying them at a kind of surgical level.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Interesting. Let's talk about the fuel business. You, you know, it is your lar-- or the vehicle payments-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... segment as a whole, right?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Fuel is now in that.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

It is still your largest business.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

You had a sharp pivot in strategy, maybe in the sales strategy-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... a few quarters ago-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... where you focused on larger accounts.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Right.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

How has that impacted the financials?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Mm-hmm

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... the growth-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Sure

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... and would you ever go back to the smaller account focus if the macro improves?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Or is that kind of like a corporate level decision?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

They're not gonna do that?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

No, good, good, good question. A lot in there. And so one, just to kind of confine it, it really was the U.S., what we call kind of small fleet business that this pivot in strategy applied to. The over-the-road was really untouched. Obviously, all the international stuff was untouched. So it was a corner of the overall fleet and now vehicle business that we had this shift. And really, kind of a little bit of history might be helpful in that we were coming out of the pandemic, everything had kind of gone to digital and, you know, so we doubled down on a kind of a go-to-market strategy that was an emphasis on digital.

Frankly, you know, it just set us up for a lot more fraudsters and a lot more people who didn't have the credit quality that they represented. So with that came, you know, initially some revenue and some late fees that you're like: "Okay, well, we'll, we'll take that," but it's only good if they pay it, you know?

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Right.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

We saw bad debt start to escalate in the second half of 2022, and so we put a stop to that. We're about profits, and we were finding that in that microspace, the profits weren't there. They were not only not paying their fees, but they were sticking us with their fuel bills, and so we were taking, you know, meaningful write-offs. So we put a halt to that. We demonstrated to ourselves that we could stop that from occurring. So a bit of a shock to the system, where we wanted to, you know, put the brakes on that. And so 2023 was a lot...

It was a great learning experience, not just the human beings in the company, learning and exercising judgment and evaluating information, but also the machines, the models, the credit models learning. And so I think we now have demonstrated our ability to kind of get back to the baseline level of bad debt that we're comfortable with, where we kind of feel like we're at that efficient level. And now, I think we can look at ways in which we mitigate credit exposure, but also optimize sales. And so there's a variety of things that we're doing, not even looking at, but doing, that will drive, I think, the ability for that corner of the fleet business's sales to accelerate into 2024 in a risk-adjusted way that we and investors would find attractive.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Give us a couple of examples, like, of things you are doing to accelerate.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah. Well, one, I don't want to give away all my secrets-

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Sure

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

... but you know, I think, for one, from a credit perspective, there are things that we're doing where we reduce the credit risk.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Okay.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Maybe a customer comes to us, and we decline them from a credit perspective, but we're like: "If you give us a credit card or ACH connectivity, we'll give you the opportunity to have the benefits of our networks and our control and our spend programs, the things that you can add in from a control perspective." But we're not the issuer in that situation. We're not the one taking the credit risk. And if over time, you demonstrate credit behavior and repayment patterns, then we'll extend credit, but right now, we're not extending credit. But we are extending you a product that allows you all of the other benefits to what our products bring.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

All right. Interesting. In terms of sticking with vehicle payments, you've talked about growing in the consumer side. That's not a segment-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... I think in Brazil, you have a consumer business-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

But outside Brazil, you really don't have one.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Right.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

So talk about what that process is gonna look like for the company. How fast are you gonna grow that? I mean, you've talked about, you know, $500 million, $1 billion dollar-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

that can become a big business.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

So-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... what's the timeline? What's the waypoint we should be-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Sure

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Thinking about for that?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Well, one, I think, you know, the Brazil business gives us a playbook to follow, and I know the Brazil business and the economy there. People can say: "Well, that's not the same as the U.S. or the U.K.," which would be our other two major markets, and point well taken. But at least we have seen what the pattern and business strategy needs to be in order to, I think, be successful, which is to have an anchor product connected through an app with lots of customers, millions of customers, that you introduce then to proprietary networks that you're able to build. And that really is our competitive differentiator. Those are our wide moats in that it's the customer bases that we have and the proprietary networks that we have.

And, we will take that strategy, what we had the, you know, again, somewhat of going through the strategic review, we'll take that strategy and recognize a lot of the networks that we have, we can introduce those networks to consumers just as much as we can introduce the businesses to them. But we don't want to start from scratch, and that was an example of the PayByPhone acquisition that we did in September, where they had over 6 million customers, a network of parking, off street, on street parking locations all over the globe. We can take those 6 million customers, it gives us a sizable customer base, and be able to introduce those customers to some of our networks.

Take U.K. as an example, where we have a network of garages that will, you know, service your car. We have a network of EV charging stations, best EV network in the U.K. Obviously, fleet, we're associated with 98% of the fueling stations. Insurance. Through an app... and we're all kind of glued to our phones, rightly or wrongly, we're all kind of glued to our phones these days. And through an app, we can then introduce these customers who are using the app every day to these other networks to try to draw business to them, which is the playbook that worked in Brazil. It started with a toll tag. We introduced them to an app, and through that app, now over 35% of our sales are non-tag related.

So we're excited to get going on this. We think it is something that can be big. You're right, if you look at our consumer businesses today between Brazil and PayByPhone, you're dealing with probably close to 15 million consumers. It's about, give or take, a $600 million business. But we do think that an incremental $400 million-$500 million of revenue over the next, call it 3-4 years, is what we penciled out, we can create, that would be just incremental growth opportunity for the company, by again, taking these consumers and taking, whether they're business or consumer-related, but taking these customers and bouncing them up against our networks.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

And that's just against the existing networks, that's not including, like-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... maybe go out and buy something.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, I think what you'll see from an M&A strategy is the thing that we're interested in is buying things that have customers, whether they're business or consumer, or buying things that have interesting networks, or in the case of like PayByPhone, both. So I don't think there's anything where we'd say, "Hey, there's a massive hole in our network repertoire," where you'd say, "Oh, you got to fill that... You got to fill that network." But if there are things that are interesting, that just make it even more attractive-

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Mm-hmm

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

... I think we would be, you know, open to that. But we don't view the execution of the consumer strategy and the achievement of those numbers to be a M&A-dependent strategy. It would be an M&A opportunistic strategy that I would say we would explore.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Is there something different about toll tags and toll, the way toll payments work in Brazil versus, say, the U.S.? So one of the things we hear a lot from investors is-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... oh, you know, they could really replicate what they do, what you did do in Brazil.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... by buying one of these toll operators.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's a different—the toll market in Brazil, very much kind of the concessionaires own and operate-

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Mm-hmm

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

... the tolls down there. It's a different environment. The U.S. market is much more fractured in terms of its ownership, its administration. So we don't view... It's the anchor product will vary by market.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Okay.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

The anchor product in Brazil was a toll tag. The anchor product in the US is not a toll tag. It's, you know, something off of our existing customer base, you know, namely the customers that are all, you know, fuel-related, or in the case of PayByPhone, we got a bunch of parking customers. So the anchor product will vary, but the strategy is around using that tech to be able to introduce those customers to networks.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Yeah. Let's switch to corporate payments. Nice, it's a very big growth business.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

It's a business that a lot of investors are interested in. As you think about that business, y'all do a lot of different things in there.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Mm-hmm.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

What are the two or three businesses in there that really matter, you know?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... when we talk about them?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Well, clearly, when we think about the broader corporate payments business, you know, 27% of the company, $1 billion in revenue, 20% grower, that's kind of its baseball card. Yeah, I think at its highest level, it's made up of a cross-border business and a AP payables business. Those are obviously the businesses that really matter. Yes, there are products within cross-border, whether it's just payments facilitation or hedging. There's different products within payables, whether it's walk-around business expense versus virtual card versus full AP. But all of those matter in terms. And all of them have relatively equal weight within the overall businesses that cause us to invest in all of them, both people and product and technology.

So we think all of those have a place. We like to think about taking our customers on a bit of a product journey, up a bit of a sophistication scale.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Mm-hmm.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

I think that's, you know, how we pitch to, you know, the buyers within and the decision makers within a company, the products that we have. Is bringing them up that product journey based on the level of sophistication they're ready to consume.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Right. In the corporate payments business, what's unique or differentiated about FLEETCOR's offerings, right? Is there something you can do, whether it's from a capabilities standpoint, that others can't? Like, is there a lot of technology integration? How hard would it be for someone to switch?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah. A different answer for payables versus cross-border.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Right.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

For cross-border, our networks, our ability to facilitate making payments across the globe, in you know you know over 100 currencies and be able to facilitate that, it's something that's very hard for people to replicate, including sometimes banks like BofA.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Mm-hmm.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

I mean, sometimes banks come to us and say, "Hey, you've got licenses and capabilities that we don't have. Can you do some of this payment facilitation for our customers?" So the networks that we have in cross-border is something that, you know, others can't replicate. But also the people, the process, the service that is a differentiator, and that's demonstrated through the share of wallet that we have, through the retention that we have. All of those things kind of bring a combination together that works, you know, very well. On the payable side, back to networks there, we're very, you know, proud of the merchant network that we've been able to create organically and inorganically over our timeline.

We think our merchant network is second to none. And based on the research we do, we've got the largest network out there. We know we're the largest B2B commercial payments Mastercard issuing provider out there, so our spend volume on the Mastercard rails is, you know, the largest, you know, that exists. And so all of that, I think, gives us, you know, confidence that we've got critical mass, and that critical mass is important because when we go to merchants and ask, you know, them to, you know, accept card versus ACH or check, we bring that customer base, that volume, that spend, that, you know, garners attention.

I think that helps us tremendously in terms of a differentiator both with our customers who are trying to modernize their AP, but also with merchants in terms of trying to decide, you know, their acceptance level of a virtual card.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Like, look, that business grows very nicely, but what are the challenges to growth in that business? Is it acceptance by more and more merchants? Is it... Or is it more like just competition and you having to go out and sell that to-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

'Cause I imagine you're still mostly replacing checks and cash.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

So-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... like, I'm trying to understand why it's not growing faster.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, it's really inertia.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Okay.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

It's not on the merchant side. Sure, there's a lot of work that goes on in terms of continuing to broaden that merchant portfolio, but I think that is something that we continue to see progress in, and obviously, we'd prefer it faster, but generally, we see that as something that isn't the inhibitor of success, particularly given the just raw size of our merchant portfolio today. It's more on the customer side and just the inertia, that product journey that I talked about, level of sophistication that they're willing to chew, and getting them... 'Cause they do it today. They're like: "Oh, well, I pay expenses today, so is this where I wanna spend my time?

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Mm-hmm.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

I've got a finite amount of time." It's really not a capital investment on behalf of the customer, but is this where I wanna spend my time? And so I think from that standpoint, it's just that sales cycle of getting you know, inside those companies and getting them warmed up and ready to make... to join us on that product journey.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Got it. In terms of virtual cards and the merchant network, which you mentioned as being an advantage that you all have-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Mm-hmm

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... talk about how that's different, right? I mean, you're still doing Mastercard-issued virtual cards. Is there something inherently different where you even if a merchant accepts Mastercard, right?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Mm-hmm.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Generally, Mastercard, like-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Mm-hmm

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... in their storefront or whatever.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Mm-hmm.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Does that automatically mean they'll accept anyone's virtual card?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, no

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... or you have to go and sign up each one?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, no, these tend to be, you know, bilateral arrangements. This isn't like on the consumer side, where, you know, I walk into a Starbucks, and they accept you know, my Citi card, and they accept your B of A card. This is a you know, one-off decisions, each go with the merchant in terms of whether or not they'll accept our card. And I think one of the things that's one of the strength about our corporate payments business is we truly do play in that middle market area, and people throw around those terms all the time. What what does that mean? Over 75% of our portfolio is in that $50 million-$1 billion range.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Cost revenue.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Of revenue. Yeah, and so when we, on behalf of our customers, or our customers on behalf of their best interest, call a merchant, they know who they're talking to on the other end. They're like: "Okay, I get it. You're a significant customer of ours. You're asking us to take virtual card. You're saying it'll help you with AP automation, control, spend management. Okay, we'll take your call." If I'm a $5 million customer, I don't even know who you are, the merchant doesn't even know who you are.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Yeah.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

I think because we do have a client base that is of that stature, it gives us the ability to have some productive conversations.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Mm-hmm. I wanna go back to corporate cross-border-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... for a second. In cross-border, you know, I've been calling what you guys have been doing almost like customer acquisition by... customer acquisition by M&A.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Right? Over the last 2-3 years, you've had some nice-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... acquisitions. You've acquired smaller players-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... moved them to your platform, and really had some nice margin improvement.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yep.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

What's the runway for that look like?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, there's-

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

'Cause there's been nice growth-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

It is

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... and margin expansion.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, it is. I mean, as we've mentioned, we're kind of the largest non-bank FX B2B provider, you know, on the planet. So we're proud about that. But there are other opportunities that we think would be out there that we'll continue to look at, that give us, you know, potential inorganic growth opportunities and run that playbook. I think you described it quite well. But we're also very focused on the organic piece as well. We have over 300 people selling across the globe every day, and they have networks and relationships that allow them to continue to grow the business organically as well, but we still think there's opportunity out there on an inorganic play as well.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Mm-hmm. We talked about... You know, I brought up M&A right now, but maybe just talk generally about FLEETCOR, what you're thinking about on M&A?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Sure.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

What are you looking to buy?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Like, what's, like-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, I think the things that are most attractive to us is. Well, one, I'd say deeper, not wider. I don't see us getting into another kind of completely different business. I've used payroll as an example in other situations, just 'cause Ron has payroll history, and, you know, we're not gonna go buy a payroll company. But deeper, not wider. Why? Because I think we the businesses that we have, we think we have great competitive advantages between our customers and our networks. We think they're big businesses with large addressable markets. Our footprint is massive in terms of the markets that we're operating in. So it's go get market share. And where are we most focused?

I think it's most focused on the corporate payments piece, whether it's cross-border, to the earlier conversation, or payables, in terms of building out capabilities and product there, customers. And then it's also on a selected basis, that consumer vehicles. If there was something on the consumer vehicle space, back to customers and networks that we talked about before, like the pay-by-phone transaction, where we would put a modest amount of capital to work to be able to just kind of, you know, accelerate that. But what I would say is, we have never... You know, I'm hearing this from Ron, obviously. My duration with the company is going on a one-year anniversary, but we've never been clearer on the fact that we're working on the right things.

It is less around studying at this point and more around execution. And I think we've never been more convicted in that point of view than we are now, in terms of we know we're working on the right things, and it's now just going and working them really hard and really fast.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

So, can't let this discussion end without talking about EVs.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Sure.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Which actually offered me a very good transition. You know, you're working on the right things. You spent something like $150 million over the last few years on the EV strategy. Talk about how you're just positioning the company to thrive.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

You know, one of the big questions long-term investors would have is, "Hey, the world's moving towards EVs-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Sure.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Is FLEETCOR even gonna be relevant in an EV world?

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Sure, yeah. Yeah, the answer to that is yes. We've really devoted a fair amount of time and capital over the last number of years, you know, to be able to put assets to work that allow us to provide EV solutions to customers. Customers tend to evolve from ICE vehicles to EV. They don't move there overnight, particularly the customers that we're dealing with that are of some size and have some, you know, existing fleets. And what we've been able to do allows us to be essentially agnostic as to whether or not somebody wants to pump, you know, diesel or, you know, charge kilowatt hours.

That's predominantly through equipping our customers with products that work from an EV perspective, allows them to charge and you know get you know the charging and make the payment. But even more importantly, allows us to have networks that makes it very relevant for our customers to say, "I want your product because I now have a ubiquitous network that I can go to." In the U.K., where EV has taken on to the largest degree within our business, from a business perspective, by the end of next month, we'll have over 80% of the rapid chargers within the network, including Tesla.

We'll have all of that equipped on an app where an employee who's driving an electric vehicle can look on an app and figure out where the EV charging stations are. Are they operational? Are they being used? Are they rapid, or are they not rapid? You know, all of those types of things. We've created the tech and the networks to be able to do that, and then we've also enabled them with a card that allows it to work at these charging stations. You know, some of these charging stations, the tech in the charging stations isn't the same as, you know, the Shell gas station. It's not a insert type thing.

It's a tap thing, so you need to make sure that the cards work when you go to a charging station versus the card working at a fueling station. And then we also think a movement will be, particularly in a market like the U.K., but also eventually maybe in the U.S., is at-home charging. Employers don't want employees sitting idly, waiting for their vehicle to charge for 45 minutes. And so they, you know, have a vehicle that they take home at night, whether it's a van or a car, and we equip them with software if they have a home charger, that they can download within a few clicks of an app, and we take care of the bill. We integrate... Again, back to networks, we integrate to the utility companies within the U.K.

That allows us to essentially bifurcate the utility costs associated with charging that vehicle, and we pay the bill on behalf of the employee, and then the employer reimburses us. So you know, for us, you know, EV, it's been an interesting case study. There's been a lot of things going on out there that I think kind of caused the mega trend to not maybe be as mega in terms of you know, the consumer demand and the adoption rates. But I think overall, you know, we like our positioning and, and when, when and if the evolution comes, we're ready.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Great. I think we'll, we're getting up on time-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Okay.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

I think we'll end it there. Thank you so much for-

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, thank you.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

... participating and your time.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Appreciate it.

Mihir Bhatia
Director, Senior Equity Research Analyst, Bank of America Securities

Thank you.

Tom Panther
CFO, Corpay

Yeah, thank you.

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