The Global Payments team with us here today for one of our keynotes. It's a company that I think many of you know we've been strongly recommending for, really for a while, but especially going into this year. We just thought the valuation made no sense for the opportunity. We've been seeing the results speak for themselves. Hope to see a lot more of that over the next couple of quarters. Jeff, thank you so much for joining us, really great to have you, as always.
Thanks, Darrin. It's a pleasure to be here, Darrin.
I wanna mention we also have Josh and Winnie and her, and her team here as well from Global Payments, CFO and investor relations as well. With that... Look, why don't we just kick off, I mean, kind of get the elephant out of the way and talk about what you're seeing in the market before we go into Global specifically around the banks. Some of the craziness we've seen with SVB, does it have any impact on Global, any good or bad? What are you seeing in your customers?
Yeah, sure, Darrin, obviously it's a great question. To start with the merchant business, which is three-quarters of our company, you know, we really have no exposure in North America to financial institutions, in particular regional financial institutions, but really any. In North America, we have no JVs with banks, regional or otherwise. Outside United States, our JVs are principally with SIFIs or the equivalent outside the United States. Great examples would be Caixa.
Yep.
-in Spain, which is the JPM of Spain. Obviously, HSBC and the like, but really nothing of any significance on the regional side. As it relates to our issuer business, which is 25% of our revenue, of the top 10 customers and issuer, the top 10 customers are 40% of the revenue in issuer. Eight of the top 10 customers in our issuer business are money center SIFI banks.
Right.
Four of which are here in the United States, B of A and the like, you know, Cap One, et cetera. The other four are overseas. Examples would be, you know, RBC, RBS, Citi, Chase here in U.S., that kind of thing. We really don't have any exposure and none of the regional banks that have been in the news on an extended basis, none of those are our customers at all.
Okay.
The top 30 issuer customers represent three-quarters of our revenue, and there's no one that list, you know, that's in that top 30 at all. I think we're in a reasonably good place. I think it's obviously, you know, not good news for the economy, globally, that we're seeing the stress that we're seeing in financial institutions. We did announce last month in February that we just resigned one of our largest partners, Bank of America, to a new five-year term for consumer card as well as commercial. I think I read this morning, you know, Darrin, that B of A picked up $15 billion.
Wow.
in deposits like yesterday or Monday or whatever it is. Obviously, while we're focused on the health of our worldwide economies, to have one of your largest customers add $15 billion in deposits in one day or two days is obviously a good thing. I think we're in a really good place as it relates to our business. we're very excited about opportunities, you know, going forward.
Yeah. I mean, I think it's pretty clear that you're seeing some of the money center banks gain deposit share. To your point, you know, the bank relationships you do have generally are the larger issuers, right?
Yeah. That's exactly right.
Right.
That's been our strategy all along. In fact, I think we have like a 50-year relationship with HSBC.
Right.
going all the way back to Marine Midland. TSYS, of course-
Right.
has 30-40-year relationships with people like Bank of America and Capital One.
Yeah.
I think we're in a really good, you know, in a really good position.
Jeff, just to go into a little bit more on the strategy and your vision of Global Payments today and what you're excited about over the next year or beyond, maybe just start high level there, and we'll go into the weeds of the business.
Right. There are four elements to our strategy, which we really highlighted, Darrin, in our 18-month ago investor conference. The first one is really software ownership as well as partnership.
Yep.
We think we're a top quartile software company today in the United States. I'd also say as an aside, this isn't why we did it, we think it's the mode of competition, but that provides a lot of insulation to our business. For example, in our merchant business, we sell $1 billion a year of own software, not tied specifically to transactions. In our partnered software business, we sell another $1 billion, you know, of payments into those software entities.
Yep.
There's obviously a lot of software exposure in merchant, and then also into our issuer business. I'd also say some of our larger vertical markets like enterprise, quick service restaurant. I'm not trying to say that bad news is good news, but, you know, the dollar meal is a better thing, you know, when things are difficult, and that's actually half our restaurant business today.
Oh, wow. Yep.
is enterprise quick service restaurant and kind of more to come. We've got a lot of wins there that we'll be talking about, you know, in the next number of months.
Good.
The second piece, of course, is our eCom omni business. That business has done fantastically well, including through and post the pandemic. As we said, that's $1.6 billion of revenue. It's about 30% of our merchant revenue today. That grew 15.7%.
Wow.
Last quarter, 14.3%. The quarter before, you know, well in excess of the Visa, Mastercard, even PayPal numbers in terms of-
Yep.
volume growth really over those periods. I think the secret sauce in that business, Darrin, for us, is the seamless integration of our virtual as well as our physical environment. The $1.6 billion is really all virtual, but the reason we win share there is because we're physically present in 38 countries. That took us half a century to develop, and I do think that distinguishes us very much versus some of the newer entrants who are really, you know, virtual only, and I think that's why they've seen growth slow, and ours has really accelerated. That 15.7% is up before where it was pre-pandemic, it was like low double digits, and now we're sustainably into the $1 billion. Look, a $1.6 billion is not a small number to grow again.
No, for sure.
15%. The third piece of what we do is obviously exposure to attractive faster growth markets. Mexico is a great example coming with EVO. We're very small in Mexico today, like $25 million in revenue. EVO is the 800 lbs gorilla, you know, in Mexico with Banamex. We're super excited there. Poland, where we're partnering. It's a JV with the largest bank in Poland, that's owned by the government in Poland, back to the point about SIFIs and everything else. Getting into Germany, whereas today we're just cross-border into Germany through Austria, getting to Germany domestically is obviously a big deal for us.
Yeah.
Face-to-face Ireland, today we're card not present, eCom Ireland, face-to-face with Bank of Ireland, one of the three top banks in Ireland, also a big deal for us. Exposure to faster growth geography is important. Of course, Spain's been great for us with Caixa for many years. Lastly, of course, B2B, which we announced the acquisition of MineralTree, 18 months ago. That business grew 30% in the fourth quarter of 2022. Our expectations for 30% growth of revenue this year in that business. Our goal for that business, it added about 50 basis points, 60 basis points to the issuer revenue growth on a normalized basis. Our hope for that business is just to make it bigger. You know, at a $100 million-ish-
Right.
You want $2 billion. 5% is great. Even, you know, teens growth is only gonna add 50 basis points, 60 basis points kind of incrementally to the rate of revenue growth. Our goal there is to make that business much bigger. I do think it's probably the single best secular growth trend that we should latch on to for the next five and 10 years in our business.
You didn't even mention issuer processing and all that, and that seems to have 70+ million accounts on file coming on, right?
Yeah, I think that business is in a great place. We're coming out of a market, Darrin, where the fourth quarter was the best quarter we've reported. It was 5% core constant currency organic growth, the best quarter we've reported since the merger.
Yeah.
In 2019. December was the best month. That was a quarter. It really accelerated throughout the quarter. We had multiple peak days in the fourth quarter. You'll listen, our expectation for the first quarter is an acceleration versus that, even versus the 5% core we reported in the fourth quarter. That business is really firing on.
That's great.
On all, on all cylinders, we're super excited about what that is. As it relates to our four-pronged strategy, that's really owned software. When we talk about being a top quartile.
Okay. You put that into one software.
software company, a lot of that, probably 60%, 70%, of TSYS' issuers sold really on a software basis, tied to just number of accounts on file
Right.
at places like Bank of America, Chase, you know, Citi, HSBC, Barclays.
Okay. Okay. Just one more for now.
Et cetera. It goes into the software. I would say that we do think sitting here today, as we said on our call in February, January exceeded our expectations, and I'd said on our call in February that February to date, through mid-February, the KPIs look good. I'm pleased to say today that February also exceeded our expectations.
That's great.
I do think we're set up for, you know, a nice first quarter, sitting here today on the 15th, the quarter's kind of over. I'm really excited about where the business is.
That's across businesses.
That's across merchant and issuer both, and both have done very well. Issuer in particular, I expect, you know, to see.
You know what, since you're on the topic, let's just jump to recent trends then anyway.
Sure.
I mean, if you could just recap us on some of the things you were proud of from last quarter. I can tell you we were very impressed by the 9% merchant growth, both volume and revenue. Relative to anyone else we've seen in the industry, that's stronger than most. And it was also nice to see that match, right? The revenue and the volume side, and issuer, as you said, accelerated. Maybe you can give us a little more context to the trends last quarter, what you're seeing more recently again.
We really had a good year in 2022, Darrin. We grew revenue in merchant 13%. That was almost all organic in 2022. We grew issuer 5%, both FX neutral for the year. On a blended basis, we had 10% almost all organic.
Yep.
revenue growth, constant currency, ex dispositions, things that we sold or are selling. That's right in line with our cycle guide. Same thing on, you know, a margin point of view. We added 190 basis points of margin last year, and earnings constant currency grew 17%. If you go back to the cycle guide that we raised in September of 2021, despite all the black swan events around the world in 2022, we actually met our cycle guide, and our expectation really, Darrin, for this year is the same. It's 9%-10% kind of core organic ex dispositions, merchant growth, 9%-10%. Of course, EVO comes in, that'll get us to 15%-16% reported.
Issuer, we're expecting 4.5%- 5.5% Is what we guided to. I wish B2B was bigger or we'd be, you know, solidly in the high, you know, mid to high single digits, which is our goal longer term, but that sustains the 5% growth rate. You know, we saw coming out of core Issuer in the fourth quarter. As I say, my expectation for the first quarter is more than that, so hopefully that will, you know, lift us permanently, you know, throughout the rest of the year. We'll see. You know, obviously, time will tell as we get to the first quarter, earnings announcement.
Yep.
Look, we're really pleased with where we are relative to the networks. Our numbers are in line to slightly ahead. Our eCom numbers are well ahead. Our integrated business, which I'm super excited about, grew 17% of organic revenue each of the last two quarters, which is really an acceleration from the low double digits we saw pre-pandemic. We've now owned, I'm just gonna date myself, you know, Darrin, a little bit. We've now owned that business for 10 years. I don't know if anyone can remember 2012, I guess 2011, you know, when we 11 years when we bought it, but that business was $100 million of revenue. This year, we'll do $1 billion. It's up 10x, yet the revenue growth has accelerated from low double digits-
Yeah.
to mid to high, you know, teens organically. We couldn't be more excited, you know, about that. Of course, our B2B business, as I mentioned a minute ago, MineralTree grew 3% in the fourth quarter. Our expectations for 30% this year, double digits across all of B2B and additive by 50 basis points - 60 basis points relative to the issuer business this year. I think, look, we're in a fundamentally very healthy place. We're right on the cusp. We said in our February call that the closing of EVO, the acquisition, the sale of gaming, the sale of Netspend were all imminent. Here we are March 15th, and they're really imminent. We certainly expect again by the end of this quarter to close all three of those, which really sets us up, I think, for a terrific.
All three of them?
Yeah, all three of them.
That's great.
the third quarter. Sorry. Sets up a really good three quarters, of 2023 in terms of our business. Look, business is good.
Even before we go into further detail around guidance, I mean, you talked last quarter about wins in hospitality and stadiums. What is actually differentiating and driving those wins more recently?
It's really the vertical market software.
Timing to materialize the revenue also.
Yeah, sure. It's really vertical. Well, the nice thing about stadiums, you can turn them on quick.
Uh-huh.
You know, like, well, I won't name the stadium, but like a lot of people wanna be live before Taylor Swift comes in. That's one. Listen, I'm not trying to date myself there either the other direction, you know.
Yeah.
Not being familiar with Taylor Swift, but that apparently is the driver of a lot of stuff.
Yeah.
To turn on live, but in stadiums. I would say more generally, it's the vertical market software ownership. You know, when we embarked on this, really Heartland started, Darrin, like in 2015 with, TouchNet, which is our university, product. As you know, our vertical market software across the portfolio grew low double digits, last year. Our expectation is for the same this year. We obviously had a big snapback in businesses that were pandemic influenced. K-12, I think it was like 65% off or some other crazy, you know, number. You know, bookings and revenue in Xenial were all-time records, in enterprise QSR in the fourth quarter, more to come, more wins to come. They'll be announcing over the next quarter or two.
I think to answer your question, look, if you wanna compete in those markets and compete against Adyen, compete against Toast and all these other guys.
Yep.
I think in certain markets like restaurant, retail, eCom, you need to own the end-to-end value proposition to the customer. I think if you don't own the software and don't control the products that you're selling, I think you can find yourself disintermediated, commoditized, and all those things. I'm really proud of the investments we've made in software ownership and partnership over many years. As I say to our sales guys, and I know I'm overstating this 'cause their jobs are hard, but as I tell them, like, "Look, cloud nativity and cloud POS sells, right?" Our cloud POS business grew double digits again last quarter. There were quarters last year where it grew 30%-50%. That's nine figures of revenue. Our eCom business is $1.6 billion. That thing's growing mid-teens organic revenue. This stuff sells.
Let's just go out and sell more of it.
Right.
I think you're seeing that pull through the results.
In terms of your guidance, going back there again for a minute, I mean, is there anything different about how you gave guide or how you provided your guide or built it up versus what you did in 2021 or 2022 first? When thinking about the assumptions that you put into it, macro assumptions or areas of potential upside or conservatism, maybe you could just comment on that as well?
We never guide as a management team to assume perfection in all of our markets. Look, we're physically present in 38 before EVO. We do business cross-border in a couple hundred. Something's gonna go wrong all the time.
Yep.
Even pre-COVID, that was our expectation and the reality. That really hasn't changed in terms of our philosophy, and we're diverse. We're diverse by design, we're not focused on any one geography, any one vertical market. That's built into our guidance. As it relates to what we said, you know, last month, the way we looked at our guidance for this year, Darrin, is we took the fourth quarter, which had some puts and takes in it. I think as Cameron said on the call, our non-U.S. markets were a 100 basis point merchant tailwind in the third quarter. They were a 100 basis point headwind in the fourth quarter. Now, why is that? 'Cause the U.K. got worse-
Right.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, Asia-Pacific went through various, China in particular, but Asia-Pacific went through various stages of closing and then reopening right prior to Christmas. Now, the good news is that's flipped. You know, as we entered into the first quarter of 2023, I don't think the U.K., you know, will substantially change, but certainly Asia-.
Right.
-has changed as China has really reopened. The point I'm trying to make is we kind of run rate how we're doing coming out of the fourth quarter, and in particular, December. That had puts and takes. You know, the U.S. was strong. Issuer had a record, as we mentioned a minute ago. That's obviously going to accelerate is our expectation into the first quarter. Certainly, the U.K. was lagging. You know, elements of Asia-Pacific-
In other words, you already had elements of your business that were-.
Yeah. I mean, that's exactly right. We're not assuming it's better or worse. Like, I'm not an economist. I mean, at the end of the day, I think we were able to show during the pandemic, when the worst happened, you know, we took out in two weeks $400 million incrementally of annualized expense in the pandemic in two weeks, of which $200 million was permanent. The other $200 million was temporal, like salaries and comp and, you know, bonus and the like in T&E. I think we've shown the ability to pivot, you know, relatively quickly to do this, and we have a lot of levers to make a number. For example, the EVO closing is imminent.
We've talked about $125 million of expense takeouts in that business, of which call it $30 million-$35 million, given the timing, will be actually realized and reported.
Yep.
you know, this year. Yeah, we have flexibility, you know, when we can realize those things. We have the ability to pull a variety of levers to make the numbers that we that we need to hit. As I mentioned a minute ago, our core customer base, SIFIs and global kind of large FIs, if anything, as sad as it is to see, if anything, are more healthy today.
Right.
Our market share gainers in the current environment, and I feel like the investments we've made in our merchant business are showing more of the same. I would tell you, sitting here today, we've got more pipeline opportunities across our two markets in stadiums and restaurants, and the like, and large retailers in merchant, in cloud-based RFPs on the issuer side than we've ever had. Sitting here today, I feel like bookings and the business are in a very, you know, healthy place.
I think you helped clarify something because I know a lot of investors were asking about your merchant guide specifically. You guided to about, what, 9%-ish, right?
Right.
Was it 8% or 9% or so?
9%-10%.
9%-10% for the year. You grew 9%. It brought about the question of conservatism in the outlook, depending on, you know, the uncertain macro. What sounds like you're saying is Q4 already had a bunch of variables that were headwinds in it, some of which are abating.
Yeah.
Frankly, it sounds like from what you're saying, the first quarter trends already are showing that that's the case.
Yeah, we're running ahead, right? For the first quarter, obviously let's look at the recent events in last week...
Yeah.
See what implications that has.
What happens, yeah.
Sitting here today, you know, the first quarter is in a very healthy place, and we feel really good about merchant and issuer.
I guess it underscores there was some conservatism.
Yeah. I mean, well, you.
That's great.
You just don't know and, but I feel like we're in a really good place heading into the balance of the year. You know, time will tell. To be honest, Darrin, I mean, this is the best start we've had in our first quarter. This isn't a happy thing to say because of what the world's been through. This is the best start we've had in our first quarter since 2019.
Oh, wow.
I feel like we're in a really good place.
That's great to hear.
Yeah.
Shifting on, some of the things you're really EVO, and you mentioned the three different things potentially closing, but let's go back to that a minute and just remind us of the strategy of it again, and if you don't mind, remind us of what it could mean for the company when you close.
The most important thing to think about EVO is it's always good to expand our target addressable markets. That's really one of the core tenets of the model I mentioned up front in response to one of your questions that, you know, emerging growth and faster growth markets are an important part of what we do. I think Jim and EVO have done a terrific job in markets like Poland and markets like, face-to-face RMR and card-not-present RMR-
Yep.
Face-to-face RMR. Certainly in markets like Mexico, which grew kinda right through the pandemic, those are markets that we've coveted at Global Payments for a long time. I give EV O and Jim a lot of credit for entering those and executing, you know, very well. That's kind of point number one. Point number two, B2B, one of the four legs to the stool that we added 18 months ago. We're really pleased with the revenue that we have from Netspend B2C, from our MineralTree acquisition, but those are all payables related to assets. It's important for us also to be in the receivable side of the balance sheet. Look, we're in the business of collecting money. That's what our merchant business does.
What Jim has been able to assemble in his B2B assets through a variety of acquisitions dating back five years on the receivable side is something that's very important. Integrations into ERPs is something that Jim's very focused on. That's a core part of our strategy, and I think will serve us very well as we go on building a B2B business over the next five or 10 years.
Something I wanna focus on next is something I'm kind of excited about 'cause I still think it's underappreciated by the market. Frankly, your multiple on your stock would agree with that statement, which is that I think you guys have you've acquired a number of software assets over the years. They seem to be all growing very well, and frankly, they seem to be sustainably growing to this year as well at the same rates or similar rates. I'd love you to go into detail a little bit more on the underlying tech that you have in your merchant business, the differentiation of these areas, and what their growth profiles are just to you know, reinforce what you actually have as differentiated.
We think about software in two ways. one is owned, which is what you're referring to, and the other.
Yeah
...is partnered. Combined, owned and partnered are probably $2 billion of revenue annually for our company. I think we realized early on that if we didn't own certain of the elements of software, it was gonna make it very difficult to compete-.
As we are seeing with PayFac, yeah.
...with some of the newer entrants. Look, when we said it, people thought we were crazy, then you saw Lightspeed come along, and you saw Adyen come along and Marqeta and everybody else. I think what we've all realized is, look, we're a technology company, so we need to own and build and develop where it makes sense to own technology. Sitting here today, we're in nine vertical markets where we actually own and control the entirety of the software spectrum. The way we think about that at the company is that represents about 50% of U.S. GDP, so that's a really good place, you know, to be. Markets like healthcare with AdvancedMD. In many of our software businesses, we're actually operating to a rule of 50% or in some cases, a rule of 60%-
Yep
not a rule of 40%. very pleased with how those businesses have developed. I would say, you know, AdvancedMD, again, for reasons which we can debate are good or bad, you know, grew right through the pandemic. That's something that was because of COVID and, you know, people doing remote Teladoc visits.
Sure.
I think we facilitated, something like, you know, 500,000 Teladoc visits during the pandemic up from de minimis before. Our restaurant business with Xenial, where we own all the software as well through our SICOM acquisition, that went from remote delivery, which is ordering on your phone and having Uber Eats, Deliveroo, well DoorDash or whoever, that went from something like, you know, I don't know, you know, 20 million remote deliveries pre-pandemic to, like, 300 million, right? Exponential growth. We would never have been in that position.
Yeah
...to do that kind of service had we not controlled and owned every element, of software production in, you know, in what we're doing. As I mentioned a minute ago, our vertical market software companies grew low double digits for calendar 2022. Our expectation is the same, for 2023. Look, that stuff sells. The retention is very high. Attrition, is very low. I think neatly , very nicely into our partnership that we announced two years ago with Google and Google Cloud, as our, cloud provider for our merchant business. We're selling more software, more products and services with Google into our merchant portal.
Google is now obviously a customer, as we have announced in North America and Asia Pacific, and over the next year or so, Europe, you know, will be added too, although North America is the big enchilada, you know, which we started boarding-.
Sure
already. The ability to sell Gmail, calendaring, remote ordering, you know, à la OpenTable, remote shopping à la Shopify with Google, who's got obviously significant presence in the search environment. The ability to do that exclusively and uniquely with Google in our cloud environment, in our merchant portal is part of the reason that we won accounts that we've announced over the last couple quarters. Part of the reason we won Genuine Parts, which is the NAFCO stores, that's a Google Cloud partner. Google referred that to us as an enterprise matter. There's another one that we didn't give the name of. We'll give the name of it obviously.
Right
...when I make a call. Same thing, a bunch of pet stores. The reason we won that is they're, you know, a Google partner, and they referred it over to us. The idea of owning and controlling and selling more software, more value-added services, better yield, all those other things, I think is the secret to us maintaining effective pricing, and control over value-added services. I think you're seeing reflected in our results.
The organic growth of these vertical software areas has been double digits.
Yes, that's correct.
Right. Which obviously has to underscore that there's investments being made in these businesses to hold them up versus other software being developed.
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah.
Because again, I still think that may be underappreciated given that, you know, your multiple doesn't imply someone that can grow double digits.
Well, listen, one day someone will do some math. We'll get out of the macro, you know, dilemma and conundrum that the world is in, you know, today. You know, I think our job is to deliver sustainable revenue growth, margin enhancement, earnings per share growth, free cash flow compounding, and a favorable balance sheet and risk profile and everything else. That's what all these things do, you know, that you're describing. The fact that a company that grows at 17% is valued the same as grows zero is just preposterous.
Right.
That's the market that we're in. At some point, you know, people wake up and actually do some work.
Yeah, the numbers will speak for themselves.
I think at the end of the day, the business is in a very good place. Look, we're on track this year. Our guide for this year reported, is about $8 and 2/3 billion dollar of revenue. We did the merger with TSYS, it was like $7 billion. You know, it'll go over the next number of years as well into the double digits of billions.
Right.
I think that's how we measure success, and at some point that'll be rewarded.
One area that we do get a lot of questions on is the competitive landscape, especially around PayFac enablement and what you kind of alluded to earlier, why you bought software, right? What are you seeing in the market around that or any of the ISVs you do partner with, showing you signs of that? I guess a follow-up would be Worldpay and some of the disruption we're seeing and the friction in some of your competitors. Is that at all an opportunity for you guys?
Yeah. On the first thing, what you mentioned, Darrin, so our integrated business grew 17% each of the last two quarters. That's very favorable compared to the 9% that we reported.
Yeah.
Also very favorable compared to Visa, Mastercard stats and the growth of the market, and also very favorable compared to any of the public competitors.
Yeah
... that are reporting results too. We're really pleased with the business. That was the idea that you'd have a bar ISO and the like, the idea that you had PayFac kind of taking share was a concern when we bought APT back in the old golden era, you know, of 2012. Which is about 10 or 11 years ago.
Yep.
That just hasn't happened or materialized, you know, at the end of the day. In fact, our growth, even though the business today is 10x the size of what it was in 2012, our growth has accelerated notwithstanding that. I would say, look, we have a very robust PayFac business. PayPal is a customer of ours, and we announced 18 months ago, we just resigned them for another five years. Look, we're rooting right at the end of the day for these PayFacs because their growth is better for us. I would say to your point, partnering with the right software companies has been very rewarding with us.
Yes.
Hence,
Verticals matter also.
Yeah, verticals matter, hence the 17% growth. Also ownership of software has also been very rewarding for us with low double digits, kind of organic growth too, with great margins. I would say we're in exactly the right place. As it relates to, you know, other peers. Look, those are just excuses. When someone doesn't make a number, they come up with something, and good for them. You know, I think at the end of the day, when the business are reporting results, whether it's inflation-
Yeah, there's.
... or competition, that's our job, right? That's what we get paid for. That's what we're focused on. The market will evaluate however it values it over time. I think people saying the market's competitive, I mean, might as well say the earth is round. I mean, that's just the way life is.
I mean, it's pretty clear that your ISV, your partnership business is doing something right.
Right.
I mean, we're seeing double-digit growth, mid-teens, higher than mid-teens growth. I think a lot of it probably is the ISVs you partner with, but it must be also the investment in the relationships, I imagine.
Yeah, I would say that's exactly right. Most of these larger partners, in ISV land run RFPs, just like the stadiums. You know.
Yeah
... it's not like the Braves, the Hawks, Mercedes-Benz, and you can throw in any, you know, the Carolina Panthers, like, go through the list, the Winnipeg Jets, which we announced, et cetera. It's not like these large customers, Genuine Parts, you know. It's not like these large customers don't know how to run RFPs or don't know how to price-
Right
... you know, effectively or are not intelligent.
Right.
I think at the end of the day, what you're really seeing is what they're focused on is the scope of services. I think by owning and developing and selling more software, these guys get paid as a referral matter on things that we're selling as it relates to revenue. The more revenue we can generate for them, the higher their share in terms of the dollar payout. Look, we need to be competitive. They're running RFPs to do it. I think you see, in our results, the acceleration of growth, the acceleration of market share. I would tell you, Darrin, most of the things that we do, we're not the low-cost provider as a third-party partner to a lot of these, a lot of these counterparts.
Rather, we're competitive, but we try to lead with technology and service, and I think the results-
Yeah
... you know, at the slightly smaller percentage of a much bigger pie ends up being a better thing, for these guys than just recutting a static pie.
Just before we. We're starting to run out of time pretty soon. Issuer, I need to just understand. What are the most important things you want us to take away from what you're seeing in the issuer segment for you guys lately and then going into 2023?
Listen, we're on a fantastic growth trajectory. We just posted the best quarter in issuer in this, the month of December, the best single month...
Yeah
... we've posted, since the completion of the merger in the third quarter of 2019. Here we are in the first quarter, and I just told you, January and February we're, you know, ahead...
Yep
... in issuer as well as merchant, but certainly in issuer ahead of what we expected. We're gonna post a very good number, is my expectation, you know, in the issuer business and also in merchant for the first quarter. I think the investments we've made with AWS, our preferred, you know, cloud services partner, are really bearing fruit. When I go into meetings, like when I went into meetings three years ago right before the pandemic, and we were debating what to do as a technology matter, what I used to hear from large financial institutions like, "We're not sure about the security of the cloud. We don't really know what the process is." 18 months later, you go in, how fast can you get to the cloud?
Yep.
I did this roadshow last summer when the travel market reopened. We went to probably half a dozen countries.
Yep
... to see most of the SIFI banks and kinda pitch the issuer modernization we're doing with AWS, and we were worried that we'd have to convince them of the benefits of the cloud. 15 minutes in, what they were asking was, "How fast can you get us there?" I think the pipeline addition-
Right
... to the 75 million cards in implementation pipeline, and by the way, we successfully converted a large bank this weekend.
Oh, okay.
Obviously we continue to make progress in the pipeline. You know, as we think about where that business is going, Darrin, we have more RFPs today for cloud centricity among large financial institutions globally than we ever have. Our issue now is one of how fast, I think, can we actually implement what we're doing? We've got a lot of nice tailwinds in terms of the actual performance, which is great, you know, of the business, which we're also augmenting with B2B, but the pipeline of demand, I think has never been higher.
That's great. Just in interest of time, maybe we'll shift to capital allocation, given, you know, you've done deals. Just broadly speaking, maybe remind us your rank order of capital allocation from here on out. You just did, you know, obviously, you're still about to close some of these deals, but I'd be curious to hear your latest thoughts.
Nothing has really changed. I think we balance return to capital shareholders with investments in our business. For example, last year, we bought back 8% of our float, about $3 billion last year. Right now, to your point, we're focused on closing EVO, which obviously is very shortly.
Sure.
Of course, selling, Netspend and selling our gaming assets, which will provide some capital, you know, back to the business.
Yeah.
We're levered right around 3.2x, is kinda where we closed the quarter. We expect to be back. We'll peak at about 3.75x.
Yep.
Post these acquisitions and dispositions, we expect to be back at 3.2x, you know, toward the end of this calendar, which is what we've committed to the agencies. Publicly, we're generating a tremendous amount of free cash flow. We expect this year about $2.5 billion of adjusted free cash flow generation. It's also important to note that we're 100% fixed rate today. I know the markets are all over the place, but we're 100% fixed rate today. Post-EVO will be 93% fixed rate, so we really have no exposure to rates in the immediate term. Obviously generating a ton of cash.
Yeah.
Whatever that 7% is, we'll just pay it off.
Yeah, yeah.
-you know, during the, you know, during the period. I would say we continue to make substantial investments in the business. We'll be emphasizing debt pay down in the immediate term.
Right.
-till we're back to the low threes in terms of ratios, that's toward the back half of the year. Until then, relatively minimal kind of share repurchases. You know, we did 8% last year. Our usual number is 2%-3%. Given where the stock was in the markets, 2x-3x that we typically do, that'll carry us well through this year.
That's great. Guys, I wanna leave at least three minutes because I think that's all we have for questions if anyone has. I mean, I while we're putting the seat out there, I just wanna ask one more about B2B for a minute, just 'cause I know for me, it was an area that I was excited about with the, with not only MineralTree, but now with EVO. What is that gonna look like for you guys?
Today, we have a really big B2B footprint. We have about $700 million of revenue, if you include, which is what we talked about in the investor conference. If you include commercial card, you include payroll, which has been growing like a weed, that's a mid-teens organic growers, now well into the mid nine figures of revenue over at the Heartland business. Of course, we include virtual card, where we do $55 million+ a year, and we think we're one of the largest virtual card issuers in the world. Of course, includes MineralTree and now Netspend on B2B, you know, as a whole. The truth is, we only have, like, 30 people selling this stuff.
You know, I was asking our guys the other day about how many people are quota-carrying sales reps in B2B, and it's, like, 30 people. I think that needs to be, like, 300 people at the end of the day.
Right.
I think we've got very good tech, very good product, a very good platform. We announced in the third quarter, we had signed U.S. Bank and Citizens Financial to sell our virtual card, products. I think, you know, we're wide open. My goal for that business is, and I think it's the single greatest growth opportunity in our company over the next five years - 10 years, how do we take what's $700 million today and make it $7 billion, you know, 10 years from now. How do we take 30 salespeople and make it 300 salespeople, you know, over the next, you know, period of time. I think that's really our goal. How quickly can we scale? We're doing it very profitably. Our expectation is for double-digits growth in that business this year, for MineralTree to grow 30%.
Yep.
We're super excited about where that business is. Virtual cards grew 50% for us, you know, last year. I think the sky's the limit there. We just need to make sure that we scale it in the right way to not miss the opportunity.
Is that an area you wanna do more deals? Or for that matter, maybe just talk about beyond EVO that closes? I'm sure you're always gonna look around. What are the areas that you think you'd might wanna acquire into from here?
Well, the first thing I'd say is we think our stock's pretty attractive. Obviously, we bought back 8% of the float last year. I'm not sure it makes a difference in the current capital market environment, but I think it's a good buy, right?
Yeah.
Long term, that's absolutely right, I think, thing for us to do. Having said that, though, look, I think we'd like to add more scale in B2B, right? B2B for us is less about product gap. I think we've got receivables as well as payables with EVO, but how do we take that from $700 million of revenue? How do we take that from $100 million of revenue in MineralTree and Paycard, Netspend Paycard B2B? How do we make that 10 times the size, right, that it is? Part of it's gonna be organic 'cause it's growing at.
Yep.
you know, well into the double digits. Part of that needs to be additional scale, which necessarily comes to other things. We're very excited in doing that. Obviously, we look at where the stock is, and we think the right thing to do, is to balance, you know, return to capital like we just did, with investment in the business, and I think we're in a really good place.
Okay. Anybody have any questions they wanna ask? I think Mike in the front.
Thanks. Thank you. Can you just add color to the dynamics between, you know, owning the software and also partnering with all these ISVs? Some people might say that there's kind of like a channel conflict, like your thoughts about that and how you get around that.
Sure. When we bought Heartland, in 2016, we got the question that you just asked, which is, "Well, you own some software, and now you're partnering with some software. What's the conflict?" I think the answer at the end of the day, my experience is there's relatively de minimis overlap. Where there's overlap, my experience is the ISV partner will say to us, "Why don't you just come buy me?" In other words, they're less worried about competition, they're more worried about exit, and they want you just to kinda buy them. We haven't really done that, at the end of the day. Here we are seven years later, really hasn't been an issue.
I think the real answer, if you step back, is as we look at various markets, if we need to be in a market that we think is diffused, meaning not concentrated, in a market where there's one that we think is ahead of the others, but is not two or three people controlling the vast majority of the market, if we're in a market where there's other acquisition opportunities to add scale, those are markets that we like to own. If we think those are markets that are core to what we do, examples would be restaurant, examples would be retail, which are big businesses for us in our U.S. and Global Payments business, our inclination is to own every element of that because that's core to what we do. eCom would be kind of another example.
If we don't own the software in those markets, and if we're not vertically integrated, we're worried that somebody else is gonna capture the lion's share of the economics in those businesses, and we won't be able to control product, quota, pricing, distribution, TAM, all the things that are important to maintain the growth rate, you know, in our business. That's why I think you have not heard from us, "Gee, competitor X is kind of eating our lunch in restaurants." Why haven't we said that? The first thing I'd say is because we've been investing in our business, you know, for the last five years. What does that mean? We bought SICOM Systems in our Xenial restaurant business. What did that bring us? Point of sale cloud. That brought us hardware capability. That brought us additional relationships with enterprise quick service restaurants.
If we hadn't done that, yeah, I think we'd look back and say, "Boy, that was a mistake, that we didn't, you know, buy every end-to-end element, in our restaurant business." I would say the same thing about retail. If we didn't own the point of sale, if we didn't have the software that goes in the point of sale, if we didn't have the omni-channel experience where you can order online and return in a store, well, how on earth we win all these deals with multinational retailers, you know, in markets, in Europe and, Asia-Pacific? How in the eCom omni business, if we didn't have unified commerce, which other people have come out later and kinda cloned, but if we didn't release that five years ago, how on earth will we compete with Adyen and some of the other guys, you know, in that business?
In those markets that we think are fragmented, where there's no one clear winner, where we think there's opportunities to scale that are a quarter of our business like eCom, like restaurant, like retail, we think it's really important to own end-to-end production. Conversely, in markets like, for example, the auto dealer market, where it is one of our larger partner markets, there's like three guys who control the market. You know, buying one of the three guys and knocking our brains in, competing against the other two guys when the market share is relatively static is a very difficult place to be. There's not consolidation opportunities. We already have a good partnership. Why would we buy more of that? In markets like dentistry, where there's two people who control really the majority of dentists from an ISV point of view, that's a good partnership.
I wanna be in a business where I'm Burger King and you're McDonald's, or I'm Coke and you're Pepsi, right? At the end of the day, you're only gonna grow as quickly there. As the market grows, you're not gonna gain share, right? In those businesses, you're not gonna have consolidation opportunities in those businesses. That's how we think about it.
Okay. We're gonna leave it there, Jeff. Thank you so much, guys, and thank you to the whole global team for being with us. That was very, very informative.