So Todd, maybe the first question I had was more around kind of the guidance philosophy and, you know, the approach you've taken over the years. If I had to, you know, summarize it, you know, kind of pre-COVID was, you know, the classic, like conservative beat and raise almost every quarter. During COVID, of course, there were some, you know, anomalies because of the environment. And then it felt like the last couple of years you had—I think in one of the sessions, you said you had removed your traditional conservatism to a certain extent.
So just talk to me about that journey and how you decided to switch, and then what version of that should we, you know, hold you to for this year's guidance?
Yeah. Okay. A good place to start. Yeah, so thank you for that. So I would—I think we made the comment about the change in the conservatism in our guidance in 2022. I think it was at the beginning of 2022. And unfortunately, what we didn't foresee was that inflation was going to be stickier and higher, and that interest rates, you know, were going to increase quite significantly, you know, for the last two years. So 2022 and 2023, I would say were—they were a challenge, you know, for us. But nevertheless, you know, TransUnion's portfolio overall has intentionally been built, you know, to have diversification.
You know, despite the challenges that we've had over those last two years, where, you know, we didn't have the beats and the raises because we were navigating an uncertain environment, the business still grew 3%, each year. Clearly, that's not what we're aspiring for-
Yeah.
And that's not what we're planning for. But the diversification of the business, the portfolio overall, was on full display for us, right? So the... I think of the last two years as more of how do we persevere, right? And you know, give meaningful guidance to the market that investors can use. Coming into you know, 2024, and the guidance you know, that we put out at the beginning of the year, back in our February earnings call, you know, at the time, we were looking at putting out a guide that we knew we had a good line of sight to being able to achieve.
You know, the challenge there, though, is that things were still continuing just to be uncertain, you know, overall. You know, the narrative on interest rate changed-
Yeah
... so much just from the third quarter of last year up until the Federal Reserve meeting last week. You know, just, you know, what was, what was going to happen. So, you know, we put out what we thought was a prudent, you know, guide. Q1 results came out, and, you know, we exceeded, the high end of the guidance, quite significantly, by $41 million, on the top line and $27 million in Adjusted EBITDA. A lot of the upside, you know, that we had in the quarter, came from mortgage.
You know, and in mortgage, we did have a better pricing realization than what we had anticipated, was, was gonna happen, and there are some moving pieces, there that maybe you'll have some questions on-
Yeah
... but that we guided, I think, conservatively, you know, on. But other parts of the business performed well, as well. So in the quarter, we grew 8% overall, but we like to exclude mortgage, just to take some of that volatility out. In excluding mortgage, we still grew 5%, which is a good growth rate. We had guided 2%-3%, so we exceeded the guidance. And what we saw was good, good continued momentum in our international business, and in the emerging verticals, the insurance business performed well, and in our consumer interactive business, we had some nice wins for our breach services that came from the Sontiq acquisition.
But, you know, when we took a step back and looked forward towards the remainder of 2024, we just didn't think that it was the right thing, 'cause things still are uncertain-
Yeah
... to get any more, you know, aggressive, you know, with the guidance. So what effectively we did is, we took our beat from the first quarter, and we banked that and just said, "Okay, that's gonna stick." And then the pricing realization that we have benefited from, in mortgage, we have visibility into that. So that is purely what the raise was for, was for mortgage pricing from Q2 through Q4. We even tempered the volumes in mortgage, a little bit-
Yeah
... as well. But even with the outperformance of the business outside of mortgage, we didn't feel it was the right thing to do, to get, you know, punchy with the guide. So we maintained at 3.5% growth. So if you take a step back then, and you look at, you know, just the numbers, and, you know, the pieces are out there for the market to see, 'cause clearly, Q1's results are posted. We guided Q2, and you can see our full year results, so you could see what we're implying for the second half.
If you just look at dollars sequentially, it's kind of flat at each quarter. TransUnion just had its first billion-dollar quarter in its history in the first quarter, which was a big milestone for us. Q2 through Q4, we're assuming kind of a similar revenue run. So no big ramp coming. From a growth perspective, we're expecting our non-mortgage businesses to grow about 3% in Q2, but also in the second half as well, too. So not only are the revenues kind of sequentially flat, but also the growth rates have the same characteristic as well, too.
So back to your question then, you know, the type of guide that we have, we feel that this is prudent because the market's still continues to be uncertain.
Okay.
And the volatility, again, just last week, the Federal Reserve has their meeting, the ten-year Treasury yield goes up significantly. Then the jobs report comes out on Friday, and the ten-year Treasury yield goes down significantly.
Yeah.
Right? So it's that volatility that we're trying to manage. So we feel that we've put a plan, you know, a guide out there, that's achievable, but yet prudent and reflecting, you know, what we're seeing. Is it 2018? Probably not, to get more specific-
Okay
... to your question.
All right, fair enough. That's some good color. Maybe if I can just ask a few follow-ups. So firstly, on the pricing component in mortgage, which was mostly beat. I mean, we'll ask the big questions, if I could, tomorrow when we present. But in terms of the visibility you talked about, like, when you guided in February, don't you already have that price in mind on January first to have that visibility? Or, does it change only after you, you know, report the whole quarter?
Yeah, so there's two factors that, you know, went into, you know, the our thinking on, on mortgage. So yes, clearly, there's the third-party score increase, and yes, you know, we had notice of that price increase, you know, in the, in the fourth quarter. But remember that, you know, TransUnion has the relationship with FICO in this situation. Their cost is operating expense on our income statement. We then, in turn, charge our end customers-
Yeah
... for it, right? So we have the responsibility to go back and negotiate with our customers on the price.
Got it.
So, when we put our initial guide out, we had maybe not as much optimism that price was going to be able to stick, the way that it did. So nice job by our sales team to, you know, go out and, you know, prove the value proposition, you know, that TransUnion has. The second part, though, pertains to pre-qualification, you know, in the mortgage space. And the rules changed from the GSEs, and, you know, in the past, a tri-bureau report was required-
Right
... for pre-qualification, and now, a single pull,
Is enough
... and a soft pull is okay. So the behavior changed. We weren't so certain how that was gonna happen, and we also weren't as certain about the pricing dynamics as well in that. So seeing one quarter gave us a little bit of traction, but clearly, it's one quarter. There's still more to go. But it was those pieces, you know, that came in, you know, to our guidance. And just to put numbers on it, if you go back to our February earnings call, at... We had guided for mortgage to be up 25% for the full year, and what we just guided on this April earnings call is for mortgage to be up 50%, so 25%-
Okay
... increase. Pretty big deal. But I think what's more important is when you, you peel it back a level, and you look at the volume assumptions, you know, that we have. In February, we were assuming for a 5% decline in volumes, and we're assuming the same thing. But what we've done is we've changed the mix from the first half to the second half. So back in February, we thought that our volumes were going to decline 15% in the first half, and now we're guiding that they're gonna decline 10%, so volume's a little bit better.
And what's important to note there is TransUnion counts the pre-qualification volumes in our overall mortgage numbers. So, you know, the, the-
Yeah
... maybe the moves that we're seeing there, you know, are showing up. The second half, and this is an important part, we were originally assuming that volumes were gonna grow 10% in the second half. This is- goes back to our-
Correct, yep
... February call. Had nothing to do with us banking on an interest rate cut. It was just based on the comparables.
Yeah.
But based on the trends that we're seeing, we thought the prudent thing was to trim, the expectations. So now we're calling for just flat instead of growing 10% on the volume in the second half of the year. So a lot of moving pieces there, but based on what we saw through the end of the first quarter into April before we reported, we felt that that was, you know, the best guide-
Guide
... to put out there.
Okay, fair enough. The other three areas, I think you called out, where you kind of outperformed in the first quarter, were international, insurance, I guess, and then the breach Contract. So of those three, it's, you know, maybe the Breach was more one-time-ish, or how would you characterize the three in terms of it's, it's got momentum, but you just didn't want to, you know, push it through?
Sure. Now, our international business is performing exceptionally well. The first quarter was our twelfth quarter in a row of double-digit growth in that business. We continue to see exceptional strength in India. Business grew in excess of 30% this last quarter. But our business in Canada grew 18% in the quarter, and, you know, as I'm sure you can appreciate, the market in Canada is not so great, the macro. So a lot of share gains there and product innovation that the team in Canada has done an outstanding job delivering on. When we guided back in February, we were calling for the international business to be a high single-digit grower.
The one tweak that we had in the guide is we're now calling for the international business to grow low double digits now because of just the good momentum you know that continues there. So that's the one tweak even though the guide that we have for the full company excluding mortgage kept exactly the same.
Yeah.
It's all... I just want to reinforce that.
Yeah.
It's just that mortgage pricing realization. Insurance, our insurance business, you know, primarily caters to the auto, property, and casualty insurers, but we also have a business in life and commercial as well, too. In the auto space, though, many of our customers pulled back on marketing last year, and the reason for that is in late 2022, going into 2023, rising inflation had a significant impact on repair and replacement costs for our customers, and they couldn't get their premiums up high enough to compensate, so they pulled back on their marketing.
And as you know, you know, the premium increases have to be approved by the regulators. So marketing pulled back, but what we're seeing happen is some of the bigger players in insurance are back marketing.
Got it.
So that's good, but as you know, we serve a broader ecosystem in insurance, so not all of the insurers are back marketing. So that's been good, and then just the shopping activity, which is beneficial to TransUnion, has also been strong as well, because when the insurers were able to pass their premium increases, it caused consumers to pause-
Mm.
-and kind of go, "Hey, I wanna check to see what else is out there." And then, yeah, the last one that you brought up was our Sontiq, the breach services, you know, for that. So the Sontiq acquisition that we made in December 2021, last year, we grew that business 20%. So really served a need in TransUnion's portfolio in the consumer space and continued to see good growth. But the breach business is not. It's uneven, would be the way to say it.
Okay.
It's not terribly predictable. So we didn't wanna get ahead of ourselves because of that unevenness. So that's why, you know, we tempered the expectations on that and just left the guide for the full company as I said, at 3.5%-
Got it.
for the full year.
Okay, fair enough. I just wanted to touch on some of your other kind of areas. So the first one is on fintech. You know, it's obviously been a great area for you over many years. Maybe last year was just a headwind. So maybe just to help the audience just, you know, frame the size of that and, you know, it had a, you know, kind of bad year last year, let's call it.
Yep.
Where, where are we? Do you think we bottomed? Like, are you seeing, you know, signs of recovery?
Yep. So the fintech space in the U.S., specifically, because we've built out nice positions in fintechs in many of our international geographies, like here in the U.K., as well as in Canada. But we embraced the industry going back, you know, ten years ago when they were nascent startups, and our team did a great job bringing products like Trended Data, you know, to them. And because they had nascent systems, they were more able to, you know-
To get
... bring in trended data, right? So we won a significant amount of share just by embracing the industry and partnering with them, and then as they grew, we were able to offer them other, other services that we had to, help them continue to expand their business. 2020 in the pandemic, they clearly, you know, slowed down. 2021, we saw a really significant bounce back-
Yep
... as consumers were, you know, back out and, you know, looking to, you know, live their lives again after having been locked down. The impact of rising interest rates in 2022 had an impact on their ability to fund their lending. So, which was always a question that you were asking us, you know, before. Many of our customers, though, they persevered. They just needed to be more selective on the type of loans that they, they could underwrite. So, that's the dynamic that we saw play out in 2022 and in 2023. The business last year finished with about $140 million worth of revenue. On TransUnion's $3.8 billion, it's significant, but it's not that, you know, that significant-
Yeah
... piece, right? And, you know, we value the relationship. So I think the sizing is important. What we've seen happen in Q4, as well as in this most recent quarter, is we're starting to see a little bit more marketing activity. We're starting to see them be a little bit more proactive in their approach towards acquiring new customers. By no means am I, you know, saying all's clear, but, you know, just as a proof point, the business did return to growth. It was 2% in the quarter-
Okay
... which was a positive, you know, trend for us. I think most importantly, we, we still see a tremendous amount of upside with this customer base and the partnerships that we've built with them, over the longer term.
Got it. And then, you know, tied to fintech, I think you have a little bit more of small bank exposure, if that's the right phrase. I'm just going back to the third quarter of last year.
Sure
...where you called that. So maybe just as a reminder, you know, what was that, you know, the call that you made that third quarter, and how is that broader ecosystem looking like today?
Sure, yeah. So back in the third quarter, we saw a significant slowdown in our volumes, in particular in September. And it was right after the Federal Reserve had had their one of their meetings, the Jackson Hole, Wyoming Symposium, and Chairman Powell spoke about interest rates being higher for longer. The 10-year Treasury yield ticked up 50 basis points, and there was just a lot of uncertainty, right? Consumers were looking at higher borrowing costs, and our customers were also looking at, you know, like: Hey, is this the time that we wanna underwrite right now with, you know, interest rates moving the way that they are?
TransUnion, as you know, because you've covered us for a long time, we've won a significant amount of market share over the last 10 years. You know, as part of winning that market share, we've won in the medium and small size customer base, as well. I think it's well telegraphed, you know, with the failures of a couple of banks in the U.S. last March, April, of 2023. There was a lot of a lot of churn in the small and medium-sized financial institutions that we had won a significant amount of share in.
In particular, what had happened is there was a flight of deposits to bigger banks, as you know, a perceived safety. So the medium and small sized banks needed to compete on interest rate, and it pressured their business. So we saw those customers, and it's you know corroborated by you know their earnings calls. You can hear how they, you know, talked about the dynamics that they've had. I'd say what we've seen, though, that was in Q3. Q4, I'd say we've seen a stability in the volumes from those customers, and that continued on into the first quarter, as well. So what we're seeing is that deposit base is stable now-
Yeah
... where it was uncertain. So look, what gets me excited about, you know, what we have is, I will take our portfolio for the long run. It was definitely a hiccup in Q3 for us, but when I think about TransUnion in the future, having the diversification, you know, that we have across our financial services vertical, I think that's a strength for us.
Got it. You know, we had Equifax in the morning, and we asked them their view on card and auto, the other areas. So maybe just from your vantage point, like anything... Or how would you characterize, you know, maybe card is more like the stable that you called out?
Yep.
Is there anything in auto you'd want to call out?
Yeah. So card, I think we see continued stability. You know, we see, you know, good underwriting. I think that the call out and, you know, something to watch is just the delinquency levels.
Sure.
They're higher.
Yeah.
They're higher than they were in 2019, but is it alarmingly high? No. Historical standards, it's probably okay.
Yeah.
So card seems to be on an okay trajectory. You know, we listen in on our customers, what they have to say about the loan loss reserves that they put up, and it seems like it's okay, you know, from what we're hearing there. Auto, we grew in the quarter by about 2%. We're seeing, you know, cars are a lot more expensive than they were before-
Yeah, sure
... the pandemic, right? So consumers that are, you know, below prime are definitely challenged, you know, in that type of market. So we're seeing that. But then on the positive side, a lot of the supply chain issues that we were dealing with, with new car sales, seem to have subsided. So, you know, we're seeing good traction, there in that space.
Got it. Maybe in the international portfolio, I mean, one of the success stories has been India, and, you know, it's kind of, I guess, been lost in the portfolio to a certain extent. And you guys, you know, obviously focused on this earnings call, which, you know, I think brought it back to the spotlight. But maybe just to start with, if you can just size, you know, India in terms of the revenue, the growth, maybe even the margin profile, just to start there.
Yeah. So, the India business, this year will approach, you know, get $300 million in revenue. If you went back to our investor day, back in March of 2022, we were calling for that $300 million to come by the end of 2025. So the business has grown, you know, quite nicely, for us. As far as margin is concerned, I mean, look, you can see our-- the, international adjusted EBITDA margin's well into the 40% range. We haven't specifically given India, but it's definitely-
Kind of-
... in excess-
Okay
... you know, of that. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a nicely profitable business, but one that, in order for us to ensure that we continue to maintain the share that we have, it's one that we're relentless in investing back into, to ensure and that, you know, we maintain what we have. The slides that we included in our last earnings call, you know, just really, you know, speaks to the diversification that we have in that, in that portfolio. In addition to core credit, you know, we have a commercial business that's growing exceptionally well, as well as a fraud business and a direct-to-consumer business.
So we, we feel. We're very bullish about the opportunities in this market on a go-forward basis. You know, it's, it's a business, just to kind of underscore this, that we've been around since its inception, going back over 20 years ago. You know, TransUnion was an initial shareholder with the leading banks in India. And what's been awesome about the story in India is just how we've partnered with them before we even had a majority ownership in the business, to bring more sophisticated offerings to the market to help the customers solve problems that were emerging.
Yeah.
It's actually fascinating to see the tools and the services that a business of that age has compared... Like, I think about where TransUnion was at. It's pretty remarkable.
Yeah
... you know, the capabilities that that business has. So lots of great, great runway, for us in that market.
Yeah, 'cause I guess, you know, maybe it's this history of—maybe it's your relationship, your early mover advantage, but, you know, Experian, Equifax, and I think there's even another player, CRIF, I think, in India. And I think even you add them all up, and they're collectively not even close to your revenue. So what, like, what, what's the secret sauce with, you know, the, the CIBIL asset that you have?
Yeah, it's. Again, it goes back to the partnership. It goes back to, you know, back to 2000, like literally 2008, 2009, we took people from our business and moved them to India-
Okay
... to work shoulder to shoulder with the team in India and understand what the customer needs were. And then we were able to help bring the innovation that we had globally at TransUnion to that marketplace. So just that type of focus, and then continuing that. The one thing we don't do is we're not complacent about that market, whatsoever. And like I said, it's an area of focus for us. From an investment perspective, we wanna make certain that we stay in good standing with the regulator, because as we continue to grow, the relationship that we have-
Yeah
with the Reserve Bank of India is critical. And, you know, we have a good relationship with them. So maybe the less fun things about compliance, we focus on that to make the infrastructure as resilient as it possibly can be. Just because, you know, we see just a significant amount of opportunity. The demographics-
Yeah
in the market, with, you know, an emerging middle class, and, you know, the government's mandate on financial inclusion, those are, you know-
Yeah
play to our strengths.
Very strong. Yeah.
Right. So, it's definitely something, and we've got an absolutely amazing team out there.
Yeah. And so maybe just one last question, India. I mean, those demographics are, you know, pretty apparent. I mean, you read it all the time, and India is a big investment focus area, broadly speaking. But, you know, at $300 million of revenues, you know, law of large numbers, like, you know, you've been growing 30% plus. Like, you know, what should we be holding you accountable to?
You're not gonna get me to guide. But there's no reason for the business to have any significant slowdown, though, in its trajectory.
Yeah.
Something, you know, something pretty dramatic would have to change in the market.
Okay.
It just seems like, you know, the Modi administration is very focused on financial inclusion, and, you know, we're tailoring our, our product offerings to that. Like, we got this-
Fair enough
... this awesome product that we partnered with a business in India that does satellite imagery to be able to do loans for agriculture. And as you know-
Yeah
... so much of India is agricultural, rural.
Yeah.
So being able to partner with satellite imagery and credit data is just enabling loans to be made in that market that, you know, perhaps weren't being.
Yeah.
You know, so the reason I bring that up is there's just market-specific things that we're able to do, as well, that, you know, we're really excited about.
Got it. Okay. Maybe we can shift gears a little bit to capital allocation.
Sure.
So, you know, remind us of your current leverage levels. I know you've said deleveraging is your priority. And then also just, you know, the timeframe around when you want to get to the target. Maybe let's just start there, and then I'll ask you to follow up.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah. So at the beginning of 2023, we changed our target leverage ratio. Since we've been a public company going back to 2015, we targeted 3.5 times as our leverage ratio, so net debt over Adjusted EBITDA. We've been as low in, into the 2s, as I'm sure you remember, but we, we felt it was important to be more direct, and maybe that 3.5 times was an overhang from our private equity-
Yeah
... ownership days. So we said that we would target three times or lower, and the or lower is an important thing. We don't look at three as the ending point. We believe that, you know, we've done significant M&A. As you know, we like to say, we believe we have a generation's worth of growth ahead of us-
Yeah
... with the acquisitions that we've made. So focus on, you know, bringing the leverage ratio down. Obviously, that happens through good cash generation. You know, we prepaid $250 million of debt last year. This year, with our transformation program, we have a use of cash to execute on a lot of the changes that we're implementing, but we're still gonna be focused primarily on debt prepayments. So we expect to end this year in the low threes. We were at 3.5 times in the last quarter, and we're expecting to be at in the low threes by the end of this year.
Got it. And so the follow-up question was around, you know, just the M&A side. I. You kind of answered it. You said you already have generations worth of growth, so-
Generation.
Generation. So, so I guess that means in the next couple of years, call it, or, or whatever timeframe you want to put it in, not to expect any significant deals. And kind of add on to that, I mean, Neustar was a transformational deal for you guys-
Yep
... to a certain extent. Now, in that area, though, was that asset enough, or do you feel like there are gaps in there that you need to still add on to that?
Okay, so the first part of the question, M&A, high bar for us, to the comment that I made about, you know, we feel like we have a generation worth of growth ahead of us. That doesn't mean that we're sitting back, and we're not looking at what's going on in the market. The corporate development team continues to be very active. I think our investors would feel that we'd be remiss to take our eye off the market, right?
Yeah.
But because of what we've done in the last three years, it's a high bar that we'd have to clear, clear. The strategy hasn't changed, you know, whatsoever, as far as, you know, we're always looking for data assets or new markets, you know, to operate in, or just capabilities that enhance, you know, the vertical markets, you know, that we have. So from an M&A perspective, it would have to fit into that strategy, but also clear a pretty high bar.
Got it. And then, you know, just to follow up on the Neustar question, you know, how much of Neustar is, like, deeply integrated, embedded-
Yeah
... in the TransUnion systems? Because you've also referred to how you've quickly pivoted to using their technology-
Right
... as part of your transformation. Just give us a flavor of, you know, how, how separate it is, how integrated it is.
Yeah, no, great question. So the technology that we acquired from Neustar, we knew at the time of the acquisition was exceptionally strong and differentiated. And at the time of the acquisition, their platform was called OneID. And the whole idea, you know, was for us to be able to leverage their technology, but then bring all the data assets that TransUnion has, you know, and put that all on one common platform. I would say that we have, we're even more pleased with what we've acquired, and the technology from Neustar that we acquired is underpinning the tech transformation that we announced back in November. I mean, that's what we're, we're leveraging.
So, you know, you think about, you know, we announced what we announced in November, back on March 13th, we put out a press release announcing OneTru, which is our platform.
Yeah.
In essence, it's the replacement of, you know, OneID, but with all of TransUnion's data on it. Really exciting stuff that's happening there in that, you know, first of all, we're gonna take all of our data assets, and we already have, and we've put them on a common platform. That might not sound like a big deal, but up until this point, maybe all the data assets weren't on a common platform. So for a developer who's working on innovation-
Yeah.
He had to go to a lot of different places in order, you know, to get work done. And then there's an important compliance aspect of our work, too, as far as-
Yeah
... privacy considerations, and being compliant. So, we've gone through a robust tagging of the data to where, you know, the data has where we know we can use it and where we can't use it at, and how we can use it appropriately. So that's been a very significant, you know, lift for us. Right now, our marketing and our fraud capabilities are leveraging, you know, this, this capability-
This... Okay.
-and our advanced, analytics platform also is. And then what we're working on is to move core U.S. credit and India credit-
Interesting
... to the platform by the end of 2025.
Okay.
So a lot of efficiencies are coming from this. So you think back to the transformation program that-
Yeah
... that we announced back in November, you know, we announced that it's gonna cost between $355 million and $375 million. And, yes, in by 2026, we're gonna get $200 million of free cash flow savings, which is pretty significant. But what's even more exciting about this, and, and it, it's the technology capabilities and the innovation that we're gonna be able to drive from this program, that's where the value is really gonna be, when we're done with this work, in the next couple of years.
Got it. So that's interesting. So I think there was. I might get the name wrong, but the initial transformation at TransUnion was Project Rise, right?
Correct. No, you got it.
Then the second phase was Project Spark?
No, no.
Uh-
Spark was first.
Spark was first, and then Rise.
Yeah.
But then, so now the after Neustar, you've basically replaced the second phase with-
Yeah
... OneTru. Is that how we should think about it?
Think of it as Project Spark goes back to the time of the IPO in 2015.
Yeah
... and that was when TransUnion got off the mainframe-
Correct, yes. Okay.
... onto a distributed server network. Then what Project Rise was, was to take that, the distributed network, environment that we had, and move it to the cloud. And now what we're doing is we're completing Project Rise. Project Rise will be done at the end of 2024.
Okay.
But now what we're doing on top of Project Rise is all this work with OneTru that-
Got it
... I was just talking about.
Okay, fair enough. And maybe this, just to end with, you know, as part of your transformation plan, you know, you talked about your global centers of GCCs, right? And, you know, a lot of the shifting of employees out there. So once that is done, how should we think about the right sizing, I guess, of your employee footprint? You know, how much is gonna be sitting offshore and, you know, I guess, how do we think about that run rate?
Yeah
... going forward?
Yeah, so TransUnion's Global Capability Centers, you know, in essence, didn't exist if you go back to 2017.
Yeah.
Right? We had outsourced our software development to a third party, and in thinking about it, we said, "Well, you know, why are, why are we doing that? We could do this ourselves with our own employees." And by having our own employees working on it, they can do more with the data, right? Again, it comes back to the regulatory and compliant nature of the data. But then there was a margin aspect. We're paying a third, third party. So we started with, you know, software development, and we insourced that.
And then, since Chris Cartwright has been CEO, he's had a big push towards the company operating like a global company. So how do you centralize and standardize similar functions and put them in a location? So the Global Capability Center network that we've set up is in India. We have in Chennai, in Pune, and a couple of other locations. We also have one in Johannesburg, South Africa, and recently opened one in Costa Rica. So the intention is to kind of have a follow-the-sun type-
Yeah
... of approach as well, too, so we can, you know, leverage the deep talent pools in each of these markets, you know, to be able to, again, centralize and standardize the work. So right now, we're sitting at about, TransUnion has about 13,000 employees. About 4,900 of those employees sit in that global capability center network. So what started off as software development is now something that each of Chris's direct reports on the executive team has an initiative to operate globally, right?
Yeah.
Centralize work and, you know, standardize that work. So that's what, you know, that's where the focus has been. So this isn't necessarily, this is an important point. It's not necessarily a reduction of our workforce, it's a change in where our work is being done at.
Okay, fair enough. All right, cool. Well, we're just about out of time, so let's just end there.
Okay.
Thank you, Todd, for your time.
Thank you, Manu.
Thank you, everyone, for being here.
I appreciate it.
Cool.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you. Thanks.