Gary A. Norcross
Analyst · Stephens Incorporated
Thanks, Frank, and thanks again to everyone for joining us this morning. As Frank mentioned, we are off to a very strong start for the year. Our continued sales execution and our ongoing focus on operational efficiency translated into consistent execution, including solid top line growth and margin expansion. My remarks this morning will cover several key topics. First, I will cover global sales execution and provide examples of continued demand for our full breadth of solutions. Second, I will discuss trends and new opportunities in each of our key markets. Last, I will highlight key innovation underpinning trends across all markets. I will begin with our global sales performance on Slide 10. Ongoing investment spending by our clients, coupled with strong sales execution, drove a strong increase in new sales to financial institutions in the first quarter. The pipeline continues to grow, and we see opportunities across all the markets that we serve. As we highlighted last quarter, deals' scope and size are expanding. This quarter, we continued to see larger transaction opportunities as we signed several significant deals greater than $25 million in contract value. This continues to amplify our success in meeting client needs through our innovative solution combinations, not only in our community markets but in the larger financial institution market as well. These trends are driving consistent top line growth and EBITDA for FIS, thanks to our solution depth and breadth, market diversity and global scale. Next, I will discuss trends and new opportunities in each of our key market segments beginning with North America on Slide 11. The overall spending outlook continues to improve despite ongoing regulatory scrutiny. As clients center on growing their businesses and optimizing their cost structures, changing consumer preferences, including how they engage with financial services providers, has accelerated the pace of solution innovation adoption by our North American clients. Increased investment spending, coupled with the need to drive efficiency gains, is resulting in a greater portion of total spend shifting to third-party providers like FIS. We see continued strength around core solutions. We are winning new deals and have a record number of opportunities in the pipeline. We are very pleased to welcome Milwaukee-based Guaranty Bank as a new core processing client. They will also deploy FIS's full suite of ancillary core and payment solutions. Continued core sales are important because these relationships drive significant cross-sell opportunities and additional pull-through revenue. We also continued to extend our leadership position among direct banks in the U.S., including the upcoming launch of GE Capital Bank, which is expected to go live later this year. As part of the agreement, GE Capital will leverage our outsourced core processing system, as well as other ancillary FIS solutions. These engagements follow similar implementations of our core solutions by RBC Bank and Barclays Bank over the past year. Additionally, we are seeing a steady trend by clients to outsource more of their technology, development and back-office functions. The shift is occurring across all markets and geographies as financial institutions recognize the strategic value of outsourcing. As an example, we acquired ProNet Solutions last fall, a leading provider of technology management solutions. The additional capabilities provided by ProNet were instrumental in securing a new outsourcing relationship with Beneficial Bank, a large community institution. We continue to execute our strategy to increase our share of wallet in the above $10 billion market, where our service offerings, scale and years of experience are key differentiators. In contrast to smaller institutions, which lever our full solutions suite, mid and top-tier institutions may opt to run a mix of in-house and outsourced solutions while leveraging our professional services capabilities. For example, USAA Federal Savings Bank, a top 25 institution, recently signed a multi-year agreement with FIS to manage the continual upgrade of our core processing platform. Next, I will cover our international market on Slide 12. Our successful expansion in key international markets and our growing global scale count among the important differentiators for FIS. In Europe, we experienced solid demand for core enhancements in consulting expertise. Given the economic backdrop and regulatory constraints, innovation in this market predominantly centers on the need to improve efficiencies. As a result, we're having more discussions around our outsourced processing and service capabilities. Although an elongated sales cycle persists, we are encouraged by the strength in the new sales pipeline and we remain excited about the potential for accelerated growth in the region. In the developing regions, we are seeing significant momentum in Asia and Latin America, which continued to register double-digit organic growth. Product innovation in both of these markets is being driven to a large degree by a focus on capturing more share of the growing bankable population, as well as government initiatives to expand banking services in underserved markets. Growth in Asia is broad-based, including our Payments business in India, as well as ongoing expansion of our core and Payment Solutions throughout Southeast Asia. Turning to Latin America. Brazil remains a strong growth market for us. Increased card usage and adoption is driving transaction growth and higher demand for cardholder support. New solution launches, such as the ELO card along with Banco Bradesco's plans to issue American Express cards, are generating new opportunities while leveraging our full service card operation. The success of the joint venture has resulted in strong brand identity for FIS and is driving expansion of our client base. We are pleased to announce a new 7-year card processing agreement with Cencosud, the fourth largest retailer in Brazil. By outsourcing its card operations, Cencosud will benefit from our robust and scalable solution, which is well suited to support their existing business needs and aggressive growth plans. We are also excited about opportunities to expand our Caribbean footprint. In March, we announced a new facilities management agreement with the FirstBank of Puerto Rico. As part of the agreement, FirstBank will outsource its core processing function to FIS and will deploy our business eBanking solution. In addition, FIS will manage the bank's IT infrastructure, including network support. This expanded relationship leverages our more than 40-year record in facilities management and on-site client support. Next, I'd like to discuss some of the opportunities we are seeing in the global financial institution market. Please turn to Slide 13. Our existing client base within this group includes more than 25 of the largest global and multinational financial institutions, with assets ranging from $300 billion to nearly $3 trillion. The addressable spend for these clients is substantially higher than our current share of wallet. The needs of institutions within this sector are unique to specific business strategies that require a highly sophisticated skill set and complex solutions where deep industry knowledge and a consultative approach are required. Innovation is driven by the need to adapt to new business models, transform business processes and enhance delivery execution. These were the driving factors behind the transformational change sourcing initiative for the large investment bank that we discussed at our recent investor update in New York. FIS identified these market trends early on. We began preparing for the shift nearly a decade ago by investing in next-generation technology, expanding our depth of consulting expertise and building out our service capabilities on a global scale. We believe that this powerful combination offers a value proposition that is unmatched in the market. Finally, please turn to Slide 14. Underpinning these market-specific trends are strong trends driving our solution innovation. Earlier this month, we highlighted our latest innovations in solution integration at our largest ever client conference. In addition to relationship and sales expansion, these events allow us to showcase innovation in a hands-on way and helps us shape our growth investments. Our new solution launches, including our enhanced mobile suite and real-time payment capabilities, resonated very well with our clients that attended. These innovations are supported through our recent acquisition of mFoundry, which positions FIS as the leading provider of mobile solutions. We now service nearly 19 million mobile banking users and 3 million remote deposit capture users, making us nearly 3x the scale and market reach of our next largest competitor. In Payment Solutions, such as our recently launched FIS People Pay and PayNet Solutions combined with consumer mobility requirements, drive new solution integration opportunities in our market. These investments are further bolstered by the fact that mobile banking apps now surpass online banking website as consumers' preferred method of remote access, prompting financial institutions to increase their investment in these areas. In closing, considering the -- consider the key takeaways outlined on Slide 15. We continued to deliver on plan to drive strong organic revenue growth, which increased 5% year-over-year and at 5% or more in 8 of the last 10 quarters. We continued to deliver on our plan to drive margin expansion, with consolidated EBITDA growing 8% in the quarter, expanding margins 110 basis points. We are very encouraged by the continued momentum of our business across all market segments and the increasing demand globally for transformative solutions as evidenced by our strong sales pipeline and our increasing large transaction signings, all of which are driving consistent top line growth and EBITDA. We feel very confident about our strong competitive position. We believe that the powerful combination of FIS technology solutions, service capabilities, consulting expertise, combined with our innovation investments and global scale, offers a value proposition that is unmatched in the market. And finally, these strengths, combined with our strong track record of consistent execution, provide an excellent foundation for continued strong performance. Again, thank you for joining us this morning. Woody will now highlight our financial report.