Paul Todd
Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open
Thanks, Cameron. I want to reiterate how pleased we are with the way in which our team members have responded during this crucial time to ensure business continuity, deliver the highest standard of support and execution for our customers and allow for us to achieve strong financial performance. For the first quarter, total company adjusted net revenue was $1.73 billion, reflecting growth of 108% over 2019 and ahead of our preliminary expectations on April 6. On a combined basis, our revenue increased slightly from the prior year, including a roughly 50 basis point headwind from the impact of negative foreign currency exchange rates. Adjusted operating margins expanded an impressive 300 basis points to 39% for the quarter and well above the 250 basis point annual expansion target we mentioned on our last call. As a result, we were able to deliver strong adjusted earnings per share growth of 18% to $1.58, which also includes a roughly 100 basis point impact from adverse foreign currency exchange rate movements. This first quarter bottom line performance was better than anticipated when we previewed our first quarter on April 6. Notably, from the start of the quarter through the first two weeks of March, our performance was exceeding our growth expectations compared to last year, excluding the impact of the virus we were already experiencing in the Asia Pacific region. Our Merchant Solutions business drove the outperformance while results for our issuer and business consumer segments were tracking relatively in line with our expectations through that period. However, in the second half of March, the spread of COVID-19 began to impact our results meaningfully in North America and Europe in addition to Asia Pacific. As Jeff and Cameron both mentioned, it was a dynamic quarter for all of our businesses, and I want to provide some color on each segment. First, adjusted net revenue in Merchant Solutions increased 2% on a combined basis to $1.1 billion for the first quarter, which includes nearly a 100 basis point headwind from currency while adjusted operating margin improved 180 basis points to 45.4%. Before the spread of COVID-19, we were experiencing low double-digit adjusted net revenue growth in this segment, excluding the impact of COVID-19 in Asia Pacific, which negatively impacted results consistent with the $15 million drag we had previously disclosed. This strength was largely attributable to our technology-enabled businesses, including Global Payments Integrated, which was tracking toward mid-teens growth for the lion’s share of the quarter. This business continues to benefit from record new wins, strong same-store sales and low attrition rates driven by our ability to provide a truly integrated ecosystem across more vertical markets and more geographies than our peers. We also maintained our consistent track record of strong growth in our vertical market software portfolio ahead of the COVID-19 impact. As Jeff and Cameron indicated, booking trends across the portfolio remained strong with record achievements at several of our businesses during the period. Our relationship-led businesses were also seeing good momentum outside of Asia Pacific before the spread of COVID-19. Notably, in North America, adjusted net revenue was tracking up low double digits ahead of our expectations, and our European businesses were delivering high single-digit growth. For the full quarter, as in-store volumes came under pressure, our e-commerce and omni-channel businesses served as a partial hedge. As Cameron noted, we delivered strong growth in online sales at Heartland during the quarter while in Europe, we saw high single-digit growth in the UK and roughly 20% growth in Spain as more spending moved online. E-comm omni revenue was also up double digits in APAC during the first quarter. Moving to Issuer Solutions, we delivered a record $442 million in adjusted net revenue for the first quarter, representing growth of 150 basis points on a constant currency basis. As I mentioned previously this business was tracking in line with our expectations through early March for roughly 3% growth with underlying trends to that point remaining consistent with our long-term outlook for mid-single-digit growth. Adjusted segment operating margin expanded a very strong 430 basis points to 39.5% as we continue to drive efficiencies and make the pivot toward the cloud in this business. We also added over 13 million accounts on file this quarter, producing yet another record. Transaction growth was in the mid-single digits. We experienced strong volumes in managed services as cardholders ramped up the frequency of their interactions with trusted financial institutions in the quarter. Finally, our Business and Consumer Solutions segment delivered adjusted net revenue of $204 million, down nearly 7% from the prior year primarily due to headwinds from the CFPB prepaid rule and seasonal tax impacts. Absent that, adjusted net revenue was roughly flat for the quarter, marking a continuation of the underlying trends from the fourth quarter of 2019. Adjusted operating margin for the quarter for this segment was 25.7% and was again better than our expectation. We continue to be pleased by the performance of our DDA products with account growth of over 30% from the prior year period. As Jeff mentioned, we saw a substantial benefit in early April from the processing of stimulus payments in this segment. In sum, we delivered solid operating performance across all our segments through outstanding execution, and we also benefited from the early and rapid cost actions we took to position our company given the current environment and for the eventual recovery. As it relates to cost actions, as Jeff highlighted, we have already implemented expense initiatives that will translate to roughly $100 million per quarter in incremental cost benefits for the balance of 2020. Our focus has been to streamline discretionary spend that includes cuts to G&E and marketing budgets, reductions in executive pay and other salary initiatives and additional targeted actions across the organization. We have also been intentional about these measures to allow our strong growth momentum to continue when a more normalized operating environment resumes. From a cash flow standpoint for the quarter, we generated adjusted free cash flow of approximately $400 million, which was in line with our expectation. We also exited Q1 with roughly $1.3 billion of available cash, including $640 million in excess of our operating cash needs. This excess cash increased approximately $300 million from year-end. We have adjusted our capital spending outlook for the year from the high $500 million to low $600 million range we talked about on our last call and now expect to be in the $400 million to $500 million range or roughly $100 million less for the year. We invested $105 million of cash in the first quarter that was focused on new products and technologies to ensure we continue to build upon our leading portfolio of pure-play payment solutions, which is consistent with our newly revised estimate. Earlier in the quarter, we finished the buyback activity started in the fourth quarter, purchasing 2.1 million of our shares for approximately $400 million. We did, however, suspend repurchases in early March. We ended the quarter with a leverage position of roughly 2.45 times on a net debt basis or roughly 2.75 times on a gross basis consistent with year-end. Our strong investment-grade balance sheet, in combination with our stable free cash flow generation, provides us with ample capital and financial flexibility to navigate through this challenging time. With $2.9 billion of liquidity, including our available cash and undrawn revolver and no significant required debt repayments until our maturity in April 2021, we are truly in a position of financial strength. We will continue to monitor and leverage market opportunities to maintain that strong position over the long-term. Although trends are dynamic, we have seen some stabilization and improvement in late April from the lower levels we have seen several weeks ago. Specifically, volume trends in our merchant business have held fairly steady and begun to recover modestly, led by our technology-enabled businesses. In addition, markets that have recently reopened, such as China and in Central Europe, have seen similar stabilization and improvement trends in domestic volumes. Our Issuer Solutions business remains resilient as bundled pricing and managed services volumes are helping to mitigate the impact of transaction level declines. Our international issuing business also remains a bright spot with absolute growth in the low-single digits despite the macroeconomic environment. These trends have been offset in part by what we are seeing in our commercial card area due to limited travel spending by corporations and governments. Similar to our experience in merchants, issuing trends have stabilized and recovered somewhat in selected verticals over the last several weeks. Finally, Business and Consumer Solutions has benefited from processing substantial stimulus funds, and we do expect to recapture some of the lost revenue from last quarter related to the extended tax deadline over the next several months. Additionally, April is the first month where we do not have CFPB headwinds for comparison. And while we are not providing guidance at this time, I think it’s worth parsing our business in light of the current environment. First, we have several businesses that have been relatively more resilient through this period. This includes both our issuer and business consumer segments, which combined account for roughly 35% of our adjusted net revenue. Additionally, roughly half of Merchant Solutions adjusted net revenue has been generally less economically sensitive. This includes our omnichannel business, Global Payments Integrated and certain vertical market solutions like Xenial, AMD and our university business. So two-thirds of our businesses have been somewhat insulated from fluctuating consumer spending trends. With that said, it is difficult to predict when and how the current environment will change. However, we are confident we will emerge stronger due to the significant cost initiatives being implemented to protect our earnings, cash flows and investment-grade balance sheet. All in all, we are pleased with how we are positioned given the unprecedented times we are operating in as a company. And with that, I’ll turn the call back over to Jeff.