Karen Williams: Thank you, Paul, and hello, everyone. I’ve previously talked about my three key priorities when it comes to managing our financial performance, which are focused on accelerating cash flow generation, driving operating leverage and continued margin expansion and importantly, creating capacity to invest and drive long-term sustained growth, both organically and through strategic M&A. I’m really happy with the progress we have made in all three areas. Our solid revenue growth substantially higher earnings, significant margin expansion and positive free cash flow are testament to this. So now let’s turn to our financial performance in more detail. As you heard from Paul, revenue reached $610 million, up 6% year-over-year, largely driven by transaction growth.
This was in line with our expectations for the first quarter and reflects known factors including the calendar effect from workday timing. TTV grew 9% in the quarter, primarily driven by transaction volume and also reflecting increased average airline ticket prices and hotel room rates. Revenue yield, which we define as revenue divided by TTV, declined modestly in the quarter due to two factors. First, non-TTV driven components of the revenue base, as a reminder, our revenue model is driven 50% by transaction volume, 30% by TTV and 20% by product and professional services revenue, which is largely recurring, so only 30% of our revenue benefits from higher sales prices. Second, the continued shift to digital transactions is in line with our strategy and has a positive impact to adjusted EBITDA margin but lowers revenue yield.
These factors were anticipated and incorporated into our full year 2024 guidance that we provided last quarter. Turning to expenses, which are a key area of focus for us. Cost saving initiatives and productivity improvements helped offset the investments we are making in technology and content, including our software platforms and AI. This resulted in adjusted operating expense growth of just 2% year-over-year versus revenue growth of 6%. This strong operating leverage translated into 300 basis points of margin expansion and adjusted EBITDA growth of 24%. Adjusted EBITDA of $123 million and adjusted EBITDA margin of 20% are both records for the first quarter. Finally, we achieved free cash flow generation of $24 million, an increase of $133 million year-over-year.
Continuing the momentum this was also a milestone to reach positive free cash flow in the first quarter, which seasonally is our lowest quarter for cash flow generation. This was driven primarily by our working capital actions, which I have discussed on previous calls, as well as timing factors that will smooth out over the balance of year. Our leverage ratio or net debt divided by last 12 months adjusted EBITDA is 2.2 times as of March 31, 2024. This represents a very significant step down for us as a company. In March 2023 this stood at 4.5 times. And as you can see from the chart on this slide, the momentum is a critical proof point that demonstrates our discipline on the balance sheet and we are within our leveraged ratio target range of 1.5 to 2.5 times.
As mentioned during our full year earnings call, the reduction in our leverage ratio in Q1 drove 75 basis points of interest rate reduction on our outstanding term-loan. In total, since Q4 2023 we have triggered a reduction of 150 basis points, resulting in approximately $25 million of annual interest expense savings. And as our non-call option rolls off in July 2024, we will have the opportunity to refinance our debt and further reduce our interest expense. Now I’d like to turn our attention to the balance of year. On our last earnings call, we shared our powerful financial model with all of you and how it positions us for industry leading returns. First, we expect business travel demand from our premium customer base to grow above GDP, as it has done consistently for several decades prior to the pandemic.
Second, we expect to continue to grow ahead of the market by driving share gains with our differentiated value proposition. Third is margin expansion. We are laser focused on a disciplined cost structure and margin expansion. Our operating leverage is forecasted to drive 18% to 32% adjusted EBITDA growth in 2024. Fourth, capital deployment. We’ve talked about the pivotal moment we’ve reached in our business where our positive free cash flow can fund incremental growth opportunities. And finally, we have shared before how M&A presents an opportunity to further accelerate the strong performance you have already seen in our business. The pending acquisition of CWT is a powerful example of the incremental value we can create. And so let’s turn to full year 2024 guidance.
Please note our guidance does not incorporate the impact of CWT, which we expect to close in the second half of the year. We are reiterating our guidance for full year revenue of $2.43 billion to $2.5 billion, which represents growth of 6% to 9%. We expect same store sales to contribute 2 percentage points to 5 percentage points for full year revenue growth in 2024. On top of this, we expect net new wins to contribute approximately 4 percentage points of additional growth. We expect revenue growth to accelerate in the second half of this year due to the shape of our new wins rolling on and positive workday timing impact. We expect the shape of our revenue yield to be similar to last year with the lowest revenue yield in Q1 and the highest revenue yield in Q4.
And as discussed, we are very focused on driving operating leverage and margin expansion, which scales 6% to 9% revenue growth with 4% to 5% expense growth and drives significant adjusted EBITDA growth of 18% to 32% in our 2024 guidance through a range of $450 million to $500 million. This reflects expected margin expansion of 150 basis points to 350 basis points to reach a full year 2024 adjusted EBITDA margin of 18% to 20%. And so it’s important to note that this strong margin expansion is net of significant investments and future growth, particularly in driving our sales and marketing engine, our software platforms and AI. In 2024, we will benefit from the carryover of some of our cost transformation initiatives and will additionally realize incremental benefits from our continued focus on productivity across the enterprise.
We expect adjusted EBITDA in Q2 to be largely in line with Q1, and over the second half of this year we expect similar levels of adjusted EBITDA in Q3 compared to Q4. This seasonality is different than last year due to the timing of cost savings and continued momentum we are driving with regards to productivity and margin expansion. Finally, we are targeting free cash flow conversion of approximately 25% of adjusted EBITDA, this means we expect to generate in excess of $100 million of free cash flow in 2024, or more than double our 2023 free cash flow. This significant step up is driven by strong adjusted EBITDA growth. The reduction of integration and restructuring costs, lower interest expense as we deleverage, and the continued benefit from the Egencia working capital initiatives.
