Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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So again, I think good strength across kind of the U.S. and North American businesses. Where we saw a little bit of headwind was from our Asian and European businesses. We do see some macro headwinds in the UK. I think we talked about that in our prepared remarks. And Asia continues to be impacted by COVID-related restrictions, although as we get early into 2023, we’re starting to see those lift, and January results obviously reflect a lifting of those restrictions, which is encouraging to see heading into the year. So really, our performance in Q4 was largely the same as Q3, but for international businesses. They were a point of tailwind in Q3, and there were a point of headwind in Q4. I think when you look at the business overall, fundamentally, 9% constant currency volume growth, I think, compares very favorably against what you saw from Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Fiserv.

So I think we feel very good about the momentum and the underlying fundamental performance of the Merchant business as we head into 2023. As we talked about this morning, our highlights for 2023 from a growth perspective start with Global Payments sort of core business at 9% to 10%, again, relatively consistent with the cycle guidance that we provided for that business reflecting a macro environment that we expect to be largely consistent with kind of what we’ve seen exiting 2022. So fundamentally, I think we feel really good about how the business is performing and the component parts in the technology-enabled aspects of the business that we expect to drive growth are continuing to do just that.

Jeff Sloan: Yes. And we see that trend, as I said, just to finish off on that point from Cameron, Darrin. As I said in the prepared remarks, we saw the same trends continue into January. So really with the preliminary results that we have for January, we are pleased with the metrics that we have into January and into February. So we really haven’t seen €“ as Cameron just alluded to, really haven’t seen much of a change. Bank of America came out this morning with some comments about a healthy consumer. So we continue to be pleased with where we are.

Darrin Peller: That’s great, that’s great. One quick follow-up on the Issuer side. You obviously have €“ you showed the acceleration we hoped for, for the fourth quarter, which is great. Think you have 75 million accounts on file that are scheduled to be able to come on over the course of the year and more maybe in €˜24 with Caixa, if I remember correctly. And so just thinking about the guidance for Issuer, it seems like it’s roughly €“ I think it was 4.5% to 5.5%, if I’m not mistaken. Between all the tailwinds, could it have been a little higher? Is that conservative? Can you just touch on that? Thanks, guys.

Jeff Sloan: Thanks, Darrin. Yes. So look, I think we’re really pleased with where the Issuer business is, and it’s really issuer and B2B now. So look, I would tell you that in the back half of calendar 2022, for Issuer in particular, we exceeded our expectations almost every month and certainly for the two quarters. So we’ve got our fingers crossed that we will do better and what that it will accelerate further. As I mentioned a minute ago, the metrics to January €“ preliminary results in January and metrics and issuance of February also look very healthy. So look, we’re hopeful we can do better than that. I would say though that the fourth quarter of €˜22 itself represented 80 basis points of sequential acceleration in core Issuer just from Q3, Darrin, into Q4 sequentially in terms of revenue.

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