Earnings Call Transcript - CPAY Q3 2022

Operator, Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the FLEETCOR Technologies, Inc. Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Please note this event is being recorded. I'd like to turn the conference to Jim Eglseder, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

James Eglseder, Head of Investor Relations

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. With me today are Ron Clarke, our Chairman and CEO; and Alissa Vickery, our Interim CFO. Following the prepared comments, the operator will announce that the queue will open for the Q&A session. It is only then that you can get in line for questions. Please note, our earnings release and supplement can be found under the Investor Relations section of our website at fleetcor.com. Now throughout this call, we will be covering organic revenue growth. As a reminder, this metric neutralizes the impact of year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates, fuel prices and fuel spreads. It also includes pro forma results for acquisitions closed during the 2 years being compared. We will also be covering non-GAAP financial metrics, including revenues, net income and net income per diluted share, all on an adjusted basis. These measures are not calculated in accordance with GAAP and may be calculated differently than that at other companies. Reconciliations of the historical non-GAAP to the most directly comparable GAAP information can be found in today's press release and on our website. I also need to remind everybody that part of our discussion today may include forward-looking statements. These statements reflect the best information we have as of today. All statements about our outlook, new products and expectations regarding business development and future acquisitions are based on that information. They are not guarantees of future performance, and you should not put undue reliance upon them. We undertake no obligation to update any of these statements. These expected results are subject to numerous uncertainties and risks, which could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. Some of those risks are mentioned in today's press release on Form 8-K and in our annual report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents are available on our website and at sec.gov. Now with that out of the way, I will turn the call over to Ron Clarke, our Chairman and CEO. Ron?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Jim, thanks. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining our Q3 2022 earnings call. Upfront here, I plan to cover 4 subjects. First, I'll provide my take on Q3 results. Second, I'll provide updated full-year 2022 guidance. Third, a brief preview of 2023, along with some of the factors that will affect our performance. And then lastly, I'll catch you up on a few recent developments. Okay. Let me turn to our Q3 results, which were quite good and ahead of our expectations. We reported revenue of $893 million, that's up 18%, and cash EPS of $4.24, that's up 21%. Our EBITDA for the quarter exceeded $450 million. Organic revenue growth was quite good, coming in at 13%. That was led by our corporate payments business at 21% and our lodging business at 28%. Trends in the quarter were also quite good. Same-store sales finished at plus 2%, retention remained steady at 92%, and overall sales performance was terrific, up 24% for the quarter. We onboarded almost 60,000 new clients during Q3. So the fundamentals of the business remain very solid, obviously, we are selling a lot and retaining a lot. Additionally, I want to point out that we're continuing to strengthen the setup, the positioning of the company, which obviously improves our growth prospects going forward. We added some important EV assets and further refined our plan to go on offense. We added significant AP automation software to front-end our corporate payments solution set that really rounds out for us the AP solution set. We continue to expand our fuel footprint in Brazil, driving transaction growth there. We're expecting an exit rate of about $10 million annual add-on fueling transactions, so good progress. Let me shift gears and turn to our updated full-year 2022 guidance along with the assumptions behind it. We are revising our full-year 2022 revenue guidance up to $3.410 billion at the midpoint. This includes absorbing about $8 million of macro headwind in the second half versus our August guide. We're maintaining full-year 2022 cash EPS guidance of $15.95 at the midpoint, the same number we gave in August. This does include a bit of a flip-flop. We pulled some revenue forward through gift orders into Q3 that we had outlooked in Q4. We're also absorbing about $0.04 to $0.05 of dilution from the new Plugsurfing and Accrualify acquisitions. We're also incurring about $30 million of incremental bad debt and interest expense way above our August guide as the Fed has accelerated their interest rate increases. If we achieve this $3.410 billion and $15.95 updated '22 guidance, that would represent 20% revenue growth and 21% earnings growth for the full year versus 2021. Next up, I'm going to share a brief preview of our early look into 2023. Like most companies, we're expecting the '23 setup to be quite challenging. We run the business, plan the business on a macro-neutral basis so that we can operate through any kind of cycle, good or bad. Our preliminary '23 budget submissions show we're expecting organic revenue growth overall of about 10%, which is our target. Inside of that, probably no surprise, global fleet is projecting mid- to high single digits. Our lodging and Brazil businesses are expected to be mid-teens, and our corporate payment business for next year is anticipated to be in the high teens. By the way, we're closing in on almost $1 billion of overall revenue next year, which is quite significant. We plan to have much clearer insight into 2023 when we speak again in 90 days, and we'll offer up our formal '23 guidance then. On the recession front, we wouldn't describe FLEETCOR as recession-proof, but we are pretty recession resilient. Some reasons that we should be resilient include: first, our solutions are essential, generally not discretionary. Demand for our services runs higher in inflationary or cost-conscious times, as seen with fuel this year and the demand that we have observed. Lastly, our businesses are geographically diverse, servicing various client sizes from SMB to enterprise across numerous verticals, resulting in a variety of product or spending categories. We're by no means immune to certain client segments being impacted by recession, such as construction. We will tighten credit in the event of a downturn, which could pressure revenue. We plan to have a clearer picture of 2023 when we speak again in 90 days, and we'll offer our formal guidance then. Let me transition to my last subject, updating you on a few recent developments, starting with the FTC case. The court held a two-day hearing on the FTC matter on October 20 and 21. Importantly, the judge concluded that she would not enter the proposed FTC order and rather encouraged the parties to mediate to negotiate, so we've agreed to engage with the FTC and see what we can work out. We believe that the face-to-face court hearing was quite helpful. It provided us a chance to summarize the various disclosure and process enhancements that we have voluntarily made over the last 4 to 5 years, all aimed at enhancing our customer experience. Some enhancements we called out included eliminating certain digital add claims and the language around that, ceasing to sell add-on features via negative options and instead packaging various features into three packages that we sell affirmatively upfront. We designed and implemented much clearer terms and conditions, including a fee box that's front and center. We also collected express or affirmative consent from 96% of our fuel card client base to the specific terms of their card program. We've proposed additional enhancements going forward, including crediting client payments on the day we receive them instead of the day they're posted, along with other items that comply with the CFPB consumer payment standards. Even though we're B2B, we are willing to do this. We've talked about combining our invoicing and reporting materials into a single consolidated package to simplify review for clients. We have emphasized through this FTC case that we are trying to cooperate and be transparent. We simply need to understand precisely what practices are being asked of us so that we can implement and comply. Concerning our situation in Russia, we have decided to explore the sale of our Russia business. We've retained a local investment bank and have formally launched the sales process. The business generates meaningful free cash flow, so that can potentially support acquisition financing along with annual dividends. We believe this should provide a reasonable floor on the valuation. We have completed all necessary steps to isolate or separate the business away from FLEETCOR. This provides assurance that we can maintain compliance with sanctions. We plan to move into this isolation or passive ownership phase beginning in early December. We will keep you updated on the sale process. On the acquisition and capital allocation front, we have completed three capability acquisitions since we spoke last: a corporate payments add-on called Accrualify on August 1; an important EV deal in Europe, Plugsurfing on September 1; and we closed yesterday on an international workforce lodging deal called Roomex. We expect to complete the cross-border deal called Global Reach, which is a bolt-on, around the end of the year. As you can see, we are focused on capability acquisitions in this environment, choosing to strengthen the positioning and setup of the company over the midterm. We hope that M&A valuations reset a bit next year; higher interest rates will obviously take hold, and perhaps we can return to larger accretive transactions. Additionally, we repurchased $500 million of FLT in Q3 at what we believe are attractive prices. In closing today, again, very good Q3 results. Earnings grew 21%, maintaining our full-year '22 cash EPS guidance at $15.95 despite a weakening macro environment. We expect '23 to be a challenging year, but we see our overall organic growth rate around our target of 10%. Our earnings will predominantly turn on the interest rate and FX environment. The FTC case is finally winding down. Again, we do not expect a material impact going forward. We have decided to explore the sale of our Russia business, and the process is underway. We are pleased with these capability acquisitions this quarter. Lastly, I extend my gratitude to Alissa for stepping into the CFO role on an interim basis. Now over to you, Alissa.

Alissa Vickery, Interim CFO

Thanks, Ron. I'm happy to be here on my first earnings call as CFO, albeit on an interim basis. I look forward to meeting many of you on the conference circuit in the fourth quarter. Now let's look at some more detail on the quarter. As Ron mentioned, we posted 18% growth in revenue, driven by 13% organic growth, which I'll delve into in a moment. The remaining growth was 4% from macro tailwinds and 2% from acquisitions made over the past year. Fuel prices for the quarter were at $4.46 per gallon, higher than last year at $3.15, contributing $26 million of additional revenues versus the prior year, lower than our guidance of $4.64 from August. Fuel spread revenue was also quite positive, contributing about $21 million compared to the prior year as falling fuel prices during the quarter caused spreads to widen. Offsetting these tailwinds was a $21 million negative impact from lower foreign exchange rates, primarily resulting from unfavorable movement in the British pound. Now moving to organic growth. Corporate payments were up 21%, driven by continuing strong new sales across both direct and cross-border segments. Specifically, our direct corporate payments business, or non-partner business, grew 24% and continues to demonstrate robust growth, particularly for AP, which grew 44%. Cross-border was up 30%, another strong quarter as new sales remained robust across nearly all geographies. Our channel partner business is just under 10% of the corporate payments category and declined 13% in the quarter as our focus is on growing our direct businesses. Fuel grew organically by 5%, though we did see some volume softness in our U.S. SMB businesses. However, our new sales growth was at 13%, and we continue to see a normalized level of flat same-store sales contributing to the performance. Overall transaction volumes remain positive and consistent with the last quarter, although we continue to see slight moderation in new sales activity. Tolls were up 12% organically compared with last year as the business continues to perform well. New sales are solid, driven by our expanded product utility and differentiated value proposition. As a reminder, our toll solution can be used to pay for multiple spend categories, such as parking and drive-through retail, and we are now generating meaningful revenue from our Beyond Toll use cases. Lodging continued to show strength in Q3, up 28%. All three business lines: Workforce, Airlines, and Insurance had double-digit organic growth, with Airlines leading at 55%. Growth was driven by a combination of higher year-over-year volume in Workforce and Airlines along with a favorable rate environment across all three businesses. Gift had another good quarter, up 9% as customer card orders continue to be pulled forward from Q4. We estimate that approximately $6 million of revenue was pulled into Q3 due to early ordering in advance of the holiday season. Now, looking further down the income statement, operating expenses of $504 million represented a 21% increase over $417 million in Q3 of the prior year due to increases tied to higher volumes across our businesses, incremental bad debt, stock compensation, and new sales generation activities. Increases were also driven by the inclusion of the ALE and Plugsurfing acquisitions, as well as higher incentives and commissions due to strong new sales performances in certain of our businesses. Bad debt expense was $37 million or 8 basis points, which is about $10 million higher than last quarter and more in line with prepandemic bad debt levels. In the third quarter of 2021, bad debt was $11 million or 3 basis points. This increase was driven primarily by higher loss severity due to higher fuel prices in the second quarter, along with increases in application volume and application fraud. Bad debt levels remain elevated due to strong sales to new customers who tend to have a higher loss rate than those in our existing client base, the impact of rising fuel prices, and the changing macroeconomic landscape affecting our smaller customers. Interest expense increased by 56% year-over-year, driven by higher rates on our floating rate debt, with average LIBOR or SOFR in the current quarter at 2.2% compared to 0.09% in the same period last year. As Ron noted, we will provide guidance for 2023 in February when we report our full-year earnings. I want to comment on how to think about net interest expense in 2023. We currently estimate that our 2023 net interest expense will likely be closer to double the 2022 level. This assumes that benchmark index rates peak next year between 4.5% and 5%, and remain in that range for most of the year. While all of our debt instruments are floating rate, we do have $500 million of hedges in place for almost all of 2023 at 2.56%. Additionally, we have over $1 billion in cash balances globally on which we earn interest. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 26.8%, compared to 24.1% last year, which is a more normalized tax rate for our business. Now, turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with over $1.3 billion in unrestricted cash and approximately $600 million available on our revolver. There was $5.7 billion outstanding on our credit facilities, and we had $1.5 billion borrowed in our securitization facility. As of September 30, our leverage ratio was 2.95 times trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA as calculated in accordance with our credit agreement. In the quarter, we upsized and extended our securitization facility by $100 million to $1.7 billion and extended the maturity by one year to August 2025. There were several minor changes to the agreement, which will be detailed in our 10-Q next week. We repurchased roughly 2.2 million shares at an average price of $2.24 per share for a total of $500 million during Q3. This includes the roughly 900,000 shares repurchased before our earnings call in August. Year-to-date, we have repurchased 5.6 million shares for $1.3 billion. The Board approved another $1 billion in repurchases under our program on October 25 and extended the program through February 2024. With this upsizing, we now have approximately $1.355 billion available for future repurchases. As Ron has covered our full-year guidance update, I now want to share some thoughts on our guidance assumptions. We are assuming fuel prices of $4.25 in Q4, market spreads favorable to the fourth quarter of 2021, and total interest expense of $157 million to $167 million for 2022, which assumes average reference rates of 3.75% in Q4. The rest of our assumptions can be found in our press release and supplement. Thank you for your interest. Now operator, we'd like to open the line for questions.

Operator, Operator

Our first question will come from Darrin Peller with Wolfe Research.

Darrin Peller, Analyst

Even looking on like a two-year basis, the Fleet segment looks like it's high single digits or about 9%, 10% growth when just stacking it. It definitely looks like it's trending back to a normal rate or even better than a normal rate than what I think you guys would have expected. So can you touch on that for a minute in terms of where we are in your view versus any type of recovery? And then, just quickly, the add-ons, the follow-ons, and the cross-sells that you've been really able to implement, how has that been going, Ron? And if you could just touch on that too.

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Darrin, thanks. On the first one, I think we're still kind of in the 5% to 8% target range based on what we choose to invest. Some of the overperformance recently is literally the COVID recovery kind of climbing back from the depths there in 2020. So I think we're probably mostly unchanged because we have a lot of businesses to feed and investments to make, so we're kind of happy in that mid- to high single digits. On add-ons, I'd still say it's early days. We're still struggling with where to target, right? We've got a couple of hundred thousand clients we should focus on. So I think I mentioned initially we were thinking we would go to where the bulk is down-market, and then we realized most of the spend is in the larger accounts, which we can approach differently. We're still testing various approaches, but have the goal of turning the fuel card business into our corporate payments business, so it's a work in progress.

Darrin Peller, Analyst

That's helpful. And just one quick follow-up, if you don't mind, is on your preliminary outlook for next year. When you talk about the different assumptions, I guess, first of all, the reported revenue growth target you mentioned, I think you said 10% organic. Is that organic—I'm assuming that means organic? Is that reported or constant currency? And then also, when we think of the $17 EPS guidance, just what are the assumptions on fuel and macro that go into that? It seems like the underlying core assumptions are sustainable and seem like they've really gotten to a point that's been strong.

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Yes. So on the first one, I'd say we're kind of halfway through the '23 budget cycle. We have worked on revenue, obviously, harder than the expense and profit side. It's a mix of different business lines, fuel, lodging, Brazil and corporate payments have different growth rates to achieve that 10%. That is an organic number, although the print, at this point, looks pretty similar because we have some pro forma revenue rolling forward from '22 to '23, offset by what we think could be some macro headwinds, particularly from FX. So at this point, year-to-date, there's not a significant difference between organic and reported growth. And on the bottom line, again, the thing we can control is largely our operating margin.

Operator, Operator

Our next question will come from Ramsey El-Assal with Barclays.

Ramsey El-Assal, Analyst

I wanted to first ask about Russia. If you could update us on the size of that business, it would help us contemplate what it might mean to take it out of the numbers. And also, just I'm pretty sure the answer is it's not contemplated in that preliminary read of next year, but if you came to an agreement there to sell the business, that we would need to sort of exclude that from our models for next year?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Yes, Ramsey, it's Ron. Both are good questions. So on the first one, it obviously depends on the FX, but the ballpark revenue generated is about $100 million, a little bit more, with a kind of 75% EBITDA margin, depending on current FX rates. And yes, we haven't factored anything in terms of taking it out yet, although we have considered models where we sell it for X and use that cash to buy back shares, which will help manage dilution as we look into next year. We'll keep you guys apprised as we go through the shopping process.

Alissa Vickery, Interim CFO

And I'll just add, this is Alissa. The specifics around Russia have been included in our 10-Q disclosures previously in terms of sizing.

Ramsey El-Assal, Analyst

Great. One quick follow-up for me. On the FTC matter, is there any sense of timing in terms of when this might be resolved? Is this the type of thing now where there's a relatively protracted negotiation? Or will it be resolved sort of in short order to the degree that you can tell? And then, Ron, you seem pretty confident there's no P&L impact here. Is there any best or worst case type of outcomes? Or is it really like no matter how the cookie crumbles here you guys are going to come out of it okay?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Yes. On the first one, we're clearly on some kind of glide path, right? So a guess would be a couple of months, 2 to 3 months, depending on how the negotiations go and when the court gets back involved if they do. On the impact, yes, there's nothing in their order which the judge turned down or really anything we're contemplating because it's disclosure based. There's nothing fundamentally that would stop us from charging something or signing up customers. The good news is we've implemented a plethora of changes that have been reported within our results. So there’s minimal anticipated impact to our financial performance moving forward.

Operator, Operator

Our next question will come from Sanjay Sakhrani with KBW.

Sanjay Sakhrani, Analyst

A question for you, Ron, just on the valuations for M&A. It seems like there’s been a pretty marked decline in fintech valuations. I’m curious if you’re seeing any opportunities arising, and how we should balance that relative to share repurchases?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Yes, Sanjay. To your point, there has been a reset in the last few months. You can see by what we've announced this quarter that when we started the process, we focused on capability acquisitions because no matter what the price is, they're about capabilities and are not large amounts of absolute money. We have a couple of more traditional FLEETCOR deals that appear to be in ranges that we like for transactions. Let’s wait and see how the thing plays out—people move their valuation aspirations with time. So to the extent that people wait and do not trade, we think there could be a further reset next year since some players are feeling the squeeze these days; we are optimistic that valuations will improve, allowing us to target larger deals again.

Sanjay Sakhrani, Analyst

Just a follow-up. Alissa, you mentioned fuel volume softness, and I’m curious, if we dig beneath that, do you think it's macro-driven in nature, or what's driving that?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

No, I’d say the fuel volume and transactions. We reported about 4% volume growth transaction growth for the quarter. While there are a couple of segments like SMB Trucking that are softer than normal, most of that is offset by enterprise truck firms. The most significant factor seems to be some feedback from our local SMB accounts — higher prices have caused a slight elasticity which has made some of them tighten their operational range, so we’ve seen behavior changes. But overall, it remains stable.

Alissa Vickery, Interim CFO

On the interest side, regarding 2023. As you know, Fed Funds target rates have skyrocketed with expectations to peak around 3.75% this year and target around 4.5% to 5% for next year. Our outlook on interest expense is likely around $300 million plus. However, our gross interest expense figures will be higher since we have large amounts of cash at higher rates offsetting the expense.

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Yes, that net number considers our cash position, Sanjay. Our estimations are high-level, considering that we're navigating a volatile macro environment. We’ll work with what we’re hearing and update the numbers appropriately as we receive more clarity.

Andrew Jeffrey, Analyst

I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question this afternoon. Ron, some encouraging commentary on margins for next year. Can you talk a little about how much of that is driven by cloud migration and digital sales initiatives versus being a bit more selective in terms of the customers you sign up in this macro environment? If we see a recovery in 2024, would we expect margins to come down a bit as you lean into new customer growth a bit more?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

That’s a great question, Andrew. Our target margin is around 55%. We expect we'll be around 52% this year; however, that can fluctuate based on our investments. We anticipated a softer year ahead, considering costs. The tightening macro environment will have us more selective about new customer growth, primarily focusing on those with lower credit risks. Regarding lodging, we continue to see strong growth, and I see it being in the high teens to 20% range historically. We anticipate strong growth as we lap through tougher comparisons, especially with airlines also recovering.

Sheriq Sumar, Analyst

I have a question regarding the cross-selling opportunities. It's been a few quarters since you last mentioned the growth of that, but what's the update on that process? Is there a potential for you to ramp up the cross-selling efforts going into 2023?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Yes. As I mentioned earlier, we’re still in the process of cross-selling. We initially focused on smaller clients given the magnitude of our larger accounts. The strategy has evolved as we realized that corporate payments depend heavily on spend, not just client count. We've identified how best to maximize our larger dual card accounts and aim to reshape our cross-selling efforts accordingly.

Peter Christiansen, Analyst

I'd like to pivot to fuel card sales. When prices peaked earlier in the year, that certainly drove new sales, but now with gas prices dropping, what's your view on how fuel prices today are influencing fuel card sales? Do you still see a positive tailwind?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

There’s a relationship, for sure; demand rose significantly amid price peaks, boosting inquiry. While sales have dipped, they remain above historical levels. We're seeing a mix of both digital and non-digital sales approaches, and while we note reduced demand relative to peak levels, it remains solid overall.

Jeff Cantwell, Analyst

Just wanted to follow up on some of the earlier questions, particularly around fuel assumptions for 2023. If we're looking at Exhibit 2 in your press release regarding fuel transactions, what growth rates do you envision next year to achieve mid- to high single-digit revenue growth in fuel?

Alissa Vickery, Interim CFO

For fuel price assumptions in 2023, we have kept that consistent with this period, projecting around $4.37 with some moderation on spreads. Our strategy remains to balance volume and rate; we expect that balances between the rates generated and volume will persist as we integrate incremental products.

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

As Alissa mentioned, mix continues helping us; we currently have focused on a larger SMB segment, resulting in better sequential rate performance as our footprint expands. Concerning broader macro challenges, the ongoing volatility will directly impact our planning for the upcoming year. Our goal is to maintain revenue and EBITDA growth regardless of these pressures.

Mihir Bhatia, Analyst

I want to thank you for the updates on the FTC, Russia, and also the early look on 2023, which I find very helpful. I want to clarify just a bit on interest expense for next year; does the $300 million approximation include the benefits from operations in Russia, particularly in terms of the high interest rate scenario there?

Alissa Vickery, Interim CFO

Yes, it would accommodate any benefits from deposits that we might have in Russia on the income side. We don’t have much of an interest expense connection with that market; it is primarily about cash flow and normal operations.

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Returning to Lodging, the Roomex acquisition helps our workforce lodging business in Europe. This business mirrors our U.S. model effectively, primarily situated in the U.K. with some connections to Germany. This market expansion enables us to hasten growth as it's already a preferred market for our service.

Robert Napoli, Analyst

I appreciate the insights and the guidance for next year. I was hoping to get some detail on margin expansion potential. Are there areas where you're most confident regarding margin growth next year as well as over the long term?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

It's great to hear the focus on margins, Bob. We typically don’t plan margin growth segmented by business line; our discretionary spending of significance emerges primarily from sales and IT. Thus, we look at overall operational expenditure to sustain profitability, allowing us to build productivity through investments over time. For 2023, we will try to minimize new investments and keep margins aligned in the mid-50s range. The corporate payments business has immense growth potential due to its market size and the volume of transactions we are starting to handle, estimating our revenue for that segment to reach $1 billion next year. As we integrate new capabilities and work on sales strategies, I am confident that it will expand significantly if we execute our strategic initiatives effectively.

Kenneth Suchoski, Analyst

I'd like clarification on the Russia business's contribution to EPS. Does the $17 figure include that contribution, and how do you expect to access proceeds from the potential sale?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Yes, that figure will include it; we haven’t sold the business yet. We’ve had discussions around the cash flow from potential sales and in ensuring buyers can pay us effectively outside the region, depending on who the buyer is. We maintain a plan for that.

John Davis, Analyst

Ron, could you discuss bad debt expenses? Have you tightened the credit box at all, given expectations for macroeconomic softness?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Yes, that’s the summary. We've adjusted the credit process, introducing stricter guidelines on new accounts. For existing customers, we maintain flexibility due, in large part, to their credit history. However, if scenarios worsen, we may need to reassess credit limits and standards to reduce risk. Adjustments will reflect the current macroeconomic environment as well. Regarding margins for next year, I anticipate a reasonable path as bad debt is influenced by fuel prices, typically leading to burdens during periods of rising costs. But with pricing stabilize, we expect some improvement, especially for our larger accounts, which have a more reliable repayment history.

Trevor Williams, Analyst

I was hoping you could unpack the fourth quarter guidance a bit. It implies revenues down more than $20 million from Q3 to Q4. Historically, you see a more typical increase in that range. What additional moving pieces should we consider regarding Q4?

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Yes, those factors are largely correct, Trevor; revenues naturally fluctuate in seasonality. We recognize revenue pulls from last year when late holiday gifts came in large orders to counter that deficiency. Also, lower fuel price fluctuations weight into expectations for Q4; those have slightly tempered performance. However, overall, we maintain a steady outlook in light of last year’s strong performance.

Alissa Vickery, Interim CFO

One additional point: Given that interest expense is notably higher than previously projected, it will weigh heavily on our forecast for Q4, impacting profits. The combination of a contraction in fuel prices and shifting volume may soften expected outcomes and should be incorporated into the models accordingly.

Ronald F. Clarke, Chairman and CEO

Our conclusion overall suggests that despite shifts, we foresee expectations remaining optimistic, noting performance trends aligning with growth. Several of the macro factors regarding the volatility of fuel and interest rates are uncertain; however, we believe the company is well-positioned to navigate this evolving landscape.

Operator, Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session as well as the conference. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.