Earnings Call Transcript - FOUR Q4 2024

Operator, Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Shift4 Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. And it is now my pleasure to introduce to you Tom McCrohan with Shift4. Thank you, Tom. You may begin.

Tom McCrohan, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Shift4's Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. With me on the call today are Jared Isaacman, Shift4's Chief Executive Officer; Taylor Lauber, President; and Nancy Disman, our Chief Financial Officer. This call is being webcast on the Investor Relations section of our website, which can be found at investors.shift4.com. Today's call is also being simulcast on X Spaces, formerly known as Twitter, which can be accessed through our corporate Twitter account at Shift4. Our quarterly shareholder letter, quarterly financial results and other materials related to our quarterly results have all been posted to our IR website. Our call and earnings materials today include forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and our actual results could differ materially as a result of certain risks, uncertainties and many important factors. Additional information concerning those factors is available in our most recent reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, which you can find on the SEC's website and the Investor Relations section of our corporate website. For any non-GAAP financial information discussed on this call, the related GAAP measures and reconciliations are available in today's quarterly shareholder letter. We are hosting our Investor Day event today in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, we do not have time to entertain any questions at the conclusion of our prepared remarks. With that, let me turn the call over to Jared.

Jared Isaacman, CEO

Thanks, Tom. We clearly have a lot of exciting things to discuss today, and we have an afternoon Investor Day to go through it. So despite my past tendencies, and this likely being my last earnings call, I'm going to endeavor to keep this as brief as possible. We plan to cover a summary of Q4 results, highlights from the quarter, our acquisition announcement of Global Blue, and finally, expectations for 2025. Regarding Q4 results, we once again delivered reasonably strong results that represented records across all of our major KPIs, including end-to-end volumes, gross revenue less network fees, adjusted EBITDA, and especially adjusted free cash flow. Our end-to-end payment volumes increased 49% year-over-year to $47.9 billion. Our gross revenue less network fees increased 50% to $405 million. Our adjusted EBITDA increased 51% to $205.9 million, and our adjusted free cash flow increased 78% to $134 million. All of these results represented quarterly records, as I mentioned before. Despite the doubters, we delivered on the promise of a back half ramp. The back half represented 57% of our full-year gross revenue less network fees, with the fourth quarter alone contributing 30% of full-year gross revenue less network fees. We also delivered positive operating leverage for the year with adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow both growing faster than revenue growth. We accomplished all of this while completing several acquisitions and deleveraging, with the year-end net leverage of 2.5 times. Looking at the multiyear picture, we ended the year surpassing our midterm guidance, which called for 50% three-year CAGR growth in volumes and a corresponding 30% CAGR growth in gross revenue less network fees. Our actual performance came in at 52% and 36%, respectively. We delivered these three-year results despite a more challenging economic climate than in late 2021. Since then, we experienced both record inflation and record increases in interest rates, which certainly caused stress for the average consumer. I'm not sure how many tech or fintechs established a multiyear outlook in November of 2021 and actually delivered, including surpassing expectations on the KPIs that really matter like free cash flow. Personally, I felt this was an important test for the company and the team and would speak to the credibility of the organization, especially important going in today where we will establish our goals for the next three years. Let’s turn to some highlights for the quarter. The team did a great job delivering signature wins across hospitality, restaurants, sports and entertainment and what we now call our unified commerce platform across multiple international markets. Starting with SkyTab in Restaurants, we easily surpassed our initial 2024 goal of 30,000-plus SkyTab system installations. We signed signature wins such as Casa Cipriani, Minetta Tavern, Bern's Steak House in Tampa, and Balthazar. Outside of the United States, we installed hundreds of international restaurants in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Central Europe, and the launch of our payment-led value proposition to Vectron's 300-plus European dealer network in January was very well received, with hundreds of deals already signed up in the month of January and a very successful UK and Ireland sales conference in Q1 of this year. In short, we are winning restaurants quickly in the USA, Canada, Ireland, UK, Central Europe, and soon to be in Australia and New Zealand. In hospitality, if you enjoy skiing, you're probably doing so as a Shift4 customer. Last quarter, we talked about signing KSL Resorts and Vail Resorts. This quarter, we are adding Alterra Mountain Resorts, which operates 19 ski resorts in the US and Canada, including well-known resorts such as Mammoth Mountain in California, Deer Valley Resort in Utah, Palisades Tahoe in California, Steamboat in Colorado, Tremblant, and Winter Park Resort in Colorado. We also power payments for the iconic Ikon Pass. We renewed our agreement with Great Wolf Lodge, an operator of indoor water parks with multiple locations in the US and Canada. We signed many new hotels, including the Meritage Collection of hotels, which operates several luxury hotels such as Paséa Hotel & Spa in Huntington Beach, California; Ko'a Kea Resort in Hawaii; Meritage Resort and Spa in Napa Valley; and Hotel Viata in Austin, Texas. This is just a sampling of the wins in hospitality this quarter. It was not long ago that bears were saying we were a one-trick pony in hospitality, simply converting gateway customers while likely losing an enterprise. The reality, and this has been demonstrated in our earnings deck over multiple quarters, is we are number one in the world, winning far more new enterprise resorts and across multiple geographies. Regarding Sports and Entertainment, the wins keep coming. We entered into an agreement to power payments for 10 House of Blues locations across the US. In sports, we cross-sold ticketing to the New York Yankees and the Dallas Mavericks. We signed the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Portland Trail Blazers, and the University of Southern California. We were honored to power payments for the College Football National Championship. Like in hospitality, when it comes to sports and entertainment, we are also number one in the world. Now let's talk about unified commerce. We consolidated all of our card-not-present efforts into a new category called Unified Commerce. Over the past three years, we have quietly built a robust one platform, one integration capability that enables commerce globally. Our platform capabilities were informed by our partnerships with strategic customers, widely considered to be technologically advanced corporations. St. Jude, Allegiant Airlines, BetMGM, and thousands more have begun using the platform, while we simultaneously invested in technology capabilities such as pay-ins, payouts, cross-border transactions, merchant of record, PayFac capabilities, local-to-local functionality, alternative payment methods, intelligent fraud monitoring tools, and a unique set of geographic coverage. We can operate in both card-present and card-not-present environments. This platform is particularly significant with our acquisition announcement of Global Blue, which Taylor will discuss further. We have continued to sign marquee names in the non-profit sector, resulting in a record quarter and year serving non-profits on our unified commerce platform. Q4 year-over-year volumes were up 660%, and annual volumes were up 319% year-over-year. This growth has occurred even before some of our large partners, like Give Lively, have fully scaled up their integration. We expect another year of strong growth. While small, we see crypto as an opportunity with material potential, especially with the current administration's support. We announced in Q4 that we began equipping our merchants with the capability to accept crypto payments across all our products. This month, we will complete our integration with SkyTab and make this capability available across our large existing installation base. We will be the first major acquirer to natively integrate crypto acceptance at the point of sale and will showcase this technology at our Investor Day event. For gaming customers using our unified platform, we continue to enter new technology partnerships in support of our land-based and online gaming casino customers. With BetMGM, we continue rolling out our SkyTab mobile devices for in-person sports wagering at BetMGM locations. All these end markets, whether non-profit, gaming, crypto, retail, and others benefit from our unified commerce platform. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of our unified commerce platform and how this aligns with our Global Blue strategy that Taylor will discuss shortly. Moving on to international, our strategy has been to follow our strategic customers worldwide and bring the software integrations and services that have made us successful in the USA to those new international markets. This process is going exceptionally well, driving demand for restaurant, hotel, stadium, and unified commerce in new geographies, giving us confidence to announce a deal like Global Blue to take full advantage of the capabilities we've built over the last few years. This past quarter we launched in several new countries and will continue into the first quarter of 2025. We are now processing across Latin America and expect to launch an additional four to six countries this quarter, with Australia and New Zealand on the horizon for early 2025. We have added sufficient global e-commerce capabilities, such as local-to-local, cross-border, merchant of record, and PayFac that our solution is now a viable option for other global enterprise customers like our strategic one. As my shareholder letter states, we will spend this afternoon doing a deep dive on the business, the verticals we aim to conquer, the products that we have developed, our go-to-market strategy, and how deeply advantaged we are in predicting growth outside for years ahead. We are number one in hospitality and in sports and entertainment. We are number two in restaurants, but we despise being second. We have an excellent strategy with our unified commerce platform and are the best capital allocators in the industry. We have proven this time and again and will continue as we progress through our Investor Day today. Our strategy gives us the confidence to provide impressive 2025 guidance alongside a new midterm outlook that considers various scenarios, from simply remaining static—resulting in excellent outcomes—to the pro forma case alongside our recently announced acquisition, and finally the most likely case that forecasts accelerated growth in line with our past achievements. In any of these cases, we are growing faster and more profitably than our peers. With this confidence, I can step aside and pursue the next chapter in my life, knowing Shift4 is on the correct course. Now, I will turn the call over to Taylor to discuss the recent acquisition.

Taylor Lauber, President

Thanks, Jared. As Jared mentioned, it's been our strategy for some time now to build a one integration one platform to power payments globally. Today, we're announcing the acquisition of Global Blue for approximately $2.5 billion in an all-cash transaction, which further builds upon our capabilities in this area. Global Blue is a market-leading payment platform supporting tens of thousands of luxury brands worldwide, including Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Valentino, Fendi, Prada, Burberry, Cartier, and many more. They operate a two-sided network offering over 15 million consumers quick and efficient VAT tax refunds when shopping abroad through their unique mobile application and advanced dynamic currency conversion capabilities. To be clear, we have spent many years admiring this business. The combination of their capabilities, our growing geographic coverage, and Global Blue's existing scale and network were all factors in underwriting this transaction with a high level of confidence. Simply put, the business standalone is exceptional before considering revenue synergies, and we estimate over $80 million of revenue synergies will be unlocked by the end of 2027 due to significant embedded cross-sell opportunities associated with over 400,000 merchants currently using Global Blue. We estimate the overall embedded payment opportunity to be over $500 billion. As a reminder, our cumulative cross-sell funnel is over $800 billion, and with this transaction, it increases our unique advantage across this customer base to over $1.4 trillion. The opportunity Global Blue provides us within unified commerce has also attracted two of the world's largest fintech companies, Ant International and Tencent. They have historically collaborated with Global Blue to enable a seamless shopping and refund experience via mobile applications and wallets. Both valuable partners have committed to further collaborate with us on e-commerce opportunities worldwide and have agreed to remain shareholders of the combined business. This is an all-cash deal to be financed with existing cash and proceeds from a $1.8 billion short-term bridge financing that will be replaced with long-term debt and convertible financing after launching an offering shortly. We expect to close the acquisition in the second half of 2025, subject to regulatory approvals. Our pro forma net leverage is anticipated to be approximately 3.6 times upon closing, and we aim to deleverage to around 3.3 times by year-end. This transaction is the largest in our history, which speaks to the conviction we gained during our investigation of the business. Despite its scale and unique product offering, it utilizes a playbook we've continued to refine over the last decade at Shift4. Whether it be Revel, Givex, Eigen, or now Global Blue, we are passionate about identifying critical, often overlooked businesses that have exceptional merchants who benefit significantly from a single comprehensive payment platform. We aim to deliver these merchants what they would have otherwise sourced from five or six different companies, thus delivering more value and convenience.

Nancy Disman, CFO

Thank you, Taylor. Jared provided a summary review of the quarterly financial results, so I will expand on a few additional items. Organic gross revenue less network fee growth for the full quarter 2024 was 26%. This reflects ongoing strength and momentum across all verticals and the successful monetization and conversion of gateway and software-only customers. Our Q4 blended net spreads were 60 basis points or 61 based on the average blended spreads for the full year, in line with our guidance. Spreads across our core business remained stable. Our Q4 adjusted EBITDA margins were 51% and 50% for the full year. Excluding a nearly 270 basis point drag from recent acquisitions, full-year adjusted EBITDA margins were 53%, and we expect to synergize these acquisitions over the next 12 to 18 months. Subscription and other revenue was $115 million in Q4, up 100% compared to the same period last year. This growth was driven by our success across SMB, SkyTab, and further penetration of the sports and entertainment vertical, as well as contributions from acquisitions completed during the quarter. Our adjusted free cash flow in the quarter was $134 million, bringing full-year adjusted free cash flow to $399 million, up 46% compared to a year ago. Q4 adjusted free cash flow conversion was 65%, leading to a full-year conversion of 59%. We are very pleased with our free cash flow generation as we are one of the few companies that are extremely disciplined in expenses, allowing us to generate exceptional cash flow without sacrificing growth. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased over one million shares for $110 million, leaving approximately $350 million of capacity available as of December 31 under our current program. A complete reconciliation of our shares is in the back of our earnings materials. GAAP net income for the fourth quarter was $139 million, and GAAP diluted EPS was $1.44. Non-GAAP adjusted net income for the quarter was $123 million, or $1.35 per share on a fully diluted basis. We have not historically added back acquired intangible amortization to non-GAAP net income and EPS, but we plan to do so starting next quarter in line with our industry peers. Our total indebtedness now has a weighted average cost of 3.4%, and our net leverage at quarter end was approximately 2.5 times. Our $690 million of convertible debt due in December 2025 was classified as current debt on our December 31, 2024 balance sheet. However, after recent financing activities and our strong cash flow profile, we are well-positioned to pay it down at maturity. Now, regarding our 2025 guidance, we are introducing this guidance excluding the Global Blue impact, which is as follows: volume between $200 billion and $220 billion, representing 21% to 33% year-over-year growth; gross revenue less network fees between $1.65 billion and $1.72 billion, representing 22% to 27% growth; adjusted EBITDA between $830 million and $855 million, representing 23% to 26% growth; and adjusted free cash flow conversion greater than 50%. While we are not providing quarterly guidance today, Q1 is shaping up in line with our expectations for both volume and revenue. We anticipate adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 45%, which aligns with historical trends as Q1 is a seasonal low point for margins. We also expect to absorb some drag from lower-margin M&A completed in 2024, but anticipate this being mitigated by year-end. With that, I will now turn the call back to Jared.

Jared Isaacman, CEO

Thank you, Nancy. We will be saving questions until after our Investor Day. Since this is likely my last earnings call, please know I leave Shift4 in the capable hands of Taylor Lauber and a great leadership team in whom I have the utmost confidence. They have been key architects in the firm's growth strategy and overall success over the years. While I can't predict how the process will go, I hope to offer input to Taylor whenever it is requested. To the extent permissible, I intend to remain Shift4's largest shareholder. As the founder of Shift4, from my parents' basement to the multi-billion-dollar public company it is today, I'm incredibly proud of the team and what we've accomplished over the last 26 years. I am immensely thankful to my family, friends, the incredible team, our advisers, and investors who believed in us, and in this amazing nation that makes stories like this possible. I will always be grateful. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time.