Earnings Call Transcript - FOUR Q3 2024

Operator, Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Shift4 Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Tom McCrohan, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations for Shift4. Thank you. You may begin.

Tom McCrohan, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. And good morning, everyone and welcome to Shift4's third 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. With that, let me turn the call over to Jared. Jared?

Jared Isaacman, CEO

Hey, thanks, Tom. So we have a lot to cover today. I’m going to break up this call into the following sections. We’re going to start with Q3 results, then we’ll go into the deep dive by vertical and major initiative, talk about expectations for Q4, and end off with reflections on our performance since the IPO. We were really pleased with what was a reasonably strong quarterly performance and our overall execution within the variables that we can control. We delivered quarterly records across all our major KPIs: volume, gross revenue less network fees, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted free cash flow. Our adjusted EBITDA margins were also a quarterly record of 51.3% or nearly 54% when excluding a 250 basis point drag from recent acquisitions. Specifically, we delivered $187.4 million of EBITDA, generating $111 million of adjusted free cash flow, which is up 46% versus a year ago, representing a 59% free cash flow conversion. Let’s talk about what really went well in the quarter. It was absolutely one of our strongest quarters for new logo wins, especially within hospitality. I can’t actually recall a better quarter for mega hospitality wins. It starts right off with KSL Properties, as well as a very large Las Vegas international casino operator that also committed to Shift4. We believe we are number one in end-to-end hospitality payments in the world. Similarly, we believe we’re number one in end-to-end sports and entertainment payments provider in the world. The stadium, theme park, and ticketing wins continue to roll on. We believe we’re number two in the world when it comes to our cloud-based restaurant POS product, SkyTab. SkyTab installs and the associated SaaS revenue streams continue a very strong growth trajectory. I'd say we are unranked when it comes to our global e-commerce capabilities, but that's quickly going to change as we follow our strategic merchant relationship all over the world and we expect to win other blue chip customers just like them. Over the last quarter, our contracted volume saw $5 billion flow into actuals and alongside an incredible list of new logos brings our contracted volume backlog to $33 billion. We set a big goal to hit 10,000 international restaurants and hotels in 2024. I think it's pretty clear we're going to come up short in that regard, but we do have over 1,000 international card present merchants with our first Vectron installations complete. We also enhanced our capital structure, added more firepower, and topped off our gateway conversion funnel with the acquisition of Givex that's going to add about 130,000 premium customers and what we believe to be at least $300 billion in volume that we can convert alongside the fact that its gift and loyalty capabilities are very good and we're going to bundle that into the rest of our offerings. Our synergy realization and a culture of deleting parts and staying flat has resulted in expense discipline and continued profitable growth. As a result, we have once again raised the midpoint of our gross revenue less network fee and EBITDA guidance for the fourth quarter. So that brings you to what could have gone better. Well, we grew incredibly quickly but as you've heard from others, clearly there's been some consumer spending softening, especially in some of the verticals that we serve. As mentioned, we also would have liked to have been much farther along with our Canadian and European card-present strategy. We have about 1,000 unique merchants processing card-present payments in these new geographies, which is pretty good for a year's work. But we certainly were hoping to have several thousand more processing by now. However, the momentum is building quickly and there should be no mysteries where the next 65,000 European restaurants will come from in the years ahead. I’d like to do a bit of a deep dive into each vertical. Our customers are really the envy of the industry and we appreciate the trust they've placed in Shift4. For those questioning our growth rates, every one of these wins I’m about to rattle off includes payments and the associated revenue stream is entirely organic. This is just a summary of the wins that we have delivered this past quarter. As I mentioned before, I think we are clearly number one in hospitality payments in the world. The announcements this quarter kind of reinforced that statement. Just starting off with KSL Resorts, operator of many incredible properties, including Blue Mountain or Camelback for us, East Coast skiers who learned how to ski on ice, and a variety of other mountaintop and beachside resorts including nine other premier resorts, and we’re going to continue to expand this into the future. We are also very proud to sign a new and undisclosed mega resort in Las Vegas that also includes their other domestic and international locations. I want to emphasize we don’t just process the payments for the restaurants in the hotel. I think at times people confuse us with others in this regard. When we announce all these resorts and refer to being number one in hospitality in the world, it means we are processing the reservations, guest stays, retail shops, the bar, the spa, and the restaurants. Moving on, I believe we are number two in the world in restaurant POS and payments with SkyTab leading the way as our signature cloud-based offering. We do spend considerably less on traditional sales and marketing than our closest competitor, but we believe our investments in deals like Revel and Vectron, even Givex, deliver lots of distribution, talent, and most importantly, a massive customer list to cross-sell payments to. By virtue of these deals, we have more than a foot in the door to discuss a broader software plus payments relationship, and we can generate a lot of revenue without ever having to win a new customer. The proof points include growing subscription and other revenue streams alongside our profitable results that demonstrate we know how to sunset legacy products quickly and rally the organization around a single product offering, SkyTab. Some notable restaurant wins this past quarter include Lombardi Family Concepts, which operates 22 restaurants primarily in Texas, Bigby Coffee, a fast-growing coffee chain that currently operates over 400 locations in 13 states, and Shakey's Pizza which operates dozens of locations in California and Washington. Since coming out of beta two years ago, we have installed over 55,000 SkyTab systems, and we are on pace to far exceed the 35,000 install goal we set for 2024. It's also worth pointing out that we are never satisfied being second best. We have a great roadmap to further enhance the product. We have the experience and we believe we’ll take SkyTab literally all over the world. I believe we are number one in the world when it comes to sports and entertainment, theme parks, software, and payments. We continue to deliver software plus payment wins each quarter alongside many ticketing wins. This quarter includes the Memphis Grizzlies, the San Antonio Spurs, the Brooklyn Nets, Dallas Stars, University of Arkansas, the Washington Capitals, the Washington Wizards, and more of your favorite teams. If you took your family to Six Flags or Disney or any other theme park this summer, you're almost assuredly interacting with our commerce technology. We are still in the early days of gaining wallet share within this important vertical, but this past quarter marks the highest processing volume in stadiums yet with no signs of it slowing down. Now, turning to nonprofits, our donation platform, the Giving Block, continues to attract a lot of new nonprofit customers. We signed Habitat for Humanity of Silicon Valley, the American Israeli Education Foundation, the Montana Community Foundation, Follicular Lymphoma, Mount Sinai Medical Center, to name a few. Year-to-date volume is already more than double last year's volume and we’re not even in prime giving season yet. Our integration with Give Lively is now live and we’ve begun migrating merchants over to Shift4 from Stripe. Give Lively offers nonprofits a free of charge fundraising technology platform, currently used by over 9,000 nonprofits. We’re also seeing the fruits of our prior investments in innovation. We acquired the Giving Block about two and a half years ago to pursue what is a $500 billion donation opportunity made annually through nonprofits. We've also established the Crypto Innovation Center to explore ways crypto could benefit all our customers, not just nonprofits. We announced in October that we intend to make available crypto and stablecoins as a form of payment for many of our merchants. We see significant interest from existing clients to learn more about these capabilities. We already have customers such as Tao Group and luxury charter flight company, Blade, among our early committed customers for this Pay with Crypto initiative. Turning to gaming, we continue to roll out our SkyTab mobile devices at more BetMGM Sportsbook locations and we're now live at the BetMGM Sportsbook at State Farm Stadium, which is home of the Arizona Cardinals and the annual Fiesta Bowl. Our strategy for some time has been to follow our strategic customer all over the world and bring the products, software integrations, and other services that helped us be successful in the USA into those markets. This past quarter we launched in four new African countries, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Botswana, and Burundi. We expect to launch in between four to six additional countries in Q4 with LATAM, Australia, and New Zealand on the horizon for early 2025. We believe we have added sufficient global e-commerce capabilities, both local to local, cross-border, and soon, MOR, that our solution is now a viable option for other global enterprise e-commerce customers, just like our strategic customer. We continue to expect full year organic gross revenue less network fee growth to be in excess of 25%. On that note, I think it's worthwhile to take a step back and just view the progress we've made over the last 4.5 years since we went public. We have accomplished everything we said we would since our IPO and since setting our midterm guidance. We established ambitious volume and net revenue targets at our inaugural Analyst Day back in the fall of 2021, and we are currently tracking to meet or exceed those targets. We have diversified into a half dozen new verticals, including expansion internationally and today dominate in some of these verticals, especially hotels and sports entertainment. We executed well on our plans to use this opportunity as our yellow brick road for geographic expansion. Second, we showcased our experience and accomplished this profitably while most who established midterm goals in 2021 used economic and geopolitical challenges to explain away their shortfalls. If you go back to November 2021, our inaugural Analyst Day presentation, our full year 2024 volume, gross revenue less network fees, and adjusted EBITDA were expected to be $144 billion, $1.1 billion, and $433 million, respectively. It should be apparent we have surpassed these expectations. Today's consensus expectations for our volumes are $25 billion higher than those numbers or 17% higher at nearly $170 billion. For gross revenue less network fees, consensus is now $250 million higher or 23% higher at $1.35 billion, and for adjusted EBITDA consensus is $240 million higher or 55% higher at $673 million. Moreover, we are on pace to deliver $390 million of adjusted free cash flow in 2024, nearly double what consensus reflected three years ago. We have to focus on organic initiatives, including adding tens of thousands of new payment customers, unlocking material revenue synergies from cross-selling payments to an installed customer base, and capturing share of wallet with our existing customers by adding new software integrations. This past year alone we’ve added over 200,000 additional customers and a funnel of nearly $350 billion in payment volume to cross-sell payments. We recently announced the acquisition of Givex, which recently closed and represents another classic Shift4 acquisition. We acquired over 130,000 additional customers and what we believe to be a $300 billion payment cross-sell opportunity from Givex alone. Our balance sheet and free cash flow afford us the flexibility to keep doing what we’ve been doing. We have continued to delete parts, expand margins, and improve efficiency, tracking a long list of targets and maintaining a buyback authorization. We have considerable work to do internally to improve our overall operational efficiency. We deliver results as what I would consider a good company, not an excellent one. We have a lot of legacy parts to delete as we sunset gateway connections, upgrade legacy POS solutions, implement new internal systems like Project Phoenix, centralize our operations, and incorporate AI. You should expect us to continue to expand margin, free cash flow generation, and consistent profitable growth. We have transformed from a domestic player focused on restaurants to a commerce-enabling platform serving hotels, stadiums, global e-commerce, non-profits, and theme parks all over the world. As a public company, our investors are entitled to understanding how all this comes together, but there is only so much education we can capture within our earnings presentation, my letter, and this call. We will be hosting an extensive investor event alongside our next earnings report. With that, I will turn the call over to Taylor.

Taylor Lauber, President

Thanks, Jared. I will begin by discussing the current operating environment, provide some insights into our current backlog and growing cross-sell opportunity, and also update you on the progress with our key strategic objectives. During the quarter, we experienced the customary seasonal spending lift in July and August as consumers took vacations and traveled more. However, spending in restaurants had moderated, with most customers in that vertical experiencing a roughly 3% decline in same-store sales year-over-year. While restaurants did not materially worsen, we also saw some modest softness in other verticals in September as leisure travel subsided alongside back-to-school trends. These year-over-year declines in same-store sales have largely been low single-digit percentages and notable in the context of consumer sentiment versus previous quarters. Looking at October, we've seen hotels improve to roughly flat year-over-year same-store sales, while restaurants remain modestly below last year's levels on a same-store sales basis. Sports and entertainment have been a particular bright spot with numerous overlapping seasons leading to record weeks. Our current backlog is approximately $33 billion, up from $25 billion in Q2, due to the many new wins signed during the quarter that have yet to be installed or are still ramping. Despite converting roughly $5 billion of our backlog, the pace of enterprise wins has been strong, resulting in a higher number than last quarter. We view our growing backlog as testimony to the productivity of our sales teams and a positive leading indicator for sustained volume growth into future quarters. It’s important to remember that we sign thousands of restaurants, hotels, e-commerce customers, nonprofits, and others every quarter that go live nearly immediately. Our key software integrations, expanding geographic footprint, and success closing the gap with our competitors in global e-commerce is contributing to our success, adding more enterprise merchants that build on our backlog. The progress we are making expanding all over the world in support of our global e-commerce customer is probably one of the most overlooked potential opportunities inside of Shift4. The more geographies we can support, the more viable an option we become to global e-commerce businesses. Not included in our backlog is the massive payments cross-sell opportunity that remains a primary focus of our M&A efforts. Year-to-date alone, we added almost $350 billion of annualized cross-sell opportunity from Revel, Vectron, and now Givex. We will pursue the same proven strategy we deployed with our gateway-only conversion strategy to unlock the revenue synergies from these recent deals. Givex is a perfect example of our M&A strategy, and I want to elaborate on that for a moment. Givex historically operated a best-in-class gift card and loyalty offering, empowering over 130,000 merchants with it. They operated as a standalone product despite having very sticky solutions and excellent industry reputation. Their top 50 customer churn is under 1%, and the overall churn is under 3%. They often required to hobble together a commerce experience across numerous vendors; it was a necessity due to the complex nature of their business. We intend to offer an end-to-end solution to these merchants, akin to what we've been able to offer our most complex hotels and stadiums. To illustrate the magnitude of this, a 5 percentage point penetration of the Givex customer base alone could represent a 5% increase in gross revenue less network fees to Shift4. This is just one angle. The Givex product will significantly enhance our capabilities across our existing product lines, creating substantial value. Their talent is also additive as we constantly struggle to add talent and keep pace with our growth. While we are excited about these transactions, the deal environment remains highly attractive. We are sought after as a buyer for strategic assets, given our creativity and proven revenue synergies, coupled with a team that others want to join. The combination of these circumstances provides us a unique advantage, allowing for selectivity in our capital allocation. Earlier this year, we were often challenged regarding our M&A strategy. One critical consideration when executing our M&A strategy is a rigid adherence to measuring efficiency and constantly challenging our teams to use talent on genuine needle movers. Since our IPO, despite having five times the number of employees, adjusted EBITDA per employee has grown at roughly a 26% annual CAGR. This should instill confidence that overall productivity is a key deal objective as well, when we consider M&A. I'll now turn the call over to Nancy to discuss our financial results.

Nancy Disman, CFO

Thanks, Taylor. And good morning, everyone. We delivered another quarter of consistent and solid results, setting quarterly records across all major KPIs highlighted by strong adjusted EBITDA margin and free cash flow conversion. Total Q3 volume of $43 billion grew 56% year-over-year. Gross revenue less network fees grew 50% to $365 million, and we remain on track to deliver organic revenue growth north of 25% for the full year. Adjusted EBITDA grew 51% year-over-year to $187 million. Adjusted EBITDA margins were 51.3% or nearly 54% excluding a 250 basis point drag from recent acquisitions, which we expect to synergize over the next 12 to 18 months. Our quarterly results were driven by the continued strength of our hospitality and restaurant verticals, momentum across our enterprise merchants, further monetization and conversion of gateway and software-only customers, and an increasingly larger contribution from stadiums and ticketing. This quarter is yet another proof point that our vertical diversification since IPO allows us to deliver strong results even when facing macro headwinds in one or two verticals. The impact is visible in both our payments-based revenue growth and the increased contribution from SaaS-based fees. Blended spread for the third quarter was 60 basis points. Despite softening consumer conditions, spreads across our core businesses remain stable, and we still expect full-year spreads to average 61 basis points. Subscription and other revenue was $102 million in Q3, up 111% from the same period last year. This growth was driven by our success across SMB, SkyTab, and further penetration of the sports and entertainment vertical, including a full quarter of Vectron and Revel legacy revenue streams. Growth in this category will not always be linear, as we often restructure legacy revenue models from acquisitions, pivoting them towards our significant Shift4 payments value proposition, potentially causing declines in legacy revenue contribution while realizing payments-related revenue synergies. The timing of one-time revenue may also cause fluctuations quarter-to-quarter. We are focused on delivering profitable growth and driving significant operating leverage. Our disciplined approach to expense management has enabled us to exceed expectations on EBITDA even when encountering lighter volume, which is the Shift4 way. Even with record-breaking adjusted EBITDA margins of 51.3% this quarter, we have confidence in opportunities to further improve our underlying margins that are still on the horizon. We have parts to delete as we integrate our recent acquisitions and invest in several internal systems and AI technologies that will enhance operational efficiencies and scalability across our platform. Our adjusted free cash flow in the quarter was $111 million, up 46% from a year ago, representing adjusted free cash flow conversion of 59% in line with our full-year expectations. Fluctuations in our adjusted free cash flow conversion rates are typical due to seasonal business patterns, capital deployment to support growth, and normal working capital cycle changes. Overall, enhancements in our unit economics and efficient operating model continue to produce strong free cash flows. We can continue to strategically invest in product development, global expansion, talent, and operations. We take pride in being among the few growth companies that maintain extreme expense discipline and focus on efficiency gains, allowing us to generate exceptional cash flow without sacrificing growth. During the third quarter, we repurchased approximately 289,000 shares for about $20 million, leaving around $460 million of capacity available as of September 30 under our current program. Since our IPO, we have repurchased about $350 million, totaling 6.5 million shares at an average price of $54. GAAP net income for the third quarter was $72 million, with GAAP diluted EPS of $0.74. Non-GAAP adjusted net income for the quarter was $96 million, or $1.04 per share on a fully diluted basis. We’ve not historically added back acquired intangible amortization to non-GAAP net income and EPS. The full quarter impact of Revel and Vectron purchase accounting was a sequential headwind that primarily drove the increase in acquired intangible amortization of around $5 million or $0.05 per share from Q2 to Q3. Looking ahead to 2025, we will conform with our industry peers and include the addback of acquired intangible amortization in our adjusted EPS calculations. During the quarter, we further strengthened our balance sheet and enhanced our capital structure by issuing $1.1 billion in bonds, expanding our revolving credit facility to $450 million, and implementing a new $100 million settlement line with Citizens to eliminate the previous requirement for cash collateral on our balance sheet. Our total indebtedness now has a weighted average cost of 3.8%, and our net leverage at the end of the quarter was approximately 2.4 times. We expect the $690 million of convertible debt due in December 2025 to be classified as current debt on our December 31, 2024 balance sheet. However, following the financial activity this quarter and our robust cash flow profile, we are positioned to pay it down at maturity. I want to highlight two notable non-cash accounting items from this quarter. Based on our growth and profitability since our IPO, we have concluded that it’s more likely than not that we will realize the tax benefits within our valuation allowance, requiring us to record a release of this allowance. This is reflected as an income tax benefit on our Q3 income statement. Also, we recorded a liability associated with the tax receivable agreement on our balance sheet totaling approximately $370 million. This liability is theoretical based on our current tax status and tax laws but will take years to be realized, with only about $4 million expected to be paid over the next 12 months. These are both positive signs of the strong fundamental growth of Shift4 and necessary to highlight due to their substantial balances. Our strong balance sheet, growing EBITDA, growing free cash flows, and recent capital structure actions give us greater flexibility as we continue to grow and opportunistically buy back stock without being punitive to our equity. Before turning to guidance, as we approach the end of our initial medium-term outlook, I want to reiterate Jared's comments. We are on track to meet or exceed the ambitious volume and net revenue targets we set back in 2021, including 50% CAGR in end-to-end volume and 30% CAGR in gross revenue less network fees. Now to guidance. We are updating our full-year guidance to include Q3 outperformance and the contribution from Givex, which just closed on November 8. In the upcoming years, we expect to capture meaningful payments related revenue synergies from Givex as we cross-sell payment processing to their merchant base. With just under two months left in the year, we are tightening our guidance ranges across all KPIs to reflect Q3 results and expectations for the year’s balance. For full-year end-to-end volume, we expect a range of $164 billion to $166 billion, representing a 50% to 52% year-over-year growth. For gross revenue less network fees, we expect the range to be $1.35 billion to $1.36 billion, representing 44% to 45% year-over-year growth. For adjusted EBITDA, we expect the range to be $677 million to $688 million, representing 47% to 50% year-over-year growth. Year-over-year adjusted EBITDA margins at midpoint of updated guidance have increased to 50%, which is about a 100 basis point expansion from prior guidance. We are resetting our adjusted free cash flow conversion expectation to 58% from 59%, which will yield over $390 million of adjusted free cash flow for full-year 2024. Full-year guidance reflects increasing the fourth quarter guide midpoints for gross revenue less network fees and adjusted EBITDA. A couple of callouts for our fourth quarter guidance include a significant potential to cross-sell payments in SkyTab, including from our recent acquisition of Revel, a contracted annual volume backlog of approximately $33 billion that is contracted but not yet implemented or at expected run rate, and rapid acceleration of SkyTab system installs. We are now on pace to exceed 35,000 installs in 2024, surpassing our original goal of 30,000. Many wins featured every quarter, especially stadiums, ticketing, and major enterprise ski resorts, typically see their strength in the fourth quarter. Though we fall short of our 10,000 international hotel and restaurant goal for 2024, we rapidly ramped up in Canada, the UK, Ireland, and now with Vectron conversions in central Europe. Our strategic e-commerce customer is adding volume quickly, and we organically expand into several new international markets with at least four new countries set to go live in the final months of the year. We continue to expect organic growth of gross revenue less network fees to exceed 25%. If you annualize our recently raised midpoint of Q4 EBITDA, it indicates we are positioned relative to 2025 consensus estimates. Our balance sheet, cash generation, and profitable growth provide an excellent stance in the current macro uncertainty. Now I’ll turn the call back over to Jared.

Jared Isaacman, CEO

Thanks, Nancy, and appreciate everyone bearing with us. I know it was a longer call than usual, but we have an Investor Day coming up. There’s always a lot going on at Shift4 and planning to discuss. Before turning it over to analysts for Q&A, I wanted to address a question submitted from Twitter. This is from John G in Boston. John asked two questions: Why do you believe another firm hasn't replicated Shift4's acquisition strategy? And how long do you believe you can continue to pursue this strategy? A lot of companies are reasonably active at M&A. Within payments, Adyen is probably the only scale payments company that hasn’t done an acquisition. Even Stripe and Square have completed deals. It’s clear that when an industry is in transition, deploying capital intelligently is a logical strategy. Many businesses are using M&A to fix problems rather than to drive opportunities, which can lead to mistakes. Companies that don’t clearly define their synergies may hesitate to fully commit to their future. Others experience significant tech debt, leading to shortfall in productivity and profitability. We’ve been successful because we’ve followed a methodical M&A strategy for over a decade, executing successfully since we adopted our integrated payments strategy with Harbortouch. As for the sustainability of this strategy, it’s still early days for software plus payments convergence. If you believe we’ll run out of good ideas in this convergence, you’d assume that Adyen and Stripe would too, given they chase the same opportunities. We have no shortage of opportunities ahead, and though 2024 was particularly busy, we didn’t pursue many deals in 2021 due to an inflated valuation environment. I wouldn’t worry about us running short of impactful initiatives. With that, I’ll open the floor to analysts for further questions.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from Timothy Chiodo with UBS. Please proceed.

Timothy Chiodo, Analyst

Great. Thank you for taking the question. I want to talk about the $49 billion high-end guidance for end-to-end volumes in Q4. You talked about annualization of EBITDA. Two points I was hoping we could touch on. One is Q4 seasonality around end-to-end volumes. In the past, seasonality used to be a little bit lighter in Q4, but things have changed regarding the mix. Is it fair to assume there's much less seasonality, and we could use the $49 billion as a jumping-off point for next year? And related, if we take that $49 billion and multiply it by four, we start to approach $200 billion in volumes versus the high end of this year at around $166 billion. I appreciate you’re not giving a fiscal 2025 guide, but to help investors understand some building blocks for next year with Vectron, Revel, and Givex, there's quite a lot of components to consider. Can you elaborate on those?

Taylor Lauber, President

Hey, Tim. This is Taylor. I’ll let Jared summarize the key building blocks. He’s great at that. Regarding the seasonal cadence, you’re right to note that Q4 has become somewhat predictable. Sports and entertainment schedules contribute heavily to Q4 now. Although restaurant spending can be mixed during Thanksgiving, this year’s performance is likely more stable compared to past trends. Annualizing Q4 as an average quarter for year-round forecasting seems fair, but keep in mind that Q1 usually exhibits lower spending across all verticals. In terms of the needle movers for 2025, I think Jared can summarize that a bit more succinctly.

Jared Isaacman, CEO

Yes, and Tim, to address your point, if you annualize Q4, you’ll find that we’re in a strong position regardless. Volume from our $33 billion contracted backlog saw $5 billion rolled into actuals this past quarter, which are solid deals we can count on. Generally, our outlook is positive. In terms of where the needle movers will come from, I believe we should have an investor day to delve into this comprehensively. We talked about launching Shift4 payments for mass transit systems in major European cities, which highlights the progress we're making. We have substantial focus areas like restaurants, hotels, and stadiums. There’s a lot to unpack for everyone regarding future expectations.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Dan Perlin with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed.

Dan Perlin, Analyst

Thanks. I wanted to dive deeper into the pull-forward dynamics for Revel and Vectron's integration plan. What drove that pull forward? Could you share early learnings from the POS in Germany, the UK, versus the US? Lastly, how does this relate to the challenges you've noted regarding Canadian and European card present transactions?

Jared Isaacman, CEO

Yes, Dan, that’s an excellent question. There’s a timing aspect. Our approach centers around sending letters to customers making various concessions, speeding up the onboarding process. Sometimes, it doesn't align perfectly when these concessions happen and actual volume ramps up. The pivoting is going as planned; it’s just about boarding thousands of accounts at the right pace. For instance, we saw early progress with our beer garden installations in Germany, and we are looking to ramp up to 100 by October. However, the European card-present rollout for our strategy remains a focus, and we’re working on it, but we are pleased with overall progress.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rayna Kumar with Oppenheimer & Company. Please proceed.

Rayna Kumar, Analyst

Good morning. Could you provide an update on your gateway conversion process? How much opportunity remains, and are challenges emerging due to the softening consumer spending affecting gateway conversion?

Taylor Lauber, President

Hey, Rayna, it’s Taylor. The opportunity remains robust, with approximately $120 billion still available for gateway conversion, and our progress continues with large enterprises. The pace is now more structured, with an ongoing focus. Overall, it remains an incredible opportunity despite the slower revenue contribution. We aim to fill that gateway conversion funnel despite market conditions.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Darrin Peller with Wolfe Research. Please proceed.

Darrin Peller, Analyst

I’d like to explore your differentiation in international markets. What are the top areas you’re targeting for international growth, and how do you plan to differentiate yourself moving forward?

Taylor Lauber, President

Our excitement with Europe lies in the continued growth of software plus payments as a convergence theme. The distribution of the integrated solution is not yet fully realized, and we bring operational expertise and the complete value chain to merchants. We partner with leading software and hardware providers like Vectron and Finaro, allowing us to create a bundled solution that reduces complexity for merchants. We’re highly optimistic about the software plus payments frame of mind overall.

Jared Isaacman, CEO

Just to add, beyond software integration, we’re discovering substantial opportunities in card present capabilities in European markets. This includes substantial use cases from hotels, stadiums, and new markets for global e-commerce. There's plenty of growth potential for Shift4; competition exists, but we are firmly differentiated on delivering integrated solutions.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Schmidt with Citi. Please proceed.

Andrew Schmidt, Analyst

Could you share how you're managing complexity within the organization with multiple acquisitions, internal simplification, and an M&A pipeline? How do you mitigate risk across different initiatives?

Jared Isaacman, CEO

Great question! We concentrate a considerable amount of activity into two or three significant initiatives, and our project management office plays a crucial role in ensuring coordination across teams. We emphasize the Shift4 way: radical ownership, deleting unnecessary parts, and executing without adding management layers that hinder rapid decision-making. By focusing on key initiatives and optimizing resource allocation, we can navigate complexity effectively.

Taylor Lauber, President

To add on, every decision is rooted in ROI, which fosters a culture of innovation where teams are encouraged to use available tools creatively, always focusing on the bottom line.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our final question comes from Sanjay Sakhrani with KBW. Please proceed.

Sanjay Sakhrani, Analyst

Can you discuss the changes regarding consumer spending trends, and do you have concerns? Additionally, can you share insights on SkyTab’s success?

Taylor Lauber, President

We’ve observed a notable decline in same-store sales in restaurants since mid-summer, which aligns with broader economic trends. Many verticals saw slight softness in September while hotels have rebounded recently. Our diversification strategy proved advantageous. SkyTab continues to perform excellently, with a robust growth trajectory evidenced by our rollout in Europe. Expect to see further expansions and success stories in Q4.

Jared Isaacman, CEO

We’re pleased with the pace of progress with SkyTab, particularly in Europe. Our goal is to surpass our install targets for SkyTab, and each deal provides opportunities to gain additional talent and implements broader software integrations that enhance our overall strategy.

Operator, Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes our question-and-answer session and thus concludes our call today. We thank you for your interest and participation. You may now disconnect your lines.