Corpay, Inc. (CPAY) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, and welcome, everyone joining today's Corpay Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call is being recorded. need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Jim Eglseder, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for our earnings call to discuss the fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. With me today are Ron Clarke, our Chairman and CEO; and Peter Walker, our CFO. Our earnings release and supplemental materials for the quarter are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Please refer to these materials for an explanation of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call along with the reconciliation of those measures to the nearest applicable GAAP measures. Our remarks today will also include forward-looking statements about expected operating and financial results, strategic initiatives, acquisitions and synergies and divestitures, among other matters. Forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Some of those risks are mentioned in today's press release and on Form 8-K and can also be found in our annual report on Form 10-K. These documents are available on our website and at sec.gov. So now I'll turn the call over to Ron Clarke, our Chairman and CEO. Ron?

Okay, Jim, thanks. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining today's call. Up front here, I'll plan to cover 3 subjects. First, I'll provide my take on Q4, along with highlights for 2025. Second, I'll share our 2026 guidance. And then lastly, I'll outline our major priorities for 2026. Okay. Let me begin with our Q4 results. We reported revenue of $1.248 billion, up 21%, and cash EPS of $6.04, up 13%. That would be up 20% at a constant tax rate. The results better than our expectations, mostly driven by cross-border and Alpha overperformance. We did call the macro spot on, so neutral impact versus our guide. In the quarter, overall revenue growth, 11% and that's 3 consecutive quarters. Inside of that, our vehicle segment continued growth at 10% and our Corporate Payments segment grew 16%. So our 2 biggest businesses doing quite well against pretty difficult comps. Importantly, our trends in the quarter also quite positive. New sales or bookings up 29% versus prior year. So super robust sales. Same-store sales inched into the positive territory, up 1% and overall revenue retention stable at 92%. Cash EBITDA in Q4 surpassed $700 million in the quarter. So look, all of this produced a record cash EPS print of over $6 a share. So really a terrific quarter for us. Let me make the turn to highlights for full year 2025. So first, our financial performance for the year, quite good. Full year revenue of $4.5 billion, that's up 14%. Cash EPS of $21.38, up 12%, or again, up 17% at a constant tax rate. Organic revenue growth for the full year, 10%. So that makes 4 of the last 5 years, 10% organic revenue growth or higher. Full year sales growth also 29%, with improving productivity. So we're continuing to sell a lot. Additionally, in the year, we made a number of moves to better position the company for the midterm. We acquired Alpha, the second largest acquisition in the company's history, giving us access to an international bank account product as well as the asset management market segment. Mastercard invested $300 million in our cross-border business at a $13 billion valuation, hopefully, to unlock and serve the FI channel. We invested in Avid that deepens our position in the middle market AP automation and payment space. And lastly, we acquired a second vehicle debts company in Brazil that will further help accelerate Brazil's non-toll revenue growth. So look, financial performance ahead of our initial 2025 guide, along with a further rotation of our portfolio towards Corporate Payments. So I'm quite pleased. Okay. Let me transition to our 2026 guidance. We are quite excited about it. So we're providing full year 2026 guidance at the midpoint of print revenue, $5.265 billion. That's up over $700 million versus last year or up 16%. And we're providing cash EPS at the midpoint of $26 on the button. That's up 22%. Look, the drivers behind this 2026 guide, a few things. So first, fundamentals, look, the business is working. We had a record Q4 finish and the corresponding exit rate, super good trends, positive sales, healthy client-based same-store sales, stable retention trends. big sales year again in 2025. We get a lot of that benefit as it rolls into 2026, and we are expecting continued 10% organic revenue growth this year. A second driver are accretive acquisitions. So our Alpha acquisition expected to contribute about $300 million of incremental revenue, and Alpha paired with Avid together should contribute approximately $1 of cash EPS to our 2026 outlook. That's based on kind of our final plans now. And then third, macro, we are expecting the macro to be our friend, to be helpful here in 2026. Favorable FX rates, particularly so in the first half. Lower SOFR rates and finally, a constant year-over-year tax rate expected. So look, lots of reasons for confidence in our 2026 guide. The guide, just for clarity, does not include the impact of expected divestitures, including the PayByPhone nor the impact of any material capital allocation actions beyond simply de-levering. Okay. Let me turn to our top 5 priorities for 2026, which really are pretty consistent with last year's priorities. So first up is our portfolio. The goal, again, to further simplify the company, resulting in fewer bigger businesses and accelerate our rotation of Corporate Payments. We've announced one vehicle payment divestiture. We have 2 additional divestitures that we're working, and as always, we're continuing to work the acquisition pipeline for new Corporate Payment acquisition opportunities. Second priority on U.S.A sales. We're continuing to work to improve U.S.A sales, particularly of our Vehicle Payments and lodging solutions. We've done a few things. We've hired a new CMO who recently started. We've developed some new Corpay Brand creative ads to raise awareness of the company. We're growing our Zoom sales teams here in 2026. Concurrently, we're also really rethinking entirely on new ways to sell our U.S. vehicle payment solutions as we deemphasize digital sales. A third priority in payables, a number of things. One, we're trying to add new enterprise accounts there, particularly after our success with our first elephant last year. We are selling payables now in the U.K. seeing some initial traction. We are doubling down on the sales force in the U.K. And lastly, lots of energy exploring new monetization options with our merchant base or our vendor base. Those things include instant payment options, debit card payments and even e-checks to help accelerate revenue growth in the AP segment. Our fourth priority is our cross border, super focused on our multicurrency account and our international bank account capabilities, particularly given the Alpha deal. We're furthering our stablecoin capabilities and obviously working hard to implement synergies related to the Alpha acquisition. We are progressing the channel opportunity with Mastercard. We have logged our first joint sale. So kudos there and building really a pretty meaningful pipeline. So excited about that. So fifth and last, AI. Yes, we have gotten religion around AI. We're currently in pilot with a conversational AI being added to a number of our client UIs. We're using AI agents to reduce live agent expense, particularly in our lodging business. And we're even using AI to speed our merchant matching process. against our internal merchant database to help drive new payable sales with prospects. So look, 5 key priorities here in 2026. Each is well defined, each is being worked, the portfolio, U.S.A sales payables expansion cross-border capabilities and AI implementation. So a busy year for sure. So look, in conclusion, today, a strong finish record earnings in Q4 on the high side of our guide, again, encouraging organic revenue, new sales, same-store sales and retention trends our full year 2025 financial performance, again, finishing ahead of our initial guide. We logged another 10% full year organic revenue growth year. That makes again 4 of the last 5. 2025, again, repositioning, active repositioning year. Further simplification of the company and the addition of more Corporate Payment assets. In terms of '26, again, outlooking really a super strong 2026. EPS expected to be up over 20%, driven by the favorable fundamentals, the accretive acquisitions and even a favorable macro. And lastly, we have laid out a clear set of priorities to better position the company to continue to compound over the midterm. So with that, let me turn the call back over to Peter to provide some additional detail on the quarter, the year and our '26 outlook. Peter?

Thanks, Ron, and good afternoon, everyone. Let's start with highlights of the quarter and the year. Q4 revenue was $1.248 billion, overperforming the midpoint of our guidance driven by strong Corporate Payments performance. GAAP revenue grew 21% year-over-year, driven by 11% organic revenue growth. Q4 adjusted EPS of $6.04 per share overperformed the midpoint of our guidance and grew 13% year-over-year due to strong top-line performance and solid management. The headline for the quarter is overperformance, with over 20% top line and low teens bottom-line growth driven by our third consecutive quarter of delivering 11% organic revenue growth. We grew Q4 new sales 29% year-over-year and delivered a 92.3% retention rate, fueling our business for 2026. Full year revenue was $4.528 billion, delivering organic revenue growth of 10% for the full year and for 4 out of the last 5 years. Full year adjusted EPS was $21.38, growing 12% but growing 17% at a constant tax rate. These strong year-over-year results are further reinforced by the healthy, consistent sequential quarterly growth in revenue, EBITDA and adjusted EPS throughout 2025, which positions us well for 2026. We are exiting 2025 as an even stronger company than we entered the year. Now turning to our segment performance and the underlying drivers of our organic revenue growth. Corporate Payments delivered 16% organic growth for the quarter despite a 200 basis points drag from float revenue compression due to lower interest rates. This exceeded our expectations by 100 basis points, partially driven by Alpha revenue over performance, setting us up well for 2026. Overall, Corporate Payments performance was driven by growth in spend volumes, which increased 44% on a pro forma basis to over $81 billion in spend. Cross-border continued to deliver strong sales and revenue performance in Q4. This business is quite resilient with significant demand even in the face of trade-related uncertainty throughout the year. Additionally, the Alpha Group integration efforts are progressing well. The payables business continues to perform with especially strong sales performance in Q4. We are optimistic about the future of the business as we are in the early innings of market penetration and closed our strategic investment in Avid Exchange during the fourth quarter. We see tremendous upside over a very long period of time for this business. Vehicle Payments organic revenue growth was 10% again this quarter. As a reminder, we operate 3 approximately equal size Vehicle Payments businesses across the globe in the U.S., Europe and Brazil. We saw continued strong results in all 3 geographies, which drove the performance. Improving U.S. Vehicle Payments performance throughout the year is particularly encouraging. Lodging, representing less than 10% of our total revenue, decreased 7% year-over-year or was roughly flat for the quarter when adjusting for a 600 basis point drag from lower FEMA emergency revenue year-over-year. While clearly not recovering, progress continues, and we are assuming low single-digit growth in our 2026 outlook with headwinds in the first half of the year and returning to positive organic growth in the back half of the year as new sales and implementations come online. In summary, we delivered 11% organic growth in Q4, at the high end of our target range, driven by continued strong corporate payments organic growth and double-digit vehicle payments organic growth. Now looking further down the income statement. Operating expenses of $684 million increased 25%, primarily driven by a lower net gain on business dispositions year-over-year, acquisitions, divestitures and related expenses and FX, partially offset by a noncash impairment charge in Q4 of last year. Excluding these impacts, operating expenses increased 8%, driven by investments in sales and processing expenses related to higher transaction volumes. As we exited the quarter, we're starting to see benefit from expense rationalization initiatives recently executed that will deliver additional savings in 2026. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 57.1%, and our adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 25.8%. The increase in the rate was due to favorable impact of employee stock options on the tax rate last year. On to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter in excellent shape with a leverage ratio of 2.8x, spot on our guidance. We repurchased 1.7 million shares in the quarter for $500 million, and a total of 2.6 million shares for the year. This leaves us with approximately $1.5 billion authorized for share repurchases inclusive of the $1 billion of additional authorization approved by the Board at the December meeting. We will continue to pursue M&A opportunities and we'll continue to buy back shares at this valuation while maintaining leverage within our target range. Now let me share some additional information on our 2026 full year and Q1 outlook. As Ron mentioned, as part of our continued rotation into corporate payments, we signed a definitive agreement to sell PayByPhone, a noncore vehicle payments asset. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026. The impact of this sale is not included in our guidance as we are sharing today as our policy is to update guidance for closed deals. PayByPhone is expected to produce 2026 annual revenues of approximately $100 million, and the transaction is not expected to have a material impact to adjusted EPS as we plan to use the proceeds to buy back shares. We'll provide more information when the deal is closed. Our 2026 revenue guidance is $5.265 billion at the midpoint of our range, growing 16% year-over-year. This assumes 10% organic revenue growth, also at the midpoint of our range. 2026 organic revenue growth is lower than our 2025 exit rate of 11% due to additional float headwinds, more heavily weighted in the first half of 2026 in our Corporate Payments business. Our 2026 guidance for adjusted EPS is $26 per share at the midpoint, growing 22% year-over-year. Our confidence in our guidance is high given most of the building blocks for this performance are already in place. This includes our strong organic growth exit rate and annualized Q4 trends, our expense rationalization initiatives which are already producing savings and our Q4 share buybacks. The $1 accretion from the Avid and Alpha deals is achievable given our strong track record of M&A integration. The macro environment provides additional tailwinds, including a flat tax rate year-over-year. As a reminder, our revenue and adjusted EPS build throughout the year. You can see on Page 19 of the supplement the percentage of full year revenue and adjusted EPS our lowest in Q1 and highest in Q4. This pattern is driven by our clients' highest business volumes occurring in Q2 and Q3, along with acquisition synergy realization increasing through the year, all over a relatively fixed cost basis. The consistent historical pattern gives us confidence in our ability to deliver our 2026 guidance. Below EBITDA, we're expecting net interest expense to be between $370 million and $400 million, the adjusted tax rate to be between 25% and 27%, and weighted average shares to be flat with the period end shares 4Q25. Related to capital allocation, our forecast assumes free cash flow is used to pay down debt, which provides some potential upside opportunity should we deploy capital for buybacks or M&A. Our guidance does not include any share buybacks. From a segment perspective, we expect the following organic revenue growth rates. Corporate Payments, mid-teens, inclusive of the drag on float revenue from lower interest rates. Vehicle Payments, high single digits. Lodging, low single digit. Our Q1 revenue guidance is $1.21 billion at the midpoint, growing 20% year-over-year. We expect Q1 organic revenue growth of 9% at the midpoint, lower than the full year 10% organic growth guide driven by the float headwind I mentioned earlier. We're expecting adjusted EPS of $5.45 at the midpoint, growing 21% year-over-year. We're planning organic revenue growth to increase in the remaining quarters as we digest the float headwinds. We provided additional detail regarding our full year and Q1 outlook in our press release and earnings supplement. Before I turn it over to the operator for Q&A, I'm delighted to share that we've remediated the outstanding material weakness related to user access, and you'll see this formally in our 10-K. I want to thank the team that made this happen. So operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Andrew Jeffrey with William Blair.

Great to see the business momentum. Ron, I wanted to ask a little bit about the commentary around payables monetization. I know this is an area that, historically, has been a little bit stubborn when it's come to noncheck-based payments. I know you mentioned e-check. But could you maybe dimensionalize that for us? Is it -- is that an initiative that could add to already impressive segment organic revenue growth? Or what's the time line do you think for driving better yield from those initiatives?

Andrew, it's a great question. I think we've been a one-trick pony to the industry in terms of using virtual cards for monetization. And so this set of options now and basically kind of eliminating paper checks is the game. The idea of getting that thing sunset and using e-checks, debit at lower interchange, ACH plus instant payments, the whole plethora of things that we can do. The research suggests that merchants like that choice and some set of merchants will accept these new methods of payment where they won't accept virtual card. And so we're in the middle of it. We're laying that stuff out. We're doing the research. We're testing. And so I would say sometime Q2, Q3, we should see some impact on that. I think it just creates more length of the business, right, long term.

Yes, I agree. And then just a quick follow-up for Peter, if I may. Could you sort of parse out domestic vehicle payment organic revenue growth versus Brazil? I assume that U.S. and Europe look pretty similar. Just trying to get a sense of what positive same-store sales might mean for that business.

Yes. So U.S. CP business, approximately 5% organic growth for the quarter. And Europe and the rest of the world in Brazil, tracked right on where they were for earlier in the year. So consistent results across all 3 for the 10% overall organic growth rate for Vehicle Payments.

We'll now move on to Darrin Peller with Wolfe Research.

Nice job. I just wanted to start off with one more of a strategic question and a sustainability question on the growth rate on vehicles. And then I'll have a follow-up on the modeling side. But just when I look at the double-digit growth rate, obviously, it's good to see it holding up in these ranges even against what you're getting into harder comps towards the end of '24. So maybe just touch on sustainability, especially of the U.S. fleet acceleration and what's needed to maybe even push same-store sales meaningfully higher in your view?

Darrin, it's Ron. Sales is the answer, right? So just a follow-up on Peter's saying. If you think of the 3 horsemen [ that create ] 10% is kind of low single digit, like right on 10%, high double-digit, average those things, you get to 10%. And so the good news, if there is any, is this work we've done on the U.S. piece of vehicle has finally landed, right? We've got stable retention that's now kind of in line with the rest of the businesses. I'm literally looking at a piece of paper and the same-store sales of the U.S. business, vehicle business went positive, the first time in 6 quarters. I'm looking at a piece of paper now. Approval rates [ or ] credit because literally, the business has gotten to a good kind of reset spot. And now, like I said, the entire [ assignment ] of the sales. So if we could make a lot more sales there, we could inch the aggregated vehicle growth rate up. And if not, we'll stay with kind of low, mid, high for that [ business ]. The real question for me is do we keep allocating, what level of investment for growth do we keep making in that business [ vis-a-vis the ] other ones is one of the internal questions.

Right. All right. That's good to hear. I guess just one follow-up would be on more of a modeling a couple of questions, which, number one, would be just if you could provide a little more color on the cadence of the accretion contribution given it's a pretty notable -- a fair amount of the beat versus some of the Street numbers was -- the magnitude of accretion, just so it's ramping through the year. Help us understand that. And then I know we're getting some questions on interest expense. I think you're assuming a lower interest expense rate dollar amount. Just help us understand that notion, just given you're adding debt at a pretty healthy rate as well. Good job.

So Darrin, it's Ron. Let me take the first part, and Peter can take the second. So we're kind of done with the plans. So when we talked, I guess, 90 days ago and we're literally just onboarding, [ Al ], we finished the work. And so in the opening comments, I gave the dollar -- so between those 2 deals, the Avid investment, the Alpha acquisition, we're pretty comfortable we can get the dollar. And so we're literally already underway on a bunch of the things, certainly on the cost takeout side on some of the revenue synergies that are super easy like they're coming across to our contracts and things. And so the biggest thing that will unlock a bunch in the second half is the IT. We're kind of sunset their kind of their corporate IT system in favor of ours, which opens up all kinds of savings around not only IT but compliance and ops and stuff like that. So I would say this is our third, fourth, fifth rodeo, right, of doing these things. So our confidence in what to do and what number is high. And then the last point I'll make, because you're good at math is -- it's not one and done. It's one and more. So the way we think about it is whatever EBITDA we're getting in those businesses has to grow over, right? The interest expense to finance those. So as we create the synergies and those businesses grow, they're growing obviously over fixed interest expense. And so in our multiyear plan, that creates even acceleration in EPS as you walk into next year. So the setup for those 2 things is quite good.

So Darren, picking up on your question on interest expense. So we ended the year at about $7.7 billion in debt. As you know, we produce really high cash flows, so call it, $1.8 billion of cash flows we've produced throughout the year. So that will reduce throughout the year. Also, the forward curve is looking pretty positive for us on SOFR. So you put those 2 together, and that's what's leading to our lower interest expense.

We'll now move on to Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan.

Peter and Jim, great results. I wanted to ask on Corporate Payments, if that's okay. Just mid-teens growth expected this year. Do you have the backlog to support this growth? Or is there more business to go get? I'm just curious what the visibility looks like there? And could there be some room for upside, and if so, where?

Tien-Tsin, thanks for the [ data boy ]. So I'd say on the '26 number. It's really 2 different things. In the payables, the full payables business, I'd say, we have the sales because the implementation cycle is longer there. And so basically, we have a bunch of deals that we implement that drive that revenue. In the cross-border, it's a much short right sales to implementation cycle. So we have to make sales there. Although if there was one bet to place on our company, I would not bet against the cross-border sales. We had a just rocking finish between our core cross-border business and even the new Alpha business and stuff. And so that thing is firing. So I would say our confidence in the thing is super high. And again, the reason for the thing not being a bit more robust is just the compression obviously is the float rates, right, particularly as we absorb Alpha, which has a way bigger bank account deposit-based business than we do, it's a bit more acute, right? The compression there, particularly early on. So when we get -- it's transitory obviously. So we get to the other side of that, I think the outlook will be even better for the business. And if we get the monetization, [ say, right that Andrew asked, ] if we get that cranking, that would be another upside basically to the business.

Got it. No, you sound quite pleased with Alpha. That's great to hear. So mid-teens would be a win for that segment. I did want to ask just on margins, if that's okay, as my follow-up with the expense rationalization. Is there a way to think about that impact to '26 and just some broader comments on incremental margins in '26? Any surprises or puts and takes to consider.

Yes. Maybe I'll start and let Peter pick up. So we're targeting about $75 million of expense out. We've executed kind of $50 million of it. We're still working on the other $25 million, which we've identified but still working. If you look at our internal plan, not shockingly, margins climb like crazy sequentially, pretty fixed cost base once we make the sales investment, which we do early and then revenue snowballs, right? So revenue increases, call it, $100 million plus as you get into the second half or quarter. And so that's -- I think it's probably 3 points. If you look at it 300 basis points from Q1 to Q4. The reason that the overall margins for the full year wouldn't look a ton different is really -- it's the acquisition expense, right? We're bringing across in these couple of deals a fair amount of cost at lower margins, basically. And then second, we made the call given the profitability to put more in the sales and marketing and even into our brand. So we're trying to hold the margins pretty constant, improve them sequentially and spend on some things that will help the growth going into the next year.

Our next question comes from Mihir Bhatia with Bank of America.

Nice results here. But Ron, maybe just wanted to ask you about PayByPhone. I think you bought that asset maybe a couple of years ago. Just any lessons from that process from owning that just what worked, what didn't, as you think about go forward.

Yes. That's a good question. So lessons, I'd say maybe 2 lessons on that. One is we had a thesis for buying that, that their 5 million, 6 million, 7 million active users and a lot of them in Europe could be kind of a launching pad for us to put those people into the network and create some incremental business. And basically, we couldn't do very well with that. So [ a new idea ], and it didn't work as great as it has in Brazil. But the second learning is we're good. Like we take a business, we buy it triple the profits. We're selling it for 50% more than we bought it for. And so it's a great reminder that even when the thesis isn't perfect that we can still make a return on the thing. And so we're pleased. I'm also pleased with the people that are running the thing, the [ bill ] -- that where they'll go, they'll be happy and stuff. So I'm hoping for only good things for the buyer and the management team.

Got it. And I think kudos to you all for trying and pulling the plug when you realize it wouldn't work. I wanted to maybe switch gears a little bit to just going back to the Corporate Payments business and just some of the questions there. Maybe like I think you kind of answered a little bit. But just trying to understand, you laid out a lot of priorities in that business, right, whether it's building the U.K. payables, adding enterprise accounts, new monetization options, growing sales in the FI channel multi -- just trying to understand the time lines there, like the lift that it will take to implement some of those changes. Like what's going to be a meaningful contributor there in 2026 versus initiatives that are maybe longer term, but just you're laying the building blocks today?

Yes. That is a really good question. I think the main thing we're trying to do with that priority is just make sure people are clear on the opportunities that when you stare at payables, beyond just chopping the wood we have that there's some kind of vectors out from the middle market core there where, hey, we can get more monetization against the spend we can add enterprise [ right to ] the mix. We can go to geographies that widen the TAM, [ I'm mostly trying ] to make sure people are clear that there's way vectors to make the business go. I'd say on that one is clearly the monetization is the short term, is the 2026 thing because we have the clients, we have the merchants, we have the money moving. And so we're simply trying to give more choice and stuff. So I'd say for sure, in that one. And then the same kind of on, I think, on the cross-border side. I think longer term, because the sales cycle will be like the Mastercard opportunity there or even, frankly, the international bank account opportunity. I think those are longer term, whereas the synergies of combining the Alpha corporate business would be at 2026. So I'd say those are the 2 get the money in 2026 things, monetization and payables and Alpha consolidation and synergies would be the things for this year.

Our next question comes from Sanjay Sakhrani with KBW.

Ron, you talked about a couple of more divestitures in the pipeline and obviously, this one that you did today or announced today, could you just give us a sense of what kind of liquidity you're looking at in terms of raising from that? I know you put out that $1.5 billion number last quarter. But if we just think about today's announcement, plus the other 2, does that get you to a higher or equal number? Just trying to think through the liquidity you could raise and use of proceeds.

Yes. It's a good question, Sanjay. So yes, there's 2 other vehicle businesses that are out in process now, pretty late stage. If we end up transacting on both of those, it will be over $1 billion. I think I call it $1 billion to $1.3 billion, somewhere there. and the use of proceeds is to buy CPAY at this price that we're at. So we'll have an answer. My guess is the next probably 30 days [ of those things ].

Got it. And then just maybe if you could elaborate on lodging. I know it remained weak, and you guys are assuming sort of low single digits. But anything specific happening there in terms of turning that ship around and how we should think on a go-forward basis?

Yes. The print's, obviously, Sanjay, not too good. I feel a little bit similar to the U.S. vehicle business. I think I characterize those to businesses as problem children not behaving well a couple of years ago with lots of things wrong. I feel kind of the saying that both businesses, particularly lodging, have stabilized. We fixed the IT, we fixed the product thing. We fixed the customers that kind of [ scooted away ]. The volume's [ scooted away ]. So if you look at like the same store, as I quoted, that's actually positive now in U.S. vehicle and I think mostly flat and lodging. And so the good news is the management teams have made progress doing things that have stabilized the revenue, I'm still super disappointed in the new sales. And so that's the ticket. Really, the ticket for both of them is can they produce new sales now that the losses have stabilized and they're both super great margin businesses. They're both above the line average, I don't have it in front of me, but they're in the 60s in terms of EBITDA margin. So they're super great cash generators. The question is just can we productively make sales there vis-a-vis the other options we have for investing sales of the company. And so we're giving it a run here in 2026. And if we see sales improvement and accelerate throughout the year, we'll be happy. And if we don't, we'll be probably thinking about doing something else.

We'll go next to Nate Svensson with Deutsche Bank.

I want to follow up on some of the cross-border priorities that you were talking about in the prepared remarks, Ron. So you mentioned outperformance at Alpha a few times, and you obviously bumped up the Alpha plus Avid accretion to $1.00 Just maybe hoping for a little more color on what's going better than expected at Alpha? What on the revenue synergy are you realizing [ you get ] better organic growth? Anything beyond that? And then you also called out the first joint sale with Mastercard, [ I fully ] get from your earlier answer, that's kind of a longer-term opportunity. But we'd just love to hear more about that first win some -- any specific details or learning from that partnership as you look to go out and win more sales in the pipeline that you have?

Yes, Nate, 2 good questions there. I think the overperformance in Alpha is the integration, the people thing has gone better than I thought. So when you need a new groups like that and bring the organizations together, sometimes there's a pause, people aren't firing and stuff. And I just feel like our management team and their team did a great job -- great [ kumbaya ] or whatever, where their guys just came roaring out of the blocks, pitching, hey, we're a bigger, meaner company. We have better credit. Obviously, we have better products. We have better payment products versus just risk management products. And so to me, what was so great is the people, particularly the salespeople, have embraced some of the stuff that we bring to them and just went running out and got a bunch of business closed. So that thing not only performed better in the finish -- looked at January and those businesses are ahead again this month. So I think it's cultural. It's something, but just everybody's at it. People aren't moping around and stuff, they're excited to be part of the gang with us and stuff. So this is way before the other synergies of contract advantages, rate advantages, cost, IT, we got all the stuff in front of us. Bank account license, we got 9 other things that are going to create money. But to me, that's like super important. On the MasterCard thing, I got to say like it is way exceeded mine, I don't know if the -- MasterCard folks expectations, but we now have a second sale. I think I said in [ one of the scripts old ] already, we've actually closed out 2 deals. But more importantly, it's a crazy pipeline particularly in Europe, where Mastercard has done their part of getting the dedicated people to call on accounts that they know and love and our guys go into [indiscernible] and literally, I don't know if it's [ 50 to 70 ] in-process opportunities. And so that thing which tends to have a very long sales cycle has stood up quite well. And I think back to the thesis question that was before is I think the thesis is proving out the good relationships and credibility that Mastercard has coupled with our products and expertise is a good combo. So it will take time to build, but it is a way help to make that segment meaningful, right, for cross-border. I mean I don't know if everyone is getting it, but that business was mostly a one-trick pony. We went out to midsized businesses around the world and sold services. And now we're talking about basically getting banks, getting FIs around the world to use our services and becoming an international bank account deposit company as well. So the extension of those 2 additional kind of product and market segments is way significant. I don't know if people are picking it up, but it completely changes, I think, the long-term prospects of that business. So we spent lots of time and [ discovering, doing an iceberg ] work kind of getting ready getting things positioned, I think people discount it because everyone just wants to know what the numbers are, but I'm telling you that is going to make a big difference for durability.

Super exciting stuff. I guess for the follow-up, also on the cross-border business. We get some questions from time to time on a potential Supreme Court ruling on IEPA and maybe some impact that could have to CPAY in the event that tariffs are rolled back. So I'm not asking you to speculate on any potential outcome. But I guess in the event that there is some level of rollback of tariffs. Any idea on how that could play out across either your Corporate Payments business or maybe the Vehicle Payments business as well. Is there still any pent-up demand you think might be released? Could this alleviate some of the pressure on the shipping and freight industry in the U.S. or any other factors to keep in mind there?

Yes, that's a super good follow-up. I would say, tariff certainty is our friend, like whatever it is, just be what it is. So it had a super jolt during Trump's liberation thing. I think our numbers in April were crazy as people try to anticipate things and then kind of our U.S., our North America business did really bad. The rest of the year because of the uncertainty and the other geographies picked it up. So anything that would either roll back limit or even just fix tariffs would be a plus to the cross-border business. Remember, like half the dollars that they were service based, not goods based -- and then again, we have -- we do risk management contracts and stuff. So the exposure isn't across that entire business and really most of the exposure is in North America, which is probably 1/3 of the business. So it's not like a massive amount, but it still would be, to your point, a plus for us if that thing got clarified.

We'll go next to Ramsey El-Assal with Cantor Fitzgerald.

I wanted to ask about the strong sales growth, which is obviously super impressive. Can you give us your thoughts on whether the conversion of that sales to revenue, the timing of that conversion of bookings to revenue has changed as your business has changed? In other words, as now you have more Corporate Payments are you seeing a situation where you convert that revenue faster or for those bookings rather faster or slower to revenue? Or is it sort of the same as it was when you were primarily a fleet card business years and years ago.

Well, Ramsey, welcome to your new spot. I want to say...

Thank you.

Congrats on that and appreciate you continuing to keep an eye on us. So it's a really good question. So at the high level, the answer is -- it varies by business. As I mentioned, I think Tien-Tsin asked, our payables business has a slower contract signings or bookings to implementation of ramping. And I mentioned the cross-border business is much faster. So as you run through the businesses we have, that vary. Some are super fast, like in the fleet card business, it's almost instant that we don't even book until we start. We actually call it a go live. But the total is for the company is about 1/3 in year. So for example, let me make up a number, let's say we recorded $300 million in bookings in calendar year 2025, we would print about $100 million of print revenue inside of the 2025 goal post. And then we would ramp some amount of that $200 million that we didn't capture into the forward year. So the way we think about like building our revenue plans is we already have in that example, $200 million coming our way here in 2026 that we didn't have, right, we hit our revenue numbers last year, and we'll grab 1/3 of what our bookings plan is here in 2026. So that's kind of the model, kind of 1/3 in the current year and then the 2/3 ramp depending on what the attrition is. So [ we've relative statistics ] at all this. So it's really easy for us to model it.

Got it. That's super helpful. And one follow-up for me. Stablecoins are big thematic topic. Can you just give us an update on what you're seeing in the marketplace in terms of demand, if any, and also just give us a quick overview of the capabilities that you guys are building out to accommodate stablecoins.

Yes. That's super. I'm laughing a bit, Rans, because this morning when I get up knowing we had this earnings call, I went out to 3 of our guys. I went to the guy that has thousands and thousands of U.S. merchants that we pay, our cross-border head, that obviously moves tons of money to beneficiaries around the world and our Alpha guy who does the bank accounts, the 7,000 bank accounts that hold deposits. And I asked all 3 of them, hey, talk to me about the demand, how many of the merchants or the deposit holders or beneficiaries are asking for a companion stablecoin wallet so that they can receive funds in stablecoins. And the basic answer was crickets. There's been really no base of the kind of no noise kind of no demand. Despite that, we are -- I think we said before, doing 3 things anyway. One is we're trying to serve crypto clients that actually have crypto, have Bitcoin, have stablecoins as clients. So we're doing that. We have 4 or 5 signed up. Two is we are working on the rails and piloting that like in our own treasury, for example, to make sure we can actually move funds via blockchain. And then third, which is my favorite is despite the demand comment, we are building stablecoin digital wallet so that anyone that has a bank account, if you will, they'll have a companion stablecoin account. So if someone wants to send their money outside of the banking hours, it could be captured and then we could toggle it into the [ CI ] account that we have from -- so we are pushing ahead to have that and just see if there's more uptake on this. But it's -- what's the line, it's all quiet on the western front as of now.

Our next question comes from Rayna Kumar with Oppenheimer.

Could you talk about just some of the drivers that will get lodging back up to low single-digit growth this year? And separately, could you talk about your outlook for EBITDA margin this year and any puts and takes we should be aware of?

Do you want to take this?

Yes, Rayna, it's Peter. So on the lodging side, the thought process is full year, we're expecting, call it, low single digits there, but it's really a tale of 2 stories. So the first half of the year, will continue to be negative organic growth with the pickup in the back half of the year. And so I think the good news to share there is we have quite a bit of [ luck ] on the sales side and certainly those implementations are coming online in the back half of the year. So that kind of what gets you to the full year outlook on lodging. Then if we look at EBITDA margins, they are increasing substantially quarter-over-quarter across 2026. And even margins will be slightly down year-over-year, mostly driven by the acquisitions. But as we start to implement -- as the business volume grows and we implement the synergies, that's where you see the margins start to expand.

Our next question comes from Trevor Williams with Jefferies.

Peter, I want to go back to the organic guide. So the 9% growth in Q1 relative to the 11% in Q4 and the 10% you're assuming for the full year. It sounds like that's mostly just due to a bigger float headwind for Corporate Payments in the first half and then the lodging improvement that you just walked through, but any other puts and takes, cadence wise for us to be mindful of? And then specific to the first quarter, just what you're baking in for Corporate Payments growth both with and without float would be helpful.

Yes. So Trevor, I do think you have it right. When we look at Q1 '26, it is the float headwinds, mostly really as we pick up the Alpha business, right, you see a pretty sharp drop in the rate for the pound and the rate for the euro. So that's a big driver there. Where as the drop in SOFR is more kind of even throughout the year. And then you're exactly right on lodging being a drag on organic growth for Q1 at the 9%, but then we see ourselves returning to 10% for Q2 and the rest of the year. In terms of the guidance for Corporate Payments, I'd say the guidance for the quarter is similar to what I shared for the year. We expect it to be mid-teens with flow drag against that.

Trevor, it's Ron. just to add to what Peter said. So when we look at the curves and our weighted average of what we earn, the Q1 versus Q1 last year is just the compression is just way more acute in this quarter we're sitting in. It's about 70 or 75 basis points. When we run it out to the end of the year, that thing shrinks to like 25 to 30 basis points. And so that's enough given we have Alpha in the mix now for us to run the quarter at 9% instead of 10%. The other one, just by the way, which is the [ TAM ] is really [ gift ]. We have -- that thing has been running super hot with this secure packaging thing, I don't have it in front of me, but mid- to high teens for the last 3 or 4 quarters, that's come back to earth positive, but back to earth in Q1. So those 2 things together is what helped us run in the quarter at 9%.

Okay. That's helpful. And good color on gift. And then just as a follow-up on Brazil with how much you guys are outpacing the underlying TAC growth that's all coming from the contribution from extended network. Ron, how do you think about the sustainability of that and if you're able to keep that, if we think like high teens to 20% growth in Brazil, if you can keep that without layering in more acquisitions like Gringo, Zapay. I know there was the other vehicle debt company that you bought last year. Just how to think about the durability of that growth?

Great question. Yes, we're planning, Trevor, another crazy high teens, as you know, half of it you get because it had a crazy good year last year. So that just rolls in. But look, the story of Brazil is the free banks didn't beat us. We said we were going to create a bunch of non total revenue. We've got millions and millions of customers and businesses as well. And so we're like, okay, if we give them some of these other vehicle things, will they come? And I want to be super clear. Yes. they will. They buy fuel. They buy parking. They buy insurance. They buy vehicle debts. They're now going crazy with 10% of our new sales. We're selling the [indiscernible] credit card. The [indiscernible] credit card now for 10% of [ our ] new sales. And so to say it's working, I think, is an understatement. And the second thing I'd say is I think it's helping sell the core toll price because it's so differentiated now from a guy a bank who's buying some crappy toll thing, wholesale one product and offering it. So not only is it creating incremental revenue with profit leverage because it's added on, I think it's allowing us to keep selling mid- to high single-digit had growth as well. So it is good. And I do feel like the banks there are getting weary from some market feedback. So that could be the next domino to fall there as people think they could beat us by being free and they haven't. And so that will be the next thing I keep an eye on.

Our next question comes from Michael Infante with Morgan Stanley.

I'll just ask one for the sake of time. Commentary on the stablecoin demand was helpful, but I'd be curious just to get your high-level perspective on really the mechanism by which we'll actually start to see some medium-term compression of of stablecoin off-ramp costs in the future if those costs themselves are effectively just dictated by liquidity in those corridors? And if the answer is we're not likely to see that cost compression, like how should we be thinking about the incremental tailwind for if you do actually start to see that demand from your customers show up.

Yes. Michael, it's Ron. I mean, say, I guess your guess is as good as ours because we see nothing, right, at this point. And I think we reiterated that the rails are an insignificant piece of the cost structure and of the value chain. And so look, who knows, I mean people can price things crazy, right, for whatever reason they have. But like we don't see it, to your point, we see nothing. And we don't think it's likely, if we're getting 50 or 60 basis points on a trade and sometimes 200, depending on the customer in the quarter. It's mostly because of the liquidity and the compliance and everything else. And so -- we're saying to them, we're watching it carefully and stuff, but we do not see that as a high risk. And then as I said, whether there is demand or not, we're going to be there with the stable coin offerings. And so if our clients want it, we're going to make it available. But it reminds you a little bit of EV, this whole thing, there's more being written and said about this than actually being used today is my takeaway.

We'll go next to Dave Koning with Baird.

Just one question. Minority interest, that line has become a lot more important now with Avid and a little bit of the Mastercard impact. It looks like on an adjusted basis, it was like $27 million in the quarter when you do the add back that was in your line. Is that -- I guess, why was that so high? It seems very high? And is that the right number on a quarterly basis going forward? Or what should we think about that line?

So there -- let's take that question with you off-line in a modeling conversation just so we can go through it in more detail.

And our last question comes from Madison Suhr with Raymond James.

And I'll just ask one as well here. Just circling back to the Mastercard partnership, early indications sound pretty positive there. So is the 200 to 300 basis point tailwind to cross-border still kind of the right way to think about the contribution from that partnership? Or do you think there could be potential upside given some of the early indications?

Yes, that's another good question. I'd say it's a timing call, right, because the sales cycle on FIs is longer than it is for corporates. But to your point, given the size of the pipeline and the fact that some of the things are actually converting, it's a whopper segment. I do want to remind you and others that virtually all of the cross-border business that we don't have, they have. So like all of it, right, is there. And so to the extent that we're successful getting this thing going and happens with Mastercard. All I can say is like it is just so crazy large, the flows that these banks have today that if we get in with a number of them, over some cycle, it could be a big, big contribution just because they have all the business today, right? The independents like us have such a fraction of the book today. So it's super exciting. Again, to me, it's just a question of what the time frame is.

At this time, there are no further questions in queue. I will now turn the meeting back to our presenters for any additional or closing remarks.

Great. Thanks, everybody, for your interest, if you need anything else, you know where to find me. Have a good evening.

Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.