Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (FIS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

March 14, 2024

New York Stock Exchange US Financials Financial Services conference_presentation 35 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Darrin Peller

analyst
#1

Guys, good afternoon, everybody, and so thanks again for being here. Why don't we keep going? We're going to kick it off with FIS. We're really happy to have the company with us. It's a company that we've been recommending and really constructive on a much cleaner story ever since the closing of the Worldpay deal, in particular. Obviously, quite a bit of not only accelerating growth, but very strong capital return story as well. And so really happy to have you guys with us. Thanks for joining us. We have James, the CFO; and George from IR with us.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#2

Maybe just kick it off with a little bit about how things have gone for you, James. I mean it's been how long since you've been here now? 6 months?

James Kehoe

executive
#3

Six months. It's like drinking from a firehose. So I probably should have studied more about the impending divestiture of Worldpay. [indiscernible] straight into divestiture accounting. Capital allocation was top of mind.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#4

You started, what, 4 months before the actual closing or...

James Kehoe

executive
#5

Yes, 4 months before closing.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#6

That's really something.

James Kehoe

executive
#7

For anyone who's gone through disc ops accounting, it's pretty complicated. But it straightaway highlighted that there was a lot of misperception in the market. Goals were given out without full information. So most of the third quarter call was focused on clarifying the noise that was out there. Capital allocation, because the original commitment was to return $2.5 billion, now that's at $4 billion, which is required, really getting into the nuts and bolts of the transaction, what's free cash flow afterwards. And I did spend a fair amount of time on investor communication. I think there was too much noise for too long a period. I think Q3 kind of silenced the noise and limited the, call it, the confusion in the market. And then Q4 was, okay, we're returning to growth. The message is much cleaner. And it's an accelerating growth story going forward. So the -- but it has been like drinking from a firehose, because it's a complex company as well, and that's what we'll do on Investor Day. We effectively have -- you can simplify 3 divisions in each of the 2 segments, but there's almost 20 different businesses in each segment across the entire market.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#8

What actually attracted you to the company? And what's -- what are you excited about?

James Kehoe

executive
#9

It was actually the 3Ps. I think I said it in some forum before. It was passion, people and potential. The passion I got from Stephanie on the first call, and I thought it was just she was trying to convince me, but she's very passionate every day and very focused on action. And actually, I do appreciate that. You can feel the sheer momentum in the company all the time every day. Then the people I met. Was this a team I could work with and will they get the job done? And then finally, potential was incredible assets. Global presence, marquee clients, they had all the ingredients, but somehow it wasn't coming together. Well, my personal hypothesis was if we can turn the ship in the transformation, the share price upside is tremendous. And we've seen that. I think I joined at $55. Now it's $68. So we've seen clarity come into the story, momentum come in to the story. I didn't want to join a company that wasn't going to deliver positive momentum in a fairly short period of time.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#10

Makes sense. Look, we've always said FIS is -- what we thought attractive about FIS was an opportunity to have consistent recurring revenue, kind of a low beta story, right, with reliability and good capital return. And that's honestly what I think now, especially without Worldpay in the core, is what we can get back to, right?

James Kehoe

executive
#11

Yes, exactly.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#12

Maybe we just start off with guidance. I mean you just reported not too long ago. And so if we get -- before getting into all the specifics, can you just remind the audience of the key financial expectations heading into the year just to kind of underscore that profile that we just talked about?

James Kehoe

executive
#13

Yes. The simple version is accelerating revenue, return to EBITDA margin and then solid EPS. And then we did say on the call that it will be solid and accelerating over time. And we did emphasize free cash flow conversion. So if you get into the specifics, the company is essentially on adjusted revenue growth going from a 3% to a 4% to 4.5%. And we have good line of sight to this. And margins going from a decline in 2023 of 40 basis points to plus 20, plus 40 -- plus 20 to 40 basis points, absorbing a significant dissynergy from the Worldpay transaction. And it's big. It's $250 million, call it, 250 basis points of dissynergy. And then finally, we -- when you do disc ops, you're reporting against a very low base. So the reported growth is 38% to 40%. We normalized it for transparency at 5% to 7%, but it still includes dissynergy of high single digit. So the numbers are -- and that's what I want to emphasize. It's a return and acceleration or a return to positive numbers across the entire income statement. And even for Q1, the first quarter outlook is slower on the revenue line, much faster and more aggressive on the EBITDA line, and EPS has grown at a similar pace to the EBITDA. So it's not a show me later in the year story. Revenue is building, but the EBITDA margins are actually front-end loaded in the first half.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#14

Okay. And maybe just remind us the -- when you think about your segment growth rates, why are we going to see that acceleration as the year progresses for really across the business? And I think for Capital Markets, you talked about it being more stable, right, as year...

James Kehoe

executive
#15

Yes. And I think Capital Markets, we'll go through it during the Investor Day. It's an incredible business in that it's got a tailwind of 5% to 6%. The total addressable market is roughly growing 5% to 6%. And the Banking, I don't have the exact numbers with me. We're still working on them. Is like 3% kind of number...

Darrin Peller

analyst
#16

[indiscernible] the underlying market growth.

James Kehoe

executive
#17

The underlying market growth that we're operating in. So first of all, we have -- before you leave, if you can just hold your share, you theoretically should be able to get to a 4% growth in your natural TAMs. Now you got to do weightings on the TAMs and stuff like that, so it's more complicated. And you saw last year that -- if you take Capital Markets last year, it did a 5% growth out of our goal for next year, which is 6.5% to 7%. You take out M&A and it's roughly grown at 5.5%. So we're planning on a slightly faster growth in Capital Markets. And you could almost say it's the same growth rate in almost every quarter. So we return to stability. Banking is the one that sticks out. The first quarter was -- I think it's 1% to 2% growth versus a 3% to 3.5% on the full year. We've got 2 things. One is our sales performance in the second half of '23 was extremely strong, ranked on ACV. So what new contracts were signed in the second half. That will feed into the second half of '24 because the commercialization has a time lag on it. So that's the first thing. The second half is stronger than the first half. And then you probably remember the first quarter of '23 was very strong for Banking because of this, the banking crisis from March madness as they call it. We got an uplift that is basically -- last year that's holding back the result in the first quarter. So I think the one question we did get from a lot of analysts were how comfortable are you in the build of Banking during the year? And we have incredible visibility...

Darrin Peller

analyst
#18

That's good. even in the business that you booked turning into revenue as the year progresses, you feel highly confident about that?

James Kehoe

executive
#19

We feel pretty confident on all of that. Bear in mind that a little bit, the issue last year was lacking a lot of nonrecurring revenue and licenses that weren't repeating, and we're cycling through this. It's more pronounced in the first half, less pronounced in the second. So we actually know that we have less headwinds to lap in the nonrecurring and the professional services, so we have good visibility on that as well.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#20

Yes. And you just quickly -- you do have some interesting compares on Capital Markets, but you're still calling for stability, right, in terms of growth. Is that just again seeing the pipeline of what you have already booked?

James Kehoe

executive
#21

Yes. It is in the pipeline. We -- I think as we get into Investor Day, there's a lot of questions out with investors. We do have an investor survey, actually, and they said they don't quite understand the Capital Markets business. It's incredibly predictable. It's about a recurring somewhere in the 6% to 7% range as achievable over a multiyear period, and we're likely to be able to pick up acquisitions that are highly accretive as well. So we want to bring it to life in Investor Day, the incredible asset that's in there, and it's growing at a pretty rapid clip.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#22

Okay. That's great to see. I mean, we're looking forward to hearing more about that because it's been a segment that I don't think is as...

James Kehoe

executive
#23

Yes, it's a complex segment. We have best-in-class products that we sold to both sophisticated large financial institutions on everything they need, and now we're getting into insurance companies. We sell them ESG products. We sell them risk management products. We have very sophisticated treasury products, and you can think about as Banking is changing and treasury liquidity is more important. Treasury is at the forefront, right? ESG is at the forefront, and we're selling across broader end markets. Lending business, we have lending software that I think most of the -- 60% of the large car companies use it. So there's a lot of these markets we need to bring to life that we have very strong positions with superior products in each of the categories.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#24

And just to be clear, the macro assumptions you're including in your guidance, is it for stability? Or just give us a little more color on that.

James Kehoe

executive
#25

It's mostly stability. I think we see a little bit -- we had a very strong fourth quarter in the payments business. We see that moderating a little bit because it was very, very strong, but we've planned basically for continuation of environment in '24 versus '23.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#26

Okay. Can you also expand -- there's been just some confusion over all the moving parts on dissynergies in the numbers a little bit just because it was raised a little bit in terms of -- it was actually geographically moved a little bit also, right? In terms of what we knew before.

James Kehoe

executive
#27

Yes. We kind of made it a bit confusing. There's 2 types of dissynergy. One is -- it's all in Banking, first of all. And that was about $50 million or...

Georgios Mihalos

executive
#28

$50 million in Banking.

James Kehoe

executive
#29

$50 million in Banking. And then there were nonstrategic businesses that are held in corporate, and there was roughly another $50 million there, right? They're less profitable, the Banking more profitable. So in reality, the adjusted growth rate is held back by about 50 basis points because of dissynergies. They might build a little bit going forward. It's just in terms of -- and an example of a dissynergy is we may now have to give Worldpay profit share of something that we're going to market to get it on. And previously, it was all booked in us. So they'll get an upside. The downside is on our side, right? The whole total pie doesn't change, but we're sharing some of the revenue proceeds as we go to market.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#30

Right. But in your outlook, you included that, and you put your M&A. It's kind of a lot, right? Almost...

James Kehoe

executive
#31

And we included M&A. There's a net 20 basis points benefit between the 2.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#32

Right. It's pretty much a wash.

James Kehoe

executive
#33

It's a wash.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#34

Okay. All right. And then lastly, just regarding more normalized EPS growth, just a lot of moving parts, whether it's debt paydown or dissynergies again or Future Forward savings. I think it would be great to just get another sense from you guys on what your view of normalized EPS growth looks like.

James Kehoe

executive
#35

Well, then I'd be giving you guidance, kind of. But we did say this year is 5% to 7%, and the future will be higher than that. Now you're going to have to wait until Investor Day. But it will be a -- you can work it out pretty quickly on our -- if our long-term revenue guide is 3% to 5% and it's accelerating over time, you can figure out in '25 what kind of revenue growth you could be expecting. We committed to expanding margins. And if it's 20 to 40 bps in '24, it's probably higher than that going forward. Not materially higher, but slightly higher, because you're cycling through your dissynergies, right? And then you've got your capital allocation, where we've said all excess capital goes to share repurchase, and we're going to hold the debt-to-EBITDA flat at 2.8x.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#36

Right. So you could have some capacity growth...

James Kehoe

executive
#37

All of this, we've said publicly on prior occasions, so you can actually plug it in and you get to a fairly attractive EPS.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#38

Yes. We get to a double digit...

James Kehoe

executive
#39

And the one thing we want to point out too is our dividend is quite different than our peers. So the dividend yield is over 2 percentage points, 2%. And some of our peers don't pay a dividend, and it's higher than the S&P 500. So our TSR comparative versus peers, it does close somewhere like that.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#40

Okay. Yes. So listen, I mean it sounds like everything you're saying is -- you see the actual pipeline turning into revenues or the backlog turning into revenues. You have confidence in the guidance, given what you've already booked, right? Not to mention the nuances on timing factors.

James Kehoe

executive
#41

And we have good control on the expenses. And rising control -- yes.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#42

Your Investor Day is early May, so we'll hear more about it. Yes.

James Kehoe

executive
#43

May 7. Well, I think the way to think about it as well is Future Forward has become a program on how we operate the company better. and the deeper we get into day-to-day operations, the more cost opportunities we see. So the one thing I would say, you said what happens going forward? You have less dissynergies. They almost go -- there's no incremental dissynergy in '25.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#44

Sure. On a year-over-year basis.

James Kehoe

executive
#45

You probably won't get the same level of Future Forward savings, but you're still going to get some. Yes, it underpins margins for at least another 3 years, I'm guessing.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#46

That's great to hear. All right. Well, let's go into the underlying demand and the drivers of the business, right? I mean, again, it's been an area that you -- I think FIS has pivoted a little bit in the last few years, maybe 4, 5 years, right, whether it's largest of FIs to medium size. And I think you're more focused on kind of the core of what FIS was, right? Regional banks, midsize, right? And it's really offering that plus point solutions. What are you seeing in the demand environment right now that's giving you conviction?

James Kehoe

executive
#47

Well, I think it's -- we have incredible strength because we're strongest in the LFIs. And it actually creates favorable mix over time. Because think about the concentration and the consolidation that's going on in Banking. It gives us a tailwind. Because we're bigger in the consolidating banks, we're not losing in the smaller ones as the consolidation becomes stronger. Demand out there is -- Capital Markets is always pretty strong. It's -- as I said, we've a TAM tailwind in the 5% or 6% range. In Banking, we do see some slowdown in discretionary spend. So putting in core systems, maybe a bit slower, but we're seeing rising demand and strong demand across 3 vectors. You've got digital, which is pretty obvious. You've got regulatory and compliance. The world is just way more complex. And then the third one is payments. Because the bank says they want to attract more deposits, they actually have to attract as well as commercial customers. And with those commercial customers, they all need ACH, FedNow, a complete suite of how do you interact in the global financial system. Our advantage is we can offer them all. So we have a wide offering, and that's playing to our favor. So right now, you asked the question before, what's the macro assumption is. For us, we're not seeing a massive slowdown. We're seeing consistency, but it's driven by these more attractive segments.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#48

Do you have what you need to execute on that demand in terms of digital banking offerings or the payment side or other assets?

James Kehoe

executive
#49

Yes. I think we're -- our -- I think in digital, it depends. I think what the larger financial banks are offering is probably best in market, and that's coming from somebody who's not qualified to say it. I think on the one to many, we're a little weaker, but we're making very significant investments right now, really big ones. So I'd hold on for Investor Day. But we have a weakness maybe in one to many. We've closed that pretty quickly, and a very -- a huge strength in for big banks, really big banks that the -- sophisticated ones. We serve them really, really well. And do you want to add something, if you want, George?

Georgios Mihalos

executive
#50

I would also just maybe add to that, Darrin. We do see a lot more opportunity in a place like payments, right? I think we can punch at a higher weight class there.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#51

Right? What kind of examples, George, that you guys are doing in that?

Georgios Mihalos

executive
#52

Certainly. What we're doing, debit processing, I think there's a lot more opportunity around that, but even more bluntly around issuer processing B2B, a lot of these old alternative payment types or mediums, I should say. I think there's a long runway there. And I think -- again, I think there's more we can do there to monetize it.

James Kehoe

executive
#53

The company a little bit lost its focus. It's going back to one of your earlier questions. When they bought Worldpay, there was, I think, maybe less attention on Banking and too much attention on Worldpay, not enough attention on the payments business that FIS still has, which has revenue in the billions, right? And so what we're left with is we have an incredible opportunity going forward is to spend more time on the core Banking business, which includes a big payments business, which is growing faster than the average TAM. It's probably growing -- that TAM is probably growing at 5% versus core Banking, which is 2%, right? And then the second thing is the margins in payments are far higher than the average margin of the company. So I think payments will be more of a focus going forward. So we're going to play harder the mix of the portfolio going forward, on the cross-sell across the portfolio.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#54

How about some of the M&A in the sector? I mean, obviously, if Capital One and Discover go through, that's a notable transaction, that. And I think if I remember correctly, you guys do a lot of work with them, right?

James Kehoe

executive
#55

Yes. We do a lot of work with both of them. So we like the combination. We think it will be really good for both of them. And we think -- we're here to help them, obviously. But I think we'll actually do well out of it because we're on both sides of the transaction.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#56

Okay. How could we think about just quickly -- I mean, a little more financial question, the dynamics around and the magnitude of reacceleration in the nonrecurring piece of the segment? It's a little bit tough to model, obviously. And it always makes tough comps, but just give us a little advice on how to think about it.

James Kehoe

executive
#57

Yes. I think if I was -- I'll do total company. I think the total company recurring revenue will outpace, we said this publicly, the total revenue growth. And it will definitely be flat to potentially 100 basis points better. So what that implies that the combination of nonrecurring plus professional services, which declined 6.5% in 2023 as a combined group, that will probably go closer to flattish, right? So that's what I mean. It doesn't make the plan necessarily easy, but you see the magnitude of the headwind that was in '23 goes to -- it's basically flat for the combined, those nonrecurring and professional services.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#58

Can we take it a step back on Capital Markets again now? Just because, again, I mean, Banking, we kind of talked about you have demand there. And I know that you talked -- pretty high conviction in the acceleration as the year progresses. But again, Capital Markets is growing at a rate that I know a few years back, we wouldn't have expected, right? Especially after -- I mean, the SunGard deal, there was a lot of pushback on that back in the day. And so what is going so well for that business? Maybe a little more detail i,f you can.

James Kehoe

executive
#59

Yes. I think it is -- there was -- but if you cycle back 3 years ago, it wasn't doing that well. There was a huge investment in getting everything cloud-native, improving the quality of the product, the execution within the business. There were leadership changes. What they're ready for now is the sustainability of the, call it, the faster revenue growth is coming from. They started with a TAM and have started launching more products. They expanded the total addressable market. And then secondly, they expanded the customers they're going to, right? So if you take lending, we serve all the car manufacturers, we serve insurance companies. So the -- I think the split is something like 67% traditional financial institutions and the rest, 1/3 is coming from corporates...

Darrin Peller

analyst
#60

Across the segment? Or...

James Kehoe

executive
#61

Across the segments. And that mix has changed significantly. We have -- our treasury systems are in a lot of big corporates. And you think about -- I'll give you an example, a good one. Cargill. So they're very sophisticated. They do trading management on commodities, forex, everything. They need the most sophisticated treasury systems, forex hedging systems, commodity systems, ESG. Can you think of -- and we have a product in each of the segments that's either a #1 product or #2 product. And that's what's underpinned their growth. It's basically you capture a customer and you give them successfully -- successively more products into each one.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#62

I mean who else is out there doing this? I mean, I know, obviously, you have some Capital Markets software providers, a couple...

James Kehoe

executive
#63

There's nobody that offers the breadth in Capital Markets. Actually, what we struggle with is how you guys should value the company. And the sum of the parts is almost impossible because we can't find direct competitors, not even for Capital Markets. Our product offering is much wider...

Darrin Peller

analyst
#64

It's very diverse. Yes.

James Kehoe

executive
#65

Like in -- what is it, Kyriba or something, is in treasury, for example. But it's somebody else in leasing, it's Alfa Systems, right? It's a different competitor in most of the segments. So I think it's -- I think what people don't appreciate is the global nature of the business. So these large financial institutions have asset management companies all around the globe. We have a global presence in Capital Markets.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#66

So it sounds like -- I mean not to put words in your mouth for the Investor Day, but it sounds like this is a solidly mid-single-digit plus growth rate for some time...

James Kehoe

executive
#67

It is. We've good line of sight to it. The TAM is behind us. We will do more acquisitions to fortify the portfolio and continue to move into different client bases.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#68

Are there still cross-sell opportunities between Banking and Cap Markets? Or...

James Kehoe

executive
#69

Actually, what we're playing around with even more now, there's -- we almost need to finish the cross-sell opportunities within the 2 businesses first. Because what Capital Markets is doing is they gain a client like Cargill with treasury and then they go on to forex management, then they go into ESG, then they go into this. So the number of products per customer is expanding. And then a lot of the asset, the big asset managers, have -- that people that need asset management and security software, they're also in the Banking segment. So it opens the doors. And I think that's the big advantage the company has. We can get into Citibank, JPMorgan, any of the RCBs, the big banks. If you're a one-shot wonder and you've got 1 product you're selling, you can't get into the same company [indiscernible].

Darrin Peller

analyst
#70

Maybe we shift to margins for a moment. I mean in the interest of time, you guys have historically been a steady recurring revenue story, and margins have been a big expansion over the years. You're talking about 20 to 40 basis points, and you just alluded to how it could be more than that after the 2024 year. Maybe just talk about the components of it for a moment and what's driving that? Future Forward savings is obviously a piece of it, but anything else you can talk about in terms of operating leverage?

James Kehoe

executive
#71

Yes. And Future Forward is a little exaggerated in '24 because we're -- it's $280 million of OpEx savings, and we have to drive it hard to start offsetting the dissynergy impacts. So that will tail off a bit, but it's the #1 contributor to margin expansion...

Darrin Peller

analyst
#72

For this year, yes.

James Kehoe

executive
#73

I think if you look at segment mix, within Capital Markets, because it's moving from -- I think the recurring revenue is 72%, and maybe we want to get it closer to 80% over time. Every time you shift from a pure license deal to recurring revenue, your margin goes down. So it's got a natural headwind. That being said, Capital Markets has a 50% margin. Not too many businesses out there with a 50% EBITDA, and none of the competitors have one. So our goal there is preserve the margin by driving OpEx leverage and Future Forward. Maybe slight increases over time. The Banking margin has a natural tailwind, at least in the short term. The more payments and money management we sell relative to -- what's a good example? We have a wealth and retirement business, which is lower margin. And the margin delta is so great. That drives a favorable margin rate within Banking. But it's like, I don't know, is it 20 basis points, 30? It depends on the year and the differential growth between the segments.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#74

Okay. That's great. I mean so it sounds like there's conviction and again, that being sustainable.

James Kehoe

executive
#75

Yes, exactly.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#76

Why don't we shift to the capital return story, which is obviously why I know a lot of investors are constructive on FIS now. I mean -- with the sale of Worldpay, FIS is dedicated to repurchasing. I think it's $4 billion of stock between fourth quarter '23 and the end of the year '24, right? Let's call it a little more than 10% of your market value. And so when we consider that and you combine that with a dividend for pretty strong total shareholder return, what are your thought processes -- what's your thought process around go-forward capital return strategy, I mean even post the use of the proceeds from the sale?

James Kehoe

executive
#77

Yes. Well, we -- I think we've clarified it that we're going to be dogmatically at 2.8x leverage. Could we flex up at times for an acquisition? Yes, you could. But that's kind of what we're going to target as a long-term measure. The dividend, we've been pretty clear, is 35% of the adjusted net earnings. So that means we're going to grow it in line with EPS growth, effectively. The one part we feel strongly about is M&A. We are very dogged in that we want to preserve $1 billion a year of cash flow for M&A. It will be -- we've done 4 in the last 3 months. Three, I guess. Well, one of them was done earlier last year. The smaller one was $70 million, just to give you a range. Now we're starting to look at stuff that's a little bigger. But the combined impact...

Darrin Peller

analyst
#78

And it's what category again, in terms of focus?

James Kehoe

executive
#79

It's the -- one of the prior ones actually ends up in Banking. It was more a payments business. And then the other 2 were in Capital Markets. Both of them overseas, right?

Darrin Peller

analyst
#80

And in terms of what you want to do now in terms of capabilities for M&A? Anything in particular?

James Kehoe

executive
#81

We're -- it's a mix. I think the most attractive segment's Capital Markets because you plug in -- our deal in Capital Markets is because we have global distribution and we've had door open for all -- with all large banks and asset managers, if we plug in a new product that's from a small company that doesn't have the same access, our revenue synergies are massive, right? So the return on investment, we look at 25%, 35% internal rate of return as a starting point. I think we'll also steer quite a bit at the payments and money management business as well in Banking because it is -- it has a faster growth profile. We have a great set of assets. But could we build it out more? The answer is yes.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#82

And just -- we get this question from investors. I mean the cadence of the buyback that your plans are for this year. Is there any...

James Kehoe

executive
#83

It's very aggressive because we basically wanted to get to the same return as an ASR. So we started buying in the quiet period. We had 10b5 programs in place. So what we'll do all year is 10b5 programs. And now we're actually buying this [indiscernible] in the market...

Darrin Peller

analyst
#84

In the open market also, yes.

James Kehoe

executive
#85

But once we were in quiet period, there will be a 10b5 in place.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#86

Okay. So you're really covering all bases.

James Kehoe

executive
#87

What we said is out of the $3.5 billion this year, $1 billion will be in the second half. That's what we said publicly. The rest is in the first half. And we get within $0.02 of a full ASR for the year.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#88

That's really something. Okay.

James Kehoe

executive
#89

But it's -- we did -- I think it was $490 million in January and February alone.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#90

That's great. Guys, we have about 3, 4 minutes left. Maybe we'll open it up to questions in just a moment. I mean, but James, I mean, when we think about -- I ask this to a lot of my panels, but think about where we stand a year from now. I mean, what are you hoping to see for FIS in terms of the results on the financial side and strategically?

James Kehoe

executive
#91

I think the results -- I think there will be better clarity amongst investors on the long-term growth profile. So we'll give medium-term guidance in May. I think the TSR should be viewed quite attractively. We're looking at a re-rating of the company, on the basis of most of the investor feedback is, well, we don't believe -- can you get to the Banking number? And the number 2 question is, well, we don't understand Capital Markets. Can you explain it to us? And we believe that just by giving more confidence on top line momentum plus bringing to light the power of the Capital Markets business, we would expect a differential in the multiple over time. Over time. We're also realistic.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#92

Okay. That makes sense. Anything you want to add, George, or -- okay. Guys, happy to take any questions from the audience. Yes, please.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#93

Just talking about the acquisitions. I mean I don't know, maybe at the Analyst Day, this is more of a request than a question. Would you guys be able to talk about the ability for the acquisition to drive further EPS growth in the outer years? I think that's one of the questions people have. What happens in '25 and '26 once the buyback runs its case?

James Kehoe

executive
#94

Yes, I think they'll be slightly accretive. The ones we've done add up to a couple of hundred million dollars, so they're not going to move the needle. They're not even -- maybe they're $0.01 dilutive in '24. You're typically buying a very fast-growing revenue business, and the synergies will come in over probably 2 years. So they'll be accretive within -- they'll probably be accretive in the second year and -- but you're not going to drive $0.50 of EPS. You're driving -- what's the best way to look at it? I think work it backwards from, take a revenue multiple that seems reasonable, I don't know, 5 to 6x. The ones we did already were 3x or 3.5x on average. The EBITDA margin, when we get them, are probably lower than our company composite. But after 2 years, they're probably in line with or slightly ahead because of the synergies.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#95

Okay. So just a follow-up then. Is there a way, just a rule of thumb, that we should think about acquisitions on average? Add a few cents to EPS on an annual basis? Or you're not prepared to be able to comment on that?

James Kehoe

executive
#96

Well, as I said, we're dilutive this year. I think once the flywheel gets working, I think, yes, once we're 2 or 3 years in, you're probably right that it takes up the growth rate over time. The first couple of years, probably not. They won't register enough.

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#97

One follow-up on M&A. In Capital Markets, are you looking to enhance existing or add new [indiscernible] the valuation looking in the market?

Darrin Peller

analyst
#98

Can you just repeat the question?

James Kehoe

executive
#99

Yes. I think the -- one of the ones we did was we have a competing product, and their product was by far the best in the market. And it had a decent coverage in Europe, and we have better, way better, distribution. So we bought a better product, and we'll merge the 2 products. That's one example. Another one was a new product segment.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#100

I think just trying to get it going forward is Capital Markets look like an area that you're going to look to invest in M&A that's for new capabilities or just...

James Kehoe

executive
#101

It will be a mix. I think it will be mostly new capabilities or better capabilities, and the same in Banking, actually. I don't think we're going to spread all our dollars in one of the categories.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#102

I actually had a question that I meant to ask from investors for me to ask you, which is about the Worldpay. How you guys think about the Worldpay, let's call it, stub, or the minority interest, in terms of, a, forecasting from a medium term standpoint? And then, b, what is the actual ownership structure going to look like in several years? I mean we don't know, obviously. But is that up to you guys? Is that up to others? Can you just...

James Kehoe

executive
#103

Well, I think it's -- the forecasting are very transparent. They're required to give us 3-year plans, to give us budget updates, forecast updates. It's all built into the contract. So we'll have good visibility on when we provide long-term guidance. So that's not an issue. In terms of ownership, the contract is quite complex. You, effectively, in the first 2 years, can't do anything without the approval of the other side. So even if we wanted to sell some of our stake, you couldn't. They would have to approve it. Years 2 to 4, there's a different set of rules, which effectively is you could actually sell your stake, but they would have a right of first refusal or tag-along, right? So it's quite complex. So it would not -- it wouldn't want to be a mutually beneficial exit on both sides. So I think there's going to be no short-term movement. I think the liquidity event could be an IPO at some stage, but you'll have to ask them about that.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#104

Okay. Any final questions, guys?

Georgios Mihalos

executive
#105

All right.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#106

Thank you very much.

James Kehoe

executive
#107

Thank you.

Darrin Peller

analyst
#108

Really appreciate having you.

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