Priority Technology Q1 2023 Earnings Report $6.52 -0.53 (-7.57%) As of 01:23 PM Eastern This is a fair market value price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings HistoryForecast Priority Technology EPS ResultsActual EPS-$0.15Consensus EPS N/ABeat/MissN/AOne Year Ago EPSN/APriority Technology Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$185.03 millionExpected RevenueN/ABeat/MissN/AYoY Revenue GrowthN/APriority Technology Announcement DetailsQuarterQ1 2023Date5/11/2023TimeN/AConference Call DateThursday, May 11, 2023Conference Call Time11:00AM ETUpcoming EarningsPriority Technology's Q1 2025 earnings is scheduled for Thursday, May 8, 2025, with a conference call scheduled at 11:00 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Q1 2025 Earnings ReportConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryPRTH ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Priority Technology Q1 2023 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrMay 11, 2023 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 8 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Morning, and welcome to the Priority Technology Holdings First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Ketman. Operator00:00:31Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:34Good morning and thank you for joining us. With me today are Tom Priore, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Priority Technology Holdings and Tim O'Leary, Chief Financial Officer. Before we give our prepared remarks, I would like to remind all participants Our comments today will include forward looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our forward looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise the forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. We provide a detailed discussion of the various risk factors in our SEC filings, and we encourage you to review these filings. Speaker 100:01:15Additionally, we may refer to non GAAP measures, including, but not limited to, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA during the call. Reconciliations of our non GAAP performance and liquidity measures to the appropriate GAAP measures can be found in our press release and SEC filings available in the With that, I would like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Tom Priore. Speaker 200:01:40Thank you, Chris, and thanks to everyone for joining us for our Q1 2023 earnings call. Before walking you through our financial results, I'd like to highlight some key takeaways about current business trends. 1st, when reporting full year earnings back in March, we noted the business has been performing consistent with our Q4 trends. Even better, activity began to accelerate toward the end of March and we ended the quarter on a substantially high note. We continue to grow market share in SMB Acquiring Generated excellent results in both B2B and Enterprise Payments. Speaker 200:02:17While other companies were pulling back in response uncertain macroeconomic conditions and the recent banking turmoil, we remained committed to our vision for the convergence Payments and Banking, driving priority aggressively forward on the strength of our countercyclical business lines that we're positioned to benefit from higher interest rates and the macroeconomic pullback. 2nd, we continue to outperform our peers both from a growth and margin expansion perspective. In doing so, we continue to strengthen our competitive market position for the future. Importantly, Our Q2 performance remains on a similar trajectory to what we saw in the Q1. Last, our decision last year to accelerate investment in Passport, our unified commerce API, combining full featured payments and banking as a service Continues to be rewarded in the marketplace, especially as underfunded FinTechs and Banking as a Service Providers have come under pressure And a crisis in confidence in banks continues among businesses of all sizes. Speaker 200:03:27We believe that the numbers Demonstrate that Priority is well built to thrive in the somewhat dislocated environment. And the current pace Of our new partner adoption of Passport to collect store and send money will drive results going forward. With that as a backdrop, let's dig into the numbers. As you saw in our earnings release, we continued our positive momentum with a very impressive start to the year. Our Q1 revenue organically increased 21% from the prior year to a record 185,000,000 This led to a 22% increase in adjusted gross profit to $63,100,000 and a 24% improvement in Adjusted EBITDA to $37,600,000 Adjusted gross margin of 34.1% increased 30 basis points from the prior year quarter, demonstrating the operating leverage of our purpose built platform. Speaker 200:04:26As I noted earlier, We anticipate that our strong Q1 performance and established trends in our business channels will continue. As such, we remain confident in our ability to deliver consistent double digit top line and bottom line growth, projecting revenue of $740,000,000 to 755,000,000 And adjusted EBITDA of $160,000,000 to $165,000,000 for the full year 2023. For those of you who are new to Priority, Slide 5 highlights the architecture of our proprietary unified commerce platform, which is purpose built to collect, store and send money, Combining robust payment and banking functionality to monetize the merchant networks we serve. Our growing customer base combined with current market conditions Continue to reinforce our belief that systems combining features of both payments and banking to accelerate cash flow and distribute funds in multi Party environments will be critical as businesses put greater demands on software and payment solution providers. We're committed to meeting our customers' growing demands by simplifying the experience for our partners, making working with priority as simple as possible. Speaker 200:05:37Partners simply choose the application that best fits their business, whether that small business operator choosing from the MX Merchant POS suite, An FI or middle market customer adopting CPX for automated payables or an enterprise partner connecting to us via our API, They can select the Passport financial tools that fit their needs and begin to move money. We continue to stay on the cutting edge of payment technology by innovating our SaaS payment suite of services and Passport Commerce Engine to meet the evolving needs of our customers. As evidence of this, in the Q1 alone, we have 18 new program managers activating on Passport and have deployed nearly 220 MX Merchant POS terminals from our direct sales channels. During the quarter, we've also signed 28 resellers to our MX Merchant POS distributor program that will be rolling out in the early Q3. Importantly, we're on track in The end of Q2 and beginning of Q3 to initiate the rollout of financial tools like instant funding, Checking, debit card issuing and other banking as a service tools across our channels. Speaker 200:06:53At this point, I'd like to hand it over to Tim, We'll provide further insight into our segment level performance during the Q1 along with current trends in each that inform our guidance for the upcoming year. Speaker 300:07:06Thank you, Tom, and good morning, everyone. As I review the Q1 financial results, including the segment level contribution to the consolidated results, Please refer to the supplemental slides or the MD and A for further details. Our MD and A is included in the Form 10 Q that was filed with the SEC this morning and provides a discussion of our comparative Q1 results. A link to that filing can also be found on our website. As Tom mentioned, the strong financial performance we saw in the Q1 of 2023 was driven by a diverse mix of our business segments, which demonstrates the ability of Priority to perform in varying conditions. Speaker 300:07:42I won't reiterate the financial highlights that Tom already spoke about. But before I go into the segment level results, I do want to provide a few other key metrics as it relates to the consolidated results for the Q1. For the quarter, we had 10.6% growth in bank card dollar volume Across all segments to roughly $15,900,000,000 and 12% growth in bank card transaction count to 164,000,000 transactions. If you include ACH, debit and other volumes, the total payments volume for the quarter was $29,400,000,000 which is up 10% from $26,600,000,000 in the Q1 of 2022. Again, all of those metrics are for the consolidated business. Speaker 300:08:22I'll now go into more detail on each of the business segments results for the Q1. Let's start with SMB payments on Slide 8. For the Q1, the SMB segment had revenue of approximately $155,000,000 which was a 19% or $25,000,000 increase over the prior year's Q1. This strong organic revenue growth was driven by a combination of 8% growth And bank card dollar volume to $15,200,000,000 and 12% growth in bank card transaction count to 163,400,000 transactions. We averaged just under 260,000 merchants during the quarter, which is almost 7% higher than Q1 of 2022. Speaker 300:09:02However, we finished the quarter with just over 257,000 merchants as a result of certain resellers closing a number of inactive accounts in March. Despite those measures, the ending merchant count still grew over 5% from the prior year. The growth in our merchant base continues to be driven by strong boarding trends Where new monthly merchant boards averaged almost 5,100 throughout the quarter. That compares to an average of just under 4,700 per month in the Q1 of 2022 and And an average of just over $4,700 per month for all of 2022. Continuing with SMB on the next page And moving down to P and L to focus on profitability. Speaker 300:09:41Adjusted gross profit increased by $2,500,000 or 8% to $35,400,000 for the quarter. The underlying improvement was even better when recognizing the year over year comparative quarterly gross profit And related gross margin performance was negatively impacted by the timing of the recognition of certain incentive and other fees that benefited the Q1 2022 period more than Q1 of this year. If you normalize for the net impact of those differences, We saw an approximate 40 basis point decline in gross margins in Q1 of 2023, which is consistent with prior quarters It continues to be driven by a combination of our larger reseller partners growing at a faster pace while also attracting higher commission rates. Lastly for SMB, quarterly operating income of $12,000,000 represents a 4% decline from the prior year's Q1. Consistent with my comments on gross profit, the comparative quarterly operating profit on a year over year basis was negatively impacted by the timing of certain fee recognition. Speaker 300:10:41In addition, the Q1 had $3,000,000 of higher operating expenses, which were mostly headcount related as compared to last year. When combined with the $2,500,000 increase in gross profit, it resulted in a $500,000 decline in operating income for the quarter. Moving to B2B payments. Revenue of $2,800,000 in the Q1 was a decrease of just over 50% from the prior year. This decrease was largely the result of the previously discussed reduction in revenue from managed services due to the final wind down of certain programs with a large customer. Speaker 300:11:14I know we've spoken about this on the last few earnings calls, but to provide some additional context, the managed services wind down had a $2,300,000 impact on revenue from Q1 of last year to Q1 this year. Given the timing of the wind down in late 2022, Q2 will have a similar headwind from a year over year comparison standpoint, but that impact will lessen with each successive quarter this year. Separately, the CPX business saw an $800,000 decrease in revenue over that same time period As a result of certain contract termination fees recognized in 2022, if you normalize for that item, the CPX business was up modestly in Q1 With 9.5% growth in ACH volume and 6.5% growth in issuing volume. With respect to B2B's profitability on Slide 11, Adjusted gross profit declined to $2,000,000 as a result of the managed services wind down. But as we indicated as an expectation on our last earnings call, The adjusted gross profit margins increased by over 17 percentage points during the quarter as the lower margin Managed Services business rolled off, leaving behind the higher margin CPX business. Speaker 300:12:19For the quarter, the B2B segment had an operating loss of 800,000 as operating expenses remain stable, but were impacted by the lower gross profit. Moving to the Enterprise segment on the next page. Q4 revenue of $27,300,000 was an increase of almost $10,000,000 or 57 percent from $17,300,000 in Q1 of 2022. The themes from the past several quarters have continued as favorable trends in new monthly enrollments and increase in the number of billed clients, Growth in deposit balances and the benefit of rising interest rates all contributed to the strong Q1 revenue growth. As shown on the next slide, adjusted gross profit for the Enterprise segment increased by 64% to 25,700,000 while adjusted gross profit margins expanded to 94.1%. Speaker 300:13:10Operating income for the Enterprise segment also benefited from operating leverage environment and the increasing need for better banking as a service alternatives, we remain very optimistic about the revenue and earnings opportunities inherent in the Enterprise segment And really throughout priority as we bring the Passport offering and its benefits to more of our clients and end markets. Operating expenses are shown on Page 14 and totaled $46,200,000 for the quarter, an increase of just under 13% from the prior year. As discussed on prior calls, this change was driven by the impact of increased expenses in the business throughout 2022, resulting from investments in personnel and technology support our top line growth and also position us for continued growth. Salaries and benefits of $19,100,000 Increased 19% from Q1 last year as a result of headcount and wage increases during fiscal 2022. We finished Q1 of this year with approximately 900 employees, including 320 in India, which Compared to approximately $870,000,000 at the end of 2022 and just under $840,000,000 at the end of Q1 2022. Speaker 300:14:28I also want to highlight that the $19,100,000 of salaries and benefits in Q1 was a modest increase from $16,900,000 in Q4 It was largely the result of grow over from hires made during the Q4 along with certain expenses that are typically higher at the beginning of the year, including stock compensation expense and benefits. For the balance of the year, we remain focused on leveraging the investments made to date in the team and technology to manage our operating expense base. SG and A of $9,100,000 increased 21% from $7,500,000 in Q1 of 2022. Again, continued investment in business expansion drove that level of growth. But consistent with my comments on salaries and benefits, we will continue to focus on our cost structure throughout the following quarters to drive operating efficiencies. Speaker 300:15:15Depreciation and amortization of $18,000,000 for the quarter increased modestly from the comparable quarter last year It was consistent with Q4 levels. Moving to the next slide. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $37,600,000 which was an increase of 24.1 percent from $30,300,000 in Q1 of 2022. Working down the EBITDA walk on this slide, Interest expense of $17,700,000 for the quarter was an increase of $6,200,000 from Q1 2022 levels as a result of the impact of the rising interest rate environment and the floating rate nature of our existing debt. However, as I detailed on our last earnings call, we have a natural hedge in place for the floating rate debt given the interest income we generate on the deposits. Speaker 300:16:01At the end of 2022, that natural hedge covered about 90% of the debt. At the end of Q1, it covered 100% of the debt as our deposit balances grew throughout the quarter. If you include the floating rate component of our preferred stock, The natural hedge at the end of Q1 covered about 70% of our floating rate liabilities. The further adjustments to our average adjusted EBITDA include non cash stock compensation expense of $1,900,000 and approximately $600,000 of other adjustments consisting of certain non cash or non recurring expenses. While not listed on the page, for the last 12 months or LTM period ending on March 31, Adjusted EBITDA of $147,300,000 represents $7,000,000 of growth from the 140,300,000 We had at the end of 2022 $13,000,000 of growth since March of 2022. Speaker 300:16:53Moving to the outstanding debt slide on Page 16. Our debt levels have continued to decline and we finished the quarter with $615,700,000 of gross debt, which is down from $623,200,000 at the end Our net debt of $599,800,000 is down by $4,900,000 compared to the balance at the end of 2022. From a liquidity standpoint, we had $33,500,000 of borrowing capacity under our revolving credit facility in addition to $15,900,000 of unrestricted cash on the balance sheet at quarter end. On Slide 17, the preferred stock on our balance sheet totaled 2 $135,400,000 at March 31 and is net of $20,300,000 of unaccreted discounts and issuance costs. The Q1 preferred dividend of $11,300,000 is comprised of $6,100,000 paid in cash and $4,400,000 of a PIK component. Speaker 300:17:47This is supplemented on our income statement with the accretion of discounts and issuance costs of just over 800,000 Before turning the call back over to Tom, I want to take a minute to reaffirm our revenue adjusted EBITDA guidance for the full year 2023. As noted in our earnings release, we continue to forecast 12% to 14% growth in revenue to a range of $740,000,000 to $755,000,000 for the year adjusted EBITDA growth of 14% to 18%, which will result in a range of $160,000,000 to $165,000,000 for the full year. With that, I'll now turn the call back over to Tom for his closing comments. Speaker 200:18:24Thank you, Tim. As we wrap up our Q1 review, I wanted to reinforce a few of the more meaningful attributes that will continue to set Priority apart from others in the FinTech and Payment sector. First, as our performance demonstrates, we are built for efficiency and our platform can support a diverse portfolio of software and payment assets that perform in challenging economic environments. 2nd, our lean focused technology stack is built for the future of payments The accelerating convergence with banking functions that will drive above market growth with minimal, if any investment. Our products are positioned to capture new sources of revenue from banking and financial services Embedded in emerging modern commerce business models. Speaker 200:19:13If there are those that question the veracity of this view, perhaps you might consider The recently announced partnership between Apple and Goldman Sachs to deliver banking function to Apple Card users Or Twitter's reported intention to embed payments and banking into its commercial network to name a few. Meshing payments and banking functionalities will inevitably be table stakes in our sector. Last, we're an organization that continues to operationalize vision. What I mean by this statement is that beyond the unwavering work ethic And commitment of our technology, service and sales and operational support teams, we have dedicated effort and personnel to be at the forefront of evolving strategy and customer trends to deliver results day in and day out. We believe is our clear, informed vision and passion to execute that will deliver the long term value our shareholders should expect. Speaker 200:20:19We appreciate you all taking the time to participate in today's call and the ongoing support of our investors and analysts. Operator, we'd now like to open the call for questions. Operator00:20:46The first question is from Brian Kinstlinger of Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:20:53Hi, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions and solid numbers. Transaction volumes have held up really nicely in light of the economy and numbers, especially that we've seen for other companies. Can you remind us Roughly the percentage of revenue from consumer and retail, which I think is relatively low as a percentage of consumer payments. And then how are transaction dollar volumes in those verticals performing compared to your other verticals? Speaker 500:21:24So, and just to clarify your question, you're speaking specifically about The retail SIC codes in the SMB acquiring space? Speaker 400:21:37Correct. Speaker 500:21:38Got it, got it. Brian, really across verticals, Our volume has been consistent. There's certainly been no drop in retail. And it's kind of up in line with our overall performance. The result is you can kind of gauge from our new merchant boards, Right. Speaker 500:22:10Have increased year over year from, call it, high 4000s to consistently now over 5,100. We're just winning market share in the acquiring space. We've if anything, we've continued to diversify our reselling partner channels. With some of the acquisitions we did earlier in 2022, we've also increased our direct sales activities. So The market share growth has really been the catalyst for our continued consistency in the SMB Arena relative to our peers. Speaker 500:22:58I mean Tim can give you a we're just going to drill down into a little bit of specifics on the SIC codes that You noted. Speaker 300:23:05Yes. Brian, there's obviously more that goes into kind of broader consumer retail, but if I just look at what we categorize as retail trade compared To healthcare, legal services or other types of services, volumes in just straight retail Q1 of this year versus Q1 last year were up over 10%. Speaker 400:23:25Oh, wow. And what percentage of your revenue is consumer retail? Speaker 300:23:30That retail that same categorization is only it's just under 25% of the volume. Speaker 400:23:3525%. Great. And then, I want to follow-up on the comment on your merchant acquiring. You mentioned this quarter closing some non active So I'm clear on this quarter, but as I started to review, you've been adding 14,000 to 15,000 merchants per quarter, But net adds consistently been around 5,000 per quarter based on the total you report each quarter For the last many quarters, can you talk about the churn? Are these small customers? Speaker 400:24:10Are they sometimes sizable customers? Are Stay generally non active and for the ones that aren't non active, why do customers leave us at all? Speaker 500:24:21Yes. I mean, look, obviously, we have some customers. It's a competitive marketplace. So we'll lose Some high volume processing customers. But overall, there's our book is exceedingly diverse. Speaker 500:24:40There's not a single merchant that would come close to approaching even 1% of our volume. So, in the SMB space. So, most of it most merchants are you're talking there In the 10ths or 100ths of a percentage of our volume. So The impact is kind of muted from a standpoint of an individual large merchant leaving. We tend to clear out the deadwood, if you will. Speaker 500:25:20The merchants that tend to leave us and look, you can look at our attrition on a revenue and volume basis and it's consistently in the 10% if not lower range on a static pool basis. And what that indicates to you is, merchants who are processing don't tend to leave. And we find that's because they rely on our technology to run their business. We're not a terminal provider. We don't chase after small merchants. Speaker 500:25:55Our merchants typically are processing bank card volume alone Nearly $30,000 a month, which is on the higher end of the small merchant segment in the U. S. Statistically, we found that merchants that are processing less than $10,000 a month will leave you at twice the rate of merchants doing more than 10,000. And what that indicates Historically, those are merchants that just they don't use technology because they're very small and they don't necessarily value it as much. So The penny here or there seems to be important to them and they'll leave for just pure price. Speaker 500:26:41So we tend to focus our distribution channels away from that. I think you've heard us talk about this. We're very focused on Making the relationship with priority with our resellers, with our ISVs consultative and that we give them tools to really maximize their merchant networks. And the stats prove out that while it takes a little more painstaking detail, That long game is a winner. So, at, hope I'll give you some insight as to, one, how we think about it and what's driving those results. Speaker 400:27:21Great. Switching gears to the enterprise side, I'm wondering if you can help break down the growth has been great. So maybe break down the revenue growth between existing customers that are spending more or driving more Fees versus new logos versus higher interest rates. Speaker 300:27:45Yes, I can maybe start on the back end of that first. So If you think about the interest rates and the deposit balances, obviously, we saw a nice growth in deposit balances throughout the quarter from Kind of the traditional enterprise business we've had historically, but also with the growth in Passport, right? You heard Tom mention 18 new program managers came on board during the quarter, right, and that benefits the deposit balances in Enterprise as well with the new Passport offering. The combined effective interest rates and deposit balances we had $5,000,000 of interest income in the quarter that compares to $7,500,000 of all of last year. So you can start to extrapolate what that means for the balance of this year given where the interest rate environment sits with the Fed activities. Speaker 500:28:34Yes. And then maybe commenting on the other components of your question. We have you may recall that we mentioned in The full year earnings, some of the when talking about Passport, some of the impact from SVB's fallout And how quickly we were able to onboard new logos. So certainly a portion of the growth Is from that. But we've also seen, Let's say on a, let me give you some kind of timeline. Speaker 500:29:19The growth from existing customers On a year over year basis, is Probably 70%. Speaker 400:29:35Great. Speaker 500:29:37Thank you Speaker 400:29:37for that color on that. Speaker 500:29:39Yes. And I'll say that so think about that as from Q1 2022 levels To present levels. Speaker 400:29:51Okay. Great. Last question I've got. Normally companies ask normally companies get questions on M and A. As I think about The last several years, you've taken strategic opportunities to divest businesses at times to delever. Speaker 400:30:15Is that right now something that is of priority? Is it not really, just trying to understand, is there an opportunity potentially to with your asset base To delever at all? Speaker 500:30:32Well, look, certainly there is, right? If you were to just look at, We provide in our financials a segment level detail. And we've purposely built the business As a single engine Passport to collect store and send money with applications devoted to FinTech Payment Business Segments, right, to serve customers in those segments, right? MX Merchant POS Suite in SMB, CPX in the B2B vertical and then of course CFT Pay and the Passport API in the enterprise segment. So each of those business segments are detachable Without deconstructing the engine that operates the business. Speaker 500:31:34So we're always Considerate of what's the intrinsic value of those segments To folks that operate in those segments and we compete with And may find that we offer some tools That they may not have. So, I'll say that that's something that we're always considerate of And we built the business to enable that way of thinking. And If we see levels that we think are It makes sense to either divest of an asset or even to divest of a portion of an asset. We're going to do it, If it makes sense and yes, we would use that money to reduce debt and then Probably a portion of it to figure out where we want to redeploy that capital to higher returns. Speaker 400:32:52Great. Thanks so much guys. Operator00:33:03The next question is from Taylor Johns of CGI. Please go ahead. Good morning, guys, and thank Speaker 600:33:10you for taking my questions. I know you mentioned that some competitors are retrenching in light of the economy. Meanwhile, you guys are moving forward with investments. So I'm just wondering if you're seeing any new opportunities to take share from some of those competitors and what that landscape is like? Speaker 500:33:29Yes. Look, we are. Probably the sector that has gotten our attention the most is B2B. In the B2B payments space, there's been obviously a lot of enthusiasm Around the segment in past years and Some companies that they raise a lot of money, they've maybe not realized their growth goals And have not driven bottom line performance, we think there's going to be a really excellent opportunity To acquire assets in that space, so we're diligently looking at opportunities there. And then There's a I would say just broadly speaking in FinTech and we've already done a few of these partnerships. Speaker 500:34:32I think As they continue to evolve, these are emerging companies that are software applications that have Realized markets, okay. So these are not, what I would describe as solutions looking for a problem to solve. These are companies that really just got caught in kind of the current environment for venture capital And financing, where they're early stage, good applications in good sectors with Real performance potential, but are shy of cash flow positive and need a little bit of assistance to get to the next level. We're evaluating a number of opportunities there where we come in as an operating partner And help them realize very quickly synergies for infrastructure, things as simple as their AWS contract, They are database framework and database management. Of course, we have all the back office capability, HR, finance, etcetera, and help these companies, I'll call it streamline, So they can focus on their core application. Speaker 500:35:54We can help them reduce OpEx and then of course leverage them through our distribution to drive It's a cash flow positive. There's a lot of opportunities that are emerging with that type of profile. And they are because the venture capital funds that had supported them are not in a position to keep funding them And they need sources of not just more stable capital, but more importantly, an accelerant That can help them maximize the cash they have and get their distribution to market more quickly. So, the sectors that interest us are real estate. We've already shown we're successful there. Speaker 500:36:44We've got a good track record. We think there's a lot to do in real estate. We think there's a lot to do in construction, which kind of is a variance of the real estate market. And we've done we've already done something in construction. The Healthcare segment Is another that we're we've just started something small and growing, but we're continuing to look at opportunities there For a few reasons. Speaker 500:37:19One, it's just very dislocated generally in terms of how Payment reconciliation is managed, and the macro trends are actually unique in Healthcare. The inflationary impact in healthcare tends to lag the macroeconomic inflation by a couple of years Because of the way healthcare contracts are structured. So we think there's some additional macroeconomic tailwinds that Could benefit that segment. So those are the areas that have caught our interest right now, that we're looking to probably place a few bets. Speaker 700:38:03Thank you so much for Speaker 600:38:04that color. That was really helpful. And just another question, Wondering if you could talk a little bit more about some of your new products, specifically including which you feel present the greatest opportunity as of right now? Speaker 500:38:18Yes, appreciate that. The well, look, the first one, I kind of alluded to them in our comments. The MX Merchant POS Suite Is, we think is going to really going to energize our distribution. There are a suite of terminals that are integrated to our MX gateway that will enable all of the software Functionality Speaker 200:38:45of our Speaker 500:38:45MX merchant application on handheld terminals. And the terminals Can be standalone, so they can work like a handheld POS at the table or at checkout, so very slick in that regard. They can also be semi integrated where they'll work with MX Merchant even if you have, let's say, a different POS, So they can inject into the point of sale that clients are using. And then a full on enterprise, which is Both the mobile terminal device and then works with all of our POS applications, which are MX Retail or MX Merchant Retail, MX Merchant Restaurant, Salon, which will be coming out soon and then Charity. As I mentioned, we also are going deep in the construction space. Speaker 500:39:41So we expect to launch a product called MX Merchant build in the coming quarter. So that's I think one of the Really energizing things that are going on at Priority. And as I noted, it's we know it's needed. Just You can see just by virtue of the number of distribution partners that have signed up to start to sell that product as it comes to market Through our wholesale distribution efforts. We've tested it in house. Speaker 500:40:18That test has gone well. As I noted, just in the Q1 alone, we were selling internally Over a couple of 100. So when you consider it, we really only had it going for a couple of quarters, you're looking at 100 a month is pretty good numbers from a POS standpoint. And then the other that we think is the game changer is injecting banking into all of these segments That you can not only have your merchant processing and your Front end technology managing your business at priority, but you'll get your Passport account, which can be instantly funded With your batches, if you're running transactions through our gateway, We'll be able to fund those transactions in 5 minutes into your Passport account and that money is available for businesses to Acquire supplies, make other purchases, whatever they need to do to manage their money. And It's going to operate like your standard business bank account, be able to write checks, have a debit card linked to make purchases, With a full reporting front end, reporting portal that will look Very much like your high end bank account at a money center bank. Speaker 500:41:49And I would sit, submit probably superior to a lot of the smaller regional community bank offerings that Merchants have accessibility to. So those are the 2 things we're most excited about. And I think uniquely for priority and I really want to underscore this point is, that's all going to flow straight to the bottom line. And we've those tools are built. They're already operating at scale and other segments of our business, The banking as a service capability. Speaker 500:42:28So these are not heavy OpEx and CapEx spend items for us. They're leveraging scaled, excellently designed infrastructure to deliver These solutions to our customer base. Speaker 700:42:47Thank you so much. That was Speaker 600:42:48really helpful insight and thanks for taking Speaker 500:42:52Thanks for the great questions. Operator00:42:57This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tom Priore for any closing remarks. Speaker 100:43:05All right. Speaker 500:43:05Well, on behalf of the team at Priority, We want to thank everybody for taking the time to participate in this morning's call. Special thanks to the analysts That continue to evangelize priority. And of course, to our supportive investors, We'll keep delivering results. Thanks very much. Operator00:43:31The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may nowRead moreRemove AdsPowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallPriority Technology Q1 202300:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xRemove Ads Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Priority Technology Earnings HeadlinesHow Brookfield Infrastructure, Archer-Daniels-Midland, And Robert Half Can Put Cash In Your PocketApril 10 at 8:39 AM | benzinga.comNeed Dependable Passive Income? 4 Safe Stocks Paying 4%-10% Dividends Are Tariff Discount PricedApril 10 at 7:49 AM | 247wallst.comNew “Trump” currency proposed in DCFormer Presidential Advisor, Jim Rickards, says Trump could “rewire our economy and hand millions of Americans a chance at true financial independence in the months ahead.” We recently sat down with Rickards to capture all the key details on tape. April 10, 2025 | Paradigm Press (Ad)Need Dependable Passive Income? 4 Safe Stocks Paying 4%-10% Dividends Are Tariff Discount PricedApril 10 at 7:49 AM | 247wallst.comArcher-Daniels-Midland (NYSE:ADM) Considers Selling Futures Brokerage In Cost-Management PushApril 10 at 3:37 AM | finance.yahoo.comIs Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM) the Best Farmland and Agriculture Stock to Buy Now?April 9 at 3:25 PM | msn.comSee More Archer-Daniels-Midland Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Priority Technology? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Priority Technology and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Priority TechnologyPriority Technology (NASDAQ:PRTH) operates as a payment technology company in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMB) Payments, Business-To-Business (B2B) Payments, and Enterprise Payments. It offers SMB payments processing solutions for B2C transactions through independent sales organizations, financial institutions, independent software vendors, and other referral partners through its MX product suite, which includes MX Connect and MX Merchant products, such as MX Insights, MX Storefront, MX Retail, MX Invoice, MX B2B and ACH.com, and others, which provides flexible and customizable set of business applications that helps to manage critical business work functions and revenue performance to resellers and merchant clients using core payment processing. The company also offers CPX, a platform that offers accounts payable automation solutions, including virtual card, purchase card, ACH +, dynamic discounting, or check. In addition, it provides curated managed services; payment-adjacent technologies to facilitate the acceptance of electronic payments from customers; and Plastiq payables management software, which helps businesses in improving cash flow with instant access to working capital. Further, the company offers embedded finance and BaaS solutions to enterprise customers to modernize legacy platforms and accelerate software partners' strategies to monetize payments; and managed services solutions that provide audience-specific programs for institutional partners and other third parties; and consulting and development solutions. It serves SMB, and enterprises, as well as distribution partners, including retail and wholesale independent sales organizations, financial institutions, and independent software vendors. The company was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia.View Priority Technology ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Why Analysts Boosted United Airlines Stock Ahead of EarningsLamb Weston Stock Rises, Earnings Provide Calm Amidst ChaosIntuitive Machines Gains After Earnings Beat, NASA Missions AheadCintas Delivers Earnings Beat, Signals More Growth AheadNike Stock Dips on Earnings: Analysts Weigh in on What’s NextAfter Massive Post Earnings Fall, Does Hope Remain for MongoDB?Semtech Rallies on Earnings Beat—Is There More Upside? Upcoming Earnings Bank of New York Mellon (4/11/2025)BlackRock (4/11/2025)JPMorgan Chase & Co. 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There are 8 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Morning, and welcome to the Priority Technology Holdings First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Ketman. Operator00:00:31Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:34Good morning and thank you for joining us. With me today are Tom Priore, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Priority Technology Holdings and Tim O'Leary, Chief Financial Officer. Before we give our prepared remarks, I would like to remind all participants Our comments today will include forward looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our forward looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise the forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. We provide a detailed discussion of the various risk factors in our SEC filings, and we encourage you to review these filings. Speaker 100:01:15Additionally, we may refer to non GAAP measures, including, but not limited to, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA during the call. Reconciliations of our non GAAP performance and liquidity measures to the appropriate GAAP measures can be found in our press release and SEC filings available in the With that, I would like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Tom Priore. Speaker 200:01:40Thank you, Chris, and thanks to everyone for joining us for our Q1 2023 earnings call. Before walking you through our financial results, I'd like to highlight some key takeaways about current business trends. 1st, when reporting full year earnings back in March, we noted the business has been performing consistent with our Q4 trends. Even better, activity began to accelerate toward the end of March and we ended the quarter on a substantially high note. We continue to grow market share in SMB Acquiring Generated excellent results in both B2B and Enterprise Payments. Speaker 200:02:17While other companies were pulling back in response uncertain macroeconomic conditions and the recent banking turmoil, we remained committed to our vision for the convergence Payments and Banking, driving priority aggressively forward on the strength of our countercyclical business lines that we're positioned to benefit from higher interest rates and the macroeconomic pullback. 2nd, we continue to outperform our peers both from a growth and margin expansion perspective. In doing so, we continue to strengthen our competitive market position for the future. Importantly, Our Q2 performance remains on a similar trajectory to what we saw in the Q1. Last, our decision last year to accelerate investment in Passport, our unified commerce API, combining full featured payments and banking as a service Continues to be rewarded in the marketplace, especially as underfunded FinTechs and Banking as a Service Providers have come under pressure And a crisis in confidence in banks continues among businesses of all sizes. Speaker 200:03:27We believe that the numbers Demonstrate that Priority is well built to thrive in the somewhat dislocated environment. And the current pace Of our new partner adoption of Passport to collect store and send money will drive results going forward. With that as a backdrop, let's dig into the numbers. As you saw in our earnings release, we continued our positive momentum with a very impressive start to the year. Our Q1 revenue organically increased 21% from the prior year to a record 185,000,000 This led to a 22% increase in adjusted gross profit to $63,100,000 and a 24% improvement in Adjusted EBITDA to $37,600,000 Adjusted gross margin of 34.1% increased 30 basis points from the prior year quarter, demonstrating the operating leverage of our purpose built platform. Speaker 200:04:26As I noted earlier, We anticipate that our strong Q1 performance and established trends in our business channels will continue. As such, we remain confident in our ability to deliver consistent double digit top line and bottom line growth, projecting revenue of $740,000,000 to 755,000,000 And adjusted EBITDA of $160,000,000 to $165,000,000 for the full year 2023. For those of you who are new to Priority, Slide 5 highlights the architecture of our proprietary unified commerce platform, which is purpose built to collect, store and send money, Combining robust payment and banking functionality to monetize the merchant networks we serve. Our growing customer base combined with current market conditions Continue to reinforce our belief that systems combining features of both payments and banking to accelerate cash flow and distribute funds in multi Party environments will be critical as businesses put greater demands on software and payment solution providers. We're committed to meeting our customers' growing demands by simplifying the experience for our partners, making working with priority as simple as possible. Speaker 200:05:37Partners simply choose the application that best fits their business, whether that small business operator choosing from the MX Merchant POS suite, An FI or middle market customer adopting CPX for automated payables or an enterprise partner connecting to us via our API, They can select the Passport financial tools that fit their needs and begin to move money. We continue to stay on the cutting edge of payment technology by innovating our SaaS payment suite of services and Passport Commerce Engine to meet the evolving needs of our customers. As evidence of this, in the Q1 alone, we have 18 new program managers activating on Passport and have deployed nearly 220 MX Merchant POS terminals from our direct sales channels. During the quarter, we've also signed 28 resellers to our MX Merchant POS distributor program that will be rolling out in the early Q3. Importantly, we're on track in The end of Q2 and beginning of Q3 to initiate the rollout of financial tools like instant funding, Checking, debit card issuing and other banking as a service tools across our channels. Speaker 200:06:53At this point, I'd like to hand it over to Tim, We'll provide further insight into our segment level performance during the Q1 along with current trends in each that inform our guidance for the upcoming year. Speaker 300:07:06Thank you, Tom, and good morning, everyone. As I review the Q1 financial results, including the segment level contribution to the consolidated results, Please refer to the supplemental slides or the MD and A for further details. Our MD and A is included in the Form 10 Q that was filed with the SEC this morning and provides a discussion of our comparative Q1 results. A link to that filing can also be found on our website. As Tom mentioned, the strong financial performance we saw in the Q1 of 2023 was driven by a diverse mix of our business segments, which demonstrates the ability of Priority to perform in varying conditions. Speaker 300:07:42I won't reiterate the financial highlights that Tom already spoke about. But before I go into the segment level results, I do want to provide a few other key metrics as it relates to the consolidated results for the Q1. For the quarter, we had 10.6% growth in bank card dollar volume Across all segments to roughly $15,900,000,000 and 12% growth in bank card transaction count to 164,000,000 transactions. If you include ACH, debit and other volumes, the total payments volume for the quarter was $29,400,000,000 which is up 10% from $26,600,000,000 in the Q1 of 2022. Again, all of those metrics are for the consolidated business. Speaker 300:08:22I'll now go into more detail on each of the business segments results for the Q1. Let's start with SMB payments on Slide 8. For the Q1, the SMB segment had revenue of approximately $155,000,000 which was a 19% or $25,000,000 increase over the prior year's Q1. This strong organic revenue growth was driven by a combination of 8% growth And bank card dollar volume to $15,200,000,000 and 12% growth in bank card transaction count to 163,400,000 transactions. We averaged just under 260,000 merchants during the quarter, which is almost 7% higher than Q1 of 2022. Speaker 300:09:02However, we finished the quarter with just over 257,000 merchants as a result of certain resellers closing a number of inactive accounts in March. Despite those measures, the ending merchant count still grew over 5% from the prior year. The growth in our merchant base continues to be driven by strong boarding trends Where new monthly merchant boards averaged almost 5,100 throughout the quarter. That compares to an average of just under 4,700 per month in the Q1 of 2022 and And an average of just over $4,700 per month for all of 2022. Continuing with SMB on the next page And moving down to P and L to focus on profitability. Speaker 300:09:41Adjusted gross profit increased by $2,500,000 or 8% to $35,400,000 for the quarter. The underlying improvement was even better when recognizing the year over year comparative quarterly gross profit And related gross margin performance was negatively impacted by the timing of the recognition of certain incentive and other fees that benefited the Q1 2022 period more than Q1 of this year. If you normalize for the net impact of those differences, We saw an approximate 40 basis point decline in gross margins in Q1 of 2023, which is consistent with prior quarters It continues to be driven by a combination of our larger reseller partners growing at a faster pace while also attracting higher commission rates. Lastly for SMB, quarterly operating income of $12,000,000 represents a 4% decline from the prior year's Q1. Consistent with my comments on gross profit, the comparative quarterly operating profit on a year over year basis was negatively impacted by the timing of certain fee recognition. Speaker 300:10:41In addition, the Q1 had $3,000,000 of higher operating expenses, which were mostly headcount related as compared to last year. When combined with the $2,500,000 increase in gross profit, it resulted in a $500,000 decline in operating income for the quarter. Moving to B2B payments. Revenue of $2,800,000 in the Q1 was a decrease of just over 50% from the prior year. This decrease was largely the result of the previously discussed reduction in revenue from managed services due to the final wind down of certain programs with a large customer. Speaker 300:11:14I know we've spoken about this on the last few earnings calls, but to provide some additional context, the managed services wind down had a $2,300,000 impact on revenue from Q1 of last year to Q1 this year. Given the timing of the wind down in late 2022, Q2 will have a similar headwind from a year over year comparison standpoint, but that impact will lessen with each successive quarter this year. Separately, the CPX business saw an $800,000 decrease in revenue over that same time period As a result of certain contract termination fees recognized in 2022, if you normalize for that item, the CPX business was up modestly in Q1 With 9.5% growth in ACH volume and 6.5% growth in issuing volume. With respect to B2B's profitability on Slide 11, Adjusted gross profit declined to $2,000,000 as a result of the managed services wind down. But as we indicated as an expectation on our last earnings call, The adjusted gross profit margins increased by over 17 percentage points during the quarter as the lower margin Managed Services business rolled off, leaving behind the higher margin CPX business. Speaker 300:12:19For the quarter, the B2B segment had an operating loss of 800,000 as operating expenses remain stable, but were impacted by the lower gross profit. Moving to the Enterprise segment on the next page. Q4 revenue of $27,300,000 was an increase of almost $10,000,000 or 57 percent from $17,300,000 in Q1 of 2022. The themes from the past several quarters have continued as favorable trends in new monthly enrollments and increase in the number of billed clients, Growth in deposit balances and the benefit of rising interest rates all contributed to the strong Q1 revenue growth. As shown on the next slide, adjusted gross profit for the Enterprise segment increased by 64% to 25,700,000 while adjusted gross profit margins expanded to 94.1%. Speaker 300:13:10Operating income for the Enterprise segment also benefited from operating leverage environment and the increasing need for better banking as a service alternatives, we remain very optimistic about the revenue and earnings opportunities inherent in the Enterprise segment And really throughout priority as we bring the Passport offering and its benefits to more of our clients and end markets. Operating expenses are shown on Page 14 and totaled $46,200,000 for the quarter, an increase of just under 13% from the prior year. As discussed on prior calls, this change was driven by the impact of increased expenses in the business throughout 2022, resulting from investments in personnel and technology support our top line growth and also position us for continued growth. Salaries and benefits of $19,100,000 Increased 19% from Q1 last year as a result of headcount and wage increases during fiscal 2022. We finished Q1 of this year with approximately 900 employees, including 320 in India, which Compared to approximately $870,000,000 at the end of 2022 and just under $840,000,000 at the end of Q1 2022. Speaker 300:14:28I also want to highlight that the $19,100,000 of salaries and benefits in Q1 was a modest increase from $16,900,000 in Q4 It was largely the result of grow over from hires made during the Q4 along with certain expenses that are typically higher at the beginning of the year, including stock compensation expense and benefits. For the balance of the year, we remain focused on leveraging the investments made to date in the team and technology to manage our operating expense base. SG and A of $9,100,000 increased 21% from $7,500,000 in Q1 of 2022. Again, continued investment in business expansion drove that level of growth. But consistent with my comments on salaries and benefits, we will continue to focus on our cost structure throughout the following quarters to drive operating efficiencies. Speaker 300:15:15Depreciation and amortization of $18,000,000 for the quarter increased modestly from the comparable quarter last year It was consistent with Q4 levels. Moving to the next slide. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $37,600,000 which was an increase of 24.1 percent from $30,300,000 in Q1 of 2022. Working down the EBITDA walk on this slide, Interest expense of $17,700,000 for the quarter was an increase of $6,200,000 from Q1 2022 levels as a result of the impact of the rising interest rate environment and the floating rate nature of our existing debt. However, as I detailed on our last earnings call, we have a natural hedge in place for the floating rate debt given the interest income we generate on the deposits. Speaker 300:16:01At the end of 2022, that natural hedge covered about 90% of the debt. At the end of Q1, it covered 100% of the debt as our deposit balances grew throughout the quarter. If you include the floating rate component of our preferred stock, The natural hedge at the end of Q1 covered about 70% of our floating rate liabilities. The further adjustments to our average adjusted EBITDA include non cash stock compensation expense of $1,900,000 and approximately $600,000 of other adjustments consisting of certain non cash or non recurring expenses. While not listed on the page, for the last 12 months or LTM period ending on March 31, Adjusted EBITDA of $147,300,000 represents $7,000,000 of growth from the 140,300,000 We had at the end of 2022 $13,000,000 of growth since March of 2022. Speaker 300:16:53Moving to the outstanding debt slide on Page 16. Our debt levels have continued to decline and we finished the quarter with $615,700,000 of gross debt, which is down from $623,200,000 at the end Our net debt of $599,800,000 is down by $4,900,000 compared to the balance at the end of 2022. From a liquidity standpoint, we had $33,500,000 of borrowing capacity under our revolving credit facility in addition to $15,900,000 of unrestricted cash on the balance sheet at quarter end. On Slide 17, the preferred stock on our balance sheet totaled 2 $135,400,000 at March 31 and is net of $20,300,000 of unaccreted discounts and issuance costs. The Q1 preferred dividend of $11,300,000 is comprised of $6,100,000 paid in cash and $4,400,000 of a PIK component. Speaker 300:17:47This is supplemented on our income statement with the accretion of discounts and issuance costs of just over 800,000 Before turning the call back over to Tom, I want to take a minute to reaffirm our revenue adjusted EBITDA guidance for the full year 2023. As noted in our earnings release, we continue to forecast 12% to 14% growth in revenue to a range of $740,000,000 to $755,000,000 for the year adjusted EBITDA growth of 14% to 18%, which will result in a range of $160,000,000 to $165,000,000 for the full year. With that, I'll now turn the call back over to Tom for his closing comments. Speaker 200:18:24Thank you, Tim. As we wrap up our Q1 review, I wanted to reinforce a few of the more meaningful attributes that will continue to set Priority apart from others in the FinTech and Payment sector. First, as our performance demonstrates, we are built for efficiency and our platform can support a diverse portfolio of software and payment assets that perform in challenging economic environments. 2nd, our lean focused technology stack is built for the future of payments The accelerating convergence with banking functions that will drive above market growth with minimal, if any investment. Our products are positioned to capture new sources of revenue from banking and financial services Embedded in emerging modern commerce business models. Speaker 200:19:13If there are those that question the veracity of this view, perhaps you might consider The recently announced partnership between Apple and Goldman Sachs to deliver banking function to Apple Card users Or Twitter's reported intention to embed payments and banking into its commercial network to name a few. Meshing payments and banking functionalities will inevitably be table stakes in our sector. Last, we're an organization that continues to operationalize vision. What I mean by this statement is that beyond the unwavering work ethic And commitment of our technology, service and sales and operational support teams, we have dedicated effort and personnel to be at the forefront of evolving strategy and customer trends to deliver results day in and day out. We believe is our clear, informed vision and passion to execute that will deliver the long term value our shareholders should expect. Speaker 200:20:19We appreciate you all taking the time to participate in today's call and the ongoing support of our investors and analysts. Operator, we'd now like to open the call for questions. Operator00:20:46The first question is from Brian Kinstlinger of Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:20:53Hi, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions and solid numbers. Transaction volumes have held up really nicely in light of the economy and numbers, especially that we've seen for other companies. Can you remind us Roughly the percentage of revenue from consumer and retail, which I think is relatively low as a percentage of consumer payments. And then how are transaction dollar volumes in those verticals performing compared to your other verticals? Speaker 500:21:24So, and just to clarify your question, you're speaking specifically about The retail SIC codes in the SMB acquiring space? Speaker 400:21:37Correct. Speaker 500:21:38Got it, got it. Brian, really across verticals, Our volume has been consistent. There's certainly been no drop in retail. And it's kind of up in line with our overall performance. The result is you can kind of gauge from our new merchant boards, Right. Speaker 500:22:10Have increased year over year from, call it, high 4000s to consistently now over 5,100. We're just winning market share in the acquiring space. We've if anything, we've continued to diversify our reselling partner channels. With some of the acquisitions we did earlier in 2022, we've also increased our direct sales activities. So The market share growth has really been the catalyst for our continued consistency in the SMB Arena relative to our peers. Speaker 500:22:58I mean Tim can give you a we're just going to drill down into a little bit of specifics on the SIC codes that You noted. Speaker 300:23:05Yes. Brian, there's obviously more that goes into kind of broader consumer retail, but if I just look at what we categorize as retail trade compared To healthcare, legal services or other types of services, volumes in just straight retail Q1 of this year versus Q1 last year were up over 10%. Speaker 400:23:25Oh, wow. And what percentage of your revenue is consumer retail? Speaker 300:23:30That retail that same categorization is only it's just under 25% of the volume. Speaker 400:23:3525%. Great. And then, I want to follow-up on the comment on your merchant acquiring. You mentioned this quarter closing some non active So I'm clear on this quarter, but as I started to review, you've been adding 14,000 to 15,000 merchants per quarter, But net adds consistently been around 5,000 per quarter based on the total you report each quarter For the last many quarters, can you talk about the churn? Are these small customers? Speaker 400:24:10Are they sometimes sizable customers? Are Stay generally non active and for the ones that aren't non active, why do customers leave us at all? Speaker 500:24:21Yes. I mean, look, obviously, we have some customers. It's a competitive marketplace. So we'll lose Some high volume processing customers. But overall, there's our book is exceedingly diverse. Speaker 500:24:40There's not a single merchant that would come close to approaching even 1% of our volume. So, in the SMB space. So, most of it most merchants are you're talking there In the 10ths or 100ths of a percentage of our volume. So The impact is kind of muted from a standpoint of an individual large merchant leaving. We tend to clear out the deadwood, if you will. Speaker 500:25:20The merchants that tend to leave us and look, you can look at our attrition on a revenue and volume basis and it's consistently in the 10% if not lower range on a static pool basis. And what that indicates to you is, merchants who are processing don't tend to leave. And we find that's because they rely on our technology to run their business. We're not a terminal provider. We don't chase after small merchants. Speaker 500:25:55Our merchants typically are processing bank card volume alone Nearly $30,000 a month, which is on the higher end of the small merchant segment in the U. S. Statistically, we found that merchants that are processing less than $10,000 a month will leave you at twice the rate of merchants doing more than 10,000. And what that indicates Historically, those are merchants that just they don't use technology because they're very small and they don't necessarily value it as much. So The penny here or there seems to be important to them and they'll leave for just pure price. Speaker 500:26:41So we tend to focus our distribution channels away from that. I think you've heard us talk about this. We're very focused on Making the relationship with priority with our resellers, with our ISVs consultative and that we give them tools to really maximize their merchant networks. And the stats prove out that while it takes a little more painstaking detail, That long game is a winner. So, at, hope I'll give you some insight as to, one, how we think about it and what's driving those results. Speaker 400:27:21Great. Switching gears to the enterprise side, I'm wondering if you can help break down the growth has been great. So maybe break down the revenue growth between existing customers that are spending more or driving more Fees versus new logos versus higher interest rates. Speaker 300:27:45Yes, I can maybe start on the back end of that first. So If you think about the interest rates and the deposit balances, obviously, we saw a nice growth in deposit balances throughout the quarter from Kind of the traditional enterprise business we've had historically, but also with the growth in Passport, right? You heard Tom mention 18 new program managers came on board during the quarter, right, and that benefits the deposit balances in Enterprise as well with the new Passport offering. The combined effective interest rates and deposit balances we had $5,000,000 of interest income in the quarter that compares to $7,500,000 of all of last year. So you can start to extrapolate what that means for the balance of this year given where the interest rate environment sits with the Fed activities. Speaker 500:28:34Yes. And then maybe commenting on the other components of your question. We have you may recall that we mentioned in The full year earnings, some of the when talking about Passport, some of the impact from SVB's fallout And how quickly we were able to onboard new logos. So certainly a portion of the growth Is from that. But we've also seen, Let's say on a, let me give you some kind of timeline. Speaker 500:29:19The growth from existing customers On a year over year basis, is Probably 70%. Speaker 400:29:35Great. Speaker 500:29:37Thank you Speaker 400:29:37for that color on that. Speaker 500:29:39Yes. And I'll say that so think about that as from Q1 2022 levels To present levels. Speaker 400:29:51Okay. Great. Last question I've got. Normally companies ask normally companies get questions on M and A. As I think about The last several years, you've taken strategic opportunities to divest businesses at times to delever. Speaker 400:30:15Is that right now something that is of priority? Is it not really, just trying to understand, is there an opportunity potentially to with your asset base To delever at all? Speaker 500:30:32Well, look, certainly there is, right? If you were to just look at, We provide in our financials a segment level detail. And we've purposely built the business As a single engine Passport to collect store and send money with applications devoted to FinTech Payment Business Segments, right, to serve customers in those segments, right? MX Merchant POS Suite in SMB, CPX in the B2B vertical and then of course CFT Pay and the Passport API in the enterprise segment. So each of those business segments are detachable Without deconstructing the engine that operates the business. Speaker 500:31:34So we're always Considerate of what's the intrinsic value of those segments To folks that operate in those segments and we compete with And may find that we offer some tools That they may not have. So, I'll say that that's something that we're always considerate of And we built the business to enable that way of thinking. And If we see levels that we think are It makes sense to either divest of an asset or even to divest of a portion of an asset. We're going to do it, If it makes sense and yes, we would use that money to reduce debt and then Probably a portion of it to figure out where we want to redeploy that capital to higher returns. Speaker 400:32:52Great. Thanks so much guys. Operator00:33:03The next question is from Taylor Johns of CGI. Please go ahead. Good morning, guys, and thank Speaker 600:33:10you for taking my questions. I know you mentioned that some competitors are retrenching in light of the economy. Meanwhile, you guys are moving forward with investments. So I'm just wondering if you're seeing any new opportunities to take share from some of those competitors and what that landscape is like? Speaker 500:33:29Yes. Look, we are. Probably the sector that has gotten our attention the most is B2B. In the B2B payments space, there's been obviously a lot of enthusiasm Around the segment in past years and Some companies that they raise a lot of money, they've maybe not realized their growth goals And have not driven bottom line performance, we think there's going to be a really excellent opportunity To acquire assets in that space, so we're diligently looking at opportunities there. And then There's a I would say just broadly speaking in FinTech and we've already done a few of these partnerships. Speaker 500:34:32I think As they continue to evolve, these are emerging companies that are software applications that have Realized markets, okay. So these are not, what I would describe as solutions looking for a problem to solve. These are companies that really just got caught in kind of the current environment for venture capital And financing, where they're early stage, good applications in good sectors with Real performance potential, but are shy of cash flow positive and need a little bit of assistance to get to the next level. We're evaluating a number of opportunities there where we come in as an operating partner And help them realize very quickly synergies for infrastructure, things as simple as their AWS contract, They are database framework and database management. Of course, we have all the back office capability, HR, finance, etcetera, and help these companies, I'll call it streamline, So they can focus on their core application. Speaker 500:35:54We can help them reduce OpEx and then of course leverage them through our distribution to drive It's a cash flow positive. There's a lot of opportunities that are emerging with that type of profile. And they are because the venture capital funds that had supported them are not in a position to keep funding them And they need sources of not just more stable capital, but more importantly, an accelerant That can help them maximize the cash they have and get their distribution to market more quickly. So, the sectors that interest us are real estate. We've already shown we're successful there. Speaker 500:36:44We've got a good track record. We think there's a lot to do in real estate. We think there's a lot to do in construction, which kind of is a variance of the real estate market. And we've done we've already done something in construction. The Healthcare segment Is another that we're we've just started something small and growing, but we're continuing to look at opportunities there For a few reasons. Speaker 500:37:19One, it's just very dislocated generally in terms of how Payment reconciliation is managed, and the macro trends are actually unique in Healthcare. The inflationary impact in healthcare tends to lag the macroeconomic inflation by a couple of years Because of the way healthcare contracts are structured. So we think there's some additional macroeconomic tailwinds that Could benefit that segment. So those are the areas that have caught our interest right now, that we're looking to probably place a few bets. Speaker 700:38:03Thank you so much for Speaker 600:38:04that color. That was really helpful. And just another question, Wondering if you could talk a little bit more about some of your new products, specifically including which you feel present the greatest opportunity as of right now? Speaker 500:38:18Yes, appreciate that. The well, look, the first one, I kind of alluded to them in our comments. The MX Merchant POS Suite Is, we think is going to really going to energize our distribution. There are a suite of terminals that are integrated to our MX gateway that will enable all of the software Functionality Speaker 200:38:45of our Speaker 500:38:45MX merchant application on handheld terminals. And the terminals Can be standalone, so they can work like a handheld POS at the table or at checkout, so very slick in that regard. They can also be semi integrated where they'll work with MX Merchant even if you have, let's say, a different POS, So they can inject into the point of sale that clients are using. And then a full on enterprise, which is Both the mobile terminal device and then works with all of our POS applications, which are MX Retail or MX Merchant Retail, MX Merchant Restaurant, Salon, which will be coming out soon and then Charity. As I mentioned, we also are going deep in the construction space. Speaker 500:39:41So we expect to launch a product called MX Merchant build in the coming quarter. So that's I think one of the Really energizing things that are going on at Priority. And as I noted, it's we know it's needed. Just You can see just by virtue of the number of distribution partners that have signed up to start to sell that product as it comes to market Through our wholesale distribution efforts. We've tested it in house. Speaker 500:40:18That test has gone well. As I noted, just in the Q1 alone, we were selling internally Over a couple of 100. So when you consider it, we really only had it going for a couple of quarters, you're looking at 100 a month is pretty good numbers from a POS standpoint. And then the other that we think is the game changer is injecting banking into all of these segments That you can not only have your merchant processing and your Front end technology managing your business at priority, but you'll get your Passport account, which can be instantly funded With your batches, if you're running transactions through our gateway, We'll be able to fund those transactions in 5 minutes into your Passport account and that money is available for businesses to Acquire supplies, make other purchases, whatever they need to do to manage their money. And It's going to operate like your standard business bank account, be able to write checks, have a debit card linked to make purchases, With a full reporting front end, reporting portal that will look Very much like your high end bank account at a money center bank. Speaker 500:41:49And I would sit, submit probably superior to a lot of the smaller regional community bank offerings that Merchants have accessibility to. So those are the 2 things we're most excited about. And I think uniquely for priority and I really want to underscore this point is, that's all going to flow straight to the bottom line. And we've those tools are built. They're already operating at scale and other segments of our business, The banking as a service capability. Speaker 500:42:28So these are not heavy OpEx and CapEx spend items for us. They're leveraging scaled, excellently designed infrastructure to deliver These solutions to our customer base. Speaker 700:42:47Thank you so much. That was Speaker 600:42:48really helpful insight and thanks for taking Speaker 500:42:52Thanks for the great questions. Operator00:42:57This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tom Priore for any closing remarks. Speaker 100:43:05All right. Speaker 500:43:05Well, on behalf of the team at Priority, We want to thank everybody for taking the time to participate in this morning's call. Special thanks to the analysts That continue to evangelize priority. And of course, to our supportive investors, We'll keep delivering results. Thanks very much. Operator00:43:31The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may nowRead moreRemove AdsPowered by