EVERTEC Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 1, 2024

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to EVERTEC's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Beatrice Brown Saenz of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, and good afternoon. With me today are Mac Schuessler, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Joaquin Castillo, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward looking statements and should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements contained in our earnings release and the company's most recent periodic SEC report. During today's call, management will provide certain information that will constitute non GAAP financial measures under SEC rules, such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per common share. Reconciliations to GAAP measures and certain additional information are also included in today's earnings release and related supplemental slides, which are available in the Investor Relations section of our company website at www.eritecinc.com.

Speaker 1

I will now hand the call over to Mac.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Beatrice, and good afternoon, everyone. We are pleased to announce a good start to the fiscal year with strong revenue growth driven by a full quarter contribution from Cinqia and organic growth across all our segments. I will begin today's call with a summary of our Q1 2024 financial results, followed by a discussion of the Puerto Rico environment and an update on Latin America. I will then turn the call over to Joaquin, who will provide some additional details on our Q1 results and an update on our 2024 outlook. Beginning on Slide 4, let's start with some financial highlights from our Q1.

Speaker 2

We reported $205,000,000 in revenue, a 28% increase over the prior year quarter and adjusted EBITDA was $78,200,000 up approximately 16% when compared with the prior year, driven by the revenue increase. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 38.1%, down from a year ago and aligned with our expectations, driven by a full quarter of Cinqia contribution at lower margins. Adjusted EPS for the quarter was $0.72 up 4% year over year. Operating cash flow for the quarter was $36,000,000 On the capital allocation front, we returned approximately $3,000,000 to shareholders through dividends and entered into a $70,000,000 ASR as anticipated on our last call, which we expect to complete by the Q3. Our liquidity remains strong at approximately $408,000,000 as of March 31.

Speaker 2

Turning to our Puerto Rico update on Slide 5. All our Puerto Rico segments performed well during the quarter, reflecting organic growth over prior year. Payments Puerto Rico revenue grew approximately 10% year over year, driven by higher POS transactions and continued strength in ATH Movil Business. Merchant Acquiring grew approximately 7% on a year over year basis, benefiting from sales volume growth and a higher spread. The business solutions segment returned to growth, up approximately 4% year over year, reflecting growth across various lines of business.

Speaker 2

Puerto Rico macro environment continues to be supportive for EVERTEC as we move through 2024. The unemployment rate remained low at 5.7% in the first quarter and the level of employment remains steady at 1,100,000 the highest number since 2,009. Travel also remains robust with airport arrivals up over 10% year over year in the Q1. Turning to Latin America on Slide 6. LATAM revenue was up significantly year over year in the quarter, reflecting the contribution from the Cinqia acquisition that closed in the 4th quarter, as well as continued organic growth from our legacy business.

Speaker 2

On our last call, we discussed our area of focus with Cinqia for 2024 and we continue to make strides in all fronts. From a technology modernization perspective, we have laid out detailed roadmaps and have identified the key projects that we will prioritize throughout 2024 with a focus on those investments that will have the largest impact for our clients. We believe these enhancements will open the door for pricing initiatives with existing customers and better offerings to capture market share. As for our customer centric initiatives, we have implemented regular visits to our top clients and we are making a point of acting on the feedback they've given us. Our next step will be to leverage these relationships to cross sell our products.

Speaker 2

The integration process continues to be a priority for the executive team and to that end, we have promoted Claudio Prado to Group Head of Brazil, replacing Bernardo Gomez, who for personal reasons has decided to take a step back and shift to a consultant role. Bernardo did a fantastic job building Cinque over the past years and we thank him for his contributions during the integration process. Claudio has over 30 years of experience in the technology industry, including as CIO of Santander and Deutsche Bank and over 7 years contributing to Cincya. Claudio's entrepreneurship background provides a good perspective of the client focused approach, best suiting him to handle the day to day leadership responsibilities at process as we progress. With that, I will now turn the call over to Joaquin.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Mac, and good afternoon, everyone. Turning to Slide 8, I'll begin by reviewing the Q1 results for EVERTEC. Total revenue for the Q1 was 205 $300,000 up approximately 28% compared to the prior year, reflecting strong growth in our Latin America segment that benefited from a full quarter contribution from Cinqia as well as continued strong organic growth. The quarter also benefited from higher sales and transaction volumes, continued strength in ATH Movil Business and a return to growth in Business Solutions. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $78,200,000 an increase of approximately 16% from the prior year.

Speaker 3

And adjusted EBITDA margin was 38.1 percent, down approximately 3.90 basis points from the prior year, mostly as a result of the Cinco acquisition, but aligned to our expectations. Adjusted net income was $48,000,000 an increase of approximately 5% year over year, mainly as a result of the higher adjusted EBITDA and a non GAAP tax benefit compared with a non GAAP tax adjusted effective tax rate to be in a range of 6% to 7%. These positive variances were partially offset by higher operating depreciation and amortization resulting from the increased CapEx in prior years and higher cash interest expense given the incremental debt raised to acquire Cinqia. Adjusted EPS was $0.72 an increase of approximately 4% from the prior year, driven by the same reasons pointed out impacting adjusted net income, partially offset by a higher share count due to the shares issued as

Speaker 4

part of the Cinque acquisition.

Speaker 3

Moving to Slide 9, I will now cover our Q1 results by segment, beginning with Merchant Acquiring. Net revenue increased by approximately 7% year over year to $43,100,000 driven by strong volumes and a higher spread. Sales volume was up 6%, driven by incremental volumes from existing merchants, effects of inflation on key verticals and new merchants signed towards the end of last year. Our overall spread per transaction was also higher than prior year, in part driven by card mix and partially offset by a declining average ticket. Trends for the month of April are aligned to Q1 results with mid single digit sales volume growth.

Speaker 3

Adjusted EBITDA for the segment was $16,200,000 and adjusted EBITDA margin was 37 0.6 percent, down approximately 110 basis points from the prior year. The margin decrease primarily due to higher transaction processing expenses given the lower average ticket per transaction. On Slide 10 are the results for the Payment Services Puerto Rico and Caribbean segments. Revenue in the quarter was 53,000,000 dollars an increase of approximately 10% from the prior year. The revenue increase was driven by transaction growth of 7% year over year as well as continued strength in ATH Movil Business, which experienced a 27% year over year increase in transactions during the quarter.

Speaker 3

Adjusted EBITDA was $30,400,000 up approximately 9% from the prior year and adjusted EBITDA margin was 57.2%. On slide 11 are the results for Latin America payments and solutions. Revenue in the quarter was $74,200,000 up approximately 110% year over year, reflecting a full quarter of revenue contribution from Cinqia, contribution from the PaySmart acquisition completed in March of the prior year and continued organic growth across the region as we continue to benefit from growth across key markets and from the GetNet relationship. Adjusted EBITDA was $16,300,000 up approximately 57% from the prior year with adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 22%, down approximately 7.40 basis points and mainly driven by the inclusion of Cinqia, which contributes at lower margin compared to the segment average. Turning to Slide 12, you will see the results for our business solutions segment.

Speaker 3

Revenue was $58,100,000 an increase of approximately 4% from the prior year. There were a number of factors that contributed to the higher revenue this quarter, including the effect of the CPI increase that began in Q4 of approximately 1.5% and growth across several business lines driven by the impact of incremental volumes and specific consulting projects that impacted the quarter positively. Adjusted EBITDA was $23,000,000 up approximately 3% from a year ago and adjusted EBITDA margin was 39.6%, down approximately 50 basis points from the prior year. The margin decline is consistent with our expectations and due primarily to higher cost of sales and higher cloud expenses. Moving to Slide 13, you will see a summary of our corporate and other expenses.

Speaker 3

Corporate and other expenses was $7,700,000 in the quarter or 3.8 percent of total revenue, down from 5.7% in the prior quarter due to lower professional services and personnel costs as we continue to manage expenses. Moving on to our cash flow overview on Slide 14. Net cash from operating activities was approximately 36,000,000 capital expenditures were $21,900,000 for the quarter we drew $80,000,000 from our revolving facility paid down $23,100,000 in debt, paid dividends of $3,000,000 and entered into the $70,000,000 ASR. Our ending cash balance in March was $317,300,000 a decrease of approximately $1,400,000 from year end 2023. On slide 15, our net debt position at quarter end was approximately 7 $93,000,000 comprised of approximately $1,100,000,000 in total long and short term debt, offset by approximately $294,000,000 of unrestricted cash.

Speaker 3

Our net debt to trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA was approximately 2.51 times, up from 0.9 times a year ago, but still within our target range of 2 to 3 times. As of December 31, our total liquidity, which excludes restricted cash and includes our borrowing capacity, was $407,600,000 up from $367,600,000 from a year ago. Now turning to Slide 16, I'll provide an update on our outlook for the remainder of the year. We are raising the lower end of our revenue outlook and maintaining the high end of our revenue range for the year, approximately 22% to 23%. Regarding overall margin, we continue to anticipate that our adjusted EBITDA margin will be between 38.5 percent to 39.5 percent and on adjusted EPS we are also raising the lower end of our outlook and maintaining the higher end resulting in a range of $2.85 to $2.94 representing growth of approximately 1% to 4% when compared with $2.82 reported for the prior year.

Speaker 3

Our operating depreciation came in above our earlier forecast and we now expect a higher overall operating depreciation for the full year with a partial offset to this impact coming from taxes, where we now expect a lower effective tax rate in the 6% to 7% range for the full year. In terms of segments and given our Q1 results, we now expect merchant acquiring to grow closer to mid single digits. We continue to expect our payment processing Puerto Rico segment to grow in the mid single digits. For LATAM payments and solutions segment, we expect growth in the low 70s. And for Business Solutions, we still expect revenue growth in the low single digits for the year.

Speaker 3

In summary, we are pleased with our Q1 results. We continue to work on integrating Cinqia, while also delivering strong results from our payment businesses in Puerto Rico Rest of Latin America. We believe EVERTEC is well positioned for growth for the remainder of 2024 and beyond. We look forward to updating you on our progress in the coming year and hope to see some of you at conferences over the next few months. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer The first question comes from Chris Kennedy with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. Can you give your updated thoughts on the accretion opportunities for Cinqia?

Speaker 3

Hey, Chris, this is Joaquin. So as we said in our last call, we continue to expect Sincia to be more on the neutral side of the range. We had originally commented when we closed on the deal that we're going to be in the neutral to slightly accretive range. And as we discussed a little bit in the last quarter, given a little bit of their slowdown coming off of towards the end of the year last year, we now expect it to be in the closer to the neutral side of that range.

Speaker 2

And let me add a little color. So I mean, we're still incredibly excited about Cinq. I mean, what we're very focused on right now is discipline around execution. So we're focused on now that we've had the leadership change and now Claudio is running the company. He has sales focused reporting directly to him.

Speaker 2

So we're very focused on selling more and converting the sales through implementations into revenue faster. We've also now built a plan on in the past, they were very focused on buying other companies and trying to absorb those. Now we're focused on investing in those platforms so that we can continue to sell more features, more customizations, that type of thing. And then finally, we are looking long term at how do we make this a faster growing more accretive deal is by also looking at pricing. How do we price better?

Speaker 2

Because they've accumulated all these companies, but now they have the opportunity to go back and look at how do they price each of the contracts better. So that's what we're really focused on is Chris is how do they execute better because the past 2 years they've been focused on absorbing companies, going through the sales process. We now have a CEO in place who is focused on the company and not personal issues and is focused on executing the companies that he's bought. So we're still very bullish.

Speaker 5

Right. Thank you for that. And then just one follow-up. Can you

Speaker 2

give the

Speaker 5

organic growth of the Caribbean business or the non Puerto Rico business? Thank you.

Speaker 3

I mean, we're not breaking out our Latin America segment, right, in terms of the different pieces. As we've said, we continue to expect that segment to grow in the double digits. Obviously, this year is very different because we have the Cinqia impact on a year over year basis, But that continues to be expectation for the segment overall.

Speaker 5

Thanks for taking the questions.

Operator

The next question comes from Nate Svensson with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

I wanted to touch on EBITDA margins quickly. So maybe a touch lower than where the Street was before the print. And I guess, 38.1% is below the low end of your guide for the full year. So I know you said that margins were in line with your maybe

Speaker 7

higher expenses in 1Q, anything we should keep in mind when

Speaker 6

modeling margins out to maybe higher expenses in 1Q, anything we should keep in mind when modeling margins out through the remainder of the year?

Speaker 3

No. So yes, given the guidance, we are a tad below the loan of the guidance for the quarter. But as we reiterated in the outlook, we don't need to be comfortable with 38 point 5% to 39.5% over the full year. As we move into the second half of the year, we believe that we'll be able to drive slightly better margins than what we had in the Q1. And as we've always done, we're continuously focusing on where can we find efficiencies to drive better margins given the scalability of our business.

Speaker 3

So that's something that's at top of our mind continuously and we'll continue to work on that towards the end of the year.

Speaker 6

Got it. Appreciate the color there. And then, I guess, so I appreciate the segment guide that you gave. So I think the two changes versus last time were acquiring, which you moved up a little bit to mid single digit and then LatAm, I think moved down a little bit to low 70s. So maybe you can give a little color on what changed within those two segments, specifically where acquiring moved up kind of to the higher end of the range and LatAm kind of to the lower end of the range?

Speaker 3

Sure. So I think that in the merchant acquiring business, we had a good Q1. Obviously, when we look at the Q1, there are a few specific items that we think are driving this when we look at the rest of the year. For example, Easter moved up this year in comparison to the last year and we had a leap year as well. And when we look at April trends, they continue to be on a more normalized basis still in that mid single digit range from a sales volume perspective, which is a key driver for us.

Speaker 3

So we feel we felt more comfortable bringing that to the higher side of the range for the rest of the year. And in the case of Latin America, as we said, I mean, we're continuously obviously looking at how the different pieces are moving. Cinque still will require us to some time for us to bring it back to the growth that we want to extract from that business. And so, as we look at the rest of the year, we thought it was prudent to bring that down a little bit.

Speaker 6

Got it. Makes sense. And just to clarify, so I guess on LatAm, that you're spending this time investing on tech, client centric stuff in Syncian, so that kind of brought it towards the lower end more than anything else.

Speaker 5

That's right.

Speaker 3

That's correct.

Speaker 6

Got it. Appreciate it Joaquin.

Speaker 5

No problem.

Operator

The next question comes from John Davis with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, good afternoon guys. Mac, appreciate the comments so far on Cinqio. I think last quarter you noted that revenue growth had decelerated a little bit. It sounds like that hasn't probably changed given kind of the tone on investing and kind of working on execution integration. But how do you think about this business longer term?

Speaker 4

Do you think you can reaccelerate it back into kind of that low double digit growth on an organic basis? Or just any other color there on kind of how you think the longer term trajectory of that business looks?

Speaker 2

Sure. So I mean, I think I said on the last call and even since then, I spent a lot of time with clients. And the thing that's exciting about Cinq is local software companies that abide by the local regulations that provide the capabilities they need to compete. We're one of the largest providers and the most dependable providers. So the demand from customers and the desire to do business with Cinqia is obvious when I spend time with them.

Speaker 2

What has happened over time is they've acquired these companies, they've tried to understand it themselves, absorb them, figure out how to operate them together And then they moved into an M and A process with us. So in my viewpoint, they were a bit distracted with again trying to absorb these companies, figure out what the structure should look like and then selling the company to EVERTEC. Today, it's a very different culture and environment because Bernardo had to step aside for personal reasons. I would say we anticipated that he would probably leave in a year or 2. That got accelerated given some things he needed to focus on.

Speaker 2

And then we put Claudio in his place now who has clear objectives for each of the team members to ensure that the sales people are spending more times with clients, make sure that we're tracking the pipeline, that we're resolving operational issues, so they want to buy more from us. So there's a lot we're much, much closer to the clients starting with me, but actually the organization at Thinkia is better organized and better managed from a client perspective. Also once a deal is sold is making sure the implementation teams can convert that to revenue, get the new system in, get the new customization so that they can actually book the revenue. So the discipline around executing and operating the current organization, there's a much more significant focus on that from an organizational perspective and from a goal perspective. The other thing is clients want us to keep investing in these platforms.

Speaker 2

We can't keep buying just new platforms. We actually have to make sure the ones we bought that were great when we bought them. They were keeping those current, they were keeping those updated so they can push more volume through it, that they'll continue to add features. So we've come up with a plan that gives our clients comfort that we're going to invest in this platform. And we prioritize those where we think we can get the most return in the shortest period of time.

Speaker 2

But we're coming up with a multi year plan to make sure we invest within these great companies that we bought. And then the other piece that I've talked about is pricing, like we are going through all of the contracts seeing who's not as profitable as others and how do we better manage the pricing initiatives to get the margin where we want it to be. So what I would say, John, is that we're trying to take the operational sort of excellence that we believe we have at EVERTEC and apply that now at Cinqia. If you look at our historical deals, this is what we did with PayGroup, right? So we bought PayGroup and because we need a platform and technology and that is now the platform that we've rolled throughout the region.

Speaker 2

We brought up some of the biggest names in the region, but it took EVERTEC working with PayGroup to accomplish that because we used our expertise at a processing business and applied it to their lysine business and rolled it out across Latin America. Same thing we did with Place2Pay, right. Place2Pay was a small gateway operating in 2 countries. Now it operates in over 9 and some of our biggest customers are running on it. So that's what we see at Cinco is, when you do a deal, you always have surprises, right.

Speaker 2

The great surprise is, it's a very important franchise in Brazil and people want to do more business because they rely and they even look now that it's part of EVERTEC, the strength we have around information security, the strength we have around compliance because we operate for big banks in the U. S, it's making the value proposition even stronger in Brazil to do business with us. But the operational excellence, make sure you're staying close to customers, making sure you have stable operations, making sure you're continuing to investing in products. That discipline is what we're now applying to the business. And I feel very confident that Claudio is the right person to lead us through that.

Speaker 2

And I mean, the team will tell you, I'm spending a lot of time there myself to help accomplish that as well.

Speaker 4

Okay. No, appreciate all the color, Mac. Well, Keene, just a bigger picture question on margins. Obviously, you had very high margins and still have relatively high margins, but they've been coming down consistently even if you were to kind of exclude some of the M and A transactions for a while. Do you feel like with Cinkea accretion and kind of synergies, that we're at a good kind of baseline margin this year?

Speaker 4

And again, I'm not asking for 25 guidance, but any reason why you shouldn't start to see some operating leverage? Payments businesses typically have pretty high incremental margins. Just as we think about longer term, like should this business should margins improve from here, I guess is the key question?

Speaker 3

I mean, what I would say, John, is if you look at our slides from last quarter, we with Cinque specifically, we actually had a little box that said margin optimization. So we are certainly focused on maximizing margin from our current base line. What I would say historically is that the reasons why margin has come down has been very specific to actions that we have taken. 1 with the Popular deal, we sold off some assets and we took on a revenue share on our merchant acquiring business that we knew was going to bring margin or put pressure on the margin as we exited that deal, but that gave us extended relationships with the bank, a renewed relationship with the bank. It got us out of the bank holding company that allowed us to do more M and A.

Speaker 3

We did think you now, which is as we knew, coming in at a slower contribution margin, because it doesn't have obviously the same scale that we necessarily have in Puerto Rico. And as we said, as we become more and more successful in Latin America, that will continue to put pressure on the margin. So I think that when we look at historically how we've gotten to where we are today, it hasn't been really operationally driven. It's been very specific and purposeful actions that we have taken. And now we're focused on margin optimization and efficiencies across the board as Mike just mentioned.

Speaker 3

So our goal would be to certainly focus on margin going forward.

Speaker 2

Let me just add to that John is as Joaquin said the margins declines you've seen in the overall company have been strategic decisions right. The Popular deal and the Cinqia deal. If you look at, so it hasn't been a lack of operational focus and leverage. It's been strategic decisions to continue to change and evolve the company. If you look at when we have bought other companies like the pay groups, like the place to pay and we tuck those into LatAm, over time we do increase the margin as we operate it.

Speaker 2

But the margins, as Joaquin said, the step downs we've taken have been a strategy to continue to grow the company.

Speaker 4

Okay. No, helpful color. Thanks, guys.

Operator

The next question comes from Vasu Govil with KBW. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. Max, two quick ones for you and Sankhya first. I got your comments about the debt monetization and investment in the platform. Just wanted to understand if you think that's going to be a prerequisite for you to be able to take the pricing changes that you're hoping in that business? Or could the pricing changes happen?

Speaker 8

So I'm just trying to get a sense for whether pricing can be an upside driver relative to expectations for this year or it's more of a longer term upside driver? And then a quick follow-up on that is just the tech spending and demand environment in Brazil from a macro perspective, if you could give us some color on that?

Speaker 2

Vatsui, that's an incredibly insightful question. So we are deliberately going through all of the repricing, and we're looking at all of the contracts. I would say it's a combination. We have some immediate opportunities to reprice contracts and we are some of the pre repricing could be predicated on some improvements that we need to make in investments. So but some of those investments we can make very, very quickly and they're already in the plan for 2024.

Speaker 2

I mean, what we're going to do around that's in the guide today as it impacts this year, but it will be both. This is something we can do immediately. Some will require investment, and some may require longer term investment. So it's going to be a blend, but there is definitely an opportunity increase the margins of the business and to do more with our customers as we make these investments. Technology spend in Brazil, I think was your second I mean,

Speaker 3

look, this is one

Speaker 2

of the most dynamic markets in the world as it relates to technology. I had met with the President of the Justice System. They're actually using artificial intelligence now to make judicial decisions. I mean, to make case decisions, but with judicial oversight. You've then you've got PICS and OpenAI and what's going on in banking.

Speaker 2

So there's so much change going on in financial services and such a need for financial institutions to keep up. And with those changes, the technology providers like Cinq are incredibly important to the market. And that I feel that and I hear that from my customers. They want us to be able to help keep up with them as the market changes and as they're putting new products in the market. So I think it's a great opportunity for AVERTYK and Syncya.

Speaker 8

Great. Thank you for the color. And then a quick one for you Joaquin. Just I got the number 27% transaction increase in ATH Movil. Any color on what drove that strength and anything one time in that or do you expect that trend to continue?

Speaker 3

No. I mean, look, it's mostly AT and T Mobile business. What I would say is that that actually has been consistent. I think what for us continues to be very positive is that that's coming off of strong growth historically, right? So we this is on top of very good growth last year.

Speaker 3

Again, we did have some seasonality in the Q1 because of the leap year and Easter kind of getting pushed into the Q1. But the business continues to perform well and it continues to drive some growth through the Payment Puerto Rico segment.

Speaker 8

Great. Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Jamie Friedman with Susquehanna. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Hi, congratulations on the results. Mac, I wanted to go back to some of your prepared comments about the macro environment, which is so helpful in Puerto Rico in particular. You referenced here that the unemployment had a very low 5.7%, the employment rate is the highest since 2,009 and travel is up. I'm just wondering, I know it's hard to tell, but what's your confidence level that we wind up staying here? And is that macro tailwind embedded in the guidance?

Speaker 2

So, look, given your specific guidance, Joaquin, I'll let you kind of talk about how

Speaker 3

you blended that in. Hey, Jamie. Yes, I mean, look, we actually this is consistent is what I would say to what we expected. And I think we're reiterating the fact that the macroeconomic environment in Puerto Rico is supportive of what we're trying to accomplish from a growth perspective. If you look at the details that we actually provided last quarter, where we even went further and put some incremental stats and graphs, I think that was the baseline and we're really reiterating that we believe that we have a good background to deliver on the numbers that we have just guided to.

Speaker 2

I mean, the other thing that I would add is that there's a lot of ambiguity about what's going on with the economy today anyway, right? If you look at the current labor numbers in the U. S, what are people going to do with interest rates? It's hard to predict what next year is going to look like at the next year depending on who you talk to. Keep in mind, Puerto Rico is a little bit different.

Speaker 2

So a big part of our economy are still federal subsidies for people that are on welfare. We still have money to come in from the hurricane. So we do have an underlying sort of economic stimulus that's a little bit more shelter than you might find in the U. S. But it is look, I mean we can't predict the Puerto Rico economy into 2025 and 26 anymore than people can in the U.

Speaker 2

S. But you do have some stimulus here that is unique and helpful.

Speaker 7

And then for my follow-up, Mac, I'm just curious now that you're 6 months in with Syncia and you're spending so much time in Brazil. Adam, I realize Brazil is one of the most dynamic markets, you said it earlier. But at a very high level, how does it feel to be like instead of the big fish in a small pond, normal fish in a big ocean?

Speaker 2

It's a great question. So I mean, I would say, on a personal level, I mean, look, I ran the Global Payments International business. I did business in China, I did business in Russia and India. So I mean, that's a dynamic that on a personal level I've seen before and managed through. What I would tell you though and this is one of the reasons Cinco was so attractive, it is one of the larger technology companies in Brazil.

Speaker 2

So Brazil is an incredibly exciting market. It's an incredibly evolving market. But the reason Cinco is such a great asset is because it is one of the larger technology companies. And that's why we had the confidence to move into Brazil with a specific purchase versus going in with a much smaller company that didn't have the credibility, that didn't have the leadership team, and they didn't have the track record and the industrial strength products already proven. So it is similar to me in EVERTEC and that people in Puerto Rico want to do business with EVERTEC because of our the products we have, because of the presence we have, because of the commitment we have to the island.

Speaker 2

There's a similar affinity for Cinqia as well in Brazil. It does remind me a little bit of EVERTEC and that we need to focus on operational market. When I meet with executives and leaders and financial services, even bank even CEOs of banks in other countries, they're aware of Cinqia is, they know the legacy and the history and they have an understanding of we're capable of. So there are some similarities of the strength of EVERTEC in Puerto Rico with the strength of Cinque in Brazil.

Operator

The next question comes from James Faucette with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Hi, thank you for taking my question. I'm asking a question on behalf of James Faucette. I was wondering how you're looking at capital allocation for 2024, 2025 and specifically how you might be looking at timing or appetite for M and A now that the Sinca deal has closed and you've started seeing those contributions coming in and kind of what that pipeline might look like?

Speaker 3

Hi. Yes. So look, specifically now with Cinqia, one thing to remember Cinqia being a highly acquisitive company also had a very good M and A team locally. They are very close to the entrepreneurs to up and coming companies that have technology that's either adjacent or complementary to Cinqia. So we certainly want to continue to leverage that.

Speaker 3

That has been a key part of how Cinqia has grown to be what it is today. And so we certainly continue to have a pipeline. In terms of general priorities for capital allocation, we continue to look for growth. I'd say that the scale or the size of the deals that we're probably looking at are now more like what we used to do before Cinqia. So relatively small size that we can attach to Cinqia or some of our other countries or entities across Latin America.

Speaker 3

But we're certainly continuing to focus on growth. And after that, as we announced on the call, we entered into an ASR, dollars 70,000,000 ASR to make up for some of the shares that we issued as part of the Cinqia deal, but also to buy back some of our shares as we usually do every year to offset some of the division coming from some of the long term incentive plans. So those are the priorities. And obviously now with interest rates, we're obviously always looking at where's our debt, where our rates and whether it makes sense for us to pay down some debt and save some interest expense costs.

Speaker 2

Yes, I would say that. I mean the big thing is that's more expensive. So that's now something you look at more than you would have looked at in the past, the potential to pay down. Like Joaquin said, we're still focused on M and A, more tuck in deals like we used to do in the past. And we now have a bigger operation within which we can tuck those in.

Speaker 2

So we have a very healthy pipeline within Brazil and outside of Brazil. And that's still a focus of the team.

Speaker 8

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mac Schuessler for any closing remarks.

Speaker 2

I want to thank everybody for joining the call. Joaquin, I look forward to seeing you over the coming quarter at different conferences and events. And thanks and have a good night.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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Earnings Conference Call
EVERTEC Q1 2024
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