Corpay (CPAY) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript

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DATE

Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chief Executive Officer — Ronald F. Clarke
• Chief Financial Officer — Peter J. Walker

TAKEAWAYS

• Revenue -- $1.26 billion, up 25%, with organic revenue growth sustained at 11% for the fourth consecutive quarter.
• Cash EPS -- $5.80, up 29%, reflecting higher-than-expected performance and operational leverage.
• Corporate Payments Revenue -- Grew 16% organically, or 18% when excluding float compression; segment reached 40% of total revenue.
• Vehicle Payments Revenue -- Delivered 10% organic growth, with contributions from the U.S., Europe, and Brazil.
• Lodging Revenue -- Sequential organic revenue grew 7% over Q4 2025; same-store sales rose 6%, reversing multi-quarter declines and supporting a positive growth outlook for the second half of 2026.
• Retention Rate -- 93.5%, now inclusive of cross-border business.
• Sales/Bookings -- Up 24%, driven by strong new business wins across segments.
• Total Combined Segment Revenue -- Corporate Payments and Vehicle Payments comprised 85% of revenue, with a combined 12% organic growth.
• Operating Costs -- Up 10% excluding FX, M&A, and stock comp, primarily due to higher transaction volume and increased bad debt.
• Adjusted EBITDA Margin -- 54.6%, described as "slightly down" from last year due to acquisitions.
• Adjusted Tax Rate -- 26.8%, increasing because of lower impact from employee stock options relative to the prior year.
• Leverage Ratio -- 2.7x, with $1.4 billion in revolving credit capacity available.
• Share Repurchases -- $786 million spent to repurchase 2.4 million shares in the quarter; $1.8 billion remains authorized, following a newly approved $1 billion increase by the Board.
• PayByPhone Sale -- Divestiture closed March 31, removing $75 million from rest-of-year revenue guidance; proceeds used for share repurchases with no material impact to adjusted EPS.
• Full Year 2026 Revenue Guidance -- Raised to $5.29 billion (midpoint), reflecting 17% growth and expects 10% organic revenue growth; guidance adjusts for revenue beat, higher fuel expectations, and PayByPhone divestiture.
• Full Year 2026 Cash EPS Guidance -- Raised to $26.70 per share (midpoint), targeting 25% growth, and includes $0.70 total increase mainly from Q1 performance and higher projected revenue.
• Q2 2026 Guidance -- Revenue of $1.295 billion (up 18%) and adjusted EPS of $6.55 (up 28%); expected organic revenue growth between 9%-11%.
• Credit Facility Refinance -- New commitments will upsize credit by over $1 billion, extend maturity by 5 years, and lower the interest rate by 10 basis points; $1 billion of proceeds to be used to pay down Term Loan B (not yet reflected in guidance).
• Alpha Acquisition Performance -- Alpha reported 17% organic revenue growth, excluding flow compression, and 15% of client volume has migrated to Corpay’s tech platform with more migration planned for Q2.
• Avid Equity Investment -- Avid’s sales are up over 20% and EBITDA up 50% compared to Q1 2025.
• Middle Market Sales Strategy -- Management reallocated investment toward targeting middle market versus micro market; "accounts are bigger, more stable, [and] last longer."
• Cross-Border Initiatives -- Agreements with JPMorgan and BVNK aim to add blockchain rails to Corpay’s settlement network; approximately 40% sales growth in cross-border base business.
• Segment Reporting Changes -- Minor geography changes in segments; adjusted historicals provided in the earnings supplement.
• AI and Efficiency -- Management cited expense savings and process redesign from adopting AI internally and into client-facing products.

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RISKS

• Operating costs increased 10% primarily due to greater transaction volumes and higher bad debt.
• Adjusted EBITDA margin declined compared to the prior year, with management citing acquisitions as the main contributor.
• Year-over-year increase in adjusted tax rate to 26.8% due to reduced employee stock option impact.

SUMMARY

Corpay (NYSE:CPAY) announced and implemented a substantial upward revision to its full-year 2026 revenue and cash EPS guidance, attributing this to better-than-expected Q1 results, higher anticipated fuel prices, and ongoing portfolio optimization, including the divestiture of PayByPhone. Executives detailed new credit facility commitments that will both increase capacity and reduce interest costs as the company strategically accelerates buybacks. The business highlighted execution against top priorities, including an accelerated migration of Alpha clients to Corpay's tech platform, strong progress in cross-border operations with blockchain integrations, and advancements in restructuring toward a focus on Corporate Payments. In response to a pivot away from the micro market, management described middle market sales as delivering larger, longer-lived accounts that integrate fleet and commercial card offerings, enhancing sales pipeline durability and opportunity.

• Alpha and Avid each delivered outsized growth in both revenue and EBITDA, supporting management’s assertion that recent portfolio investments are exceeding expectations and driving performance improvements.
• With the PayByPhone sale complete, divestiture and acquisition activity remains a central theme, as management signaled “late innings” on an additional noncore asset sale and ongoing evaluation of further transactions by year-end.
• New partnerships with JPMorgan and BVNK are expected to accelerate the adoption of blockchain rails in cross-border settlements, supporting geographic and product expansion goals.
• Corpay’s planned debt refinancing, not yet reflected in guidance, will extend maturities and is expected to reduce overall interest costs with immediate impact following the transaction's close later in the month.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• Float Compression: A reduction in revenue arising from lower yields earned on customer funds held between payment capture and settlement, typically triggered by falling interest rates.
• Cross-Border Payments: Payment transactions initiated in one country and settled in another, often involving currency conversion and multiple settlement networks.
• Adjusted EPS: Earnings per share metric that excludes certain nonrecurring charges, stock-based compensation, and other items to better reflect normalized profitability.
• Term Loan A/B: Types of syndicated loans with differing maturities and repayment schedules, commonly used in large corporate financing structures.
• Revolver: A revolving line of credit that allows a company to borrow, repay, and re-borrow up to a pre-approved limit.
• TAM: Total Addressable Market—the maximum revenue opportunity for a product or segment if capturing 100% market share.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Ronald F. Clarke: Okay, Jim, thanks. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining today's call. Upfront here, I'll plan to cover 4 subjects. First, provide my take on Q1 results. Second, I'll share our revised guidance for full year 2026. Third, I'll review progress against our top priorities. And then lastly, I'll share our thoughts on the midterm direction for the company and where we're headed. Okay. Let me begin with our Q1 results, which were really outstanding. We reported revenue of $1.26 billion, up 25% and cash EPS of $5.80, up 29%. And importantly, about 2/3 of our $50 million Q1 revenue beat versus guidance was really just better performance across the board, not macro related.

So for us, this Q1 was really a blowout quarter. Q1 overall organic revenue growth, 11%. That makes 4 consecutive quarters of 11%. Inside of that, Corporate Payments grew 16%, that's 18%, excluding flow compression, and did reach 40% of our overall revenues in the quarter. Vehicle Payments grew 10%. All 3 geographies contributing the U.S., Europe and Brazil. And Lodging improved meaningfully sequentially, landing flat for the quarter, so a big improvement there. The Q1 operating trends also quite good. Overall retention finished at 93.5%. I do want to note that this metric now includes our cross-border business. New sales or bookings up 24%. Happy with that. And same-store sales finishing flat for the quarter.

So look, we are clearly off to a terrific start here. All right. Let me transition to our 2026 guidance. Given our Q1 performance and the current trends, the raise to full year guidance is really pretty straightforward. So we're raising full year 2026 revenue guidance today to $5.290 billion at the midpoint. And that's driven really by a few things. First, we'll flow through the $50 million Q1 revenue beat. Second, we'll increase rest of year revenue guidance, another $50 million as a result of higher fuel price expectations and ongoing or continued better fundamental performance. We'll also net out $75 million from rest of year revenue to reflect the divestiture of PayByPhone on March 31.

We do continue to expect 10% organic revenue growth for the year, which again is our most important measure of durability. On the earnings side, we are raising full year 2026 cash EPS guidance to $26.70 at the midpoint. So that's a result of flowing through our Q1 EPS beat of $0.35. It's adding a rest of year cash EPS raise of $0.35 also that's coming from the expected $50 million in rest of year higher revenue. We do expect to have a lower share count from year-to-date share buybacks, which will basically offset the expected higher interest expense rest of year. You can see this bridge guidance math on Page 11 of the earnings supplement.

This higher full year 2026 guidance implies for the full year, 17% revenue growth and 25% cash EPS growth for the full year. So look, all the ingredients for a very good 2026 financial performance are holding. First off, you have the terrific start, Q1 print. We've got very good sales and retention trends. We're continuing to enjoy a favorable macro environment and our 2 big acquisitions and investments, Alpha and Avid, both performing well. So we're in a good spot. Okay. Let me make the turn out to our top 5 priorities laid out in February, which really are unchanged.

So they are, one, our portfolio, again, rotating our portfolio to Corporate Payments, with the hope of having fewer bigger businesses; two, USA sales, so increasing sales production in the middle market versus in the micro market. Payables, widening monetization there beyond virtual cards and launching a spend management business in Europe. Fourth, cross-border priority is to further develop our multicurrency account banking business, integrate the Alpha acquisition and now add real-time blockchain rails to our global settlement network. And lastly, AI, like others, we are incorporating AI into most of our products; and secondly, working internally to redesign processes and get expense savings.

So what I'll do here is I'll just touch on progress just in a couple of areas, our portfolio and cross-border initiatives. So on the portfolio front, we really are making good progress. Our newest acquisitions and investments there are working. So Alpha grew organic revenue 17% in Q1. That's excluding the flow compression. And Avid grew EBITDA 50% in the quarter. So really an outstanding performance and improvement there. So both off to a really good start. We're in the late innings with the noncore Vehicle Payments divestiture and actually teeing up a couple more businesses potentially for sale.

And on the other side, we're digging into a couple new corporate payment acquisition opportunities to look quite interesting to us. So look, these actions are evidence that we're committed to further rotating the portfolio to Corporate Payments. On the cross-border front, lots happening there. We are extending the geographies of our multicurrency accounts and seeing some real momentum from that. On the Alpha front, we've converted about 15% of Alpha clients to our tech platform, a lot more to follow in June. We just signed JPMorgan and BVNK agreements, to speed the addition of blockchain rails to our global settlement network. And look, while working on all these initiatives, the core cross-border business rocking, continuing to perform exceptionally well.

So I just wanted everyone to know we are laser focused on these top 5 priorities. Okay. So last up today, I do want to share our thoughts on our midterm direction and where we're heading with the company. We did just return from our annual off-site strategy session where each year, we get away, we debate the purpose of the company, our portfolio, the objectives to decide if it makes sense to change course, and we always come back clearer than when we go into these sessions. So here are this year's conclusions. So purpose. So on the purpose front, we are staying put.

We'll continue to have a single purpose here at Corpay, which is to help businesses better manage and control expenses. The tagline, Corpay for every way your business moves money. You will see our new Corpay brand campaign hammer home this simple theme. And in fact, I think one of our newest introductory ads is now on our website. On the portfolio front, again, we'll continue to rotate to Corporate Payments and to fewer bigger businesses. You will see us divest more noncore TAM-constrained businesses, and you will see us acquire more Corporate Payment assets. So we're heading towards building really 3 global businesses over time. So the first wrapper really is employee payments.

So we've got a set of spend management solutions that control really all distributed employee spend, whether fuel or T&E or just one-off discretionary purchases. So those programs all about preventing the misuse of company monies. We'll have a big B2B payments business, AP and supplier solutions that automate the workflow really through the entire centralized procurement, invoice and payment chain. The goal there is to derisk B2B money movement. And then third big business, cross-border payments, we'll have FX payments, risk management solutions and foreign bank accounts, really for middle market companies all over the world, goal there is to make global commerce easier.

So post this midterm period portfolio remix, we'll really end up in these 3 main global business categories, each of which have like massive TAMs and again, all centered around the same common purpose of helping businesses better manage and control their spending. On the objective front, really, our midterm objectives really remain intact. Most important is to grow revenue organically 10% and remain a top quartile grower. Our business model and operating leverage do enable us to grow earnings much faster, think 15% plus. And our goal is to double cash EPS to $50 a share during the forecast period. We do expect to generate about $15 billion in cash during the forecast period.

That's from a combo of annual free cash flow and increased borrowing capacity as our earnings grow. We may buy back more than half the company at this current valuation. So look, net-net-net, we are very clear and super excited about the way forward and where the company is headed. We'll build a simpler, more attractive, more consistent, high-growth company that we believe will outperform most. So look, in conclusion, we're delighted with the start to the year. We are raising full year '26 revenue and earnings guidance, high confidence in that. We're working the same 5 priorities very hard, and we've reaffirmed the midterm purpose portfolio and objectives for the company, really leading us to a super exciting place.

So with that, let me turn the call back over to Peter to provide some additional detail on the quarter and our '26 outlook. Peter?

Peter Walker: Thanks, Ron, and good afternoon, everyone. The headline for the quarter is significant overperformance with 25% top line and 29% bottom line growth and our fourth consecutive quarter of 11% organic revenue growth. Let's turn to our segment performance and the underlying drivers of our organic revenue growth. Corporate Payments delivered 16% organic growth for the quarter despite a 200 basis point drag from float revenue compression driven by lower interest rates. The organic revenue growth exceeded our expectations driven by strong performance in cross-border and payables. Overall, Corporate Payments performance was driven by growth in spend volumes, which increased organically 43% to $82 billion. Cross-border continued to deliver strong sales and revenue performance in Q1.

Overall, currency volatility conditions were a helpful backdrop as it created the opportunity for our sales team to highlight the value of our offerings. Additionally, Alpha integration efforts are progressing well. Approximately 15% of Alpha corporate volume has already been migrated to our global tech platform with the next wave of migration planned for Q2. The payables business continued to perform well, driven by volume growth and especially strong sales performance in Q1. This sets us up well for the rest of the year. We're also pleased with the progress of Avid, our minority investment, which is reflected as an equity investment in our financials. Sales are up over 20% versus Q1 2025.

Volumes and revenue are also up and EBITDA grew 50% over Q1 2025. Vehicle Payments organic growth was 10%, driven by solid results across all 3 geographies. Higher fuel prices benefited this segment, driving a portion of the macro beat in the quarter. Additionally, we closed the sale of PayByPhone and have taken $75 million out of our rest of year guide as a result. As a reminder, the sale has no material impact on our adjusted EPS as we bought back shares with sale proceeds. Lodging came in better than we expected with sequential organic revenue growth improvement of 7% versus Q4 2025.

We saw better performance in all areas of the business, raising our confidence in the 2026 Lodging growth acceleration plan for the second half of the year. In summary, we delivered 11% organic growth in Q1, a 200 basis point beat to what we expected and at the high end of our midterm range. Our Corporate Payments and Vehicle Payments segments totaled 85% of our Q1 2026 revenue and delivered a combined organic growth rate of 12%. Sales growth of 24% and retention rates over 93% in Q1 remain impressive. As such, we are encouraged by our strong Q1 and it strengthens our conviction on achieving our increased full year guidance. Now looking further down the income statement.

Operating costs, excluding the impact of FX, M&A and stock compensation, increased 10%. The increase was primarily due to higher transaction volumes and higher bad debt. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 54.6% was slightly down over the prior year, primarily due to acquisitions. Our adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 26.8%. The year-over-year increase in the rate was due to the favorable impact of employee stock options on the tax rate last year. On to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter in excellent shape with a leverage ratio of 2.7x and $1.4 billion of available borrowing capacity on our revolver. In the quarter, we spent $786 million repurchasing 2.4 million shares.

This includes the use of $450 million of PayByPhone sale proceeds as we essentially prepurchased Corpay shares in advance of receiving the proceeds. As of Q1, we have $1.8 billion authorized for share repurchases as the Board approved another $1 billion in the most recent Board meeting. We have just received commitments to refinance our revolver and Term Loan A. The commitments will upsize our credit facility by over $1 billion versus existing levels. This refinancing will extend the maturity of the facility for 5 years and will reduce the interest rate by 10 basis points.

We plan to use $1 billion of proceeds from the new facility to pay down a portion of our Term Loan B expiring in April 2028. This will result in overall lower interest expense going forward. We have not reflected this in our guidance as the deal is expected to close and fund later this month. As always, we will continue to pursue M&A opportunities and to buy back shares, particularly at this valuation while maintaining leverage within our target range. Next, let's cover our segment geography changes. We've made minor reporting segment geography changes to better align our reporting with how we run the business.

You can find the adjusted historical information in the earnings supplement to help you update your models. Now let me share some additional information on our updated 2026 full year and Q2 outlook. Our updated 2026 revenue guidance is $5.29 billion at the midpoint, growing 17% year-over-year. This assumes 10% organic revenue growth at the midpoint. Our updated outlook flows through our Q1 beat of $50 million, increases the remaining year's revenue by $50 million, driven by a combination of macro favorability and business fundamentals and is offset by $75 million from the sale of PayByPhone. Our updated rest of year guidance for adjusted EPS is $26.70 per share at the midpoint, growing 25% year-over-year.

Our Q2 revenue guidance is $1.295 billion at the midpoint, growing 18% year-over-year. We expect Q2 organic revenue growth in the range of 9% to 11%. We expect adjusted EPS of $6.55 at the midpoint, growing 28% year-over-year. The complete details regarding our revised full year and Q2 outlook can be found in our press release and earnings supplement. So, operator, please open up the line for questions.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from the line of Sanjay Sakhrani with KBW.

Sanjay Sakhrani: Really strong quarter here. I guess my first question is, it seems like the underlying trends are really strong. And then you've got sort of the macro help as well. And when we sort of impute everything, it would seem like the underlying trends would suggest even more upside as we move through the year unless there's a give back. Maybe, Peter, you could just talk a little bit about sort of the puts and takes factored in for the remainder of the year.

Peter Walker: Sanjay, thanks for the question. So when we look at Q1, we really got out of the blocks stronger than we expected and obviously delivered the 11% organic growth. And we were growing over 9%, so a relatively easy comp. When we look out at the rest of the year, we're growing over 11% comp for all 3 quarters. So that's what lands us at the full year 10% and gets us comfortable with that. In terms of the raise for the back half of the year, that is a combination of continued business performance and macro.

And when we think about how that splits out, call it, $25 million is in Q2 with the remaining $25 million in the back half.

Ronald F. Clarke: And Sanjay, it's Ron. Just one add to Pete's. Remember, in our business, we take the absolute revenue up about $100 million from Q1 to Q4. So there's a climb already built into the guide to start.

Sanjay Sakhrani: Got it. Got it. All right. Very helpful. And then, Ron, just a question for you. You talked about more divestiture opportunities and then also acquisition opportunities. So maybe you could parse apart sort of sizing, timing and sort of the core businesses going forward, it seems like lodging and gift weren't necessarily part of it. Are there opportunities there? Maybe you could just elaborate on that.

Ronald F. Clarke: Yes, Sanjay, I don't want to provide too many details and tip off too many people. I will say, one, that we're super late innings on a pretty meaningful transaction of divestiture. And so that will either happen or not happen, maybe get signed or not in this quarter. We're sitting in, that's number one. Number two, we have 2 or 3 additional kind of noncore things that we're teasing out. Just trying to get a sense of whether to take them fully out to the market or not. And then on the other side, like always, we're digging into a couple of new corporate payment assets. So the message is more will happen exactly when and stuff, TBD.

But by the time we get to Christmas, we will have likely sold additional assets beyond the one here in Q2 and likely be looking at buying some additional things. So we are hard at work on this rotation.

Operator: And we'll take our next question from Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan.

Tien-Tsin Huang: Great results. Maybe I'll ask similar to what Sanjay asked. Without you giving away the trade secrets here, Ron, just as you're rotating to corporate payments, and it's obviously doing really, really well, can you just -- instead of the details, what capabilities or TAM characteristics are you looking to acquire? And I'm guessing you're probably not alone in looking at these assets. So are valuations reasonable when you compare it to buying back your own stock, which you said yourself you buy back more than half the company at this valuation. So just trying to understand the balancing act there.

Ronald F. Clarke: Yes, Tien-Tsin, good to hear from you. So I don't think we need much in terms of capabilities. We have gone on a bit of a buying spree, including that foreign bank account capability, right, we got from Alpha. So I'd say it's mostly some geographic things. There's an asset in the geography that we'd like to heavy up on. There's another asset that we like some of the verticals. So it's in a completely similar business, but has positions in some different verticals. And so we have mostly what we need. I'd say it's more now bulking up. And as you know, the closer these acquisitions are to what we do, the bigger the synergies.

So we always look, as you know, at year 1 accretion. And so if the thing is super and close to what we do, we can make the numbers work. So I would say that you should look for us to buy additional assets this year.

Tien-Tsin Huang: In that way. Okay. Yes. So top up on geos and verticals as an example. Okay. No, that's great, Ron, to hear. We trust you on that. So on the -- my follow-up, maybe staying with cross-border. You said demand there is really good. You gave us the update on the Alpha migrations. You signed JPM and BVNK on the blockchain rail side. So what's next, I suppose? What should we be asking you? Or what are you trying to track to gauge success as you're putting those agreements to work again on JPM and the BVNK side? And also on Alpha, is it more just migrations? Is that -- are those the milestones we should be watching for?

Ronald F. Clarke: Well, first thing I'd say, "Hey, tune into the cross-border deep dive," I think this, Jim, is next Wednesday, Tien-Tsin. So we're going to try to spend an hour on the business and kind of peel it back and tell people why it's a pretty good thing. But I think the biggest headline for everybody is, yes, we have these new things, these new initiatives, right, get Alpha across, which we're doing, get this bank account thing lifted up, get blockchain super functional and stuff. The key message I want people to take is the thing is rocking. The base business sales, I think, were 40% or something up in Q1.

And so it is just -- when I say way ahead of expectations, the thing like in every way for us is just working, right? The number -- I don't think it's $1.5 billion ballpark for that business in 2026 is additional assets, obviously, that we know of that we're looking at clearly in the space. And so I think it's really just getting those things done, right? It's getting the bank account to accelerate. It's getting Alpha and shuttering their platform. It's teasing out whether our clients really want to use blockchain. I mean, I think you guys, the JPM guys personally are on to the right thing.

The Ron Clarke bet is moving, tokenizing fiat currencies and moving it over blockchain outside of the banking hours. And so there's no offboarding of the thing. I personally think that is a winner that our clients are going to really love that rail as an added rail versus the more difficult, hey, depositing money with no interest getting stable coins, running it down the blockchain and reconverting it again. And so the approach that your particular bank is taking, we think, for B2B is a super good fit. So we're really -- I'm personally really excited about that idea.

Operator: And we'll go next to Ramsey El-Assal with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Ramsey El-Assal: Another terrific quarter. I wanted to ask about the U.S.A. sales and focusing on the middle market. I was just curious, is that where you see the most opportunity right now? Is that the more beneficial market segment? And I guess, why is that the best place to hunt right now?

Ronald F. Clarke: Ramsey, it's Ron. It's a good question. So I think the first answer to that is we [ disliked ] the micro market, right? I don't want to go back to that, Sage, but that was a super unpleasant pivot, right? A couple of years ago, we saw credit losses, we saw client losses and stuff. We saw very short lives of some of the new accounts that came in. And so the conclusion was way investing in digital and bulking up in micro is not the best way to create a durable business. So we point at the middle market, which is juicy, you don't have to give as much money away. The accounts are bigger. They're more stable.

They last longer. But the other thing which is important to us is it suddenly takes the fleet business and makes it more part of our corporate payments business. And what I mean by that is when we serve a little company, take like a 10-person plumbing company, all they need is a fleet card. They have no other spend. They really don't do anything else except 10 guys out and about. When you go to a middle market company, let's say, $300 million, $400 million in revenue, and it's got 50 fleet people. It's got other stuff. It's got a supply chain that might have manufacturing, it's got white-collar people.

So all of a sudden, the products that we have that combine our fleet controls with our kind of commercial card spend management stuff, it's the same. And so we can take the same product that we bring to kind of nonfleet-intensive businesses to the fleet-intensive businesses. And so no longer do we have kind of like specialized fleet products. They're just the spend category in our bigger platform. And so we -- I really like that. The idea of fleet just becoming a portion really of the overall commercial card business that we're in because we've moved upmarket basically from these super small accounts.

So the million-dollar question is, is the new selling approach and partner approach we're taking going to add enough business. That's what we're working on. We've increased the investment there. We've got a lot of stuff in the pipeline. So reporting out to you guys the progress of new business in that segment is the key to growth going forward.

Ramsey El-Assal: Super interesting. A quick follow-up. On lodging, obviously, you saw some pretty great reacceleration in that business this quarter. Maybe just talk about the underlying drivers there, the underlying business momentum if you're feeling like that trend is now headed in the right direction.

Ronald F. Clarke: It is, and I'm going to get off characterizing it as a problem child, because not only did it race ahead of what we thought -- I thought it could do in Q1. I think in the second half, the thing will be the right side of 5%, somewhere in the mid- to high single-digit growth. And the reason, I guess, is pretty simple, again, a couple of years ago kind of meltdown from the IT thing that took a big part of our base away and bled us over 6 to 12 months was a huge, Ramsey, pothole to fill a business. Well, that thing now has way stabilized.

In fact, I'm looking at our Q1 same-store sales report, and it was plus 6% for lodging, plus 6%. That number was like negative -- I don't have in front of me, like negative 18% 8 quarters ago. So that's the first giant thing is that the base is positive. So then anything we add obviously creates the growth rate of the business. So I would say that given there's a little bit of lead time to install business, implement business there that there's been enough in the pipeline, we're pretty confident you'll see that thing on the positive side in the second half. So hallelujah to lodging.

And that will help our overall growth rate, obviously, for those who could do math from consolidating minus 6% to, let's say, consolidating in the second half, plus 6% or 7%.

Operator: And we'll go next to Darrin Peller with Wolfe Research.

Darrin Peller: Okay. Sorry about that guys, I was muted. Maybe you could just touch on the rate of growth of the U.S. fleet business for a moment. And then is there anything in that -- like what would we have to see for the fleet market to actually see same-store sales break out of the 0% to 1% type range we've been seeing? I'm not sure if there's anything macro-driven you'd expect, but I'm just kind of curious on same-store sales.

Ronald F. Clarke: Darrin, it's Ron. So a little positive news. So the U.S. fleet business was plus 1% in terms of same-store sales in the base, which is obviously it was minus 2% Q1 of '25. So kind of that's a 3-point swing helping it. But I kind of answered the question earlier. The growth in that business now is just all turning on this new sales model, the middle market. If we sell out there, it will grow. If we don't, it won't. I mean, frankly, with you as Mr. Corporate Payments advocate, the thing is 10% now of our company, ballpark in terms of revenue.

And so our focus, as you know, I've been super clear on this, that we have moved -- I have moved a bunch of sales and marketing money into the corporate payments space and try to still deliver what we delivered 29% earnings growth in Q1. So we don't have unlimited money there to make profits. And so we have poured obviously way more incremental money, particularly into the cross-border business. And so if we see this middle market thing take, we'll put more dough into it and grow it more. And if not, it's kind of a bit of a yawn now at 10%, it's not going to make the thing go.

What you've been saying for 3 years, everybody needs to see how the Corporate Payment thing is going because that's going to be 50% of the company.

Darrin Peller: All right. I guess on that note, maybe you could just explain a little more on the rate of growth we saw this past quarter between the AP spend management side and the cross-border side of the Corporate Payments side. Obviously, the 18% ex float was solid.

Ronald F. Clarke: That's a really good follow-up. It's about the same, which is really positive. So both businesses are growing in the quarter in the high teens. And again, both are working. So we like that, right? We like the balance of the 2 different solutions. So -- and also the geographies, I think you know this, but maybe others don't. We finally have taken the payables business, which up until maybe 6 months ago was 100% USA business. And now we've got a spend management business running in Europe, about $15 million in revenues is the current run rate of that. So obviously up from 0.

And then in the cross-border business, about 75% of that business gets originated in other geographies, Canada, the U.K., Continental Europe, Singapore, Australia, et cetera. And so that's what's so cool is that the businesses now are truly global, that payables thing has TAM now sitting certainly cross-border, but even now in the spend management thing, we've got those products there and working in other right geographies beyond the U.S. So the opportunity is way up because of that.

Operator: And we'll go next to Michael Infante with Morgan Stanley.

Michael Infante: Ron, I'd love to hear how the Mastercard partnership is progressing? How are both organizations sort of devoting resources here? And is that 1 to 2 points of contribution to cross-border still the right place for'26?

Ronald F. Clarke: A good ask. I think we're both pleased. I know Mastercard reported. I didn't hear what they commented. But I would say from our seat, we're really pleased with the thing. We're pleased with Mastercard's engagement with us. We're pleased we made, I think, 3 or 4 sales contracts, $5 million-ish run rate on the contracts. The last report, I saw 50 accounts in some form of a pipeline working. The fascinating thing is we have a better fix now on which FIs, which kinds of banks like this thing, and what they like, fascinating the most interesting product they're interested in is our foreign bank account or our multicurrency bank account product, even more so than our payment capabilities.

So look, it's a slower sales cycle, right, versus going to an end business. But I'd say the premise of Mastercard introducing us to their client base and our people explaining the expertise we have, the formula is working. And so ask me as we get into the summer, the fall, what that thing will be. But I'd say we're still pretty bullish on it.

Michael Infante: That's helpful. And then maybe, Peter, just in terms of some of the tariff comp dynamics, you obviously had some pull forward, some uncertainty in North America. Alpha obviously grew robustly last year. Anything we should just be mindful of in terms of the Q2 cross-border comp?

Peter Walker: I'd say nothing specific in the Q2 cross-border comp. I mean, obviously, in my prepared remarks, I shared that the volatility across the world, right, allowed us the opportunity to display our capabilities and continue to gain business. I think what will be really exciting for you guys to hear is to tune into the cross-border teach-in next week, and we're going to really describe to you a $160 trillion market, which we have 1% of. So I'd just say our opportunity here is really big.

Operator: Next to Dave Koning with Baird.

David Koning: Nice job. And I guess my question, as we look forward, the corporate volumes, which have been huge because of Alpha, et cetera, what should that start to grow at? And then similarly, what should the yield be? Like does the yield stay around the 62 basis points? I would imagine if float rates go up, that goes up a little bit, maybe pricing. But just the balance between how you're seeing volume and yield over the next couple of years.

Ronald F. Clarke: Yes. Dave, it's Ron. That's also a good question. So I'd say generally, both our payables business and our cross-border business are volume grower businesses. They're not really rate rating kinds of businesses and mostly again, because the clients are generally sizable, they're mid-market plus kind of clients. I'd say the only deviation from that is our cross-border business and by the way, our payables business, have had a little bit of success with some kind of crazy enterprise opportunities. So I think I did mention we had a payables enterprise account gigantic that we onboarded last spring that's kind of fully in now that's at 1/4 of kind of the line average, but it's a gigantic.

I think I mentioned it was half or more of the size of the Paymerang business. And then the same in cross-border, we now are targeting some giant accounts where we might be doing some risk management work, but they have big trades. And so we'll take those trades at very low sub-10 basis points because they're massive transaction sizes. So it skews a little bit these averages. So what we do internally, which I'd be happy, [ Jim ], for us to set around is we look at the thing, Dave, and pull those out.

So we run the distribution, we look for like the 10 giant trades in the period and then look at the non kind of rest of business without those. And not shockingly, it's kind of right spot on the yield we've been running at. So it's a long way of saying sans, some big enterprise things, we don't see much movement in that yield.

David Koning: Yes. And then just on the vehicle business, it looked like -- I just look at the Brazil revenue number. And on a constant currency basis, if I kind of put it into the model, it looks like Brazil may be slowed just a touch, but you'd obviously know better, but that just looked like it. But maybe comment on that in the Europe business a little bit.

Ronald F. Clarke: Yes. I mean, to make the 3 be at 10%, obviously, some set of people need to be double digits. So I don't have it in front of me, but the Brazil business is still rocking. We've had a little weird thing with Google, some keyword in our vehicle debt business kind of nicked us for maybe 1 point or something, I think, in Q1. But the forecast, which I'm staring at, has that business in the high teens rest of the year, Q2 and on. So we're pretty confident. In the Europe vehicle business, I'd say steady as she goes. I think has been right around the 10% mark, I don't know, probably 8, 10 quarters now running.

And same thing, that thing is out looking kind of steady as she goes. So when you put the 3 geographies together, you get back to kind of 9% or 10%, and that's what we think rest of the year will be.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] At this time, it does look like we have no further questions. So we'd like to thank everybody for participating in today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.

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