Corpay, Inc.

Corpay, Inc.

360.90
EUR
+4.60
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14.58EPS
19.53P/E
18.77BMarket Cap
Nov 04Next Earn

Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptFebruary 4, 2026

Operator

Hello, and welcome everyone joining today's Corpay fourth-quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode.

Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question-and-answer session. To register to ask a question at any time, please press star one on your telephone keypad.

Please note this call is being recorded. We are standing by if you should need any assistance.

It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Jim Eglseder, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Jim Eglseder

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today for our earnings call to discuss fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results. With me today are Ron Clarke, our Chairman and CEO, and Peter Walker, our CFO.

Our earnings release and supplemental materials for the quarter are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Please refer to these materials for an explanation of the non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call, along with a reconciliation of those measures to the nearest applicable GAAP measures.

Our remarks today will also include forward-looking statements about expected operating and financial results, strategic initiatives, acquisitions and synergies, and divestitures, among other matters. Forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties.

Some of those risks are mentioned in today's press release and on Form 8-K, and can also be found in our annual report on Form 10-K. These documents are available on our website and at sec.gov.

Now I'll turn the call over to Ron Clarke, our Chairman and CEO. Ron?

Ron Clarke

Jim. Thanks.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining today's call. Upfront here, I plan to cover three subjects: first, provide my take on Q4 along with highlights for 2025; second, I'll share our 2026 guidance; and then lastly, I'll outline our major priorities for 2026.

Let me begin with our Q4 results. We reported revenue of $1.248 billion, up 21%, and cash EPS of $6.04, up 13%.

That would be up 20% at a constant tax rate. The results better than our expectations, mostly driven by cross-border and Alpha overperformance.

We did call the macro spot-on, neutral impact versus our guide. In the quarter, overall revenue growth 11%, that's three consecutive quarters.

Inside of that, our vehicle segment continued growth at 10%, and our corporate payments segment grew 16%. Our two biggest businesses doing quite well against pretty difficult comps.

Importantly, our trends in the quarter also quite positive: new sales or bookings up 29% versus prior year, super robust sales; same-store sales inched into the positive territory, up 1%; and overall revenue retention stable at 92%. Cash EBITDA in Q4 surpassed $700 million in the quarter.

Look, all of this produced a record cash EPS print of over $6 a share, really a terrific quarter for us. Let me make the turn to highlights for full-year 2025.

First, our financial performance for the year quite good: full-year revenue of $4.5 billion, that's up 14%; cash EPS of $21.38, up 12%, or again up 17% at a constant tax rate; organic revenue growth for the full year 10%, so that makes four of the last five years 10% organic revenue growth or higher; full-year sales growth also 29% with improving productivity, we're continuing to sell a lot. Additionally in the year, we made a number of moves to better position the company for the midterm: we acquired Alpha, second-largest acquisition in the company's history, giving us access to an international bank account product as well as the asset management market segment; Mastercard invested $300 million in our cross-border business at a $13 billion valuation, hopefully to unlock and serve the FI channel; we invested in Avid, that deepens our position in the middle-market AP automation and payments space; and lastly, we acquired a second vehicle debts company in Brazil that'll further help accelerate Brazil's non-toll revenue growth.

Look, financial performance ahead of our initial 2025 guide, along with the further rotation of our portfolio towards corporate payments, quite pleased. Let me transition to our 2026 guidance.

We are quite excited about it. We're providing full-year 2026 guidance at the midpoint of print revenue $5.265 billion, that's up over $700 million versus last year or up 16%, and we're providing cash EPS at the midpoint of $26 on the button, that's up 22%.

Look, the drivers behind this 2026 guide, a few things: so first, fundamentals. Look, it's working.

We had a record Q4 finish and the corresponding exit rate, super good trends, positive sales, healthy client base same-store sales, stable retention trends, big sales year again in 2025. We get a lot of that benefit as it rolls into 2026, and we are expecting continued 10% organic revenue growth this year.

A second driver are accretive acquisitions. Our Alpha acquisition expected to contribute about $300 million of incremental revenue, and Alpha paired with Avid together should contribute approximately $1 of cash EPS to our 2026 outlook.

That's based on kind of our final plans now. Then third, macro.

We are expecting the macro to be our friend, to be helpful here in 2026: favorable FX rates, particularly so in the first half; lower SOFR rates; and finally, a constant year-over-year tax rate expected. Look, lots of reasons for confidence in our 2026 guide.

The guide just for clarity does not include the impact of expected divestitures, including the PayByPhone, nor the impact of any material capital allocation actions beyond simply deleveraging. Let me turn to our top five priorities for 2026, which really are pretty consistent with last year's priorities.

First up is our portfolio, the goal again to further simplify the company resulting in fewer, bigger businesses and accelerate our rotation to corporate payments. We've announced one vehicle payment divestiture, we have two additional divestitures that we're working, and as always, we're continuing to work the acquisition pipeline for new corporate payment acquisition opportunities.

Second priority, USA sales. We're continuing to work to improve US sales, particularly of our vehicle payments and lodging solutions.

We've done a few things: we've hired a new CMO who recently started; we've developed some new Corpay brand creative ads to raise awareness of the company; we're growing our Zoom sales teams here in 2026; concurrently, we're also really rethinking entirely new ways to sell our US vehicle payment solutions as we de-emphasize digital sales. A third priority in payables, number of things: one, we're trying to add new enterprise accounts there, particularly after our success with our first elephant last year; we are selling payables now in the UK, seeing some initial traction; we are doubling down on the sales force in the UK; and lastly, lots of energy exploring new monetization options with our merchant base or our vendor base.

Those things include instant payment options, debit card payments, and even e-checks to help accelerate revenue growth in the AP segment. A fourth priority is cross-border, super focus on our multi-currency account and our international bank account capabilities, particularly given the Alpha deal; we're furthering our stablecoin capabilities and obviously working hard to implement synergies related to the Alpha acquisition; we are progressing the FI channel opportunity with Mastercard, we have logged our first joint sale, kudos there, and building really a pretty meaningful pipeline, excited about that.

Fifth and last, AI. Yes, we have gotten religion around AI.

We're currently in pilot with conversational AI being added to a number of our client UIs. We're using AI agents to reduce live agent expense, particularly in our lodging business, and we're even using AI to speed our merchant matching process against our internal merchant database to help drive new payable sales with prospects.

Look, five key priorities here in 2026, each is well-defined, each is being worked: the portfolio, USA sales, payables expansion, cross-border capabilities, and AI implementation. A busy year for sure.

Look, in conclusion today, a strong finish, record earnings in Q4 on the high side of our guide, again encouraging organic revenue, new sales, same-store sales, and retention trends. Our full-year 2025 financial performance, again finishing ahead of our initial guide, we logged another 10% full-year organic revenue growth year, that makes again four of the last five.

2025 again a active repositioning year: further simplification of the company and the addition of more corporate payment assets. In terms of '26, again outlooking really a super strong 2026: EPS expected to be up over 20%, driven by the favorable fundamentals, the accretive acquisitions, and even a favorable macro.

Lastly, we have laid out a clear set of priorities to better position the company to continue to compound over the midterm. With that, let me turn the call back over to Peter to provide some additional detail on the quarter, the year, and our '26 outlook.

Peter?

Peter Walker

Thanks, Ron, and good afternoon, everyone. Let's start with highlights of the quarter and the year.

Q4 revenue was $1.248 billion, overperforming the midpoint of our guidance, driven by strong corporate payments performance. GAAP revenue grew 21% year-over-year, driven by 11% organic revenue growth.

Q4 adjusted EPS of $6.04 per share overperformed the midpoint of our guidance and grew 13% year-over-year due to strong top-line performance and solid expense management. The headline for the quarter is overperformance, with over 20% top-line and low-teens bottom-line growth, driven by our third consecutive quarter of delivering 11% organic revenue growth.

We grew Q4 new sales 29% year-over-year and delivered a 92.3% retention rate, fueling our business for 2026. Full-year revenue was $4.528 billion, delivering organic revenue growth of 10% for the full year and for four out of the last five years.

Full-year adjusted EPS was $21.38, growing 12%, but growing 17% at a constant tax rate. These strong year-over-year results are further reinforced by the healthy, consistent, sequential quarterly growth in revenue, EBITDA, and adjusted EPS throughout 2025, which positions us well for 2026.

We are exiting 2025 as an even stronger company than we entered the year. Now turning to our segment performance and the underlying drivers of our organic revenue growth.

Corporate payments delivered 16% organic growth for the quarter despite a 200-basis-point drag from float revenue compression due to lower interest rates. This exceeded our expectations by 100 basis points, partially driven by Alpha revenue overperformance, setting us up well for 2026.

Overall, corporate payments performance was driven by growth in spend volumes, which increased 44% on a pro forma basis to over $81 billion in spend. Cross-border continued to deliver strong sales and revenue performance in Q4.

This business is quite resilient, with significant demand even in the face of trade-related uncertainty throughout the year. Additionally, the Alpha Group integration efforts are progressing well.

The payables business continues to perform, with especially strong sales performance in Q4. We're optimistic about the future of the business as we are in the early innings of market penetration and closed our strategic investment in AvidXchange during the fourth quarter.

We see tremendous upside over a very long period of time for this business. Vehicle payments organic revenue growth was 10% again this quarter.

As a reminder, we operate three approximately equal-sized vehicle payments businesses across the globe in the US, Europe, and Brazil. We saw continued strong results in all three geographies, which drove the performance.

Improving US vehicle payments performance throughout the year is particularly encouraging. Lodging, representing less than 10% of our total revenue, decreased 7% year-over-year or was roughly flat for the quarter when adjusting for a 600-basis-point drag from lower FEMA emergency revenue year-over-year.

While clearly not recovering, progress continues, and we are assuming low-single-digit growth in our 2026 outlook, with headwinds in the first half of the year and returning to positive organic growth in the back half of the year as new sales and implementations come online. In summary, we delivered 11% organic growth in Q4 at the high end of our target range, driven by continued strong corporate payments organic growth and double-digit vehicle payments organic growth.

Now looking further down the income statement. Operating expenses of $684 million increased 25%, primarily driven by a lower net gain on business dispositions year-over-year, acquisitions, divestitures and related expenses, and FX, partially offset by a non-cash impairment charge in Q4 of last year.

Excluding these impacts, operating expenses increased 8%, driven by investments in sales and processing expenses related to higher transaction volumes. As we exited the quarter, we're starting to see benefit from expense rationalization initiatives recently executed that will deliver additional savings in 2026.

Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 57.1%, and our adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 25.8%. The increase in the rate was due to favorable impact from 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 2.8 times, spot-on our guidance.

We repurchased 1.7 million shares in the quarter for $500 million and a total of 2.6 million shares for the year. This leaves us with approximately $1.5 billion authorized for share repurchases, inclusive of the $1 billion of additional authorization approved by the board at the December meeting.

We will continue to pursue M&A opportunities and will continue to buy back shares at this valuation while maintaining leverage within our target range. Now let me share some additional information on our 2026 full-year and Q1 outlook.

As Ron mentioned, as part of our continued rotation into corporate payments, we signed a definitive agreement to sell PayByPhone, a non-core vehicle payments asset. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026.

The impact of this sale is not included in our guidance as we are sharing today as our policy is to update guidance for closed deals. PayByPhone is expected to produce 2026 annual revenues of approximately $100 million, and the transaction is not expected to have a material impact to adjusted EPS as we plan to use the proceeds to buy back shares.

We'll provide more information when the deal is closed. Our 2026 revenue guidance is $5.265 billion at the midpoint of our range, growing 16% year-over-year.

This assumes 10% organic revenue growth, also at the midpoint of our range. 2026 organic revenue growth is lower than our 2025 exit rate of 11% due to additional float headwinds, more heavily weighted in the first half of 2026 in our corporate payments business.

Our 2026 guidance for adjusted EPS is $26 per share at the midpoint, growing 22% year-over-year. Our confidence in our guidance is high, given most of the building blocks for this performance are already in place.

This includes our strong organic growth exit rate and annualized Q4 trends, our expense rationalization initiatives which are already producing savings, and our Q4 share buybacks. The $1 of accretion from the Avid and Alpha deals is achievable given our strong track record of M&A integration.

The macro environment provides additional tailwinds, including a flat tax rate year-over-year. As a reminder, our revenue and adjusted EPS build throughout the year.

You can see on page 19 of the supplement the percentage of full-year revenue and adjusted EPS are lowest in Q1 and highest in Q4. This pattern is driven by our clients' highest business volumes occurring in Q2 and Q3, along with acquisition synergy realization increasing through the year, all over a relatively fixed cost basis.

The consistent historical pattern gives us confidence in our ability to deliver our 2026 guidance. Below EBITDA, we're expecting net interest expense to be between $370 million and $400 million, the adjusted tax rate to be between 25% and 27%, and weighted average shares to be flat with the period-end shares 4Q '25.

Related to capital allocation, our forecast assumes free cash flow is used to pay down debt, which provides some potential upside opportunity should we deploy capital for buybacks or M&A. Our guidance does not include any share buybacks.

From a segment perspective, we expect the following organic revenue growth rates: corporate payments, mid-teens, inclusive of the drag on float revenue from lower interest rates; vehicle payments, high-single digits; lodging, low-single digit. Our Q1 revenue guidance is $1.21 billion at the midpoint, growing 20% year-over-year.

We expect Q1 organic revenue growth of 9% at the midpoint, lower than the full-year 10% organic growth guide, driven by the float headwind I mentioned earlier. We're expecting adjusted EPS of $5.45 at the midpoint, growing 21% year-over-year.

We're planning organic revenue growth to increase in the remaining quarters as we digest the float headwinds. We provided additional detail regarding our full-year and Q1 outlook in our press release and earnings supplement.

Before I turn it over to the operator for Q&A, I'm delighted to share that we've remediated the outstanding material weakness related to user access, and you'll see this formally in our 10-K. I want to thank the team that made this happen.

Operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, press star one on your keypad.

To leave the queue at any time, press star two. We do ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.

Once again, that is star one to ask a question. Our first question comes from Andrew Jeffrey with William Blair.

Please go ahead, your line is now open.

Andrew Jeffrey

Thank you. Appreciate taking the question.

Great to see the business momentum. Ron, I wanted to ask a little bit about the commentary around payables monetization.

I know this is an area that historically has been a little bit stubborn when it's come to non-check-based payments. I know you mentioned e-check, but could you maybe dimensionalize that for us?

Is that an initiative that could add to already impressive segment organic revenue growth, or what's the timeline do you think for driving better yield from those initiatives?

Ron Clarke

Hey, Andrew. It's a great question.

I think we've been a one-trick pony, the industry, in terms of using virtual card for monetization. This set of options now and basically kind of eliminating paper checks is the game.

The idea of getting that thing sunset and using e-checks, debit at lower interchange, ACH+, instant payments, the whole plethora of things that we can do, the research suggests that merchants like that choice, and some set of merchants will accept these new methods of payment where they won't accept virtual card. We're in the middle of it.

We're laying that stuff out, we're doing the research, we're testing. I would say sometime Q2, Q3, we should see some impact of that.

I think it just creates more legs for the business, right, long-term.

Andrew Jeffrey

I agree. Then just a quick follow-up for Peter, if I may.

Could you sort of parse out domestic vehicle payment organic revenue growth versus Brazil? I assume that US and Europe look pretty similar.

Just trying to get a sense of what positive same-store sales might mean for that business.

Peter Walker

Yeah. USCP business, approximately 5% organic growth for the quarter, and Europe and the rest of the world and Brazil, tracked right on where they were for earlier in the year.

Consistent results across all three for the 10% overall organic growth rate for vehicle payments.

Andrew Jeffrey

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

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

Your line is now open.

Darrin Peller

Hey guys, thanks. Nice job.

I just wanted to start off with one more of a strategic question and a sustainability question on the growth rate on vehicles. Then I'll have a follow-up on the modeling side.

Just when I look at the double-digit growth rate, obviously it's good to see it holding up in these ranges, even against what you're getting into harder comps towards the end of '24. Maybe just touch on sustainability, especially of the US fleet acceleration and what's needed to maybe even push same-store sales meaningfully higher, in your view?

Ron Clarke

Hey, Darrin, it's Ron. It's sales is the answer, right?

Just to follow up on on Peter's thing, if you think of the three horsemen that create 10% is kind of low single digit, like right on 10, high double digit, average those things, you get to 10. The good news, if there is any, is this work we've done on the US piece of vehicle has has finally landed, right?

We've got stable retentions that's now kind of in line with the rest of the businesses. I'm literally looking at a piece of paper, and the same-store sales of the US business, vehicle business, went positive the first time in six quarters.

I'm looking at the piece of paper now. Approval rates are up, credit is good.

Literally, the business has gotten to a good kind of reset spot. Now, like I said, the entire assignment is sales.

If we could make a lot more sales there, we could, inch the the the aggregated vehicle, growth rate up, and if not, we'll stay with kind of low, mid, high, for that matter. The real question for me is do we keep allocating, what level of investment for growth do we keep making in that business vis-a-vis the other ones, is is one of the internal questions.

Darrin Peller

Right. All right, that's good to hear.

Thanks. I guess just one follow-up would be on more of a modeling couple of questions, number one would be just if you could provide a little more color on the cadence of the accretion contribution, given a fair amount of the beat versus some of the street numbers was the magnitude of accretion.

As it's ramping through the year, help us understand that. Then I know we're getting some questions on interest expense.

I think you're assuming a lower interest expense dollar amount. Just help us understand that notion, just given you're adding debt at a pretty healthy rate as well.

Thanks again, guys. Good job.

Ron Clarke

Darrin, it's Ron. Let me take the first part, and Peter could take the second.

We're kind of dumped on the plan, when we talked, I guess, 90 days ago and was literally just onboarding Alpha, we've finished the work. In the opening comments, I gave $1.

Between those two deals, the Avid investment and the Alpha acquisition, we're pretty comfortable we can get the dollar. We're literally already underway on a bunch of the things, certainly on the cost takeout side, on some of the revenue synergies that are super easy like them coming across to our contracts and things.

The biggest thing that'll unlock a bunch in the second half is the IT. We're going to sunset kind of their core corporate IT systems in favor of ours, which opens up all kinds of savings around not only IT, but compliance and ops and stuff like that.

I would say this is our third, fourth, fifth rodeo, right, of doing these things. Our confidence in what to do and what number is high.

Then the last point I'll make, because you're good at math, is it's not one and done, it's one and more. The way we think about it is whatever EBITDA we're getting in those businesses has to grow over, right, the interest expense to finance those.

As we create the synergies and those businesses grow, they're growing obviously over fixed interest expense. In our multiyear plan, that creates even acceleration in EPS as you walk into the next year.

The setup for those two things is quite good.

Peter Walker

Darrin, picking up on your question on interest expense. We end of the year about $7.7 billion in debt.

As we produce really high cash flow, call it $1.8 billion of cash flows we've produced throughout the year. Debt will reduce throughout the year.

Also, the forward curve is looking pretty positive for us on SOFR. You put those two together, and that's what's leading to a lower interest expense.

Darrin Peller

Very helpful. Thanks, Peter.

Thanks, Ron.

Operator

Thank you. We'll now move on to Tien-tsin Huang with J.P.

Morgan. Please go ahead.

Tien-tsin Huang

Thank you so much, everyone. Peter and Jim, great results.

I wanted to ask on corporate payments, if that's okay. Just mid-teens growth expected this year.

Do you have the backlog to support this growth, or is there more business to go get? I'm just curious what the visibility looks like there and could there be some room for upside, and if so, where?

Ron Clarke

Hey, Tien-tsin. Thanks for the "attaboy."

I'd say on the 2026 number, it's really two different things: in the payables, the full payables business, I'd say we have the sales, because the implementation cycle is longer there. Basically, we have a bunch of deals that we implement that drive that revenue.

In the cross-border, it's a much shorter, right, sales to implementation cycle, we have to make sales there. Although, if there was one bet to place on our company, I would not bet against the cross-border sales.

We had a just rocking finish between our core cross-border business and even the new Alpha business and stuff. That thing is firing.

I would say our confidence in the thing is super high. Again, the reason for the thing not being a bit more robust is just the compression, obviously, of the float rates, right, particularly as we absorb Alpha, which has a way bigger bank account deposit-based business than we do.

It's a bit more acute, right, the compression there, particularly early on. It's transitory, obviously, when we get to the other side of that, I think the outlook will be even better for the business.

If we get the monetization thing, what I said Andrew asked, if we get that cranking, that would be another upside, basically, to the business.

Tien-tsin Huang

Got it. No, you sound quite pleased with Alpha.

That's great to hear, mid-teens would be a win for that segment. I did want to ask just on margins, if that's okay, as my follow-up with the expense rationalization.

Is there a way to think about that impact to '26 and just some broader comments on incremental margins in '26, any surprises or puts and takes to consider?

Ron Clarke

Maybe I'll start, Tien-tsin, and let Peter pick up. We're targeting about $75 million of expense out.

We've executed kind of 50 of it, we're still working on the other 25, which we've identified, but still working. If you look at our internal plan, not shockingly, margins climb like crazy sequentially, pretty fixed cost base once we make the sales investment, which we do early, and then revenue snowballs, right?

Revenue increases, call it $100 million plus as you get into the second half or quarter. That I think it's probably three points if you look at it, 300 basis points from Q1 to Q4.

The reason that the overall margins for the full year wouldn't look a ton different is really it's the acquisition expense, right? We're bringing across in these couple of deals a fair amount of cost at lower margins, basically.

Then second, we've made the call, given the profitability, to put more into sales and marketing and even into our brand. We're trying to hold the margins pretty constant, improve them sequentially, and spend on some things that will help the growth going into the next year.

Tien-tsin Huang

Perfect. No, that's great.

Done. Thank you.

Ron Clarke

Thanks, pal.

Operator

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

Your line is now open.

Ron Clarke

Hey, Mihir. All right.

Mihir Bhatia

Hi. Good afternoon.

Thank you for taking my question and nice results here. Ron, maybe just I wanted to ask you about PayByPhone.

I think you bought that asset maybe a couple of years ago. Just any lessons from that process, from owning that?

Just what worked, what didn't, as you think about go forward?

Ron Clarke

Hey, that's a good question. Lessons, I'd say maybe two lessons on that one.

One is, we had a thesis for buying that there's 5, 6, 7 million active users and a lot of them in Europe could be a kind of a launching pad for us to put those people into the network and create some incremental business. Basically, we proved we couldn't do very well at that.

A new idea, and it didn't work as great as it has in Brazil. The second learning is we're good.

Like we take a business, we buy it, we triple the profits, we're selling it for 50% more than we bought it for. It's a great reminder that even when the thesis isn't perfect, that we can still make a return on the thing.

We're pleased. I'm also pleased for the people that are running the thing, that built it, where they'll go, they'll be happy and stuff.

I'm hoping for only good things for the buyer and the management team.

Mihir Bhatia

Got it. No, and I think kudos to you all for trying and pulling the plug when you'll realize it wouldn't work.

Wanted to maybe switch gears a little bit to just going back to the corporate payments business and just some of the questions there. Maybe I think you kind of answered it a little bit, but just trying to understand, you laid out a lot of priorities in that business, right, whether it's building the UK payables, adding enterprise accounts, new monetization options, growing sales in the FI channel.

Just trying to understand the timelines there, like the lift that it'll take to implement some of those changes. What's going to be a meaningful contributor then in 2026 versus initiatives that are maybe longer term, but just you're laying the building blocks today?

Ron Clarke

That is a really good question. I think the main thing we're trying to do with that priority is just make sure people are clear on the opportunities, that when you stare at payables beyond just chopping the wood we have, that there's some kind of vectors out from the middle market core there where, hey, we can get more monetization against the spend, we can add enterprise, right, to the mix, we can go to geographies that widen the TAM.

I'm mostly trying to make sure people are clear that there's way vectors to make the business go. I'd say on that one, it's clearly the monetization is the short term, is the 2026 thing, because we have the clients, we have the merchants, we have the money moving, and so we're simply trying to give more choice and stuff.

I'd say for sure on that one. Then the same kind of, I think, on the cross-border side, I think longer term because the sales cycle will be like the Mastercard opportunity there or even frankly the international bank account opportunity.

I think those are longer term, whereas the synergies of combining the Alpha corporate business would be a 2026. I'd say those are the two get the money in 2026 things: monetization in payables and Alpha consolidation and synergies would be the things for this year.

Mihir Bhatia

Got it. Thank you for taking my questions and nice results.

Ron Clarke

You got it.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sanjay Sakhrani with KBW.

Your line is now open.

Sanjay Sakhrani

Thank you. Ron, you talked about a couple of more divestitures in the pipeline, and obviously this one that you did today or announced today.

Could you just give us a sense of what kind of liquidity you're looking at in terms of raising from that? I know you put out that $1.5 billion number last quarter, but if we just think about today's announcement plus the other two, does that get you to a higher number or equal number?

Just trying to think through the liquidity you could raise and use of proceeds.

Ron Clarke

It's a good question, Sanjay. There's two other vehicle businesses that are out in process now pretty late stage, too.

If we end up transacting on both of those, it'll be over $1 billion. Think of call it $1 billion or $1.3 billion, somewhere in there.

The use of proceeds is to buy CPAY at this price that we're at. We'll have an answer, my guess is, the next probably 30 days on those things.

Sanjay Sakhrani

Got it. Then just maybe if you could elaborate on lodging.

I know it remained weak and you guys are assuming sort of low single digits, but anything specific happening there in terms of turning that ship around and how we should think about it on a go-forward basis? Thanks.

Ron Clarke

The prints obviously, Sanjay, not too good. I feel a little bit similar for the US vehicle business of, I think I characterized those two businesses as problem children, not behaving well a couple of years ago and lots of things wrong.

I feel kind of the same that both businesses, and particularly lodging, have stabilized. We fixed the IT, we fixed the product thing, we fixed the customers that kind of scooted away, the volume that scooted away.

If you look at the same-store, as I quoted, that's actually positive now in US vehicle and I think mostly flat in lodging. The good news is the management teams have made progress doing things that have stabilized the revenue.

I'm still super disappointed in the new sales. That's the ticket.

Really the ticket for both of them is can they produce new sales now that the losses have stabilized? They're both super great margin businesses, they're both above the line average, I don't have it in front of me, but they're in the 60s in terms of EBITDA margin, they're super great cash generators.

The question is just can we productively make sales there vis-a-vis the other options we have for investing sales in the company. We're giving it a run here in 2026, and if we see sales improve and accelerate through the year, we'll be happy.

If we don't, we'll be probably thinking about doing something else.

Sanjay Sakhrani

All right, great. Thank you.

Ron Clarke

Yes.

Operator

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

Please go ahead.

Nate Svensson

Hey guys, thanks for the question. I want to follow up on some of the cross-border priorities that you were talking about in the prepared remarks, Ron.

You mentioned outperformance at Alpha a few times, and you obviously bumped up the Alpha plus Avid accretion to a buck. Just maybe hoping for a little more color on what's going better than expected at Alpha, what on the revenue synergies, are you realizing the better organic growth, anything beyond that?

Then you also called out the first joint sale with Mastercard. Fully get from your earlier answer that that's kind of a longer-term opportunity, but would just love to hear more about that first win, any specific details or learnings from that partnership as you look to go out and win more sales in the pipeline that you have?

Ron Clarke

Nate, two two two good questions there. I think the the overperformance in Alpha is the the integration, the the the the people thing has gone better than than I thought.

When you meet a new group like that and, bring the organizations together, sometimes there's a pause, people aren't firing and stuff. I just feel like our management team and their team did a great job, great Kumbaya or whatever, where their guys just came, roaring out of the blocks, pitching, "Hey, we're a bigger, meaner company, we have better credit, we, obviously we have better products, we have better payment products versus just risk management products."

To me what was so great is the the people, the particularly the sales people, have embraced some of the stuff that we bring to to them and and just went running out and and got a bunch of business closed. That that thing not only performed better than the finish, I looked at January, and and those businesses are ahead again this month.

I think it's, it's cultural, it's something, but just everybody's at it, people aren't moping around and stuff, they're they're excited to be part of the game with us and stuff. This is way before the other synergies of contract advantages, rate advantages, cost, IT, we got all this stuff in front of us, bank account licenses, we've nine other things that are going to create money, but but to me that's like super important.

On the Mastercard thing, I I got to say like it is way exceeded my, I don't know if it has the Mastercard folks' expectations, but we now have a second sale. I think I said one, so that's ripped solo already, we've we've actually closed now two deals.

More importantly, it's it's a crazy pipeline of particularly in Europe, where, Mastercard has has done their part of, getting us dedicated people to call on accounts that they know and love and our guys go into the know a lot, and literally, I don't know if it's 50 to 70 in-process, opportunities. That thing, which which tends to have a very long sales cycle, has has stood up quite well.

I think back to the thesis, question that was was was before us, I think the thesis is proving out that good relationships and credibility that Mastercard has coupled with our, products and expertise is is a good combo. It'll take time to build, but it is a way help to make that segment meaningful, right, for cross-border.

I don't know if everyone's getting it, but that business was mostly a one-trick pony. We we went out to mid-sized businesses around the world and and and sold services.

Now we're talking about basically getting banks, getting FIs around the world to to use our services and becoming, an international bank account deposit company as well. The extensions of those two additional kind of product and market segments is is way significant.

I I don't know if people are picking it up, but it it completely changes, I think, the long-term prospects for that business. We've spent lots of time in stuff doing iceberg work, kind of getting ready, getting things positioned.

I think people discount because everyone just wants to know what the numbers are, but I'm telling you that is going to make a a big difference for durability.

Nate Svensson

Super exciting stuff. I guess for the follow-up, also on the cross-border business, we get some questions from time to time on a potential Supreme Court ruling on IEEPA and maybe some impact that could have to CPAY in the event that tariffs are rolled back.

Not asking you to speculate on any potential outcome, but I guess in the event that there is some level of rollback of tariffs, any idea on how that could play out across either your corporate payments business or maybe the vehicle payments business as well? Is there still any pent-up demand you think might be released, could this alleviate some of the pressure on the shipping and freight industry in the US or any other factors to keep in mind there?

Ron Clarke

That that's a super good follow-up. I would say tariff certainty is our friend, like whatever it is, just be be what it is.

It it had a a super jolt during Trump's liberation thing. I think our numbers in April were were crazy as people tried to anticipate things, and then kind of our US, our North America business, did did really bad the rest of the year because of because of the uncertainty, and and the other geographies picked it up.

Anything that would either roll back, limit, or even just fix tariffs would be a plus to to the cross-border business. Remember, like half, the the the the dollars in there are service-based, not goods-based.

Then again, we have, we do risk management contracts and stuff, the exposure, isn't across that entire business. Really most of the exposures in North America, which is probably, a third of the business.

It's not like a massive amount, but but it still would be, to your point, a plus for us if if that thing got clarified.

Nate Svensson

Super helpful. Thanks, Ron.

Ron Clarke

Yeah.

Operator

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

Your line is now open.

Ramsey El-Assal

Hi, thank you so much for taking my call tonight. I wanted to ask about the strong sales growth, which is obviously super impressive.

Can you give us your thoughts on whether the timing of that conversion of bookings to revenue has changed as your business has changed? In other words, as now you have more corporate payments, are you seeing a situation where you convert those bookings faster or slower to revenue, or is it sort of the same as it was when you were primarily a fleet card business years and years ago?

Ron Clarke

Hey, Ramsey, welcome to your new spot. I want to say congrats to you on that, and appreciate you continuing to keep an eye on us.

It's a really good question. At the high level, the answer is it varies by business.

As I mentioned, I think Tien-tsin asked, our payables business has a slower contract signings or bookings to implementation and ramping, and I mentioned the cross-border business is much faster. As you run through the businesses we have, that varies: some are super fast like in the fleet card business, it's almost instantmatic, we don't even book until we start, we actually call it a go-live.

The total for the company is about 1/3 in year. For example, let me make up a number: let's say we recorded $300 million in bookings in calendar year 2025, we would print about $100 million of print revenue inside of the 2025 goal posts, and then we would ramp some amount of that $200 million that we didn't capture into the following year.

The way we think about building our revenue plans is we already have, in that example, $200 million coming our way here in 2026 that we didn't have hit our revenue numbers last year, and we'll grab a third of what our bookings plan is here in 2026. That's kind of the model: kind of 1/3 in the current year and then the 2/3 ramp depending on what the attrition is.

We have really good statistics in all this, it's really easy for us to model it.

Ramsey El-Assal

Got it. That's super helpful.

Thank you for that. One follow-up for me.

Stablecoins are a big thematic topic. Can you just give us an update on what you're seeing in the marketplace in terms of demand, if any, and also just give us a quick overview of the capabilities that you guys are building out to accommodate stablecoins?

Ron Clarke

I'm laughing a bit, Ramsey, because this morning when I get up, knowing we had this earnings call tonight, I went out to three of our guys. I went to the guy that has thousands and thousands of US merchants that we pay cross-border, that obviously moves tons of money to beneficiaries around the world, and our Alpha guy who does the 7,000 bank accounts that hold deposits, and I asked all three of them, "Hey, talk to me about the demand.

How many of the merchants or the deposit holders or beneficiaries are asking for a companion stablecoin wallet so that they can receive funds in stablecoins?" The basic answer was crickets.

There's been really no, basically kind of no noise, kind of no demand. Despite that, we are, I think we said before, doing three things anyway: one is we're trying to serve crypto clients that actually have crypto, have Bitcoin, have stablecoins, as clients, we're doing that, we have four or five signed up; two is we are working on the rails and piloting that in our own treasury, for example, to make sure we can actually move funds via a blockchain; and then third, which is my favorite, despite the demand comment, we are building stablecoin digital wallets so that anyone that has a bank account, if you will, they'll have a companion stablecoin account.

If someone wants to send them money outside of the banking hours, it could be captured and then we could toggle it into the fiat account that we have for them. We are pushing ahead to have that and just see if there's more uptake on this.

What's the line? It's all quiet on the Western Front as of now.

Ramsey El-Assal

Fantastic, Ron. Thanks for your response there.

Ron Clarke

You got it.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Rayna Kumar with Oppenheimer.

Your line is now open.

Rayna Kumar

Good evening. Thanks for taking my question.

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

Thank you.

Peter Walker

Yeah. Hi, Rayna, it's Peter.

On the lodging side, the thought process is full year we're expecting, call it low single digits there, but it's really a tale of two stories: the first half of the year will continue to be negative organic growth, with a pickup in the back half of the year. I think the good news to share there is we have had quite a bit of good luck on the sales side, and so those implementations are coming online in the back half of the year, so that kind of gets you to the full-year outlook on lodging.

Then if we look at EBITDA margins, they are increasing substantially quarter-over-quarter across 2026. EBITDA margins will be slightly down year-over-year, mostly driven by the acquisitions, but as the business volume grows and we implement the synergies, that's where you see the margins start to expand quarter-over-quarter.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Trevor Williams with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Trevor Williams

Great, thanks very much. Peter, I wanted to go back to the organic guide, the 9% growth in Q1 relative to the 11% in Q4 and the 10% you're assuming for the full year.

It sounds like that's mostly just due to a bigger float headwind for corporate payments in the first half and then the lodging improvement that you just walked through. Any other puts and takes cadence-wise for us to be mindful of?

Then specific to the first quarter, just what you're baking in for corporate payments growth both with and without float would be helpful. Thanks.

Peter Walker

Yeah. Trevor, I do think you have it right.

When we look at Q1 '26, it is the float headwinds, mostly really as we pick up the Alpha business, right, you see a pretty sharp drop in the rate for the pound and the rate for the euro, so that's a big driver there, whereas the drop in SOFR is more kind of even throughout the year. Then you're exactly right on lodging being a drag on overall organic growth for Q1 at the 9%, but then we see ourselves returning to 10% for Q2 and the rest of the year.

In terms of guidance for corporate payments, I'd say the guidance for the quarter is similar to what I shared for the year: we expect it to be mid-teens with float drag against that.

Ron Clarke

Hey, Trevor, it's Ron. Just to add to what Peter said.

When we look out at the curves in our weighted average of what we earn, the Q1 versus Q1 last year is just the compression's just way more acute in this quarter we're sitting in, it's about 70 or 75 basis points. When we run it out to the end of the year, that thing shrinks to like 25 to 30 basis points.

That's enough, given we have Alpha in the mix now, for us to run the quarter at nine instead of 10. The other one just by the way, which is a tad, is really gift.

That thing has been running super hot with this secure packaging thing. I don't have it in front of me, but mid to high teens for the last three or four quarters.

That's coming back to earth, positive, but back to earth here in Q1. Those two things together is what have us running the quarter at nine.

Trevor Williams

No, that's helpful and good color on gift. Then just as a follow-up on Brazil, with how much you guys are outpacing the underlying TAG growth, that's all coming from the contribution from extended network.

Ron, how you think about the sustainability of that and if you're able to keep that, if we think like high teens to 20% growth in Brazil, if you can keep that without layering in more acquisitions like Gringo, Zapay, I know there was the other vehicle debts company that you bought last year. Just how to think about the durability of that growth?

Thanks.

Ron Clarke

It's a great question. We're planning, Trevor, another crazy high-teens year.

Part, as half of it you get because it had a crazy good year last year, right, so that just it just rolls in. Look, the story of Brazil is the the free banks didn't beat us.

We We said we were going to create a bunch of non-toll revenue, we've got millions and millions of customers and and businesses as well, and so we're like, okay, if we give them some of these other vehicle things, will they come? I want to be super clear: yes, they will.

They buy fuel, they buy parking, they buy insurance, they buy vehicle debts. They're now going crazy with 10% of our new sales were selling the Sem Parar credit card, the Sem Parar credit card now for 10% of our new sales.

To say it's working, I think, is an understatement. The second thing I'd say is I think it's helping sell the core toll product, because it's so differentiated now from a guy, a bank who's buying some crappy toll thing wholesale, one product, and and offering it.

Not only is it creating incremental revenue with profit leverage because it's added on, I think it's allowing us to keep selling, mid to high-single-digit TAG growth as well. It it is good, and I do feel like the banks there are getting weary from from some market feedback.

That could be the next domino to to fall there is people think they could beat us by being free, and they haven't. That that would be the next thing I'd keep an eye on.

Trevor Williams

Thank you, Ron.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Infante with Morgan Stanley.

Your line is now open.

Michael Infante

Hey guys. Thanks for squeezing me in here.

I'll just ask one for the sake of time. Commentary on the stablecoin demand was helpful, but I'd be curious just to get your high-level perspective on really the mechanism by which we'll actually start to see some medium-term compression of stablecoin off-ramp cost in the future if those costs themselves are effectively just dictated by liquidity in those corridors.

If the answer is we're not likely to see that cost compression, how should we be thinking about the incremental tailwind if you do actually start to see that demand from your customers show up? Thanks, guys.

Ron Clarke

Hey, Michael, it's Ron. I'd say your guess is as good as ours, because we see nothing, right, at this point.

I think we've reiterated that the rails are an insignificant piece of the cost structure and of the value chain. Look, who knows.

People can price things crazy, right, for whatever reason they have. We don't see it, to your point, we see nothing, and we don't think it's likely if we're getting 50 or 60 basis points on a trade, and sometimes 200 depending on the customer in the quarter.

It's mostly because of the liquidity and the compliance and everything else. We're staying tuned, we're watching it carefully and stuff, but we do not see that as a high risk.

Then as I said, whether there's demand or not, we're going to be there with the stablecoin offerings, and so if our clients want it, we're going to make it available. Reminds me a little bit of EV, this whole thing, there's more being written and said about this than actually being used today is my takeaway.

Michael Infante

Helpful. Thanks, Ron.

Ron Clarke

Yeah.

Operator

Thank you. We'll go next to Dave Koning with Baird.

Your line is now open.

Dave Koning

Hey guys. Thanks so much.

Just one question: minority interest, that line has become a lot more important now with Avid and a little bit of the Mastercard impact. It looks like on an adjusted basis, it was like $27 million in the quarter when you do the add-back that was in your line.

I guess why was that so high? That seems very high.

Is that the right number on a quarterly basis going forward, or what should we think about that line?

Ron Clarke

Maybe let's take that question with you offline in a modeling conversation just so we can go through it in more detail.

Dave Koning

Great. Thanks.

Operator

Our last question comes from Madison Suhr with Raymond James. Your line is now open.

Madison Suhr

Hey guys, thanks for sneaking me in, and I'll just ask one as well here. Just circling back to the Mastercard partnership.

Early indications sound pretty positive there, is the 200 to 300 basis point tailwind to cross-border still kind of the right way to think about the contribution from that partnership, or do you think there could be potential upside given some of the early indications? Thanks, guys.

Ron Clarke

That's another good question. I'd say it's a timing call, right, because the sales cycle on FIs is longer than it is for corporates.

To your point, given the size of the pipeline and the fact that some of the things are actually close to converting, it's a whopper segment. I do want to remind you and others that virtually all of the cross-border business that we don't have, they have.

All of it, right, is there, and so to the extent that we're successful getting this thing going and happening with Mastercard, all I can say is it is just so crazy large the flows that these banks have today, that if we get in with a number of them, it, over some cycle it could be a big, big contribution just because they have all the business today, right? The independents like us have such a fraction of the book today.

It's super exciting. Again, to me it's just a question of what the time frame is.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, there are no further questions in queue.

I will now turn the meeting back to our presenters for any additional or closing remarks.

Jim Eglseder

Great. Thanks, everybody, for your interest.

If you need anything else, you know where to find me. Have a good evening.

Operator

Thank you. This brings us to the end of today's meeting.

We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.