Global Payments Inc. announced results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020.

"We entered 2020 with our business as healthy as it had ever been in the decade since I have been at Global Payments," said Jeff Sloan, Chief Executive Officer. "In the first quarter, our focus on execution enabled us to meaningfully expand operating margins and grow adjusted earnings per share in the high teens despite the impact of COVID-19, highlighting the importance of scale in payments. We are very grateful to our team members around the world who have continued to provide excellent support to our customers and the communities in which we live and work during this difficult time.”

Sloan continued, "We are delighted that Truist Financial Corporation has selected Global Payments to be its provider of issuer processing services for its combined business. Truist is the sixth largest commercial bank in the United States, serving approximately twelve million consumer households and a full range of business clients with leading market share in many of the most attractive, high growth markets in the country. Truist’s strategy to transform its payments businesses via technology aligns perfectly with our TSYS issuer business and provides further validation of our market leading technologies, products and services and the quality and competitiveness of our team members. We could not be more pleased to welcome Truist to the Global Payments family of partners and launch our new services in the future."

First Quarter 2020 Summary

GAAP revenues were $1.904 billion, compared to $883 million in the first quarter of 2019; diluted earnings per share were $0.48 compared to $0.71 in the prior year; and operating margin was 12.8%.

Adjusted net revenue grew to $1.729 billion, compared to $1.725 billion in the first quarter of 2019 on a combined basis.

Adjusted earnings per share grew 18% to $1.58, compared to $1.34 in the first quarter of 2019.

Adjusted operating margin of 39.0% expanded 300 basis points on a combined basis.

Business Update

“We continue to prioritize the health and well-being of our team members, while also supporting our customers and safeguarding our business during this challenging time. With the vast majority of our nearly 24,000 people worldwide working from home since mid-March, I am pleased our business has continued to operate normally,” stated Cameron Bready, President and Chief Operating Officer. “We delivered significant new competitive wins in the quarter, and we remain on track to achieve at least $125 million in annual run-rate revenue synergies and at least $350 million in annual run-rate expense synergies from our transformational merger with TSYS, providing further evidence that the execution of our pure play payments strategy remains strong.”

Bready continued, “In addition to our existing expense synergy plan related to the merger, we have implemented cost initiatives that we expect to deliver at least an incremental $400 million of savings over the next 12 months. While we saw early signs of economic stabilization in April, these additional efforts are intended to best position Global Payments to emerge from this crisis in the same strong position with which we entered it.”

Financial Highlights

“We delivered better financial performance in the first quarter than we anticipated when we previewed our preliminary results in early April driven by the strength and momentum we experienced ahead of the crisis,” said Paul Todd, Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. “We have already implemented significant incremental expense management initiatives to bolster our earnings and cash flows, which together with our strong investment grade balance sheet and liquidity position provides our business with financial flexibility to navigate through this challenging time.”

Capital Allocation

Global Payments’ Board of Directors approved a dividend of $0.195 per share payable June 26, 2020 to shareholders of record as of June 12, 2020.