Tom Panther, Chief Financial Officer at Corpay, recaps the company's remarkable year and gives a preview of 2025.
In this episode, Brennan Robison, Director of Corporate Communications at Corpay, interviews Tom Panther, Corpay’s Chief Financial Officer, reflecting on the company's transformative year in 2024 and its plans for 2025. Key topics discussed include:
Rebranding to Corpay: The transition from FLEETCOR to Corpay highlights the company's evolution beyond vehicle-related payment solutions, emphasizing its comprehensive offerings for non-payroll-related expenses. The rebrand has been well-received by employees, investors, and customers, enhancing corporate identity while retaining strong niche brands like Fuelman and All-Star.
Simplification of Business Divisions: Corpay streamlined its business into three segments—corporate payments, vehicle payments, and lodging payments—making its operations and offerings easier to communicate and understand.
Capital Allocation: Corpay allocated capital strategically in 2024, including $900 million in stock buybacks and $1.2 billion on acquisitions like Paymerang and GPS to bolster its corporate payment capabilities, now projected to represent 40% of the business by 2025.
Performance and Growth: The company achieved record revenues, a $100+ rise in stock price, and was named a Great Place to Work and one of Time’s World's Best Companies in 2024, underscoring its strong financial model and commitment to culture.
Focus for 2025: The company's key strength lies in execution. With a clear strategy, product clarity, and momentum from 2024, Corpay aims to capitalize on its investments and drive further growth in 2025.
The episode concludes with Panther expressing confidence in Corpay’s ability to continue delivering value through operational excellence.
(Music)
Panther tease bite: One thing that Corpay has demonstrated over its 20 plus years is it is excellent at execution. And that excellence at execution I think bodes very well for how it will perform in 2025.
Robison intro: 2024 was a transformational year at Corpay, and to many the most monumental 12-month period for the company since it went public in 2010, with the rebranding from FLEETCOR to Corpay, and the simplifying of the business into three divisions. This is Brennan Robison, Director of Corporate Communications at Corpay. On this episode of Smarter Payments by Corpay, we’re joined by Tom Panther, Corpay’s Chief Financial Officer to get a rundown of the key moments and milestones for the company during the year. Here’s our conversation.
Robison: Hey Tom, thanks for joining us.
Panther: It’s great to be here. Thank you, Brennan.
Robison: So, 2024 was quite a year for Corpay. Why we start by talking about the rationale behind the rebranding of the company to Corpay. After more than 20 years as FLEETCOR, the company became Corpay. Now oftentimes with a rebranding, it might be a company trying to escape some reputational issues. That certainly was not the case with Corpay, correct?
Panther: Yeah, correct. Brennan, it was a remarkable year from a strategic perspective with respect to Corpay on a number of fronts. And you touched on one of those just with the rebranding of the company to Corpay. For its 20-plus years, it had been FLEETCOR. And that name served it well in terms of what that name and that well-known brand in the marketplace conveyed to our merchants and our customers and our shareholders. But moving to Corpay demonstrated the investment that the company had made in itself over really the last five plus years in expanding its product solutions to be much more than vehicle related payment solutions, but rather being able to be an organization that can go to a customer existing or perspective and be able to help them with all of their payment related needs. We're one of the only, if not the only company on the planet that can go and say, we can help you with all of your non-payroll related spend. Let us show you the solutions we have to be able to demonstrate what we can do from an efficiency perspective, from a speed, from a security. Nobody else on the globe has the solutions that we have. And so, the name demonstrates that, and it gives us the ability to go to market under that brand. And here in the US, we've already started going to market under that Corpay brand, whether it's Corpay One, Corpay Complete, or Corpay Lodging. And so, I think that'll be something that will help the company as it moves forward under that common name.
Robison: That's right, because all those years as FLEETCOR, there weren't any products or not very many that were named FLEETCOR in the brand, correct?
Panther: That's right. All of our products had great brand equity. In fact, some of those products and local market brands like a Fuelman still will exist, and certainly Sem Parar down in Brazil and All Star over in the UK. We will keep those brands because they have great brand equity within their niche markets. But at the same time, we can get the benefit of our corporate and enterprise branding by also bringing the overlay of that to Corpay. And over time, we'll link those two together, where they'll start to see All-Star, a subsidiary of Corpay, et cetera. But we'll be able to get much more leverage out of our corporate branding and marketing efforts by going to market under Corpay, while also keeping those unique names that have been around for so long and mean a lot to some of our local markets.
Robison: So, we're coming up on a year under the new corporate name of Corpay. How have employees, investors, customers, and partners, how they all responded to the rebrand?
Panther: Yeah, quite strongly. I would say even encouraged, if not surprised, by how much they latched onto it. We sometimes get involved in our own kind of internal insulated view. How is it going to be received? We'll do a little bit of market testing. But you never know until you go live in those marketplaces of whether it's the employee marketplace, the investor marketplace, the customer, the merchant marketplace. And I've been quite... you know, pleased with the response. I think people latch on. They get the name. It resonates. It has a little bit of a ring to it. And I think people really, really like it. And it allows them to be able to synthesize in a word and even in a little of our branding slogans exactly what we do. We're still a complicated company with lots of solutions and lots of geographies. And I think the name does a great job kind of bringing that all into one so that somebody can understand in truly an elevator speech what we do as an organization, helping businesses with their overall expense and spend management.
Robison: You mentioned the complexity of the organization. There was an effort to simplify at least the way you talk about the various lines of business and that is to break it up into three groups, corporate payments, vehicle payments, and lodging payments. What exactly drove that decision and how's that working so far?
Panther: Yeah, just another example of what I said earlier in terms of the remarkable strategic year that the company has had. And I think, as you said, simplification was one of those strategic pillars as we came into 2024. And so much of that has to do with how we talked about the company internally and particularly externally. And by simplifying it into the three segments, vehicle, lodging, and corporate payments, just gives us the ability to hit on that point that I made earlier. We can help companies with all of their non-payroll related spend. And let me tell you the ways in which we do that. And by having it in a much more aggregated way, three things are easier to remember than five, six, or seven. And so, it's been something that I think has worked out very well. There's still, as I said, a myriad of systems and products and geographies that we have to execute through, but we're at least now able to message what we do in a much clearer way, which I think then creates a lot more interest and awareness about the company, because now people realize, okay, I can get my arms around this. It's not five, six, seven things that I need to get my arms around. It's three.
Robison: Certainly. So capital allocation is always an important part of Corpay's growth strategy. What was Corpay approach to capital allocation in 2024 in terms of being broken down between &A, stock buybacks, R&D? What did that look like?
Panther: Yeah, great question because going into 2024 in our February earnings release, we were intentionally overt and clear around what did capital allocation look like in 2024 because one, we had heard that from our investors. Can you be clear around what are your priorities? We know that priorities can change, things can ebb and flow, but can you at least set the table for what capital allocation looks like? And so, we did that in 2024 and we were clear that we were in a position from a balance sheet perspective to be able to buy back a significant chunk of Corpay stock, which we did. We bought back around $900 million of Corpay stock within the first half of the year. But we also had ample capital liquidity to also be acquisitive. And so, we said we were also going to spend money on acquisitions. And we announced within the first half of the year a billion two of capital being spent on two different corporate payment assets. One, Paymerang, which augmented and enhanced our full AP solutions, and GPS, which enhanced and brought further scale to our cross-border, both of which come together to create our corporate payment segment, which by a year from now will be approaching 40 % of the company. And so, the capital allocation has been something that I think has been a significant driver to the shareholder value creation that we've demonstrated in 2024. And I think people have really kind of bought into the fact that this company generates a lot of free cash flow. They've got a strong balance sheet that they can leverage, and they're going to deploy it in smart strategic ways that grow shareholder value. And people bought into that. And it was not only important to talk the talk in February of last year, but to also deliver, and that was something that I think brought us recognition and credibility as we delivered on that in 2024.
Robison: So, you partly answered my next question, but you still have to report Q4 and year-end earnings for ‘24. But to date, Corpay has delivered huge revenues, highs in its stock price. Remind us of all the factors that are driving those results.
Panther: Yeah, well, when you're company like us that not only aspires but delivers on high single digits, 10% kind of revenue growth, we talk about 9 to 11% revenue growth, high teens earnings growth, when you not only just say that you're going to do that, but when you do that year after year, it just naturally every year is a record because you're growing. And so, we've been able to kind of continue to demonstrate that level of consistency. And I think investors, both existing and prospective, have kind of realized the uniqueness of the financial model here of what we're able to deliver. And I think that coupled with the strategic accomplishments that we've made, the simplification, and the acquisitions that we've done have all led to the share, the market cap and the share price of Corpay moving up significantly. I think we entered 2024 with a stock price of right around 272, something like that and here we are, $360 a share. So, it's up almost $100 in the year. Much of that in the second half of the year as we demonstrated that execution against that strategic plan that we outlined at the beginning of the year.
Robison: And also from the employee perspective, Corpay was certified as a Great Place to Work, and it was also named to Time's list of world's best companies in 2024. If you would talk about the importance of a positive company culture in driving positive results.
Panther: I've been a firm believer over the course of a now 33-year career that I've been fortunate to have almost exclusively in public companies that high performing teams are made up of high performing people. At the end of the day, it's people that make those tough calls. Yes, technology and tools and resources and markets are all important, but unravel those a little bit, what's at their core? Who made the decision for that product? Who made the decision to invest in that piece of technology? People. And so, I think one of the things that the employees at Corpay have the flexibility to do is come here, be their best, work in an organization that is still large, $25 billion market cap, four billion top line revenue, but yet entrepreneurial in nature. So, it fosters a company culture where people can work hard, solve problems, and always be striving to continue to help us achieve those midterm growth targets. There aren't very many companies. In fact, it's about 20 companies within the S&P 500, us being one of them, that grow at the level in which we grow both earnings and revenue. And you know, so it's one thing to say I want to be somebody who runs a 10-minute mile. It's another thing to say I want to be on a team of a company that runs a seven-minute mile. And that's what employees at Corpay get opportunity to do is come here, work hard, and be in an environment where we're always looking to strengthen the organization and grow and improve. We don't stand still.
Robison: And you've run your share of races, I'm guessing that metaphor really hits home for you.
Panther: It does, but I can't say I've run too many seven minute miles. Maybe some seven minute half miles if I'm being honest, but it still resonates even if I can't achieve it in my fitness world.
Robison: Sure. So why don't we close with the million dollar or rather billion-dollar question for 2025. How does Corpay top what it did in ‘24?
Panther: Well, I'd say, again, kind of bring it in full circle just to further hammer home the point about it just being a home run kind of year from a strategic perspective. The strategy has never been clearer. And with that comes the ability to really kind of play to that strong suit of Corpay, which is superior executors. Execute, execute, execute. And I think as we look at how we're ending the year, so much of how you start the year has a lot to do with how you end the year. We're ending the year in a much better place than a year ago in terms of just how our core businesses are performing the momentum they have, the product clarity, the go-to-market strategy, the introduction of our chief revenue officer. All of those things are momentums that'll carry us into 2025. And now it's about executing. It's the laboratory work, the design work. Sure, it'll continue, because we always want to be innovating and refining what we have. But it's less of that, and it's now around taking what we've built or bought and putting it to work. And one thing that Corpay has demonstrated over its 20 plus years is it is excellent at execution. And that excellence and execution I think bodes very well for how it will perform in 2025. We can't control everything that goes on around us in terms of marketplace and the multiple geographies that we operate in. We'll focus on what we can control. And based on what we can control, I feel really good about where the organization is heading.
Robison: All right, well we do appreciate your time and your insight about the future. Tom Panther, CFO of Corpay. Thanks, Tom.
Panther: Thanks, Brennan.
Robison outro: One editorial note, Tom mentioned the Corpay stock price at the time we recorded this interview in mid-December. That's it for this episode of Smarter Payments. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, so you don't miss an episode. Smarter Payments is a production of Corpay Incorporated, copyright 2025. I'm Brennan Robison. We'll see you next time.