Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Global Payments 2017 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will open the lines for questions and answers. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today’s conference will be recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Vice President, Investor Relations, Isabel Janci. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to Global Payments fourth quarter and fiscal year 2017 conference call. Our call today is scheduled for one hour. Before we begin, I’d like to remind you that some of the comments made by management during today’s conference call contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties discussed in our SEC filings, including our most recent 10-KT and any subsequent filings. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially. We caution you not to place undue reliance on these statements. Forward-looking statements during this call speak only as of the date of this call and we undertake no obligation to update them. Some of the comments made on this call refer to non-GAAP measures such as adjusted net revenue, adjusted net revenue plus network fees and adjusted earnings per share, which we believe are more reflective of our ongoing performance. For a full reconciliation of these and other non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measure in accordance with SEC regulations, please see our press release furnished as an exhibit to our Form 8-K filed this morning and our trended financial highlights, both of which are available in the Investor Relations area of our website at www.globalpaymentsinc.com. Joining me on the call are Jeff Sloan, CEO; David Mangum, President and COO; and Cameron Bready, Senior Executive Vice President and CFO. Now, I’ll turn the call over to Jeff.

Thanks, Isabel, and thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning. We are pleased with our performance in the fourth quarter and our exceptional results for the year. 2017 was one of our best years ever as a company by nearly any measure. We sustained strong business momentum in the fourth quarter, delivering double-digit normalized organic revenue growth, 170 basis points of margin expansion, and adjusted earnings per share growth of 23%. Each of these results exceeded our expectations as well as the cycle guidance we set forth at our last Investor Day in October 2015. These results were again fueled by continued share gains across our technology-enabled businesses. Our integrated and vertical markets and e-com and omni-solutions businesses maintained their track record of double-digit revenue growth, highlighting consistent, solid execution. We also secured significant wins and achieved substantial milestones across these businesses in the quarter. We are delighted to announce that we have reached an agreement with Gather, a leading hospitality event management SaaS business, owned by Vista Equity Partners to be its new payments technology partner. This is the second Vista portfolio company to select Global Payments as its partner in as many quarters. And we’re also very pleased to report that our e-com and omni-solutions business grew well into the double digits for the holiday season. For calendar 2017, we delivered the fastest rates of organic revenue growth, margin expansion, and adjusted earnings per share growth in our history. These outstanding results demonstrate the underlying power of our differentiated business model, which we have continued to evolve further into software-driven, vertically fluent solutions globally. With the investments we have made to expand our capabilities in these areas over the past several years, we expect our technology-enabled channels to represent an increasingly larger proportion of our business going forward.…

Thanks, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. 2017 was a fantastic year for Global Payments with a number of significant accomplishments to highlight. First, we largely completed integrating Heartland, exceeded our original expense savings expectations, and built a solid foundation for future revenue synergies. We also again successfully refinanced our credit facilities to optimize our capital structure and reduce expense while executing on the deleveraging plan we committed to in connection with the Heartland transaction. And we continue to meaningfully invest in expanding our software-driven, vertically fluent solutions globally, including the acquisition of the communities and sports divisions of ACTIVE Network, in the third quarter. Importantly, we accomplished all of this while producing exceptionally strong financial performance throughout the year. Total Company net revenue for 2017 was $3.52 billion, reflecting growth of 24% versus 2016. Normalized organic net revenue growth for the full year was low double digits, a significant achievement for our business. Operating margin in 2017 expanded 120 basis points to 29.9% and adjusted earnings per share increased 26% to $4.01 per share. For the fourth quarter, total Company net revenue was $939 million, a 15% increase over the fourth quarter of 2016. Operating margin expanded 170 basis points to 30.3% and adjusted earnings per share grew 23% to $1.07. North American net revenue was $688 million, reflecting growth of 14%. In the U.S., our direct distribution business delivered 9% normalized organic growth, led by our integrated and vertical markets business while our wholesale business saw a mid single digit decline. Canada performed in line with expectations in local currency with slightly favorable Canadian foreign currency trends adding modestly to results. Operating margin in North America expanded 90 basis points to 30%. Margin expansion was driven by strong net revenue performance across our U.S. direct channels, in particular our…

Thanks, Cameron. As we look forward to our investor conference next month, it is worth reflecting on just how much our business has evolved over the past several years. At our core, we no longer just deliver simple payments, we are a payments technology company that offers distinctive, defensible and comprehensive vertical specific software solutions that help merchants run their businesses more efficiently. And we seek to warp value-added services around every transaction, further deepening our relationships with our customers. We offer these technologies around the globe in more markets than our peers, in conjunction with a market-leading, unified, and compelling omni-solution. And it is these solutions that underlie our ability to continue to accelerate growth over the next several years. The best is yet to come. Isabel?

Before we begin our question-and-answer session, I’d like to ask everyone to limit their questions to one with one follow-up to accommodate everyone in the queue. Thank you. Operator, we will now go to questions.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of George Mihalos with Cowen & Co.

Great. Good morning, guys. Just wanted to ask, as it relates to the fourth quarter, the 9% growth in the U.S. direct, I think that decelerated just a touch from 3Q. Just wondering if there’s anything to call out there that may have impacted that number?

Hey, George, it’s Cameron. Good morning. I would say nothing specific that I would call out on that front. I think, largely, it’s rounding on the margin. I think, we kind of rounded up to 10% in Q3 and rounded down to 9% in Q4. We did have one less processing day in Q4 of 2017 versus Q4 of 2016. So that has a little bit of an impact on the result. But, I’ll remind you, I mean, we guided our business to kind of high single digits, 7%, 8%, 9%. We produced 9% for our direct business. Overall North America, including the wholesale business was 8%, so right in the range of our expectations. So, we’re pleased with that result. If you look forward then for the guide for 2018, I think, you would clearly see that we’re forecasting a step-up and acceleration of growth. Our guide contemplates12% to 15% growth on an apples-to-apples basis for 2018 versus 2017. And I would note that that reflects normalized organic growth of about 9% to 11% and for our -- excluding the wholesale business, it reflects normalized organic growth of somewhere in the 10% to 13% range. So, I think, as we’re heading into 2018, we have a lot of momentum in the business from organic growth standpoint. I think, the Q4 results were solid and very much in line with our expectations, but we’re obviously very excited about what we think we can produce in 2018 as well.

George, this is David. Maybe a little bit more color a level below that. Sales productivity remains high, the momentum is terrific, leadership is executing well, e-commerce growth, weighted double digits in the U.S. All the pieces as an execution matter are going well and set up for the acceleration that Cameron is describing.

Okay. That’s great color, really appreciate that. And then, just as a quick follow-up, I know, you guys have been talking about sort of maintaining high single digit organic growth in Europe. That’s been the target for awhile; that’s in the guide for 2018. But, should we be thinking that sort of first half growth in Europe will be stronger than back half, just given the comparisons, or maybe just any sort of cadence you can walk us through there?

Yes. Georgia, it’s Cameron, again. The way to think about it is we guide Europe on a local currency basis, the high single digit rates of organic growth. Now, obviously, currency tailwinds are going to impact those results as it did in Q4. I think, you’re right, as it relates to 2018, I think, our current outlook would suggest that European growth on a reported basis would be better in the first half of the year because we do expect more currency tailwinds. Obviously, given the volatility we’re seeing around currency, rates, it’s hard for me to predict with great precision what the back half of the year is going to look like. So, I think your overall thesis is generally right. Overall, we manage that business to local currency growth and we are forecasting for 2018 high single digit rates of local currency organic growth in Europe.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of David Togut with Evercore ISI.

Thanks. Good morning and congrats on the strong results.

Thank you, Dave.

You saw some very strong operating margin expansion in the December quarter, 190 basis points year-over-year. You’ve been largely in an investment mode in Europe as you kind of work on the Erste JV. How should we think about operating leverage going forward in Europe, especially given the strong organic growth profile that you have?

Dave, it’s Cameron. Let me just talk about the mathematics, and maybe I’ll let Jeff comment a little bit about just the investments we’re making in Europe and how we think about our business. I’d remind you, that business today is margins are in the high 40% range. So, when margins are at that level, I would say we’re not really anticipating a great deal of margin expansion in Europe, going forward. We’d like to be able to maintain stable to slightly up margins in Europe. That is our expectation for that segment. A little bit of what you saw in Q4 was obviously lapping some of the investments that we made in the back half of 2016 as we worked to integrate Erste, as talked about previously. So, that integration is largely behind us. And obviously as a result of that, we produced strong margin expansion Q4 really on the backs of strong net revenue growth in Europe and again, just lapping those integration benefits in 2017. As it relates to the investments we’re making, I’ll let Jeff comment a little bit more about how we’re thinking about that business.

Yes. Thanks Dave for the question. So, I would say, as we addressed in our prepared comments that we continue to roll out our technology enabled businesses globally. I think, Cameron in his remarks commented on the Erste joint venture and the fact that that’s now into double digits. And I think that’s a good template for other businesses, including when we close the HSBC new partnership, which of course will be in Mexico. But, I would say, it’s a few things. We continue to take our technology and bring it overseas, make investments days in terms of new products, additional salespeople into markets that we think are faster growth. Erste, clearly in Continental Europe is a good template for that. So, we hope, we will be in Mexico when we look to close that deal later in 2018. So, if you think about our integrated and vertical markets business that we’ve been bringing overseas, you think about our e-com and omni business, which historically had its genesis, overseas those are really resident [ph] and accelerating in Europe. The other thing we mentioned, Dave, on our phone call was we’re going to accelerate our investment in additional direct sales, not just here in the United States, but really around the world. We’re very pleased with our existing sales folks globally, but we think there is an ability to take our direct sales model, which as you know, in the case of some of our businesses is mostly or largely commission based, and to take that model into newer markets. So, as we called out in our commentary, in 2018, we’ll make incremental investments by way of bringing some of those models to markets like the United Kingdom, which is one of ones that we highlighted as part of our remarks. You throw that stuff together, Dave, we feel pretty good about our ability to continue to grow those markets at very attractive rates. These are some of the investments we’re making.

Thanks for that. Just as a quick follow-up, Jeff. I’d be curious for your thoughts about how the merchant acceptance footprint in Europe is expanding for electronic payments, especially post interchange caps, both Visa and Mastercard have called out some expansion recently, especially in Germany?

Yes. Dave, I think, you are exactly right and I think you’ve been on this point for quite some time and really rightly so. I think, started this was SEPA, as you just alluded to. And as we’ve talked about before PSD2 and now GDPR are really kind of upon us. As we said, we think that PSD2 is really directed at financial institutions and really opening up via API, the ability to get broader access into financial institution DDA accounts. As you know, we are not a bank in Europe. The way we go to market, this is like e-commerce and Realex. In Ireland, it is largely through developers and APIs. So, Dave, I think if you combine the cross-border incentives that you’ve seen by lowering of cost through SEPA with the openness that we’ve seen through PSD2 which is now here in 2018, that should be really nothing but good news for our business over the next number of years.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tien-tsin Huang with J.P. Morgan Securities.

Thank you. I’ll add to the Europe question. Europe you came in a little bit better than what we had. So, I’m curious how healthy is the end market, especially in the UK? I don’t think, Cameron, I heard any UK comments, curious competitively macro economy wise, how the UK is performing?

Yes. Tien-tsin, this is Cameron. Good morning. I’ll comment maybe on the results and let Jeff talk a little bit about the environment as well. I would say, the UK in Q4 performed very much in line with our expectations. It had been for the last couple of quarters, I think, low double digit on a local currency basis, as we talked about previously. That’s not our expectation for growth in the UK. It was closer to high single digits in this particular quarter with obviously about 800 basis points of currency tailwind, benefiting the overall Europe results. And that’s largely driven by the pound and our performance in the UK, so high single digit performance. I would say retail sales in Q4 in UK were fairly poor overall and certainly down I think relative to what we’ve seen over the course of the year. That’s not an uncommon phenomenon in UK, frankly heading into the winter, so even after a strong tourism season this past summer. But, I think we would view the overall market as fairly stable. I think, we remained very pleased with how our business is performing there. We believe we continue to gain share in the market that’s otherwise growing probably in the low single digit rate. We’re growing at least high single digits in that market, and that’s our expectation going into 2018 as well. So, I think our franchise is well-positioned. To that comments Jeff made earlier, I think we’re bringing new technology, more differentiated solutions to that market that are helping us to gain share. And I think, we remain very well poised to continue to grow that business at that targeted high-single-digit rates going into 2018 and beyond.

Yes. Tien-tsin, it’s Jeff. I would say what we saw in the fourth quarter in the UK in terms of retail sales is very similar to what we saw in the fourth quarter of 2016. I think it’s very similar to what Visa said about their experience with retail sales in the UK in the December time period. Nonetheless, we think we’re growing at least 4 times the rate of market growth, currently in the UK. I’d chop that up to a few things. First, I think, like most of the rest of the world, we really target the SMB customers. So, while we have a national business across all of the United Kingdom, we make most of our money and certainly most of our revenue and our pretax from SMB. And obviously, we’re very selective by way of vertical market in terms of which SMB areas that we’re in. I think, you can see that reflect in the sustained market share gains that we’re seeing around the world, but in particular, in light of your question, in the United Kingdom. The second thing, as I mentioned a few minutes ago in light of David Togut’s comments, we continue to make investments in Europe, but for these purposes in the United Kingdom. So, more sales, we talk about expanding our direct sales footprint in Europe, including the United Kingdom. The UK was one of the early markets, next to Canada that we brought our integrated and vertical markets from the U.S. into, over the last number of years. And to be candid, Europe and in particular UK is where our e-com and omni business also targeted at SMB and cross-border multinationals, really is also domiciled in addition to Ireland and Spain. So, I think, Tien-tsin, you’re seeing a continued share gain in Europe and in UK on our side, really driven by the way we go to market, the investments we made and of course I’ve given away a little bit of the story in a couple weeks and more to come in the Investor Day. But, I think it’s a continuation of the trend that you’ve seen over the last number of years.

Got it. It’s great to see. This is my quick follow-up, I know, -- just on the U.S. direct, I know we all split hairs over high single versus low double digit growth, but what is the swing factor that’s maybe under your control to get you to that low double? Because, I know you are running above market. So, to get to low double, what needs to happen under your control?

Yes, Tien-tsin. So, I think we’re on that trajectory already. I think, as Cameron mentioned, heading into 2018, in terms of our guidance, and obviously, we’re now sitting here in February, our expectations for our U.S. direct business, as Cameron mentioned a minute ago, is high single digits, low double digits, which to be honest is probably the highest rate of guidance growth for that business that we’ve ever given since I’ve been at the Company for the last 8 years. So, to answer your, I think, the macro extent of your question, I really think that we’re already there. Now, why are we already there and why are we accelerating that rate of growth versus history, I think it’s the investments we’ve made in our distribution, in our technology footprint over the last number of years. Probably over the last five years we’ve invested $7 billion by way of principally M&A, but also technology investments. And of course, the U.S. at nearly three quarters of the Company is a primary -- necessarily the primary beneficiary of those investments. So, you’ll hear more in a couple of weeks about the mixes and everything else. As I said in our prepared remarks, we continue to expect our mix shift to favor our technology-enabled businesses is a bigger percentage of the Company going forward. I think that’s reflected in what is certainly since we’ve been here, the fastest rate of organic revenue guidance in 2018 that we’ve ever given.

Tien-tsin, this is David. Maybe to add a little more color to that, I like phrase sort of splitting hairs over this. What we see in the business is really building momentum. We have the sales force that we will expect to add on the order of 200 plus net new sales folks this coming year, all increasingly selling technology-enabled, software-driven solutions. So, we’re not selling bricks on countertops. And again, I don’t want to get too far than two weeks from now, but we’re selling solutions to customers, that drives uniquely low merchant attrition rates, drives higher growth, obviously stickier solutions. All that’s built into the kind of growth numbers that Cameron and Jeff are describing. The execution level is very high. So, rather than split hairs over sequential this and sequential that, we’re growing faster than anybody in the market here at the end.

Our next question comes from the line Dan Perlin with RBC Capital Markets.

Thanks, guys. Good morning. I might have missed it, but can you just give us a number for the ACTIVE Network contribution? I know, last quarter you gave it to us, I think it was $14 million and 2 points. So, I just want to have that as a comparison reference.

Yes. It was around the midpoint of the range that we had provided to you previously, going into the quarter, Dan, which was 40 to 45.

Okay. And then, for stake kind of helping us with this positive mix shift, are you -- and maybe we’re jumping ahead on the Analyst Day, but, would you break down a little bit in terms of the contribution within North America, the percentage mix? So, you gave us wholesale, which is dropping 20%. And so, I’m also interested to know kind of little more dynamics of what’s driving that conversion, direct to indirect, but more specifically just helping that so we can guide our models to this positive mix shift. So, I think we got one component of it with wholesale. I think we need the other two a little bit. Thanks.

Yes. I mean, we’ve given you the wholesale number for North America. Canada, I think, you have a pretty good sense as to what Canada contributes annually in terms of U.S. dollar revenue, just north of $300 million; the rest is our U.S. direct business. It’s really not a lot more complicated than that. And if you think about the U.S. direct business, it’s obviously a combination of our integrated and vertical markets business which we target low double digit growth for that channel. And if you think about the remainder, it’s going to be more of our traditional direct sales force, but today, at this point, more and more selling technology-enabled, software-driven solutions as well. That business, we target high single to low double. And that’s our expectation kind of going into 2018. So, you roll all that together and you’re going to get a North American business, ex wholesale that we’ve been just poised to grow at the high -- very high single digit level or the low double digit level, going into 2018, which again is above the rate of expectation that we’ve had for that business historically.

I’d also say Dan that -- on your question about the ISOs, I’d say, it’s a few things. First, first for a number of years, as you’ve heard from us, we’ve had ISOs convert on us from ISO related contracts in a way they sell technologies into what we call indirect customers, where they really buy our technologies wholesale. So, part of the assumption of decline is just a continued mix shift among the ISOs that are existing customers that ISOs will just convert over to our existing customers as indirect, and that’s been a continuation of trend. The second thing I’d say is, well, I think, we’ll always have an element of the ISO business within Global Payments. What I’ll say is that increasingly we are not signing new ISOs to the customer. When contracts come up with existing ISOs, we choose not to renew on number of those. So, I would say, Dan, it’s really a combination of conversion from one type of customer to another, which impacts our revenue, and that’s been happening for a period of time, combined with us focusing on the direct distribution that we’ve spent $7 billion on investing in terms of where we’re signing up new accounts.

And our next question comes from the line of Glenn Greene with Oppenheimer.

Thank you. Good morning. I just wanted to ask a question. In the press release, you talked about raising growth target, given your business mix and more of your technology solutions and investments. And Cameron referenced it as well. Certainly, clearly you’re going to talk about it more at the Analyst event. But, could you just give a little bit more color what you are thinking and why you’re sort of confident in that, and what do you sort of mean by raising growth targets?

Sure, Glenn, it’s Cameron. I’ll kind of kick it off. And again, I think, to your point, we’re cautious about getting ahead of ourselves with respect to the March 1st Investor Day. We don’t want to give you guys a reason not to attend. Kidding. But, I think as we tried to set up in the script and in some of the commentary today and all of this, I think is reflected in our guidance for 2018, given the success we’ve had in shifting our business mix over the last several years, continuing to drive more technology-enabled, software-driven solutions in our business, our e-com, and omni-channel successes around the globe and how again we’re utilizing our sales force more and more to sell these differentiated product suites, as well as the fact that we continue to move away and our wholesale business continues to decline as a portion of the overall company. We feel like we are in a position to be able to raise our expectations for organic growth on a topline basis for the Company going forward. Historically, as you’ll recall that’s been high single digit since the merger with Heartland back in 2015, so call that 7, 8, 9. Clearly, that number is going to 15, but we certainly think it’s going to go to a number of 7, 8, 9. We’ll give a little more color around that when we get to the investor conference in a couple of weeks. I’d also note that we think about our business kind of ex that wholesale business. We’re going to wind that down over a period of time. As Jeff highlighted, we don’t sign new ISOs. We’re not renewing ISOs typically as they come up for renewal. And obviously, we have a handful of ISOs which is becoming…

Yes. Glenn, it’s Jeff. I would just add on to that. I know there is a bunch of moving with the ASC implementation and everything else. I think, there is very good schedule that Cameron’s team posted on our website about apples-to-apples comparisons. Cameron hit it head-on. This is the fastest rate of organic revenue growth for 2018 that we’ve guided to you collectively since this group has been here by way of revenue and the like. That is not an accident and well above the 7 to 9, for those purposes of actually including the ISOs within it and well above the 7 to 9 number that we talked back in our last cycle guide, historically. I think Cameron said in his prepared remarks including the ISO business reflect 9 to 11 on an organic basis the rest being ACTIVE to get you 12 to 14. So, I think you put that together Glenn, you look at 9 to 11 revenue guide organically for 2018 on a model historically that we told you the 7 to 9, having just finished the year what was low double digits as I said in the introductory and my comments in the press release, it makes us feel pretty good about where we’re heading.

That’s very helpful. So, my follow-up question maybe for Jeff would be the JV with HSBC. Just a little bit more color around that? What do they bring to the table, how much do you put do you pay to buy into the JV, any other help you could give us in terms of sizing it?

So, Glenn, I will start and ask David to comment a little bit more of the detail of the market in Mexico. So, first, we’re delighted to announce the entry of Mexico. For long time, of course, we viewed ourselves by the name of Global, as a global company. Yet sitting here in the United States, we were not in all of North America. So, Mexico, going back to Paul’s days, was always a target for us. And we couldn’t be more pleased to have HSBC as our long-term partner. I think, they’ve been a partner for ours in various forms for half a century, which is how old our Company is through 2017, so yet another partnership, following on the heels with HSBC in the United Kingdom, in Asia Pacific and now in Mexico. The other thing I’ll say is that it’s a two partnership and that is 50-50. We’re both extremely excited about the growth opportunities of the market in Mexico where we have a significant presence. And as a result we’re going to share the upside and opportunities as equal partners together. David, do you want to go through some of the details…

Yes, happy to. I think, it starts, Glenn, with what Jeff said, which is we’re just thrilled to partner with HSBC around the world. This puts us in something on the order of 15 markets around the world where we partner with HSBC. And as you know from our Asia and our UK results, it’s been nothing but wildly successful for the last, I won’t say the 50 years, because I haven’t been around for all those, at least the last kind of 11 or so, you can count from the original Asia deal the Company did back in 2006. So, we think that partnership, that marriage of Global Payments and HSBC, in market a like Mexico where you’ve got 125 million somewhat folks in the population, nominal GDP is what 12th or 15th in the world, something along those lines, high growth GDP and a partner where we know how to work and partner together, this is a great partner that got sort of the fifth largest branch presence on the order of 1,000 in major economic areas, your Guadalajaras, your Monterreys as well as Mexico City itself, lots of ATMs, lots of regional presence, really good business banking and small business franchise, which as you know is core to what we do around the world. So, we love the presence, like the pieces of it, a nice SME merchant presence already which we can grow. So, all those piece are there. What we plan to do is go apply our U.S. direct sales methodology, U.S. direct sales methods and techniques to the Mexican market. There is nice electronic payments growth, currently not a ton of credit card penetration but nice debit card penetration. So, pretty good model for what we like to do with HSBC, go chase small and medium business, go do it with our U.S. sales model, marry to the partnership with HSBC. We’re pretty excited about.

And Glenn, just on your last comment, our investment in the joint venture is going to be less than $50 million. So, it’s a relatively nominal investment for us to have the opportunity and to partner with HSBC. To David’s point, we’ve been very successful with them over the course of a very long period of time in a market that we think has very attractive secular fundamentals going forward. So, we couldn’t be more pleased to be entering that market in the way that we’re doing it.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ashwin Shirvaikar with Citi.

I appreciate the forward commentary; you guys are obviously receiving very good, which is great to hear. At your last Investor Day, you rooted your growth rate to the economic cycle kind of calling up a single as a mid-cycle. What I’m hearing now is not so much a reference to the economic cycle and more about company-specific positioning. So, is that the correct conclusion? Am I hearing that right? And if so, one of the big things you’ve done obviously is the integrated in vertical. Can you kind of root the conclusion that you’re reaching to the relative opportunity penetration into new markets and things like that, I mean for integrated?

Ashwin, it’s Jeff. I’ll start with that. It’s a very good question. I would say, to step back for a second, at the highest level you can think of, we still chase GDP. So, I think as David alluded to, when he talks about the opportunity in Mexico, we certainly look at the demographics and economic statistics of a market before we decide to go enter in, I think Mexico, there is no different. That’s probably the highest level. Healthy growing economies are very important, not just to our business but to Visas, Mastercards, PayPal, go down the list, obviously that’s an important thing. I would say though, you asked a very insightful question on how do we think about the markets, the vertical markets now that we’ve been chasing. And I think you’re right in what you said. I think at the end of the day, most of our vertical markets on investments, and now I’m thinking about dental and veterinary and some of the areas that have really been core for us at Global Payments including a school, K-12, and university. I would say in general, those are somewhat decoupled from the macro environment, certainly relative to the last Investor Day in 2015. So, you think about an integrated and vertical markets business today that you’ll hear in a couple of weeks, is about $1.2 billion in size. And you think about a lot of that now being in the markets that you would say are somewhat less sensitive because your schools, universities, dental and veterinary and healthcare, for dietary, et cetera that hopefully are less correlated to the overall rate of accelerating economic growth around the world. Having said that though, much like Visa and Mastercard, it is incredibly important that we would be in a healthy…

Ashwin, this is David. I think what you’re also hearing is increasing confidence, given our execution at being able to globalize the solutions Jeff described. Integrated payments with which you’re familiar with over the years, but increasingly the software solutions. Our revenue synergy tracker alone this year where we did deliver over 50 basis points of growth that we talked about, and we’re on track for the over 100 basis points of growth for 2018, all fuels this increase. And we’re selling the software solutions we own in markets around the world, great track record there. We already know about the globalizing of integrated payments, increasing these more and more enriched solutions with analytics and other services on top, again, uniquely globalizing those types of things.

Got it. Thank you for that. So, I guess, look to be hearing more about that on Investor Day. Quick follow-up is back on that synergy comment that you had. Does that take into account any pricing impact? How are you thinking about the pricing in the Heartland client base?

Yes. Ashwin, it really does not the way we traditionally use pricing. So, just to be clear, we have not done what -- as we said would not, have not done broad-based repricing of Heartland, which by the way is consistent if you go back to 2015. What we’ve talked about and I think David has mentioned this many times. What we talked about is charging fairly for value that we’re creating. So, that means when we’re introducing new analytics and new data products, of course, those should be really coming in at market. That means when existing customer relationships reach the end of the maturity of their initial contractual terms, understanding where the market is at that point of time. And to be clear, we have not done those things yet at Heartland, whether it’s the fourth quarter of 2017 or since we’ve been partner since April of 2016. So, there has really been none of that in the results that you’ve seen today. On a go forward basis, of course, we certainly intend to manage it as we said all along, much closer to where we think the market will be going forward and the types of things that we would do, what I just suggested around contracts that come up for maturity, moving them closer to market that has not in fact occurred to date.

Our next question comes from the line of Dave Koning with Baird.

Yes. So, I have I guess just two numbers questions. The first one being if we exclude tax reform, it seems like that’s maybe a 5% to 6% EPS benefit, so core EPS 18% to 22%, in that ballpark. Is that kind of what you are thinking?

I think you’re pretty close there, Dave. I would put it right around 20, at the midpoint.

Okay. So, nicely above cycle guidance?

That’s right.

I would say nicely above current cycle guidance, Dave.

Got you. Okay, great. And I guess, secondly, your free cash flow conversion in a group of great free cash flow across FinTech, yours is like way above anybody else, a 125% of adjusted net income. Is that sustainable? Maybe not at that level, but above earnings, is that sustainable?

Yes, I think, it is. I mean, we feel very good about our ability to convert obviously EBITDA into free cash flow of the business, and I think 2017 is evidence of that. I think, if we look at 2018 and beyond, I think, we remain very confident in our ability to continue to convert it at fairly high pace. As our CapEx guidance suggests for 2018, we are reinvesting a fair amount back into the business. Our guide is $210 million off of I think an actual of around 185 for 2017. So, we continue to invest in the business. And I think that’s a very important thing to highlight. We’re not producing these results by virtue of starving the business. We’re investing in technology, we’re investing in solutions, we’re globalizing these solutions, we’re globalizing unique distribution capabilities. We’re doing all this at a time when we’re still producing exceptionally strong financial results, investing in the business for future growth. And I think that’s a big part of what underlies our confidence and the ability to grow the business at the level that we’re forecasting going into 2018 and beyond. If you take our 2018 guide even at the midpoint and you overlay that, a little bit of a commentary you heard today around cycle guidance or adjusted earnings per share growth going forward, it’s not hard to see something close to or at maybe 6 in 2019. As a reminder, we did 3.19 for 2016. So, almost 90% growth over a three-year period; that’s pretty attractive compounded earnings growth for a business of this nature. I don’t know anybody else with a similar characteristic business putting out that type of growth.

Thank you. And our last question for today comes from the line of Andrew Jeffrey with SunTrust.

Jeff, I’m pretty encouraged to see the kind of growth you’re putting up especially in Europe. I’m wondering if you could contrast where Europe is in terms of its evolution around ISV and omni as compared to the U.S. In other words, to the extent the U.S. maybe is a little more mature than it’s been as ISVs have been around for a while longer. How is Europe -- how does that compare and how much longer might runway of this kind of really impressive growth last as you look out over the next few years?

Great, question, Andrew. So, what I would say is, I typically think that Europe is really just being in a first inning of ISV, VAR penetration. The size of those economies, the maturity of technology in Europe as well as in Asia for that matter, really, puts it at the very beginning of the game. The way I could think about it, Andrew, is if Global Payments were a public company on the FTSE, we’re probably one of the two or three largest technology companies listed in the United Kingdom. I think we’re doing great here, but we’re somewhere in the S&P 500, and it’s probably not in top 100. And that gives you a sense of size by way of market value as to how those two markets compare. So, I would say, we’re in the first inning. I think we’ve been in ISV VAR land in Europe. I think we’ve been successful in taking our integrated and vertical markets businesses from the United States, we’re net exporter of those businesses into Canada and then into the UK and into Europe. The e-com and omni businesses have already been domiciled there historically because of common purchasing area that you see in the EU, even though there are different countries pre and post SEPA. But we’re very early on there. By way of comparison, I’d say the U.S., maybe we’re in the fifth inning of ISV VAR land. And I would also say that our ability to continue growth in the United States, I said this in my prepared remarks, but another double digit organic revenue performance in integrated and vertical markets, the vast majority of which is here in the United States in the fourth quarter. And as Cameron said for our guide, obviously we expect to continue to…

Okay. That’s great detailed answer. And just a quick follow-up, can you comment a little bit on the cadence perhaps of just the wins? Is it one a quarter; is this how we should expect going forward?

Yes. Andrew, it’s Cameron. Good morning. I don’t know that I would put a particular sort of targeted cadence around those opportunities. I think, as we indicated when we announced that arrangement back in our second quarter earnings call, we feel very good about the portfolio of companies that they have. We feel obviously encouraged about our ability to continue to provide differentiated technology enabled payment solutions to those businesses. And we think we have a nice pipeline building with them. But again, we feel as if we have to earn every one of those opportunities. Every arrangement is a unique arrangement with one of their portfolio companies. I think, we have the right cadence around how we’re approaching those conversations. But, I don’t want to put a particular target as to how we’re going to continue to build on the successes we’ve seen over the last couple of quarters. Obviously, it’d be nice to do at least one a quarter, but our focus is really on making sure we can demonstrate a value proposition to those companies that works for them and making sure we’re doing it on economic terms that work for us. And I think we’ll continue to have a lot of success with that.

On behalf of Global Payments, thank you very much for your interest in joining our call this morning. And we look forward to seeing everyone in Atlanta at our next Investor Day on March 1st.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.