Earnings Labs

Pitney Bowes Inc. (PBI)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 2, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Pitney Bowes’ Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2015 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today’s call is also being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect your lines at this time. I would now like to introduce your speakers for today’s conference call, Mr. Marc Lautenbach, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Michael Monahan, Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer; and Mr. Charles McBride, Vice President, Investor Relations. Mr. McBride will now begin the call with a Safe Harbor overview.

Charles McBride

Analyst

Good morning. Included in this presentation are forward-looking statements about our expected future business and financial performance. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from our projections. More information about these risks and uncertainties can be found in our 2014 Form 10-K Annual Report and other reports filed with the SEC that are located on our website at www.pb.com and by clicking on Investor Relations. Please keep in mind that we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or developments. Also, for non-GAAP measures used in the press release or discussed in this presentation, you can find reconciliations to the appropriate GAAP measures in the tables attached to our press release and also on our Investor Relations website. Additionally, we have provided slides that summarize most of the points we will discuss during the call. These slides can also be found on our Investor Relations website. Now, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Marc Lautenbach will start with a few opening remarks. Marc?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Good morning and thank you for joining us. By now, I hope you have had the chance to review the press release announcing our fourth quarter and full year results. As I said at our most recent Analyst Day, the second half of the year was an inflection point for our company. We believe that the progress across our overall business achieved during the fourth quarter and more broadly over the course of 2015 reinforces this view and provides us with a reason to be optimistic about the long-term future of Pitney Bowes. Evidence of this is that our SMB equipment sales revenue performance continued to improve in the second half of the year. Secondly, we deployed our ambitious process reengineering and systems project in Canada and we are on target to deploy in the United States in the first half of 2016, which is key for us to realize the benefits of the investments we have made. And finally, after several years of focus on our balance sheet, our capital allocation priorities have evolved to a more balanced approach in deploying capital for growth and returning capital to our shareholders. While our overall business did improve in the fourth quarter, it would also be true that I expected more, particularly from our software business. The performance of our software business was not consistent with our long-term model. Over the last several quarters and really over the last couple of years, our software team had been more effective in terms of their sales execution. The fourth quarter is a departure from this pattern. We do not experience the close rate or the deal size growth rate we would have expected for the fourth quarter of the year. The net of this was a disappointing performance. We continued to work to…

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Thank you, Marc and good morning. As I mentioned, when I gave guidance at the onset of the year and I have referred $0.02, 2015 represented a critical third year in the company’s business transformation. As Marc noted, we made significant progress during the year, progress that is setting us up for the long-term growth. This included repositioning the portfolio through several acquisitions and divestitures, introducing a new brand and marketing effort, launching several new products, completing the go-to-market transition in our major markets and strengthening our balance sheet. This all while we continue to reduce costs across the organization through our operational excellence initiatives and work to implement a new ERP system, which is initially launched in Canada in October. Several of these actions caused periodic disruptions across the business, but we remain focused on transforming and streamlining our business. There were several factors that had a direct impact on our results, which we identified earlier in the year, most notably the net impact from the sale of our Imagitas business and the acquisition of Borderfree and the exit of several smaller markets and non-core products in Europe in 2014. In aggregate, these actions negatively impacted revenue comparisons by 1% for the year and earnings per share by $0.10 per share. Additionally, our full year tax rate on adjusted earnings of 33.5% was at the high end of our guidance range. This higher tax rate was driven primarily by a higher mix of U.S. sourced income. And as with any business, there were elements outside our control that had a major impact on our results. For us, the most significant of these was currency, particularly the U.S. dollar. First, it negatively impacted both revenue and earnings per share from translation effects, reducing revenue by $133 million or 3.5% and…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we have a question from the line of Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead.

Shannon Cross

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Thank you very much for taking my questions and good morning. My first question is just with regard to – can you dig a little bit more into what went on in software, how you can fix it, how we should think about it this year and do you need to augment that segment with other acquisitions or more organic growth or just sort of can you give a little more color there?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Okay, let me start. So first, I would begin with why we think we are in such attractive market. So if you look at the end user growth rates of those markets, they are all very strong. I think – I know rather if you look at the clients that are using our products, they are very sophisticated consumers of technology, which tells me we have good products. And as we have surveyed the market, we have brand permission to sell these offerings. So the first point I will make Shannon is that we have continued to be bullish about the market as well as the products. In terms of what happened in the quarter, plainly said the team didn’t execute, so after as I said a couple of years of pretty strong execution in terms of doing what they said they were going to do, we just didn’t hit the ball. So I don’t see it as a pervasive problem, I see it as a quarter aberration. That’s not to say other quarters are going to be precisely the way we wanted. I do think to Mike’s point, we are making a couple of incremental adjustments, which will be important. The first is we continue to pursue new channels. I would note as we recruit these new channels, they have all taken most of [ph] our advertising campaign and it helps us recruit new partners as well as new clients. Secondly, we have fine tuned our offerings to put them much more in a solution context, which helps our clients better understand the value proposition. And finally, I think our advertising campaign will help. And as I said, Marc – Bob Guidotti is a great leader over this. So I don’t see it as a business that needs to get fixed. I didn’t see it as a business that needs get back on the horse and go.

Shannon Cross

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Okay, great, that’s helpful. And can you talk about – I don’t it’s for Mike or what but on GAAP and adjusted earnings now sort of being equal, which is good because it shows that you are sort of getting through your restructuring and all the other charges, but how do we think about that as you look at the year given some of the pressures you are seeing in that and then also from an ERP standpoint, do you need more restructuring charges as you get the ERP in place because then you can sort of let some people go or just give us an idea of how we should think about that and if this is something that you think will be ongoing in ‘17 and beyond?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Sure. In terms of the guidance we gave I think very consistent with what we said last year, our guidance does not include any restructuring that hasn’t been defined and declared at this point in time. So the possibility exists that there is activities that we would undertake and we will certainly call those out. As you recall, at Analyst Day when we talked about the ERP implementation, we did note the fact that there will likely be additional restructuring associated with the program when we fully deploy it on the back end. As you saw in the fourth quarter, we took a charge about $11 million related to some of the early opportunities we have identified in the program. So as we go through the deployment, we will make a determination whether or not there is additional restructuring activities we need to undertake, but clearly the benefits will begin to accrue more to the second half after the implementation and that’s when the opportunity would present itself.

Shannon Cross

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Great. And then just my final question, sort of on equipment sales in general and then also the decision to move to more distribution and I think countries with more challenging currencies which is a positive move, but how – on the first part, how do we think about equipment sales improvement that you have seen through this year then sort of representing itself in numbers in 2017 – well, I guess second half of 2016 and then into 2017 and beyond, just how this sort of wave theory of the improvement in equipment been coming through on some of the recurring revenue side. And then also just if you can talk a little bit about the distribution decisions and if there are any more markets where you might make that decision? And that’s it. Thank you.

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Sure. Let me do the last one first, which is I think we have addressed all the markets we see in terms of moving to a dealer-type structure. In the fourth quarter, we did several and I think I have pretty much completed that process. Obviously, there will be an ongoing review, but we really identified 12 core markets and about 7 additional markets around those 12 that would be the core focus for us in terms of systems, products and other investments. And so we are at that level now and feel like that’s a good place to be. With respect to equipment sales, I would say very much what we are seeing is consistent with what we laid out and the trend we would expect to see. You saw the continued improvement in North American mailing in the U.S. in particular. That was minus 1%, which was again an improvement on a year-over-year basis. International actually grew equipment sales. We had good performance in both the UK and actually Italy with placements with the Italian Post. We have work to do yet to continue to improve in markets like France, which really undertook that process later than some of the other markets. So, we believe that glide path is in the right direction. In terms of your question about how does that ultimately affect recurring revenue streams? Obviously, recurring revenue streams are built up over a period of time. So, as equipment sales stabilize and in some instances grow then that will begin to turn the direction of the recurring revenue streams or improve the comparisons in recurring revenue streams, but that will be a more gradual process. I guess, a good example of that as you could see in the North American business, the U.S. in particular, our finance receivables actually went up from the third quarter to the fourth quarter as a result of the performance of equipment sales modestly and that’s not a year-over-year comparison but a quarter-to-quarter, but the relative rate of decline in finance receivables has come down in large part as a result of beginning to see the improvement in those comparisons of equipment sales on a year-over-year basis.

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Shannon, I would like to tie your two questions together, because at one level I think they appear unrelated, but actually from our strategic perspective, they are very related. At one level, the revenue that we missed as we exited those markets would have been mighty helpful last year. That said I will take the short-term hit in order we could drive better focus on the places where we didn’t get profit as well as simplify our systems project. So, I think it’s a good example of where our mindset is. We will take some short-term pains, in particular in the top line in order to secure the long-term of the business. So, I pointed out, because at one level it seems like two different things, but its all part of that the overall strategy.

Shannon Cross

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead.

George Tong

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

Hi, thanks. Good morning. Can you elaborate, Marc, on the growth opportunities you are seeing within Borderfree in an environment of a strong dollar and then talk about how much revenue synergy opportunity you currently see?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

So, let me just start with a very high level, this is a $7 billion to $10 billion market that we are very well positioned in as we look at our capabilities. As you appropriately point out, George, right now, the preponderance of that business is U.S. outbound, which will be in the short-term. And by the way, I mean, I think one of the things we believe is this currency cycle is going to last for a while longer. So, we are under no delusion, it’s about the currency dynamics changing anytime in the near future. That being said, we do have opportunities to move this business outside of the United States. We moved it to the UK. That’s been a very important driver of growth. We continue to survey other parts of the world, where we think we can get on the other side of currency. If you look at this organically, I think it’s very interesting to note and Mike alluded to it, we added 75 clients since the acquisition. So, it takes a while longer for those clients to come online and make a meaningful revenue impact, but that is a material increase in the number of clients. And when you see clients like Target or Harrods that tells you that we have got great capabilities. So, that’s why we are so optimistic about the long-term prospects of this business. It clearly will have some short-term pressures until we get diversified outside of the United States and we get some of these incremental clients online and producing revenue. But if you look at the overall market opportunity and how well we are positioned, I think you can’t help, but conclude this is a wonderful opportunity for us.

George Tong

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

Yes, makes sense. And if you had to estimate the proportion of Borderfree, but currently U.S. focused versus international, would you say you are in the first inning still or further along in terms of the internationalization of Borderfree?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

No, listen we are very early here. I mean, so if you look at most of the business it’s still U.S. outbound, UK is as I said coming online to make a meaningful impact, but still relatively small, but I will say proportionally to the two sizes of economies, it’s making a significant contribution.

George Tong

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

Got it. Can you discuss the progress of your ramping of your UK eBay outbound e-commerce business?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

It’s gone very well.

George Tong

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

In a country that’s serving and…

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

I am sorry. So, we are now serving 44 countries. I am looking to Mike for affirmation, but I am pretty sure that’s…

Michael Monahan

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

44, we have added 11 additional countries over the last few quarters.

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

And its scaling fast than what we would have thought, which again I think tells you we have got the right offerings and capabilities.

George Tong

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

Got it. And then lastly, could you talk about your new advertising campaign and what the incremental marketing expenses could be?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

I will talk about it broadly and then Michael give you the numbers although we are not going to divulge the specific spend per se. But if you kind of step back, here is what we found is that first of all, we have less awareness in our markets than we thought. Where we do have awareness with clients and prospects, there is very high consideration rate. So, the basic premise is okay, if we can drive more awareness, there will be a proportional impact on consideration. It’s important in our core, but it’s really important in these new businesses the number of times over the last three years, where I have talked to clients and described to them our capabilities and software or e-commerce, I said, “my gosh, I never knew that.” And this is a fast way to accelerate our awareness and ultimately, our consideration. It is predicated on that there is that we have brand permission in these spaces. So, these are not markets that clients think it’s illogical for us to be and they just didn’t know that we had this type of capability, but once they know, they are more than willing to consider us. So, that’s the basic concept and that’s why this is so important. And candidly, why we stuck with it and what we knew is going to be a fairly challenging year and quarter. So, I will let Mike kind of...

Michael Monahan

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

Yes. So, in terms of the marketing spend, if I look at marketing in total, so that includes advertising as well as all the other marketing support we do, I will get a little specific around that total spend and how that will calendarize, because I think it’s helpful for people to understand how that will play out. I mentioned in my comments that we expect the spend to be highest in the first quarter and the fourth quarter and you might ask why that kind of timing? It really bookends what will be a very aggressive and active political season. And so we believe in establishing it in the first quarter and then reenergizing it from a broad advertising standpoint in the fourth quarter while still doing a lot of digital and more direct targeted stuff in between is the most efficient use of our capital. In doing that, in terms of our total marketing spend, there will probably be about a $0.03 higher spend in the first and fourth quarters relative to the prior year. And hopefully, that’s helpful in terms of how people look at the calendarization of that. So, that’s in aggregate how the marketing will layout.

George Tong

Analyst · George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

Got it. Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we have a question from the line of Ananda Baruah with Brean Capital.

Ananda Baruah

Analyst · Ananda Baruah with Brean Capital

Hey, thanks guys. Just a couple if I could. I would love to get your view on what if any some of the macro softness had on your business. It doesn’t seem like at least on the surface to the December Q, your comments or even your guide didn’t do much at all, but would just love to get your thoughts there and how you are thinking about it coming to the year? And I just have a quick follow-up. Thanks.

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Ananda Baruah with Brean Capital

So let me address that, I don’t think the macro conditions around the world are terribly helpful other than the 12 countries in the fourth quarter. And I have to admit I came home not very optimistic about the global economy. And I think you see that in GDP, you see it in durable goods, you see it in monetary policies around the world. That being said, I wouldn’t blame what happened to us in the fourth quarter on the economy. We had within our control the opportunity to do better and we just didn’t hit the ball. So I think there are two separate things going on. We got plenty of headroom in these markets regardless of what’s going on in the overall economy, so that’s point one. Point two, if you think about how we thought about guidance, I will say and we are not oblivious to what was going on around us. So our buildup of how we thought about guidance was primarily driven by things that we could control within our own grasp, read that as savings from our ERP project, that spending beginning to moderate secondly and third, synergies from Borderfree. So we were – I won’t tell you we are conservative as we thought about 2016, but we are much more focused on things that we could control and if we get some growth in the economy that will be helpful, but we are not counting on it.

Ananda Baruah

Analyst · Ananda Baruah with Brean Capital

Yes, I appreciate that, Marc, that’s really helpful. And in the context of the double-digit e-commerce guide for ‘16, how should we think about how are you guys thinking about what the organic potential is and actually since you are adding so many net new relationship with both eBay and the Border, what is sort of the appropriate way for us to view just organic growth philosophically?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Ananda Baruah with Brean Capital

Well, philosophically is that market, end user market is growing north of 10% and our expectation over the long-term is to develop that clearly we will have – different quarters will be different based on where we are in the maturity of this business both in terms of the geographic footprint as well as currencies. So I think there is enough coming online in the short-term that we are reasonably confident about 2016, but it does operate in an environment where macroeconomic conditions are important and monetary policies are in particular important. So we are a touch guarded in the short-term there only because it’s such an unusual climate for monetary policy around the world.

Ananda Baruah

Analyst · Ananda Baruah with Brean Capital

That’s really helpful. And then I am just going to sneak one quick one in, just on the rentals, it seems not the track is strong as the equipment sales, maybe Mike, can you just walk through the dynamic there so that we are clear on that? Thanks.

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Ananda Baruah with Brean Capital

Yes. The principal driver against rentals is the France comparison. France and U.S., as you know, are the two markets that really drive the rental number. And given the impact of the go-to-market changes that we implemented in France over last year, we see some impact on that. There is also obviously currency impacts in that number as you see it as well.

Ananda Baruah

Analyst · Ananda Baruah with Brean Capital

That’s really helpful. Thanks a lot guys.

Operator

Operator

And we have a question from the line of Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead.

Kartik Mehta

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

Hey, good morning Marc and Mike. Marc, I just want to go back to the software business a little bit, I know a few quarters ago you had indicated that you wanted to – you hired some new sales people and they were starting to have an impact. As you look at the software business, any thoughts on if you need to add more sales people there or is it simply you said just an execution issue based on the business that you could have potentially closed?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

Well, it certainly had execution issues. So, I think we need to be pretty plainspoken about that. We don’t hear anymore direct expense in the software business. We need to do a better job of recruiting new channels, so that will come on and provide reach into new markets. So if I look at the overall level of expense in the software business, I think its final continuing to manage that, commensurate with the revenue performance. But what they need to do to make more progress on is recruiting new channels. And I think we are making some progress there, but it’s clearly been slower than what I would have hoped.

Kartik Mehta

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

And then as you look at the ad campaign, Mike I know you talked about the expense related to it and this is probably one of the most expensive ad campaigns I think I remember for Pitney Bowes, how long does it take to determine if it’s going to be successful and if you continued on this strategy?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

So let me try that one for a moment. Listen, we got 95 years of energy on people’s impression on Pitney Bowes. It would be naïve to think that we are going to change that impression in a quarter or even a couple of quarters. So this is a long-term project. To your point, the company has done no advertising since 1995. So it’s been 21 years we have been out of the market. Since then, we have assembled all these great capabilities, but no one knows about it. So we will take a snapshot in the summer time to kind of see the first cost of the effectiveness of the advertising campaign, but this is going to take a while to have the kind of important impact that we believe it will over time.

Kartik Mehta

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

And then Marc, I know you and Mike talked about returning capital to shareholders, in 2015 you bought back $135 million of share repurchase, as you look to 2016, are you at a point where you can accelerate that or is that about the amount you would anticipate doing in 2016?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

If you look at what we have bought back over the last – since fourth quarter of 2014, again I am looking to Mike, but it’s sort of couple hundred million dollars, I think it’s $230 million or so.

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

$185 million.

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

$185 million, so that is basically with a little bit of purchase in ‘14 and then a fairly more aggressive purchase as we got into ’15. What we said at the Analyst Day is still true. We think we will have a balanced approach over the next 3 years or 4 years. Our bias in the short-term is around repurchases and that’s simply because if you look at the different returns of uses of capital we think that’s the highest. And let me make an additional point. Shareholder repurchases aren’t to advantage shareholders that we are buying stock from, it’s to advantage the shareholders that continues to stick with us. My view is there is a lot of earnings opportunity that is in front of us in the short-term and to have that earnings over a more leveraged capital base is a good thing for our shareholders. So, we think about different contexts of how we drive shareholder return. Those choices will evolve over time. But right now based on what we see we are still confident of what we laid out in Analyst Day.

Kartik Mehta

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

And then just finally, Mike as you gave 2016 guidance, what type of FX headwinds are you anticipating, I know you kind of gave a constant currency guidance, I am just wondering what you baked in so far for FX headwinds in 2016 versus 2015?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

Yes. What we have really done is just looked at versus the prior year. Obviously, we can’t predict where currencies will go on a go-forward basis and that’s why we talk about it on a constant currency basis. The one, as I pointed out, the two currencies that probably have had the biggest impact on us when you look at both translation as well as the impact from affecting the purchases from the U.S. because of the strong U.S. dollar has been the Canadian dollar and Australian dollar. So as an example on a year-over-year basis, they had appreciated about 15% against the U.S. dollar. The key will be whether we see sort of a stabilization or a modest rate of change in the currencies going forward, that creates a little more visibility and predictability in terms of how people’s buying behaviors will be impacted. But we have obviously looked at it from a where we are today versus the prior year.

Kartik Mehta

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

So, Mike does that imply that from a GAAP revenue standpoint you are looking at probably down around 4%, 5% because of the currency headwind?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

The currency headwind in 2015 was a little north of 3%. So I couldn’t tell you that’s 4% or 5%, because at the end of the day again it depends on where currencies go from here.

Kartik Mehta

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

I guess based on what you see today, you gave guidance based on I guess what – where the currencies are today versus where they were in the first four quarters of 2015. So I guess does that imply about 4% to 5% headwind currency?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

Yes, I don’t think it would be that much given where we are.

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

I appreciate the question, but I think you have got to step back and understand where we are in terms of monetary policies around the world. I mean, I think anyone that’s trying to protect currencies right now we are not smart enough to do that. So, that’s why we give our guidance the way we do. You wouldn’t have anticipated having negative interest rates in many places around the world. I am not sure you would have necessarily foreseen currency in China continue to devalue either. So, we are cautious about making expectations as it relates to currency.

Kartik Mehta

Analyst · Kartik Mehta with North Coast Research. Please go ahead

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We have a question from the line of Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Allen Klee

Analyst · Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead

Yes, hi. Maybe just starting with the follow-up from that last question, if currencies stayed exactly where they are today for the rest of the year, what does that imply in terms of actual reported revenue declines?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead

The translation effect and obviously rates change throughout the course of the year, right? So, you are maybe comparing apples and oranges and there is no likelihood that we will have currencies throughout the year the same as it is today, but it’s probably in the 2 plus range in terms of the absolute as of today. But again to me that is kind of a fleeting point of reference, because where currencies actually go is what will determine the comparison.

Allen Klee

Analyst · Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead

Okay, thank you. And then recently, you announced an Enroute acquisition, I was just wondering if this is material and how you think about the opportunity there?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead

It was a relatively small acquisition, but we feel it’s a nice technology add to our e-commerce business. It helps retailers determine the source of the product they are going to ship. So, it allows for our omni-channel delivery of goods from different sources whether that’s store or warehouse or other. So, we see it as a nice addition to our broader e-commerce and shipping platform.

Allen Klee

Analyst · Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead

Okay. And then your shipping solutions business how did that fare during the quarter?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead

Shipping solutions as part of e-commerce, we obviously don’t break it out separately. It was flat to down a little bit on a year-over-year basis, but for the full year up sort of low to mid-single-digits.

Allen Klee

Analyst · Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead

Okay. And then in terms of the ERP savings that you are forecasting, how do you feel in terms of the confidence of those savings that we can feel comfortable about that?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead

Well, as Marc noted, what we see is year-over-year benefits really comes in two pieces. One is the lower level of spend in the actual development and deployment of the system. And obviously the spend was highest in 2015 given that was the predominant period of build and we have the initial deployment in Canada and we expect obviously to deploy in the U.S. in the first half of this year. Those are obviously the initial build and the U.S. deployment are the biggest undertakings. So, we feel confident that our run-rate expenses come down in the second half of the year. The second part of that is beginning to realize the benefits associated with it, which is reducing the cost structure. Once we feel comfortable we have got North America both Canada and U.S. stabilized, we can begin to take those other costs out of the business and so that’s incorporated in our thinking. The bulk of those costs will come out in ‘17, but we have good line of sight to the change in the spend on a year-over-year basis.

Allen Klee

Analyst · Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead

Good, thank you very much.

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Allen Klee with Sidoti. Please go ahead

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we do have a question from the line of Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead.

Glenn Mattson

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning. Mike, I think you called out specifically Location Intelligence in the software group as being a little weaker than expected. Can you say flesh that out a little bit was that some of the newer applications for Location Intelligence or some of the older and talk about why that was affected?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

I would say, it’s more on the mid to larger deals. We typically see some of the larger deals come in, in the fourth quarter. We didn’t see as many of those larger deals in Location Intelligence in the fourth quarter. The traditional mapping business is really more of a small ticket kind of run-rate business. So, while that’s in a lower growth segment of the market, it was not as big of a driver as some of the bigger deals were and Marc talked to the need to improve our execution on those deals as we go forward.

Glenn Mattson

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

So, larger deals related to what end markets?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

The end markets can vary across the number of industries from financial services to insurance and the like.

Glenn Mattson

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

Okay. And then I guess Marc called out execution issues related to software. A couple of quarters ago, a year or so ago, maybe 2 years ago, there was a plan to kind of rebuild the sales force and then things kind of started working well at the sales force, but then there was a hiccup along the way somewhere when it came to perhaps the incentive structure was need to be realigned. So, as we move along what exactly kind of execution issues were at this year and how can we fix it?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

Well, I mean, I think it’s easy to kind of over think this. This didn’t have a close rate on the deals that they had experienced in the previous quarters and unlike other fourth quarters where deals tend to get larger deals I understand the same have got smaller. So there is not a lot more to it than that.

Glenn Mattson

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

I guess how do we know that, that’s not – that, that’s something that’s easily fixable just by improving capabilities in-house or something or as opposed to something more worrisome?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

Well, as I think you kind of go back to the long-term trends of the market. These are markets that had good end user growth opportunities. We have got a marquee list of clients, which tells me you have got the right products. We have got brand permission. And as you pointed out, Glenn, it’s a team that has executed more often than not. Clearly, fourth quarter was a departure from that. So, maybe you back on the horse.

Glenn Mattson

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

Okay. And Mike, can you say what the global e-commerce business did organically in fourth quarter?

Michael Monahan

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

What I did talk to is the marketplace piece, which is – includes the eBay business, was up about 10% on a year-over-year basis organically in that piece of the business. In terms of the e-commerce business, overall, it was up to 30% with Borderfree included. The border or I should call it the retail part of the business was down organically year-over-year mainly due to the currency effects.

Glenn Mattson

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

Okay. And then I guess, Marc, you kind of hit on this you guys were – the range of forecast for the guidance is larger than what would be implied by the basics of the operational improvements and the various adjustments going on with the ERP system. I guess, that’s related to just kind of global uncertainties, but I am wondering if software is fixable in the medium term and the equipment business seems to be doing well, why you wouldn’t perhaps get the skew towards the upper end of that range or why you wouldn’t be able to guide it towards the narrower range towards the little higher?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

What I think going on, what’s going on around the world in terms of the macroeconomic conditions in general currencies in particular, it was prudent to put guidance out the way that we did and to focus on the things that we could control. Now, clearly we would always like to overachieve, but that’s not the things we could control.

Glenn Mattson

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

Okay. Alright, thanks guys.

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And with no further questions in queue at this time, Mr. Lautenbach, would you like to make any additional remarks?

Marc Lautenbach

Analyst · Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead

Yes, thank you. Listen, fourth quarter wasn’t what we had hoped for, no doubt about that. There is nothing – that being said, there is nothing systemically wrong with the business. If you look at and you go back to the remarks that we made at analyst, we talked about being at an inflection point. We did that, because the core of our business is our mailing businesses, including production mail as well as presort which is 90% or so of the EBIT, are starting to stabilize. In addition to that, we have got in our sights with the systems work a substantial benefit both in terms of expense that is going to be not incurred as well as benefits that we can achieve as we move from deployment to the next phase. So, we are very confident that we have got the right strategy. Fourth quarter was a blip. And we have got the ability to move this business forward going forward. So, we will report back in 90 days, but as I said, we are confident about how we are positioned. Thank you.