The company expects its transformation initiatives to generate more than $600 million of annual run-rate operating income benefit by the first half of 2027, indicating a focus on streamlining operations and improving profitability.

The company is undertaking a strategic review of its business portfolio to evaluate potential assets for disposition, signaling a focus on streamlining operations and creating shareholder value.

The acquisition of EVO Payments in March 2023 expands the company's geographic presence in attractive markets and augments its business-to-business software and payment solutions business.

The company is focusing on executing and delivering transformation initiatives, which are expected to continue over the next few years and incur incremental expenses related to the transformation and potential additional asset impairment charges through early 2027.

The CISO has over 25 years of leadership experience managing global information technology, information security and IT infrastructure and operations. Our CIO has over 25 years of experience specializing in cloud migrations, launching innovative software products and advanced analytics as well as building high-performance development organizations.

To encourage alignment on risk identification, assessment, and management objectives throughout all levels of the Company, we have implemented a security education and awareness program that is designed to reinforce key behaviors that facilitate risk reduction and inform team members about the material cybersecurity risks facing our organization.

The company acknowledges the risk of system vulnerabilities and unauthorized access attempts, which could compromise sensitive information and disrupt operations, potentially leading to financial and reputational damage.

The company acknowledges the highly competitive and innovative nature of the payments technology industry, where competitors with greater resources may gain an advantage in pricing and new technology development.

The company notes that any new implementation of or changes made to laws, regulations or other industry standards affecting our business in any of the geographic regions in which we operate may require significant development and compliance efforts or have an unfavorable effect on our ability to continue to offer certain services.

In each of our business segments, we compete with a large variety of companies - financial institutions, financial technology companies, traditional payment providers, new market entrants, and others, both large and small. The markets for the services we provide are highly fragmented and competitive.

Furthermore, we are facing increasing competition from nontraditional competitors, including new entrant technology companies, who offer certain innovations in payment methods. Some of these competitors utilize proprietary software and service solutions.

We benefit from the adoption of, and transition to, card and digital-based payments and are focused on expanding our share in our existing markets through software and service innovation leveraging our industry-leading direct and partner distribution channels, as well as through targeted bolt-on acquisitions to improve our offerings and scale.

Cost of service as a percentage of revenues decreased to 37.2% for the year ended December 31, 2024 from 38.6% in the prior year.

We are streamlining and simplifying our strategy, organization and operating environment through a transformation program to deliver a global unified operating company.

We seek to become the worldwide partner of choice for commerce solutions by providing our clients with a broad suite of world-class, differentiated products and services that make everyday commerce better. We are also committed to excellence in execution, and delivering flawlessly at scale globally.

Enhancing our capabilities in cloud-based POS and software with a focus on key vertical markets including restaurant, retail, education, real estate and communities.

This includes unifying our POS businesses under a common brand, Genius, and leveraging our vast distribution channels to extend it globally. We expect to complete the rollout of our Genius POS solutions by the end of 2025.

Our development and use of AI technology in our operations remains in the early phases. While we intend to develop and use AI responsibly and attempt to mitigate ethical and legal issues presented by its use, we may ultimately be unsuccessful in identifying or resolving these issues before they arise.

Our capital allocation priorities are to pay dividends, to repurchase shares of our common stock, to pursue acquisitions that meet our corporate objectives, to make planned capital investments in our business and to pay principal and interest on our outstanding debt.

On October 24, 2024, our board of directors approved an increase to our existing share repurchase program authorization, which raised the total available authorization to $2.5 billion.

We expect to continue to make capital investments in the business, and we anticipate capital expenditures to be approximately $800 million during the year ending December 31, 2025.

We continue to monitor these legislative and regulatory developments and are working continually to ensure that our sustainability agenda is integrated into our overall business strategy.

As part of our annual sustainability reporting, we provide additional information about our approach to sustainability matters in our Global Responsibility Report (not incorporated herein), which is available in the investor relations section of our website at www.globalpayments.com.

Investor and other stakeholder scrutiny related to our sustainability practices, and our disclosed performance and aspirations for these practices, may increase costs and expose us to numerous risks.

The global payments technology industry depends heavily on the overall level of consumer, business and government spending.

Adverse macroeconomic conditions in any of our markets could force merchants, financial institutions or other customers to cease operations or petition for bankruptcy protection, resulting in lower revenue and earnings for us and greater exposure to potential credit losses and future transaction declines.

Risks associated with heightened geopolitical and economic instability, include among others, reduction in consumer, government or corporate spending, international sanctions, embargoes, tariffs, heightened inflation and actions taken by central banks to counter inflation, volatility in global financial markets, increased cyber disruptions or attacks, higher supply chain costs and increased tensions between countries in which we may operate, which could result in charges related to the recoverability of assets, including financial assets, long-lived assets and goodwill, and other losses, and could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.