Global Payments CEO reshapes
the business
The payments technology company is getting a remake
with job cuts, an acquisition and potential divestitures a
year after Cameron Bready ascended to the CEO post.
Published Sept. 11, 2024
Lynne Marek
Lead Editor
whyframestudio via Getty Images
Global Payments may be shrinking its workforce at home, but
it’s expanding by way of an acquisition too.
The Atlanta payments company in recent weeks has cut U.S.
employees, though the processor has declined to say how
many workers were let go. At the same time, Global Payments
this week acquired a New York point-of-sale software
company.
It all comes as Global Payments prepares for a presentation to
investors later this month at which the company is expected
to discuss a reshaped business strategy under CEO Cameron
Bready, who was promoted to the role about a year ago.
As part of the new approach, it’s also expected to pursue some
business unit divestitures, according to analysts who follow
the company.
“We believe [Global Payments] might consider ‘pruning’
assets by exiting underperforming or non-core markets that
lack sufficient [return on investment], including certain
geographies that may have been part of larger acquisitions,”
Wolfe Research analyst Darrin Peller said in an Aug. 29 note
to his firm’s clients. “We also suspect the company may find
select vertical market assets that make sense to divest.”
That might make for a “simpler business,” Peller said in the
note, also saying that Global Payments may be “more focused
near-term on completing the Issuer business cloud
modernization,” with tech juggernaut Amazon.
Another analyst echoed his thoughts about potential Global
Payments non-core divestitures. “At a high level, we don’t
expect a major asset sale or divestiture, but rather a
streamlining of the business, with a focus on getting out of
subscale geographies, low growth/return portfolios, or
possibly specific verticals,” RBC Capital Markets Daniel Perlin
said in an Aug. 27 note to that firm’s clients.
Global Payments could be angling for a more streamlined
organizational structure for its merchant services business
and a more “coherent business strategy for its disparate
[business-to-business] assets, Perlin said in the note.
At the same time, the company is growing. This week, Global
Payments acquired New York-based IT services and
consulting firm Yazara, which has as its tagline ‘Your Phone
Your POS,’ highlighting its services as a point-of-sale software
provider using smartphones and tablets. A spokesperson for
Global Payments declined to comment on the transaction, but
Yazara’s CEO was vocal about it online.
“Both companies are expecting to grow and diversify in new
geographies, capturing a significant portion of an increasing
SoftPOS and acquiring market opportunity,” Yazara CEO
Albert Comas said in commenting on the transaction on his
LinkedIn page.
Meanwhile, Global Payments cut jobs this month, according to
analysts and employees. The spokesperson declined to
comment on how many jobs were eliminated in the most
recent round of reductions.
Those workforce cuts would be in addition to what Peller
estimated were 400 Global Payment job cuts earlier this year,
according to his note. “Given the number of acquisitions and
automation, we suspect the company has identified a number
of duplicitous roles and is right-sizing,” he said in his note.
Global Payments had about 27,000 employees in 35 countries,
as of the end of last year, according to its annual filing with
the Securities and Exchange Commission. About 60% of the
workforce was in the Americas, with about 20% in Europe
and the remainder in the Asia-Pacific region, with many in
“highly skilled in technical areas specific to payment
technology and software solutions,” according to the filing.
