NCR Atleos Corporation Price & Performance (NATL)

Good morning and thank you for joining the Atlios twenty twenty four full year and fourth quarter earnings call. Joining me on the call today are Tim Oliver, CEO Andy Wamsert, CFO Stuart McKinnon, COO and Paul Campbell, Tim will start this morning with an overview of the company's performance this year and an update on strategic progress and priorities for 2025. Andy will follow with a review of financial results, and our 2025 financial outlook. Then we'll move to Q and A. Before we get started, let me remind you that our presentation and discussions will include forward looking statements. Which are often expressed by words such as may, will, include, expect, in words of similar meaning. These statements reflect our current expectations and beliefs and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expectations. These risks and uncertainties are described in today's materials, and our periodic filings with the SEC including our annual report Also in our review of results today, we will refer to certain non GAAP financial measures which the company uses measure its performance, These non GAAP measures are described and reconciled to their GAAP counterparts in our presentation materials and on the Investor Relations website A replay of this call will be available later today on our website investor.ncratlios.com.

With that, I will turn the call over to Tim. Thank you, Brendan, and thank you to everyone for joining us on this call this morning. For those following along in the presentation from the Investor Relations website, we'll start today on Slide five. I will start this morning by reminding you of the compelling Atlios story, reviewing our operational performance and strategic progress in 2024, and then previewing our 2025 outlook. I'll then hand it off to Andy Wamser, to review the financial results in the 2025 outlook. Andy joined Atleos as CFO in late January. And brings the experience that includes CFO roles at public companies and investment banking. I'm very pleased to have Andy on the team. I'd also like to thank Paul Campbell, who recently stepped down from the CFO role for his thirty seven years with NCR and Appvios NCR. He has continued to work with the company to facilitate the closing and the Sarbanes Oxley process for 2024. And importantly to ensure a smooth transition for the finance organization. I am grateful to Paul for both his significant contribution to our company over almost four decades and more personally for his support of me, both my old role and in my new role as Atleo's CEO.

Reflecting on our first full year as an independent company, and our best quarter yet, it is impossible to overstate what Atleo's team has accomplished. One year in, our employees are engaged and energized Our customers recognize the return to best in class service levels and appreciate our re reinvigorated innovation efforts. Our strategic progress is pushing our revenue per ATM higher our financial performance has been solid and steady. In nearly every regard, 2024 was an outstanding year for Atlios I am proud to report the company's impressive fourth quarter and full year results today. Despite being a standalone publicly traded ATM centric company for about five quarters equity investors' share of mined and daily trading volumes in Altios are still too low. Presuming that many investors are new to this story, I think it is valuable on these calls to provide a quick description of the company and the compelling opportunity we see for all of our constituencies. But with particular focus on investors. While our employees, customers, partners and communities have all recognized the compelling outlook [indiscernible] the company remains significantly undervalued relative to our peer companies, and our strong performance has not translated into compensatory gains in enterprise value.

Since separating from legacy NCR through a spin transaction, Atlios is now a pure play independent company with a leadership position in self-service banking a clear strategy and we've begun building a track record of strong financial performance and predictable free cash flow generation. Avios has an installed and service fleet of approximately 6,000 ATMs around the world including approximately 80,000 that we own and operate in our own networks. In a global environment that continues to demonstrate steady cash based consumer transactions, and a stable installed base of ATM hardware, our growth will come from generating more revenue for Atlios for every machine that we service and support. Whether that's in providing higher quality, more efficient and more comprehensive service to our financial institution clients or by driving more transaction volume across our own network machines located in blue chip retail locations. Both of these strategies are fueled by our customers' desire to improve financial access for their customers while outsourcing more of their cash ecosystem. We service both growth vectors from a common infrastructure that is unmatched in scale is leverageable and is world class. As global banks continue to seek to improve their customers' experience in the most cost effective [indiscernible] the importance of self-service devices is NCR.

As a result, our customers are reinvesting back into their retail banking footprint and embracing shared financial utilities. For them, this strategy will result in lower costs higher quality better consumer experience broader reach and higher foot traffic. For Atlios, it will drive higher revenue growth NCR profitability from both scale and a richer revenue mix, and predictable and growing free cash flow. Turning to Slide six for a review of 2024. 2024 was a year of unmitigated success for Atlios.

After completing a complex corporate separation in October of twenty twenty three, that would cry at us to be myopically focused on the completion of that transaction, we quickly redirected our focus to establishing a new independent company with a clear growth strategy an engaged global employee base of nearly 20,000 people, and satisfied customers that allow us to be trusted strategic partners. For the full year 2024, we generated over $4,300,000,000 in revenue, dollars 3.22 of adjusted EPS and over $242,000,000 of adjusted free cash flow. All in line or above the financial targets we set out for the year. Margin expanded year over year and increased sequentially in each quarter benefiting from an accretive revenue shift mix towards services coupled with cost productivity initiatives that accelerated across the year. As we begin 2025, our strategy is being validated. Demand for more capable ATMs with enhancements like cash recycling, or tap capability or biometric authentication is accelerating. Banks and retailers are increasingly acknowledging the commercial logic of out outsourcing non core ATM services to capable operators like and low cost coverage away from traditional bank branches is growing globally. Moving to Slide seven in the self-service banking business. This is primarily a service business comprised of globally installed base of over 500,000 ATMs that we sell to our financial institutions with a software subscription and then service and support over time.

Traditionally, those services were centered on repairs and light maintenance, but increasingly banks are opting to outsource all of the other services necessary to run the ATM [indiscernible] Full year 2024 financial results were in line or slightly above expectations. Revenue grew at a healthy mid single digit pace. Services and software were the primary growth drivers and resulted in 9% growth in recurring revenue. ATM as a service contributed one full point of top line growth for the year. From a profitability perspective, direct and indirect cost saving initiatives generate over $100,000,000 in gross savings, which eliminated split related to synergies and more than offset inflation and unanticipated expenses like the Red Sea shipping disruption. This productivity with a more advantageous revenue mix, resulted in approximately 400 basis points of margin expansion from the first quarter through to the four. Over the past year, we committed considerable resources to product and service quality, and go to market execution to support our strategy. Service levels began to improve quickly and by the end of twenty twenty four, were at multiyear highs. We were pleased to see our commitment to service acknowledged externally and Atlios was awarded the ATMIA Outstanding Service Award recognizing our company for excellence in technology service leadership and best practices.

We also relaunched a product innovation effort and preview concept machines that we modified to reflect our customers' reactions to them and then ultimately commercialize. The top strategic priority for this business remains capturing more comprehensive service revenue for every machine that we service and support around the world.

In 2024, we generated 27% revenue growth in the ATM as a Service full outsourcing product and grew software and services overall at 8%. ATM as a Service exited the year with an ARR of more than $20,000,000 We grew the number of unique customers by 50% in 2024 and finished the year with over 28,000 active devices. We have a robust backlog and a sales pipeline that positions us well for 2025. We continue to see appetite across the broad range of financial institutions to outsource all or a portion of their ATM centric services to a singular provider. As discussed in last quarter's call, customers see the ATEM as a service opportunity as a continuum of outsourced services that can migrate piecemeal and over time.

And while we have passed on some large unit count ATM full out our backlog continues to grow. The quality of that backlog is very high. And the significant streamlining of our onboarding organization has sped up implementation. For 2025, we expect the A Team as a Service business revenue will grow over 40% and that we will exit 2025 with an ARR of over $300,000,000 Moving to the Networks segment on Slide eight. The Network segment our utility banking business that consists of approximately 80,000 owned and operated ATMs located in blue chip retail locations. This business performed well in the fourth quarter and for the full year with financial results generally above our expectations. The traditional ATM network revenues were up in the mid single digits for the full year excluding the decline in our crypto transaction unit Liberty X, Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by more than 150 basis points and ARPU grew in each quarter with fourth quarter setting another new high. We generated strong top line performance with high single digit transaction growth in both The U. S. And in international markets. Fueled by the addition of new high quality banking and retail partnerships new transaction types and new geographies.

Our Allpoint branded network grew transactions double digits for both the fourth quarter and the full year as the value proposition continued to resonate with retail banking customers looking convenient [indiscernible] and low fee channels to conduct the regular banking activity. Recently, top 20 retail bank headquartered in the Midwest executed a new surcharge free partnership agreement that will see them direct their customers to our retail locations. We expanded key commercial relationships and invested in technologies that enable us to conduct the broadest possible range of transactions [indiscernible] We expanded our partnership with Chime during the fourth quarter and we completed the branding of more than 4,000 Allpoint ATMs our pharmacy locations now that display the brand of Chime. Many issuers and program managers, including key partners such as Capital One, PNC, and Navy Federal Credit Union have upgraded to our more comprehensive Allpoint Plus offering that enables their customers to make cash deposits at our locations. This resulted in almost 200% growth in deposit transactions in 2024. Deposit transactions are profitable for us and typically generate follow on transactions by the consumer. We finished the year with an annualized run rate of nearly $1,000,000,000 deposits. And we continue to see growth in our Ready Code product, with transaction driving programs at additional partners such as Lyft.

Ready Code is appropriate to many countless, cardless, cash distribution needs and we are in discussion with several other significant partners. Turning to Slide nine to discuss our plans for 2025. A year ago, we laid out three primary goals that were appropriately broad to allow every employee in our company to align their objectives with our company's success. Part of our success in 2024 is attributable to that continuity of thought and alignment. In 2025, we have again communicated new top level objectives that should allow similar alignment and similar success. The first is to grow efficiently. Accelerating growth while we're still somewhat constrained by our balance and operating expense. We will emphasize those growth factors that drive more immediate returns and NCR accretive to margin rate and to cash generation. We will also deemphasize some products or regions or even customer sets that are less profitable to allow us to reemphasize [indiscernible] The second is to develop a service first culture. We believe service not product is a key to differentiating factor in the ATM industry and in the cash ecosystem. Service already makes up about half of our revenue base and carries higher margins. As our strategic plan plays out, service revenue opportunities will outpace the overall market growth dynamic.

Gaining share of wallet through outsourced services requires a deep customer trust can only be achieved through sustained customer excellence and leading service performance. A 20 fourseven always on customer service mindset is essential to our long term success. And finally, we will embrace simplicity The complexity that we inherited from our former life as part of the legacy NCR is unnecessary and inefficient. Investment in our people, our systems and our processes will make us more nimble, make our employees' jobs more rewarding and make us much easier to do business with. Our strategy is simple, and our operations need to be as well. Before I hand over to Andy, I want to thank the 20,000 Atleos team members for delivering a great first full year through their diligent work their dedication to continuous improvement focus on customer success, and a positive collaborative disposition. Thank you for all you did in 2024. [indiscernible] you for accepting the challenge of an even better 2025. The bar does get higher, but the future is bright. With that, Andy, over to you. Thank you, Tim.

Reinforcing some of Tim's comments, 2024 was an outstanding year for Atlios, as we are well positioned for another strong year in 2025. We are pleased to have delivered four consecutive quarters of solid operational and financial results in our first year as a public company. [indiscernible] We set ambitious goals as we started the year and delivered results that either met or exceeded expectations each quarter. Moreover, it's encouraging to see the company's strategy being validated and delivering financial results that sequentially improved as we move throughout the year. For full year 2024, total company revenue was $4,300,000,000 and grew 3% year over year on a reported basis. With comparable underlying growth of around 3%. Our services and software businesses grew mid single digits and led to 5% growth in recurring revenues.

The mix of recurring revenue increased to 73% and highlights our ability to drive solid growth in predictable service oriented revenue streams that generate great returns and free cash flow. Overall, the healthy top line trends reflect the effective execution of our strategy driving incremental revenue, from our global installed base. 2024 adjusted EBITDA was $781,000,000 and grew an impressive 7% year over year reflecting strong flow through from the top line growth favorable business mix, and net productivity savings. Looking at the reporting segments, self-service banking and lower corporate costs drove most of the EBITDA growth. Adjusted EBITDA margin was eighteen point one percent twenty twenty four and expanded 60 basis points from the prior year. What is even more impressive is that we increased margin four forty basis points over the course of the year as we overcame dissynergies from the split higher labor costs and other external cost headwinds were able to deliver the margin improvement with growth in higher margin business lines coupled with productivity initiatives that progressed throughout the year. Moving below the line, interest expense was $3.00 $9,000,000 and is not comparable to the prior year because our debt was raised in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three with the legacy NCR split.

The full year adjusted effective tax rate was 21%, which was better than expected due to one time discrete benefits related to the spin. Fully diluted average share count was $74,000,000 So putting the pieces together, fully diluted adjusted earnings per share was $3.22 which meaningfully exceeded our guidance of $3.12 We generated an impressive $242,000,000 of free cash flow in 2024 which was also well above our guidance of approximately $2.00 $5,000,000 Upside in free cash flow was primarily due to the timing of cash taxes a lower tax rate and effective working capital management. Turning to Slide 12, the key message here is to highlight just how well underlying performance has been for the key fundamentals that we are most focused on. Overall results just don't fully represent how effective our strategy and execution was in the year. Across both of our core businesses, we generated solid revenue in the key services business lines. Extrapolating this progress into the future Atleo should continue to enhance its growth and profit profile.

Ultimately, this will be a key factor in shareholder value creation. Moving to Slide 13 for a review of our fourth quarter results. Total company revenue was $1,100,000,000 dollars which was up 1% year over year or approximately 6% on a core constant currency basis. Our core services and software lines of business grew mid single digits and led to similar growth in recurring revenues. Adjusted EBITDA was $219,000,000 dollars and grew a notable 23% year over year due to top line growth in core businesses, favorable business line mix, and net productivity savings. From a segment perspective, self-service banking and network accounted for most of the growth. EBITDA margin was 19.8% and expanded three sixty basis points year over year. This reflects the strong operating leverage of our growing service businesses combined with our ability to drive productivity savings for direct and indirect costs. Moving to Slide 14, fourth quarter diluted adjusted earnings per share was up 73% year over year to $1.11 and exceeded expectations driven by better than expected profits and an effective tax rate lower than the prior year. Moving to the chart on the right, during the fourth quarter, we generated an impressive $119,000,000 of free cash flow.

The fourth quarter is typically when we generate our highest free cash flow of the year.

But this year was even better than we had expected due to the combination of strong profit [indiscernible] working capital management and the timing of cash taxes. Moving to Slide 15. Self-service banking had an outstanding fourth quarter. With results exceeding our expectations. Starting the upper left, revenue grew 8% year over year to $718,000,000 The primary growth driver was 10% growth for our services and software business lines partially offset by hardware revenue and deferral associated with the shift to bank outsourcing solutions or ATM as a service. The chart on the top right illustrates the progressive increase in adjusted EBITDA over our first four quarters. We reached $181,000,000 in Q4 twenty twenty four, led by strong growth and high margin software revenue and productivity initiatives. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 50 basis points sequentially to over 25% in Q4. This capped off a year in which margins expanded three zero ninety basis points from Q1 to Q4 NCR, as we continue to focus on higher margin services, and software solutions, while driving continuous improvements through cost and expense initiatives our adjusted EBITDA margin trends continued to grow materially faster than revenue. Moving to the bottom of the slide, KPIs remained on a positive trajectory in the fourth quarter.

The mix of recurring revenue was 60%. Up approximately 200 basis points year over year. ARR was up 10% year over year. Reflecting the continued build in services and software revenue from our existing Moving to Slide 16, as a reminder, our bank outsourcing solutions business resides within our self-service banking segment.

But it's a strategic priority for the company We present key operational metrics separately to help investors better understand and track our progress. Referring to the top left of the slide, revenue grew 24% year over year to $52,000,000 in the fourth quarter. We had strong interest and conversion from bank customers in 2024 resulting in a 50% increase in customer count and expansion into 11 new markets. On the right, you can see that in the fourth quarter, we were able to generate strong gross profit which increased 29% year over year to $17,400,000 and translated to gross margin of 33%. Importantly, bank outsourcing margins have been accretive to total company margins. Moving to the bottom of the slide, KPIs also continued to move in the right direction in the fourth quarter. On the left, ARR continued its sequential momentum in the fourth quarter and was up 25% year over year to over $212,000,000 On the bottom right, you can see that ARPU of 8,600 NCR the fourth quarter is a new high was up 5% over fourth quarter of twenty twenty three ARPU of 8,200 NCR. The takeaway here is that the economics of bank outsourcing services continue to ramp up as expected.

Driving incremental service revenue. Looking at the backlog at the end of the year, the average ARPU was over 10,000 which should help to support continued ARPU growth in 2025. As Tim noted, as the business model evolves, so will relevant KPIs. Based on the business today, we think revenue growth is the most relevant metric and that is how we will frame our forward looking view. Moving to the Networks segment on Slide 17. The Network business turned in another quarter of solid underlying fundamental performance. Filtering out noise from FX headwinds and our Liberty crypto business, core ATM network revenue grew approximately 4% year over year in 2024. Fourth quarter segment revenue was $317,000,000 which was down 2% year over year on a reported basis. Revenue growth was led by 6% growth in [indiscernible] partially offset by 2% decrease for international. The international decrease is primarily due to cycling against challenging prior year comps associated with last year's ASDA U. K. Launch. Deposit transactions continued to accelerate in the fourth quarter and grew around 240% year over year and 90% sequentially. Additionally, we are seeing increased use cases for our ReadyCode product with volumes up 50% sequentially but again from a small base.

Moving to the upper right, adjusted EBITDA of $114,000,000 NCR at the high end of our target range and grew 1411% sequentially. Adjusted EBITDA margin was exceptionally strong at 36%. Illustrating the significant operating leverage of processing more transactions through our owned and operated fleet of ATMs. In addition, margin benefited from a larger than expected accrual adjustment in the quarter. The metrics at the bottom of the slide highlight key elements of our strategy. The chart on the left shows Our last twelve months average revenue per unit was up 7% year over year in the fourth quarter. On the right, you can see our ATM portfolio finished the quarter at approximately 78,000 units. The slight decrease in unit count is due to pharmacy partners closing low performing stores, which is where we also have lower volume transactions. This has had a negligible impact on our revenue as customers usually visit nearby locations where we have units. As discussed earlier, transaction volumes continued to hit all time highs despite the modest reduction in our unit base. We expect the number of ATM network units to increase in 2025 through the addition of both new retail partners and geographies. Slide 18 provides a trending product centric view of results to help investors assess and model the company.

A couple of points to highlight on this slide. First, how Atlios is primarily a services oriented company with a recurring revenue model. Rather than a hardware company with cyclical sales associated with refresh cycles. Second, our strategy is working. Our services, software and transactional businesses have solid momentum with respect to both revenue and profit. As a reminder, the other Voyix operations represent legacy NCR Voyix exited geographies between Atlios and NCR VOYX. We expect business results to continue to decline in these non core up On Slide 19, we present a reconciliation of 2024 free cash flow and a snapshot of our financial position at year end. There are a couple of items worth calling attention to. First, the impressive $20.20 dollars included a higher burden of cash interest expense. Due to our recent October refinancing, interest expense should be less of a cash flow headwind in 2025. Second, we've made significant progress on our net leverage Our net leverage reduced by a half turn ended the year at 3.2x from 3.7 times at the end of twenty twenty three. Given our financial outlook and capital allocation priorities, we believe we will have a similar reduction in net leverage as we close out '20 Turning to Slide '20, our 2025 financial outlook.

Our businesses began the year with positive momentum and we expect underlying performance for this year will be strong just like 2024. Reported results do face some headwinds, notably FX rate pressure on reported results and cycling through the wind down of VoyEx related business in the other segment. Our revenue and EBITDA guidance commentary will be on a constant currency basis. Starting with the full year, we expect core revenues, which exclude the other Voyage related segment, will grow 3% to 6% on a constant currency basis. We currently forecast currency to be a 2% headwind. We expect total company revenue will grow 1% to 3% on a constant currency basis with FX again a 2% headwind. Total company adjusted EBITDA is expected to grow 7% to 10% on a constant currency basis with FX having about a 1% headwind.

Note that we've updated our methodology for calculating EBITDA beginning in 2025 to exclude other income and expense. This is consistent with the methodology used by most of our peers and should result in lower non fundamental volatility in EBITDA. As a result, the 2024 adjusted EBITDA base under our new methodology would be $794,000,000 rather than $7.81 We expect fully diluted earnings per share will grow 21% to 27% and be in the range of $3.9 to $4.1 We expect free cash flow to be between $260,000,000 to $300,000,000 Below the line assumptions incorporated into our full year guidance include approximately $275,000,000 of interest expense effective tax rate of approximately 24%, and fully diluted share count of approximately 76,000,000 At the segment level, we expect self-service banking will grow revenue mid single digits on a constant currency basis. Currency is expected to be around a 2% headwind to revenue. We expect adjusted EBITDA will grow 12% to 13% on a constant currency basis. FX is expected to be a 1% headwind to EBITDA growth. Margins should expand year over year and be in the mid-20s. For the network business, we expect revenue growth to be in the low to mid single digits on a constant currency basis FX is expected to be a 1% headwind to growth.

We expect adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 29%. The decrease in EBITDA margin is due to higher bulk cash costs resulting from the exploration of hedges that were implemented three to four years ago during a much lower interest rate environment. TNT revenue is expected to be down with EBITDA flat to up slightly. Voyix related revenue is expected to be between $40,000,000 to $45,000,000 with EBITDA of approximately $5,000,000 Corporate costs should be approximately flat year over year. For the first quarter of twenty twenty five, we expect core revenues which exclude Voyix related, to be essentially flat on a constant currency basis. Total company reported revenue is due to the cycling of the prior year comparison for the other Voyix related segment. As context, Voyix related revenue in Q1 twenty twenty four had approximately $60,000,000 and we would expect it to be around $10,000,000 in Q1 twenty twenty five. Adjusted EBITDA is projected to be $165,000,000 to $175,000,000 which would represent approximately 5% growth year over year at the midpoint. Be your growth at the midpoint We expect free cash flow will be modestly negative in the first quarter due to working capital. For context, we have a robust second quarter order book in hardware and will have to invest in inventory during Q1 to fulfill those orders.

We expect to generate positive free cash flow in each of the last of 2025, Below the line assumptions incorporated in our guidance include $65,000,000 of interest expense, effective tax rate in the low 30s and fully diluted share count of approximately $75,000,000 Lastly throughout this earnings season, companies with international operations have been asked about the potential impact of tariffs. Based on what has been implemented thus far that impacts our business, which is Mexico, we have limited exposure to tariffs We have a very small spare parts operation in Mexico and we are in the process of implementing plans which includes building inventory to reduce that exposure. Beyond that, global geopolitical and trade relations are very complex. And it's nearly impossible to predict the potential permutations of tariffs at this time. We are continuously monitoring developments and assessing our potential risks and solutions. Concluding my comments on Slide 21, Atlios had a highly successful first full year in 2024. We delivered impressive financial performance throughout the year consistently meeting or exceeding financial targets, generating significant free cash flow, and improving our financial profile. We executed well operationally enhancing our capabilities, competitive position and relationships with customers which is setting the stage for another strong year in 2025.

Importantly, we made great progress on our growth strategy. Putting us on a path to realize the tremendous opportunity we see in bank outsourcing for the cash ecosystem. Reflecting on these accomplishments, we are very optimistic about our opportunity to create value for our shareholders in 2025 and beyond. With that, I'll turn it over to the operator. We'll take our first question from Matt Summerville with D. A. Davidson. Thank you and welcome, Andy. Two quick questions. First, can you talk about the ARPU in the as a service backlog? I thought last quarter that number was something north of 13,000 on a per unit basis and now I think you referenced a 10,000 sort of number. So can you talk about maybe the quarter on quarter shift there And then off of a base of say 10,000, how that trends out looking over the next few quarters? And then I have a follow-up. Yes. Thanks, Ed. So, I think we said 12,000 or 13,000 was the average in the average ARPU in the backlog. We implemented some of those devices and you can see the step up in the fourth quarter. In ARPU for that in aggregate for that business.

So we translated some high ARPU units from backlog into production It was a big quarter, as you know, getting us from about 6,000 machines in a singular quarter. So moved the needle pretty nicely in the quarter.

The mix of backlog currently has some of those high margin machines still in it. And a little bit of mix shift toward India and other places where the Both the revenue and the profitability is slightly lower. So it's really geographic distribution within the backlog that caused that change. But in any regard, we think across the year, that The average the average ARPU of the units we induct into that number across the year will be accretive to the current $8,600 NCR device.

Perfect.

And then as a follow-up, you'd mentioned in your prepared remarks seeing some pretty nice inbound demand on the hardware side. Can you just maybe do a little bit of a geographic walk around the globe, so to speak, in terms of what you're seeing from the demand trend, not only for hardware, but just your as a service offering? Thank you.

Yes. So the as a service offering in countries where it's already been adopted is the go to way that you generate revenue, we're seeing really nice pickup India is a great place right now for that business. We're seeing some traction some more traction in Western Europe around ATMs as a service and The U. S. Has been great for us, particularly in those clients that have 300 machines or less you could see we had a lot of small ish wins. This is a This is a few machines at a time. There aren't a lot of big tickets in The U. S. That are likely to go to ATMs as a service. So As far as AT and T service goes, I think it's the same markets we've been participating in before. We've talked a lot about another 36 markets in the world that we think we could be successful with A Team as a Service and you're likely to see us introduce product into at least four or five new countries this year as we start to roll that product out. Elsewhere. As far as hardware goes, it's everywhere, though for us, Western Europe and The U. S. Are the biggest markets for us, particularly when it comes to revenue since those are the more expensive devices.

We've got a much improved recycler product that's that's now ready for market and is being adopted very quickly by some of our U. S. Our big U. S. Customers, that's incredibly helpful. As you'll know, Matt, we were a little bit late there, but we're back in that game. I think that's going to be very helpful to hardware revenue. And I think there's just an as we've talked about before, the The wave associated with the 2019 kind of pull forward of hardware refresh you've got a modest refresh wave that's taking place currently. I think that's a global undertaking though for us. It's more Europe and North America.

And it's not as pronounced obviously as 2019, it's going to play out over several years. But we're those 2019 machines now aging off and so we'll see some we think that this year next and maybe even 2027 will be pretty good hardware years. Where we'll see a little bit of lift to hardware. And of course, should give us some opportunity to to talk to our customers about switching to ATMs as a service as they go. Great. Thank you, Tim. [indiscernible] We'll move to our next question from George Tong with Goldman Sachs.

Hi, thanks. Good morning.

Can you remind us how many ATM as a service units you had by the end of the quarter and what your latest expectations are for 2025 and beyond?

I think we're at 28,000 units at the end of the fourth quarter. That was up from about 22,000 into the third quarter. So a little bit short of the 30,000 we set out to try to get to for the full year, but a really good fourth quarter. And then we of course, we talked about this being a back end loaded year for us in terms of implementation. That had a lot to do our readiness and our customers' readiness from an onboarding perspective. As far as guiding going forward on that metric, we're not going to use that as a KPI any longer units because as we just talked about not all units are created equal and units in North America for instance are far more accretive to both revenue and profitability than we'll talk about revenue growth in this business rather than units. That said, I think it will be if we've got 6,000 units currently in backlog, I think we'll exit the year 40,000 units at rounding to 40,000 units. And importantly, I think the ARR in that north well north of $300,000,000 from about $210,000,000 today. Got it. And then in your network business, the number of managed units went down because of the rationalization of low Yes.

We don't know. We're watching it very carefully. These pharmacies are very good customers of ours. They keep in constant contact with us. You see there's transaction announced for Walgreens, I think, last or rumors Walgreens transaction last night. We're very tied in with these folks. The good news is when they shut down a store, it's probably a machine that wasn't performing particularly well for us anyways. And so it's underperforming for them, it's probably underperforming for us. We move that machine elsewhere and we pick up just across the street the transaction volumes on device that's around the corner. So we don't we don't tend to lose revenue We just lose a node on the system I think we'll sign deals in 2025. That add 3,000 or 4,000 units to that count. Which will in essence get us back to where we were.

So Over time, this may perturbate a bit, but fundamentally, that 80,000 units unless we add new geographies and fleets in other parts of the world it's probably we're going to going to get back around that midpoint over time. But so look for some sizable wins in '25 that allow that number to come back up. I don't know how many more drug stores are going to close But as long as they're under performing and I have a machine nearby, I'm not that concerned about it. Got it. Very helpful. Thank you.

My pleasure. We'll take our next question from Dominic Gabriel with Compass Point. Hey, good morning, everybody, and welcome, Andy.

If you just think about the strategy that's focusing that you've discussed focusing on North America and Europe for the higher ARPUMISH versus India, Some of the comments that you made just on this call, suggested the backlog might be for ATM as a service might be mixing towards India a little bit just because of what you've sold. I guess the question is just are you still focused on shifting towards these higher profit revenue generating units in NCR America No. So I might have said I'm not emphasizing one over the other. They're both good markets for us. And scale matters a lot. We have great scale in India, over 120,000 machines in India. So it's a very good market for us. It will stay a good market. And I want to to preserve that installed base and perhaps grow it. There are parts of the world I didn't talk about like Brazil, Argentina where the move toward ATM as a service is very strong and networks are starting to emerge. That is also a different price point market. We will compete there. It's just when we talk about the incremental gain in revenue or profitability, when the mix shift more towards North America or Europe, it will be more beneficial for us in that period.

But I hope I didn't create the idea that somehow we're going to relegated ourselves only to those those larger more developed markets. There's real opportunity in other parts of the world. In fact, we were just in Latin America and there's huge opportunity for us down there. So we were the largest player in Brazil and have an installed base that is very leverageable. So we need a strategy there too. That device will be somewhat less expensive and the service costs will be somewhat lower. Experience for instance in North America. So we like them all the same. But some move the needle a little bit more for our reported results than others.

Right, right. No, thank you. And then there was really nice speed versus our expectations on gross profit margins. Versus like I said our expectations in the quarter.

You're effectively absorbing 2% FX headwind on the revenue while still showing Pretty good adjusted EBITDA And so I guess do you expect the variability in the gross profit margin quarter to quarter in 2025 to be moving up and down quite significantly from quarter to quarter due to some seasonality? Or do you think the fourth quarter's gross profit margin level is the right jumping off point for as we start the year?

Yes. So we said we were going to exit the year with margin rates in aggregate on EBITDA level of about 20% that translates into the gross profit you're describing. We do have a seasonal business. Right. Our last hardware business grows across the year and is more profitable as we produce more units. We've got very big unit outputs in Q2 and Q4 this year So you'll see that business have nice cost leverage as they generate more units. The network business has very strong Q2 and Q3, a natural curve to their business. And so you'll see their profit would be higher there. So the regular calendarization or regular seasonality of our business will play out again in 2025. I think that will describe any perturbation in the gross margin rate The profitability on the the reported profitability, we have more of a headwind associated [indiscernible] the VOYEX, the lack of VOYEX revenues in the first half of the year and appears to be more of a hit earlier in the year. And so I think you also see margin rate accumulate across the year Much like this year, the shape of the curve for EBITDA margin rate and gross profit margin rate next year should be very similar to this year.

Great. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much. Our pleasure. Really everybody is saying hello to Andy and I've met him Tasha.

Move to our next question from Shlomo Rosenbaum with Stifel.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking the questions. Hey, Tim, I understand you're not going to focus on like the units in the ATM as a service because it's more of a continuum. So it's it's less relevant. But could you talk about the success you might have had over the year in terms of moving customers up that continuum? So in other words, customers that might be taking some of the outsourcing services where you're starting to get them to take more of the outsourcing services?

Yes, that's a helpful question to us. Thanks for asking it. We did find A Team as a Service is the monolithic holistic outsourcing of everything associated with every service associated with an ATM inclusive of cash in transit that we would obviously have to subcontract for and others who have jumped into the space and used the term A team as a service have a much less broad definition of that term. We have about 90,000 machines that we currently call we describe as managed services, which is very similar what others are describing as ATM as a service. Of those 90,000 machines, we saw in last year many of those customers moving up into and many devices moving from managed services up into our Very tight definition of ATAM as a service. And I think that's an obvious step. And so I think about success in the services business in aggregate, in 2025 and beyond, think it's taking customers who currently are traditional customers who only buy hardware with a a break fix service agreement and a software subscription agreement over the five to seven year life of the device and moving them into managed services. And asking them what subset of those services they'd like us to take on and we'll grow into the rest over time.

I also think there is a huge proportion of those folks in the managed services area that we have now proven ourselves to be very effective and very cost efficient driving those devices for them. Are likely to move up into the full outsourcing of ATM as a service. And so we're likely to start talking a little bit about our managed service portfolio and maybe talking about the two together. So you can see that migration of the customer up through this continuum. I think we added a chart at 1.1 of the conference and we can post it again that describes kind of what's the midpoint of managed services and then importantly what you add to get to the full A team as a service. But yes, we had some success doing that. Mentioned the more obvious path for our customers to take from traditional to managed services and then on to full outsource ATAM as a service.

Got it. Then I have a couple I guess, questions for Andy. First, can you just describe What's being stripped out of the EBITDA or what's being added back to the EBITDA for the new calculation? Is it movements from FX? I'm just trying to Sure. So as we look at EBITDA, we are going to be excluding other income and expense going forward. I mean, look at the volatility associated with our, I'd say, our old methodology, The key one would be pension and then it would be FX and then to a degree bank fees. But we think by doing this new definition, it's going to remove some volatility that we have, I would say, in a quarter. And so the order of magnitude could be $5,000,000 to $10,000,000 in aggregate in a given quarter and we think this will remove some of the volatility associated with our guidance and then results Okay. And then could you comment a little bit about the change in of Vault cash interest Sure. So for bulk cash, we rent directionally about $3,000,000,000 in cash. And we would have fairly aggressive or also favorable terms in terms of how we get that cash from select bank partners.

We look at what happened, let's say, three or four years ago. A lot of we put in place a lot of hedges that were able to lock in rates in a much lower rate environment. So when I look at some of those hedges that were layered in and so then what's happening then in 2025 is that we're rolling off as we get to the back half of the year some of those favorable hedges. So that is really the key driver in terms of what's happening to I'll say, our COGS within network. The thing that I would emphasize though is while there is going to be some pressure year over year in in that segment. The EBITDA margin is still, I said, would be close to 29%. I mean, it's just around 30%. So it's still a great business. But we are going to be lapping some of the impact of hedges with ball cash.

Yes. Andy wasn't here when we did the acquisition of Kartronics. But at the time, we we sold a model to our board and committed to a model to our board around profitability that described that as a good acquisition and it has turned out to be good acquisition. Hedged that model by putting in place significant amount of swaps around $3,000,000,000 or $4,000,000,000 of bulk cash at the time. As those roll off, we're now paying market rates. And so The good news is our margin rates now at market rates are very, very similar to what they were prior to The acquisition which was in a period of time which rates were very, very low. Or say differently, the productivity and the profitability we've generated with new business in the across the network has allowed us to, in essence, absorb All of all of the hit over last several years from those interest rates. I'm hopeful that we'll see some relief going at some point we'll see some relief in interest rates, but what you're seeing now is us performing at market rates with the highest margins in our company and margins that are approaching 30%.

Great. I've taken a lot. Would you kind of squeeze in one more you're okay with that?

Yes. There was a talk a little while ago in terms of third party financing for some of the ATMs as a service hardware and stuff like that. Is that still something that's being focused on? Or is it really because we're going to ATMs as a service kind of light that the customers are really just doing stuff on their own that that's not really part of what you guys are working on internally in order to accelerate that business?

So the answer is yes.

We still that opportunity still exists just actually both sides of your question. We have seen when Paul and I built this model along time ago, we thought that ATMs of service would be much more capital intensive than it's been. And we thought at the time that maybe 70% of the transactions we did require new hardware on our balance sheet. It's actually been reciprocal of that. We've had closer to a third, 25% or 30% of the deals required new hardware. So And we've shown a preference for those type of transactions. So we have seen far less of capital. Is also true though that we are still looking for non recourse off balance sheet financing opportunities for fleets of devices that make some sense. Paul has worked really hard to put some devices in place. We've not had deals big enough yet to get those off the ground, but maybe I'll Andy elaborate what they might be.

Yes. That was a great introduction to that. So what I would say is an absolute key focus for us And as we move into the second quarter, I would expect us to be able to find a solution that will work and that will be financed off balance sheet, but that is certainly in our plan and we full expect to do that.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Sure. We'll move to our next question from Chris Sineak with Wolfe Research.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. How we're thinking about capital allocation here. I know you'd mentioned near term debt pay downs.

Is a priority, but with the stock trading at the level at which it is currently, the broader macro concerns is something, are you guys considering maybe perhaps implementing a buyback plan sooner than otherwise anticipated?

Yes, I love announcing earnings into weak markets. So I seem to figure out how to do that every every quarter. It hasn't changed. I think the only thing that's changed somewhat in the discussion with our investors is the hurdle rate [indiscernible] for overall leverage at which point we think that equity investors start clamor a little bit more for cash being returned to them And to your point in this market through a through a share repurchase, has maybe moved down a little bit. So we've talked a lot about getting down to three times net leverage That would translate to about four times gross leverage, which some of our investors focus more on four times gross leverage. When you get under three and four times, we The analyses say that you should pick up a significant change in your valuation, meaning that those stocks that have those companies that have leverage below below four times gross traded almost a full multiple point higher than those that trade or those that demonstrate above [indiscernible] think we'll get there at the midpoint of this year. At that point in time, I think we have to have a good debate with our Board and maybe even with some investors about what we do with the next incremental dollar of free cash flow. [indiscernible] don't think it'll be uniform, meaning until we get there, it's very obvious.

We apply every dollar of free cash flow we generate to reduce our debt. Once we get to 3x net and 4x gross, I think we should at least start talking about whether We continue to reduce debt either holistically or if we in fact start to deliver some cash back to shareholders share share of the upside to a certain extent between our equity holders and our debt holders. Nothing has changed in terms of wanting to get down to 3x. Nothing has changed in calendarization of getting there. I think we'll get there by the midpoint of the year. I think the desire for yet even lower leverage amongst invest has become more apparent and will debate that with our Board and you all when we get there to midpoint of the year. But I agree with you, our stock is too cheap and we should if we can, we should be buying some back.

Yes. Thanks. And then one more question kind of longer term strategic. In terms of when you when you did the kind of did the roadshow and were spun out, you had different long term objectives for recurring revenue and the argument was that you'd get a higher multiple on the stock as the recurring revenue percentage went up. What's the outlook today and has it changed any just given the preference of customers for where you get to recurring revenue over the next couple of years?

Yes. Our recurring revenue performance is tracking pretty close to we thought. We're a little bit behind You go back to those models from two point five years, three years old now, We're a little behind on our ATM as a service revenue, which we've talked a bit about the adoption [indiscernible] which causes the the total services growth to be a little bit behind to those models. But we have every belief that it's a lag in the model, not a change to the model. And that ultimately our service levels the total value of our service to our customers will be a much higher percentage of total revenue that was in the outset. And the transaction volumes are growing as well and we count our as you'll remember, we count our transaction revenues as recurring too. So I think of all the metrics that we've laid out in that five year model, I think there's two that were most likely to still be perfectly in line with, which is free cash flow and percentage of revenue coming from recurring sources.

Okay, great. Thank you and congrats great year. For our next question, we'll return to Dominic Gabrielli with Compass Point. Hey, great. Thanks so much. Actually just right on that point, I was curious about The free cash flow outlook with the kind of more updated long term targets that were given more recently I know it's not going to be linear as far as year over year free cash flow growth. But overall, how are you thinking about the free cash flow targets in particular and given where you ended up in 2024 with almost like pull forward, right? That you mentioned that gave you $119,000,000 free cash flow in the quarter adjusted. How do we think about how that pulls out at 2025? And this is the sustainability of the ramp in free cash flow to hit kind of your 2027 targets? Thanks so much guys.

Yes. So we only have so many levers in cash flow. And it wasn't so much pull forward into the fourth quarter. So we had a we got a break on taxes based on some changes in legislation. And we had some costs that accrued in 2024 that got paid and they'll get paid this quarter. So wasn't so much a pull forward. There's only so many levers in free cash flow. Right? You can manage working capital better, You can have CapEx that underruns depreciation, amortization. Or you can grow profitability. Know we're going to grow profitability over the next several years and you can extrapolate out the the kind of longer term goals of growing at 8% to 10% EBITDA a year, you can extrapolate that out and presume that most of that should Should the fall down through to to free cash flow. We talked about tax rates and cash tax rates coming down. In fact, that was one of the overdrives this year for us and it's going to be an overdrive against the model yet again next year. Our interest expense will come down and it's a huge expense for us. And a lot of our our interest expense isn't tax deductible because of the how large it is relative to our profitability.

Any relief in that tax law or our ability to generate more profitability relative to that interest should make it more deductible and drive yet better cash flows. So I think there's several levers. Levers that we can pull across time. But yes, I mean, just we talked about a number approaching $300,000,000 of free cash flow when we thought we'd only do $200,000,000 2024. Now we're still holding on to the high end of that range of $300,000,000 in 2025 even having overdriven by about $40,000,000 So we are doing a better job on free cash flow than we thought that we might we will use a little bit of cash for our working capital in the first part of this year as we have a pretty significant ramp in hardware, about an $80,000,000 ramp in hardware, queues one to two. You just have to get stuff on the water to make sure that you get that done. We did collect really, really well in the fourth quarter of last year and so we've got a little bit of there's less to collect in the first quarter. But I fully expect that to happen again in this year's fourth quarter.

So if you're thinking about free cash flow as being the fastest growing metric in this business, for the next several years, you'd be exactly right. Free cash flow growth will outpace EPS growth, will outpace EBITDA growth pretty handily over the next several years.

Thank you very much for taking my follow-up.

My pleasure. It appears there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back over for any additional or closing remarks.

Great. Thank you for that. Thanks for everybody paying attention. Today. Paul, thank you.

Andy, welcome. And look, we just completed a pretty remarkable year. And if my employees are listening, I expect many of them are, thanks again. You killed it. You did a great job. I know we expect a lot of you going forward. I suspect you'll step right up to that challenge as well. We appreciate those investors who are along and tell all your friends this is a good story. People should be hearing it. So This concludes NCR today's call. Thank you again for your participation. You may now disconnect.