All right, well, thank you all very much for joining us today. If you've not heard me speak yet, my name's Dan Perlin. I head up the payments processing and IT services practice here at RBC, and I'm delighted to have with me up next, Paysafe. From the company, we have Alex Gersh, who's the Chief Financial Officer, and coming to us from London, so we appreciate the long journey that you've made to be here with us. We appreciate that very much. Always happy to do it. Great! So look, what we're, what we're doing with a lot of the companies, in fact, all of them today at, at the onset at least, is to get a picture about what you're seeing from a macro perspective, a larger demand perspective. I know there's a lot of things that we'll get into, in more detail around the company, but we're just trying to get some sort of contextual context about what's, what's happening in, in your world, and maybe how that's relative to what you had seen in the prior six to 12 months or something to that effect. Well, in terms of macro, I mean, we're a relatively small player, right? We have two businesses, for those of you who don't know. We have a consumer business, which is the wallet and eCash business, and we have a merchant solution business, which is the acquiring business. But we operate in very targeted verticals. Gambling is the biggest vertical we operate in, and quite frankly, we see no, no letdown in demand. There's no economic impact on gambling, and I've been in gambling for many, many years as CFO of Paddy Power Betfair for a number of years, Flutter now, and I know that recession doesn't seem to impact that. We operate in travel, and again, you know, I flew here. Those of you who flew, the airports are full. We're small, so I don't think we're representative of the macro environment as far as... When we look at the volumes and we look at the customers, we look at our SMB customers, we look at our consumers, we don't honestly see any impact of economic downturns of any kind so far. Yeah. How are trends right now? You just came off the quarter, literally, yesterday, and so how are we thinking about trends from what you've seen in October? And then I don't know if you're giving any kind of early indications of what you're seeing in terms of November volumes, but how has that trended, and how does that compare to what you just printed? We haven't given any indications, but it... You know, we left our guidance range unchanged. To be honest with you, for us, the biggest variability happens to be FX, right? Because euro, you know, strengthening dollar impacts us negatively. We've got a significant amount of European revenue. Outside of that, if you just discount that for a minute, it's continuing to kind of perform to our expectations. You know, we put up 5% constant currency growth, and it's steady as she goes from here. We have a midterm target of low high single digit, low double digit growth over the next couple of years, which I think seems very reasonable. Nothing really is happening in November that would make me question any of that. Okay. So as we were talking about outside, before we came in here, you know, the company's been a bit on a transition, you know, ever since kind of new management came in, and you guys have started to reshape how you want to run this business. Maybe to kind of educate the audience a little bit, take a step back and kind of take us through that journey, and then maybe where we sit today and what we can expect a little bit in the future. Yeah, sure. So I think one of the weaknesses that Paysafe had in a kind of previous incarnation is that it was run as separate little companies, really not talking to each other, really just focused on their own little business. And I think when Bruce came in last May, and I came in last October. Bruce's first thing was, "Look, you know, we have a whole bunch of products here that could be cross-sold," right? And the power of Paysafe isn't our acquiring business necessarily. It's you take our acquiring business, you take our eCash, you take our wallet, which is quite unique, right? And you can, you know, you could try to sell this whole package. Yep. You can take our wallet, and you can make it merchant wallet and create a completely new product for merchants. Today, wallet is a consumer product. So this is the kind of stuff... So what the first thing that Bruce did with the management team is we broke down all of these silos. We created single sales organization. We now created single marketing organization. We now created single product organization. So we go to the customer, we speak with one voice, we offer all of our products together, right? And when we created all of these things, it, you know, it returned the business to growth, but it also created a lot of efficiencies from the cost perspective, right? So this is why we keep, we keep seeing EBITDA leverage and continue to see that leverage. Because not only are we driving higher revenues, we're also doing it at a, in a much more effective way. That, I think, to me, is the biggest change that Bruce and the team has now made. We're not finished. There is still lots of stuff that we need to do. Products particularly still needs to be focused more as in this holistic way, looking at some of these products that we used to offer to one customer base to a broader customer base. And we were very transparent. Those of you who listen to the call, we're very transparent. Look, eCash, still not working for us. We still need to make eCash grow. Digital wallet, the classic wallet, is doing well, but eCash still is an issue. And in the merchant acquiring space, the direct acquiring channel is also still an issue. So I don't wanna... You know, we can't declare victory, but you see some good signs, and we continue to be on our way. Yep. So let's talk about that sales go-to-market motion, because the transformation, and the ability now to cross-sell relative to what you had done in the past, to your point, these silos that were broken down, it does appear that it's enabling you to win more of these enterprise clients. Yes. So maybe talk about that trajectory that you've been on and what some of those conversations are like now. Yeah, so I think the best way to do it is to give some examples, right? So we've announced that we won Fanatics, right? So Fanatics is going to have a sportsbook, obviously, in this country, and they have a database of sports fans that's, quite frankly, unequal to any. I don't know anybody who's got that kind of sports. Everybody who ever bought a shirt of any team ever, right? They have that information on. And we were able to sell them our acquiring capabilities, but also our wallet, right? We can offer a branded wallet, we can offer a white-labelable wallet, right? So this is where you start seeing that same thing with PENN, right, in the ESPN deal, right? We were offered—I mean, again, you would, you would assume that with the power of ESPN, and I assume they will be advertising on ESPN quite a lot when they launch their sportsbook. Again, we won the deal both on acquiring side and on wallet side. So as you said, we go in now with one voice. We offer a suite of products, and we let our customers and we give them a solution that not a lot of people can offer, right? A lot of people can offer the pieces, but not a lot of people can offer that solution. And I think on a gambling side, in particular, particularly when it comes to the U.S., we have such a brand name in gambling. We've been in gambling for so long in Europe, it's such a big part of our business. About 30% of our revenue comes from gambling. We recognize as somebody who understand gambling, understand risk management, understand VIPs capability, and that's why we're able to win. But again, it's a suite of products that we're winning with. Yeah. So what's interesting is like you went from 30 to, I think, 37 to 45 enterprise clients, I think is what you just announced yesterday. And so... Are those consolidated clients typically in, you know, the gaming side, or are you finding there's opportunities to branch outside of that? In other words, are you going back to your sweet spot, and then maybe going back to, you know, where you have a back book that you should be, and then bringing in net new clients, or are these existing clients? I think it's both. So I think we're very strong and we're winning in the gaming space, but we're also focused on some of the financial services. We're also focused on travel, and some of the other verticals. Gaming, not gambling, but gaming per se. Yeah. Right? In all of those cases, we can offer that suite of products. And I think we've been successful. By the way, just for people here, when we talk about, you know, we play in the SMB space, right? So when we talk about enterprise clients, we're talking about $100,000 a year of revenue. So we're not talking about—I'm not talking about some massive, you know, massive companies. So we are very focused on that SMB space, in terms of where we look to get business. Yep. So let's take a moment and talk about the merchant solutions business for a minute. The first thing I kinda wanna just talk about is really the margins, because, you know, if we think about last quarter versus this quarter, it's, it's quite a bit different, right? Last quarter, I think you had some mix shift issues with some third-party demand that was coming in, that kind of put a little pressure on the margins. But then we sit here today, and I think you have, you know, you've done margins of, like, 26% or something on a year-over-year basis. So maybe walk us through how that has changed, even in such a short period of time. Because it's a pivot, but some of it's mix shift, and how sustainable should we be thinking about those margins going forward? Yeah, so the mix shift. So when you're comparing Q3 of this year to Q3 of last year, there's some easier comps for us. But in terms of, but if you just look at, but the quarter is very clean. So what you see is effectively what you get. The mix shift continues to be not something we like, right? So we're still getting a lot more of our merchant acquiring revenue from third-party acquirers, ISOs, rather than direct, and those ISOs get paid commission or a residual, so the margin is lower. We were very transparent. We said, "Listen, this is one of the things we need to fix." Now, what we've been doing because the business has economies of scale and efficiency, we've been while the margin has not been going in our way, gross margin, we've been reducing costs, being more efficient, so the EBITDA margin continues to drive higher. We're able to do that. But if we are able to turn around the direct channel, that should help us with the gross margin as well. But as of right now, that mix hasn't changed. We're still getting significantly more business out of the third-party ISO channel, rather than our direct channel. Okay. I forget, have you been sharing that mix with people in terms of what percentage that is direct versus, kind of ISO these days, or? I forgot now. Okay, forget. What is it, Kirsten? Just segment, it's think of it as half direct and half indirect. Yep. Direct would also include the e-commerce verticals, right? Which is growing pretty fast too. Okay. But if you really split that down, it's kind of 10%-12% e-com channel, 48% indirect. Got it. And then the balance, right, 47, 50, that indirect. Got it. It should have some take on the mix, but that's not from... Okay. And so part of that growth, as we think about it going forward, is the natural progression of the mix. Yes. Right? The weighted average contribution of these fast growth areas with higher margins- That would be, that would be ideal. … should be the- Yeah. The biggest- That's what, that's what we're looking for. That's what we're looking to do. The biggest driver. Okay. And when you're out there competing for business, again, staying kind of more or less within the, the merchant solutions side of business who are you finding that you, you are bumping up against? Or would you say it differently, like maybe last year at this time, you would've been bumping up against more people, and now because of your go-to-market motion, there's fewer people that compete? I honestly don't think it's changing. It's all of the names that you, that everybody knows. There's no... I mean, but I think we're competing with the same people, but we can offer a solution that is maybe different, because we can bundle some of these products together. But I don't see really any change in competition. But you know, I think there is... Our offering is a differentiated one because of this combination, and we're able to win a lot of that business. Yep. What about the pricing environment, maybe more astutely within the acquiring space? I know there's been a lot of conversation, you know, that's really come from more the big e-com players and stuff like that. But, like, even still with where you guys compete, you feel like it's- I have to tell you, I mean, we've raised prices a couple times over the year, in the year, and so the SMBs, I think as long as we continue to provide value, I don't see a big pricing pressure for us, to be honest. At least at this point, it's just not happening right now. We're able to maintain prices and raise prices. Okay. You think that's a function of what? The mix of clients you're dealing with or the product offering that you're bringing to bear? It's probably all of that, right? I mean, you know, these are smaller clients. And I think the product offering is good, and we constantly trying to improve the service, constantly. You know, the idea here of just raising prices without offering anything is something we try to avoid. So there's a—if there's an opportunity to offer additional services, as an example, like we're gonna launch this merchant wallet. So today, wallet is obviously just for consumers mostly. But we're gonna launch a merchant wallet, where we're gonna go to merchant and say, "Listen, you know, we can settle your all your purchases or all your revenues into the wallet," right? But that's just the start. If you view the wallet as a platform right, you can then say to yourself, "Well, I can offer you some additional services," for instance, right? I can... You know, "You've got two pizzerias, you've got five employees, I can offer you payroll services. I can offer you a working capital lending facility. I will, I will simply plug in third-party, I will not take any risk. I'll plug in third-party operators into that." So you could, yes, you can go and find all of them yourself, of course you can. But we'll try to bring it forward for you and put it all in under one roof in your wallet, so you get your money in your wallet, you're able to make payments out of it, you can pay your suppliers out of the wallet, you can get working capital, you can buy insurance out of the wallet. And if you could do that, and if at least the initial reaction from customers is, "It's quite interesting for us," right? "'Cause we don't have to be running around and looking for all these things." And it's à la carte. You wanna get this, you get... That's another couple of dollars a month. You don't want it, you don't get it, you don't pay, right? So I think there is an opportunity there, and, and the customers seem to be, at least right now, they seem to be responding. Now, we'll, we'll launch it in a very, very small way, a small way at the end of this year, and then we'll slowly, slowly start to roll it out. So again, too early to declare victory but, you know, when we talk to customers, they go, "Yeah, that makes sense for us. One place where we can get all our cash in there, and we have all kinds of services we can use. Yep. Let's pivot a little bit and go to kind of iGaming, maybe more specifically North America iGaming for the moment. And just talk about what that landscape looks like for you guys today. How big are you? How many states are you in? And then talk about, you know, the product portfolio that you can bring to bear, and how that's changed, really, in the past 12 months. We're in 30 states, right? We continue to grow, and we've got 50-something operators that work with us, that we work with. We are, I think we're viewed as experts in this. I think when I mention, things like, PENN and, Fanatics, these, I think, are some of the people that have a... That first of all, they understand gambling. And secondly, I think that they really have a real opportunity to really explore this market. I mean, the market is really fledgling, three players. It's you know, U.S. is very different from Europe, right? So, Europe consolidated, but at first it was just many, many players. Here, you got a lot of players, but you got all the volumes really concentrated in a couple of players. But I think as some of these other guys come in, there'll be more going on, there'll be. And hopefully, that will drive the market forward. But I think we have a real. I mean, we're well-known as a company that understands gambling, understands risk management, and understands how to deal with VIPs, which not everybody understands. Those who don't gamble, it's a complicated thing to deal with people who gamble huge amounts of money and try to win all the time. So, you know, it's something that operators appreciate the fact that we have some experience in the whole risk management capabilities. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that for a minute, because risk management, authorization rates, the ability to get things approved, how much you're willing to put, you know, kind of in terms of the underwriting process, so to speak, on these operators. Like, talk about that area of expertise. I mean, you alluded to it, but let's talk about what those drivers really are. Well, I think the fact that all of these operators are using us, kinda... I mean, I don't wanna get into very, very specific detail, but the fact that they're all using us and we're winning what I consider to be some of the better deals in the space, certainly in the U.S., tells you that obviously we have some capabilities that they like. I think the wallet capabilities, whether it's our brand or white label brand, is going to be very attractive. It's a very attractive way to get your brand out there as well. And to be honest with you, we can take that much further. We can work with sports teams. We can work with leagues, right? We can brand, we can create a wallet with any-with a race car team, right? Anybody. Anything we can do. So, I think there are some opportunities there. But, I mean, it's a very, I mean, U.S. iGaming is a very, very small business for us, but in a quarter, it grew 50%, right? So you gotta figure you're doing something right. Yep. So let's talk about branded versus white label wallets for a moment, since you brought that up. Where is the preponderance of the demand in that environment? Because you have a very strong brand when we think about the European construct for your company, and it's still being built, you know, quite frankly, in the U.S. But then you have this white label capability, which maybe is something that will supersede maybe brand initially. So how do we think about which one's gonna be driving most of the growth, at least in the near term? I honestly don't know. I mean, the honest answer is, what I love is the fact that we give this flexibi- we have this flexibility to offer operators whatever they want. Now, will we ever be as big as ESPN brand is in this? Of course not. We won't, right? So there is an opportunity for some of these operators to do a white Label solution if they so desire... but if they like our brand, then if they, you know, it's okay. Economics for us is very similar, so there isn't really a huge difference, but I think the fact that we can offer those choices makes us unique. Yep, okay. Let's talk about the digital wallet. Let's talk about classic digital wallet first, and then I guess broadly. But, like, the classic digital wallet, some of the statistics that came out were pretty strong. So your average transaction, like, per user, I think, was up 40%. Right. Your ARPU within that on a constant currency basis was up 18%. I mean, these are big, these are big differences, we're kind of relative to what we've seen out of you guys over the past really couple of quarters. So what, what's the catalyst? Like, what just triggered that much improvement? I think it's simply focus and execution. I mean, quite honestly, we didn't... It's not like I can tell you that we did one something that drove all of that, right? We look at it, we make the wallets easier, we want people to use it, to use it more, right? We make it easy for you to get money in, we make easy for you to get money out. You know, we're constantly refining the capabilities. We have a lot of user groups, that they're using, you know, what people want. We talk to our customers. So I think it's just that today, digital wallet became a real company focus. Everybody in the company is focused on trying to drive it, right? Yep. I think that those are some of the results, but it isn't any kind of sea change. There isn't some kind of a big thing that causes this. It's the slow and steady march forward. Okay. And you just posted, I think, 5% revenue constant currency and 7% EBITDA. So how are you... I know you kind of gave some targets, but, like, how are you thinking about the trajectory of that business, I mean, ending this year, but as you think about where it could land in 2024, is it a jumping-off point from these levels that should accelerate, or how do you think about it? What we also said is that mid-term target, 2025, we said high single-digit, low double-digit growth, right? Yep. We said we will continue to expand the EBITDA margins, right? Which is- which we've been doing, and we- I'm sure we'll continue to do. We've got e-commerce growing double digits. We've got, we've got, you know, merchant solution business, particularly third-party channel, growing double digit. We've got, wallet, digital wallet growing double digit. What we need is we need eCash to grow. It's never gonna grow double-digit. You're talking about single, mid-single-digit, but we would like to get there, right? We need to do that. We would like the direct channel to grow, as well as the third-party channel growing which is low double digits. If we can achieve that, we will be well on our way to the targets. Yep, okay. So most of the focus is, like, digital wallet, very, very key point of interest for the company. And I suspect eCash hasn't gotten as much attention, maybe. So what do you guys have to do in order to kind of rightsize that ship to your- So I think that's so everything couldn't get all the attention all at once, right? So I think- Right ... that's, that's unfortunately the problem. But I think, I think with the eCash business, we have to, you know, we have to the one, one thing with eCash, which hasn't happened until now, is we didn't offer it to our acquiring customers. Like, we never went to them and said, "By the way, we have this eCash capability, where you could also, where you can also take an advantage of." As simple as that. What, what we're doing now is we're just going to, you know, we're just going to customers say, "Well, I know you understand you want acquiring, and, you know, you want e-commerce, whatever, but we also have this other product." And then we explain what, what, what you can do, right? So I think that's one of the things that is going to drive that business. We're also very focusing on a different kind of a marketing campaigns, more targeted marketing campaigns, to try to gain some of the newer users, as well. And then obviously to keep users, to you know transaction. Engaged. Yeah T ransacting. We have a lot of registered users, which transact and stay with us, and then we have a large percentage of unregistered users, who simply do it once and then leave, right? So the idea of taking that unregistered user and converting them into a registered user and letting that... You know, these are the kind of focus, that these are the things we're now focused on to try to make it grow. Right. Hopefully it will work. Are you seeing any noticeable distinction in terms of the user itself? Meaning, like, there's concerns that, like, you know, the mass affluent and affluent is doing well, but the less affluents are kind of starting to show signs of weakness. eCash is obviously not a mass affluent product, right? Right. So, like, are you seeing any of those dynamics at work that are causing you to be, you know, a little more concerned about whether or not it's not just a fix of the product, but it's the consumer base that uses it? I think right now we believe that it is more to do with our execution. Yeah. Right? And if we fix our execution, you may be right. If we fix our execution, nothing's happened, then we're gonna have to say, "Well, maybe this is with the market." But today, I think the real focus, just like with digital wallet was, just like with, e-commerce was, right, the, the, the real focus is on trying to fix that problem, make it an easier product to use. I mean, Bruce, our CEO, told me a story. He went... We, you know, we, our headquarters are in Jacksonville, Florida. He walked into the store and tried to buy our eCash product, and the sales clerk behind the counter said, "I don't know how to do that." Now, they sell our product. He didn't know how to do it. He didn't know how to help a customer buy this product, right? So this is like, this is not good. We need to not only get these merchants, they need to be able to explain to people what it is that, you know, what it is that they're buying, you know, when somebody requests it, right? So this is the kind of stuff we're focused on. And I don't wanna completely dismiss the idea of economics, but I don't think we're there yet. Yeah. I think we have some real problems to fix. You got real technical issues within the product to get through, and that that in and of itself might open up a funnel. You know, I wanna talk about leverage here. You, you continue to kind of march down and bring it down. I think it was 5.1 turns at the end of the quarter. Right. Tell us again, you're targeting, I think, five for the end of the year, your longer term- By the end of the year, by the end of 2026, 3.5 times... we're marching very, very, very, very assuredly to that, to those goals. I think, we are a very cash-generative business, and, the one thing, one of the reasons why I came a year ago, 'cause I looked at the business, I said, "Listen, there is no question here that you could de-leverage, you can invest in the business for growth, and there'd be a little bit left after that." So, I think we're in a very unique position to generate that kind of cash in our business, and we are, we will absolutely continue to deleverage. For the first nine months, we bought back $112 million of our debt. We'll certainly buy more in Q4. We will be... You know, as I said, I, my, my expectation will be buying about $130 million-$135 million every year of the debt. Our EBITDA continues to expand, our full leverage cash will come down, and we've, we've announced even a buyback. I mean, I think at the end of the day, where our share valuation is right now, it's a very, very attractive time to, to buy some of those shares. But the focus will absolutely continue to be on deleverage and investing in the business, and what... And only the remainder, which there is still a remainder, believe it or not, that we, we, we'll be using for those reasons, as well as for some small M&As. I don't expect any large M&As anytime soon, but small M&A, small bolt-on things we do. Yeah, I was surprised to see the buyback announcement, I have to say. It wasn't huge, $50 million, but, like, nonetheless, it's not a token either, considering you're gonna pay that much down in terms of leverage every year. So, like, I guess, how did that discussion even get broached? Obviously, the stock has not been where you guys want it, but, like, there's a big capital allocation decision to be made, and then how do you decide, like, if you're gonna actually put that to work? Well, I think that's the point. The point is that actually, the big capital allocation is going to be made together. You know, it doesn't really impact this particular buyback. Now, it's gonna be small. Don't get me wrong, right? It's $50 million, it's gonna be over time. We left ourselves all kinds of flexibility. There is no reason, you know, we don't have anything that forces us to buy anything. The board is very. You know, obviously, they agreed with us, but also we, you know, this is. If there is some kind of opportunity, if we see something, we'll stop, and we'll do that. But I think at our share price today, and you look at the valuation of the company, you kind of go, where is the better way? You know, how can you get a better return, quite honestly, right? I mean, you're looking at the, you know, company at $500 million valuation, you know, $1.6 billion in revenue, you know, $400 million+ EBITDA, and we generate $350 million of cash a year, right? So it just kinda, it just kinda makes sense. But again, only as, as you continue to be committed to getting those leverage targets down to where you need to get to, and the, the board is totally, completely on board with that. Yeah. Now, you mentioned, like, very small, like, targeted tuck-in acquisitions. Where would they fall? Like, are they gonna fall more in wallet... Like, I guess when we sit here and we think about all the incarnations of your product portfolio, you're gonna wanna fill them in, I'm assuming, if there are big, big gaps. Like, where would they, where would they come from? I think we ask ourselves a question: How do we accelerate our business, right? So, you know, like for instance, we talked about just now, our ISO channel is growing much better than our direct channel. What it is is the bunch of... There are companies out there that have sales force that know how to do this better than we do, apparently. Well, it's just a no-brainer that maybe they can come and work for us, so maybe we can get them to come to work for us, and maybe that means acquiring something or maybe, you know, yeah, maybe just hiring them, I don't know. Yeah. But there's stuff like this. When we look at wallet, right, we said, "Look, wallet is great in Europe. We know what we're gonna do in the U.S. We're gonna do this merchant wallet. But what about Latin America?" We are, we're growing in Latin America. It's a great, very important business for us. Why not take a look at, you know, is there, you know, if there's somebody who already has the licenses and the opportunities, why not take a look at this? So what we're going to be looking at is anything that is strategically, you know, valid in terms of how we want our strategy to develop. It's going to be small, and it needs to accelerate that growth, right? So I think that's kind of... Those are the things we've looked at. But they'll be small, and, quite frankly, I don't know how many that we'll find. Okay. So we're just under a minute here. Let me ask you just one last question. When you think about, like, thematically for us, we're looking for names next year that have some, like, non-cyclical overlays or incremental market share or opportunities that are not just completely predicated off the same-store sales growth. How do you feel about your business if you're thinking about it in that light? Well, we've made a huge investment in the sales force, right? And the one thing that the sales force has to do is drive new business, new enterprise business, which again, we call 100,000 an enterprise customer. So I think, quite honestly, I think what... You know, we look at their pipeline, and this is what we have to see. We have to see that operating well. We have to see this combination of wallet acquiring, eCash working together to drive that kind of growth. We same-store sales growth absolutely are going to continue, there's no question. But in order to get into that double-digit levels in order to get to, to those levels, we're gonna need to start firing on all cylinders with the, what is currently new business, right? Yeah. So, no question. And, you know, if Rob Gatto was here, he would tell you about all the clients that he's signing. You mentioned the number of clients we're signing. Yep. And we even established a separate group, which I was very pleased about, that once we sign the customer, we need the customer to transact. We need the volume, right? Because signing a customer means nothing in our business. So what you need to do, so we have a group that after effectively now manages that customer, goes to the customer, talk to the customer saying, "What happened? You know, why is your volume here and you were expecting to be here? What can we do?" So this constant handholding to try to drive the volumes up is a real focus for the company. We absolutely need to get to those double-digit growth, we absolutely need those new sales to fire on all cylinders. Got it. Great. We're really looking forward to seeing where this heads going into the next year and it sounds like you got a great momentum. Thank you. That's right. Thanks so much, Alex, I appreciate it.