EVO Payments, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Evo Payments first quarter 2021 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ed O'Hare, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Evo Payments' first quarter earnings conference call. This call is being webcast today and a replay will be available through the Investor Relations section of Evo's website shortly after the completion of this call. Please note that some of the information you will hear during our discussion today will will consist of forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on currently available information, and actual results may differ materially from the views expressed in these statements, particularly due to the impact of COVID-19 on our business. For additional information on factors that may cause our actual results to differ from the views expressed in any forward-looking statements made today, please refer to today's press release and the risk factors discussed in our periodic reports filed with the SEC. including our 2020 10-K, which is available on our website. In an effort to provide additional information to investors, today's discussion also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures. An explanation and reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the nearest GAAP financial measures can be found in our earnings release available on our investor relations website. We have also posted slides on our website detailing recent volume trends for the company to further assist with today's discussion. Today, we will discuss our first quarter results and provide an update on the impact the pandemic is having on our business. Joining me on the call is Jim Kelly, Chief Executive Officer, Tom Panther, Chief Financial Officer, Darren Wilson, President of the International Segment, and Brendan Tanso, President of the America Segment. I will now turn the call over to Jim.

Thank you, Ed. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. It's hard to believe that it's been over a year since the COVID-19 pandemic first swept across the globe. While today, many of our international markets remain under lockdown, we continue to be encouraged by recent volume trends across the company as vaccination programs gain momentum and markets reopen. For the first quarter, volumes were down 2% compared to 2020, which reflects the lapping of the initial impact of the pandemic beginning in March. This slight decline in year-over-year volume demonstrates an improvement from the fourth quarter when our volumes were down 4% year-over-year. As you can see from the slides, compared to 2020, March volumes were up 17% and April volumes were up 48%. Compared to 2019, March and April volumes were up mid to high single digits. These positive growth trends not only capture the lapping of the initial COVID impact, but also demonstrate growth relative to pre-pandemic levels, despite the ongoing restrictions. These results give us confidence that both consumers and merchants are embracing card payments, a trend we believe will continue well beyond the pandemic. Later on the call, Darren and Brendan will discuss the reopening trajectory of each of our markets to provide a better understanding of our current operating environment and, more importantly, the developments we anticipate as the vaccine rollouts continue. Turning to our financial performance, compared to the first quarter of 2020, on a constant currency basis, revenue declined 6%, while adjusted EBITDA increased 6%, and margin expanded 360 basis points to 32%. These results reflect the ongoing impact of the COVID-related restrictions offset by our continued expense management. Tom will cover our first quarter financial performance in more detail later on the call. As more restrictions are lifted and global economic activity resumes, we continue to anticipate a strong recovery in the second half of this year and believe pent-up consumer demand and increases in personal savings will fuel significant consumer spending across our markets. For example, in the UK, which is our first European country to have transitioned into a phased reopening plan, we have seen an immediate spike in volumes across all categories. Based on these recent results, coupled with our experience last summer, which you can see in our volume slides, we believe that similar trends will be replicated in our other markets when they reopen, resulting in strong organic growth and margin expansion. Looking out to the remainder of 2021, we remain keenly focused on M&A and continue to evaluate a range of potential opportunities to expand our distribution and product capabilities. As our international markets recover, we anticipate an increase in activity with many financial institutions evaluating their payment capabilities and capital needs in light of the pandemic. Given the significant actions we have taken to improve our liquidity and reduce our leverage, we are well positioned to execute on our M&A strategy of expanding distribution through international bank partnerships and enhancing our tech-enabled capabilities. I will now turn the call over to Darren to discuss our European business in more detail. Darren?