CPI Card Group Inc.

This quarter, we've continued to win share and are now serving all of the top prepaid program managers in the U.S., further strengthening our position as the center of the prepaid market and creating new opportunities to deliver our secure packaging solutions. We are making good progress with Carta on our joint pilot to launch prepaid packages with safe-to-buy chip-embedded technology at one of the largest U.S. national retailers, and we are seeing encouraging signs in the adoption of closed-loop. a market where we estimate is approximately five times the size of OpenLoop. Given our leadership position in prepaid packaging, chip-enabled solutions, and customer relationships, we believe CPI is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the prepaid market as it actions to reduce fraud. Altogether, these wins across our business are a great example of how CPI is leveraging both physical and digital payment solutions to create value for customers and drive profitable growth. Turning to slide four, let me briefly remind everyone of the foundation of our strategy. Everything we do is built around three core growth pillars, our proprietary technology platform, our marketable base of thousands of customer relationships across the payments ecosystem, and our ability to deliver innovative payment solutions that evolve alongside market needs. These pillars continue to drive growth and diversification across the company, and our acquisition of TRISM instant issuance is an excellent example of that strategy in action. Turning to slide five, TRSM expands our leadership position in the attractive U.S. instant issuance market and roughly doubles our instant issuance addressable market by enabling us to serve larger financial institutions that prefer an on-premise solution. The acquisition increases our instant issuance presence to nearly 20,000 locations across over 3,000 financial institutions, adds recurring revenue, and long-term customer relationships and creates attractive cross-selling opportunities across CPI's broader portfolio. I met with the TRISM team last week, and on behalf of the leadership team and all of CPI, we are excited to have TRISM as part of our team. TRISM is expected to increase integrated pay tech growth to approximately 20% in 2026 while maintaining a gross margin profile of over 50%, consistent with our existing integrated pay tech business. Additionally, This acquisition had little impact on leverage, enabling us to complete the strategic acquisition while maintaining our disciplined approach to capital allocation. In summary, we delivered an excellent second quarter. We gained share, generated strong revenue growth and profitability expansion, delivered record first half free cash flow, and continued to improve our balance sheet. We are executing our strategy to grow and diversify the business, positioning CPI well for the second half of the year and beyond. With that, I'll turn the call over to Terra to provide more detail on our financial results and outlook for the remainder of the year.

Thanks, John. Before I begin, I'd like to thank John, our Board of Directors, and the entire CPI team for their confidence and support as I take on the CFO role. I look forward to continuing to partner with our leadership team as we execute our strategy, drive profitable growth, and create long-term value for our shareholders. I'll begin with our consolidated revenue and profitability results on slide seven. We are pleased with our second quarter and first half financial performance. Our strong results for the second quarter were better than our expectations, although the mix of performance across the business evolved as the first half progressed. Strong performance in Secure Card Solutions helped offset a slower than expected start to the year in prepaid solutions. Revenue increased 15% in the second quarter to $149 million compared to $130 million in the prior year period, driven by increased volumes of contactless cards and higher personalization solutions, as well as contributions from the acquisition of Arrow Eye. Excluding Arrow Eye, total organic revenue grew 12% in the second quarter, reflecting the underlying strength of our business. Second quarter gross profit increased 21%, resulting in a gross profit margin of 32.5% in the second quarter, an increase of approximately 160 basis points from 30.9% in the prior year period, primarily driven by a benefit of more than $3 million of tariff refunds. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA was $24 million, representing growth of 7% driven by revenue growth and the benefits of tariff refunds. Gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margins were impacted by unfavorable segment mix due to softness and higher margin prepaid revenue that was partially offset by continued growth in SecureCard solutions, which, while profitable, carries lower margins than our prepaid business. SG&A expenses were $37 million in the second quarter compared to $31 million in the prior year period. The increase in SG&A was driven by airway integration expenses and investments in digital and technology as we fuel our efforts to grow and diversify in our higher margin, more recurring revenue businesses like Card at Once and digital. Integration and transaction-related costs Primarily related to ROI were nearly $3 million in the second quarter. We expect these to be significantly lower in the second half of the year. We will have TRISM integration expenses in the second half, but at significantly lower spend levels. These investments have and will continue to support our long-term growth strategy through expanded capabilities and revenue and operating synergies. and as a reminder, these costs are not included in adjusted EBITDA, but do impact net income. We are driving initiatives designed to improve margins over time. During the second quarter, we progressed supplier negotiations, realized incremental acquisition synergies, including freight, scale efficiencies, advanced worksite optimization across our secure card solutions footprint, and moved our automation initiatives forward. We also continued our focus on expanding our growth in higher margin solutions, including metal cards in our integrated pay tax segment. While some of these initiatives are already generating benefits, we expect a larger impact as we move through the year. Turning to our segment results on slide eight. In Secure Card Solutions, second quarter revenue increased 17% to $111 million driven by increased volumes of contactless cards, higher personalization, and $5 million of ROI contribution. Excluding ROI, second quarter organic revenue in a SecureCard segment increased 13% with strong underlying growth in our largest segment. In prepaid solutions, second quarter revenue increased 18% to $23 million, primarily due to a change in accounting that was implemented in the second quarter of 2025, partially offset by comparisons with strong sales of higher value packaging solutions in the prior year period. As I shared at the start of my remarks, we experienced a slower than expected start to the year in prepaid as customer ordering patterns remained uneven. While the recovery has been slower than originally anticipated, we continue to be well-positioned to capture new revenue opportunities in this market, including in closed loop, where we are continuing to see strong customer interest and in our strategic partnership with Carta. Within integrated paytech, second quarter revenue increased 4%, driven by increased Card at Once revenue and a very small contribution from the TRISM instant issuance acquisition which closed in late June. We continue to expect integrated pay tech to deliver approximately 20% growth for the full year, an increase from 15% expected at the start of the year. While this implies a significant increase in growth in the second half of the year, we have confidence in this expectation based upon continued adoption of our card at once and digital solutions contributions from TRISM, and the benefits of favorable comps versus the prior year. We generated exceptional cash flow in the first half of the year. Cash flow from operating activities was a record $42 million in the first half compared with $10 million in the prior year period. Free cash flow was $36 million compared with $1 million in the prior year period driven by lower working capital usage including reductions in chip inventory, a strong Secure Card Solutions performance, accelerated inventory optimization initiatives. Our free cash flow through the first six months of the year is a record for the company. Capital expenditures totaled $6 million in the first half down from $9 million in the prior year period as capital spending last year included investments for our new Indiana production facility. We now expect full-year CapEx to be slightly below our 2025 levels, driven by a reduction in certain equipment investments and lower software capitalization and plans. We are focusing CapEx on growing our digital solutions, enhancing our technology, driving automation, and other key growth investments. On the balance sheet, at quarter end, we had $21 million of cash, $92 million of available borrowing capacity under our ABL revolver, and $265 million of senior notes outstanding prior to our $26.5 million senior note redemption in mid-July. Net leverage ended the quarter at 2.7 times, down from 3.6 times at this point last year. The progress on our balance sheet reflects our commitment to deleveraging and reducing our interest expense while continuing to grow adjusted EBITDA. Wrapping up with our 2026 financial outlook on slide 10. As John shared at the beginning of the call, we are pleased to be increasing our 2026 financial guidance on revenue growth and free cash flow while holding our guidance on adjusted EBITDA and year-end net leverage. Our adjusted EBITDA outlook remains unchanged as the benefits from stronger Secure Card Solutions performance and tariff refunds are expected to largely be offset by continued investment in integrated pay tech and ongoing choppiness in our higher margin prepaid solutions segment. We now expect revenue growth of high single digits to low double digits, adjusted EBITDA growth of low to mid single digits, Free cash flow ranging from $45 to $50 million, an increase from our prior guidance of a conversion rate in line with 2025. 2025 free cash flow was $41 million. Year-end net leverage from 2.5 times to 3.0 times. And as we already shared, we are raising our integrated pay tax segment revenue growth from 15% to approximately 20% helped by our acquisition of TRISM. Overall, our first half results keep us on track to achieve our updated full year objectives. We currently expect third quarter revenue and adjusted EBITDA to be slightly better than the second quarter as we progress toward our updated guidance. The actions we are taking to grow the business, expand our market opportunity, improve margins, and generate strong cash flow position us well for the remainder of 2026 and beyond. I'll now turn the call back to John for some closing remarks.

Thanks, Terra. We delivered a strong first half of 2026, achieving double-digit revenue growth and record-free cash flow while continuing to execute on our strategy to grow and diversify the business. We expanded our digital and cloud capabilities, secured exciting customer wins, completed another strategic acquisition, and continued building momentum across our portfolio. At the same time, we strengthen our balance sheet, reduce debt, and maintain the flexibility to invest in future growth while creating value for shareholders. As I wrap up today's remarks, I want to recognize the CPI team for delivering a strong first half and positioning us for an even stronger second half of 2026. We have a robust sales pipeline, an increasingly high-quality recurring revenue customer base, and a clear focus on generating profitable growth. Operator, we will now open the call up for questions.

We will now open the call for your questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Peter Heckman with D.A. Davidson. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Good to see the nice, strong first half results. I had a question on the TRISM acquisition. I inferred that this is a relatively small deal. I think in the original press release, you said that you didn't expect and many more. in the instant card issuance market. And so absorbing this one should really help your competitive position. And so you can talk a little bit about what attributes the deal brings to CPI.

Yeah, Pete, good morning.

Good question.

No problem jumping on late. We can cover that. So just to start, you know, TRSM is a great strategic acquisition for us. You think about our position. in the instant issuance market broadly. We historically have been the market leader by far in software as a service, kind of cloud-based solution where you're servicing those small to medium banks that don't have the ability to manage their own technology. We would also compete against a couple other players that would have on-premise solutions where they're typically servicing the larger banks with a greater number of locations that have large technology operations that can manage things on their own, and they want that somewhat. They want to buy the software, but they want to manage it on-site on their own. And so TRISM fits into that latter mold, so it really grows our addressable market essentially double from where we were, and a great investment for us. That said, going to your other question, size-wise, we talked about TRISM increasing our integrated pay tech segment guidance this year from 15% to 20%. If you just ran that math, that's roughly, you know, three and a half, four million is what we expect for the latter part of this year. That said, that's because we're getting them kind of up and running under the CPI umbrella. We would expect that run rate to be double and probably a little bit larger in 2027. So don't want to necessarily give guidance yet, but I wouldn't expect just to be able to double that. And that's the guidance for 27, put it that way. Pete, does that answer your question?

Your next question comes from the line of Jacob Stefan with Lake Street Capital Market. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Appreciate you taking the questions. First, maybe just kind of building off of that last one on TRSM. When I look at IPT, it grew kind of low single digits in the first half, but your fiscal year guide is 20%. I think TRISM is probably in the $3 million to $4 million range. What's the other $10 million that you're expecting to ramp in the second half?

Yeah, hey, morning, Jacob. So really three things. One, our Card at Once business, We do have strong confidence in kind of the second half of the year. We see the line of sight to greater growth there, and that's good for us. You add in tourism, that's, as I mentioned, a small percentage of the growth. And then if you just look at comparables for 26 compared to 25, Q3 was a pretty good quarter in 26, but Q4 in 25 was a little bit slower of a quarter. We would expect fairly strong growth in Q3 for integrated pay tech segment and very strong growth in Q4-26 for integrated pay tech. So we're confident in the business and our line of sight to hit the 20% guidance for the year.

Okay, great. Maybe just on Secure Card, you know, that was up 25% in the first half. I guess how much of the incremental was, you know, ROI versus kind of your organic contactless personalization? And can that kind of maintain against, you know, as we look at the second half of the year?

Yeah, so I think if you look, Jacob, at our organic growth, it was also very strong in the first half of the year and in Q2. So overall for CPI, our organic growth for Q2 was 12%, and for the first half was 14%, and the majority of that was driven by strong organic growth in Secure Card Solutions.

Okay. Last one for me, you know, just on the free cash flow, obviously 36 million is outstanding in the first half. I guess, you know, with your guide, you know, being your commentary being 45 to 50, what kind of reverses in the second half and how much inventory kind of releases is left in the model?

Well, Jacob, yeah. First, I'd say I just want to thank the team. I mean, we had a tremendous amount of cash flow in the second quarter. That's a really first half is a record for us. You know, the performance in the business is really driving what I would say significant volume growth, which ultimately drives inventory optimization, which we've been pushing to do for a period of time post-COVID. And so we knew we'd get to this point, but, you know, now we look forward and We're excited about the cash flow prospectively, but I'll let Terra cover kind of second half.

Yeah, so again, I'll echo what John said. Very happy with our pre-cash flow performance in the first half. And a lot of that was driven by inventory. I would say acceleration of our inventory optimization. And I do want to say we actually continue to focus on that, and we expect our inventory to continue to improve in the second half. but we do have some other items in the second half that are will not be as positive in the first half primarily kind of around our you know our AR and AP which we did have some timing things there so really good performance in the first half and some of that was you know team efforts and strong working capital management but we also had a little bit of timing and then we do expect a higher CapEx in the second half as well but Overall, we're very focused on continuing to drive cash flow, super excited about that strong performance and strong working capital management as we continue to go forward.

Okay, great. I appreciate all the color. I'll turn it over.

Thanks, Jacob.

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Heckman with D.A. Davidson. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, John, sorry about that. I was on mute and I did have a follow-up question, but your answer to the prior question on TRIS was very helpful. Just thinking about, and again, I apologize if I missed it, but could you just go into a little bit of detail in terms of progress on anti-fraud packaging, on closed-loop prepaid cards, if you've had any progress there, and whether or not you have had any change in terms of your thoughts about the relative opportunity there over the next 18 months?

Yeah, Pete, no problem. And good question. The prepaid market broadly, you know, we said this in the last couple quarters, I think we're extremely well positioned for what may occur on a go-for basis. You know, just like any other market, things change on a kind of a slow basis, if you know what I mean. So it's hard to put a specific date on changes but if you think about the two big markets right open loop where we've been a leader for a long time closed loop where we're just entering into closed loops about five times the size of open loop from a volume perspective and the value of closed loop continues to rise as there's regulation changing in states and retailers merchandisers essentially demanding greater packaging around closed-loop cards. And that's where we fit in because we're the largest prepaid packager in the United States by far. And on the open-loop side, when you add in our ability to take our chip expertise, if you will, that we have on the secure card solution side, the IPT side, that is something that we're already in pilot. with one of the largest national retailers in the United States. We're kind of in the second stages of that pilot. Seems to be going well. So just like anything else, you know, things take time, but we're excited about the opportunity. And again, wouldn't put a number on what that means for 27 or 28, but I will say we're happy about our position in the market and we're excited about what's to come in pre-pay broadly.

Okay, that's helpful. And then just last question on... On metal cards, I know it's a very small portion of your overall business, but I do think it's getting bigger. If I remember correctly, you had a pretty good year last year, and I think I've seen a couple of advertisements here and there. Can you talk a little bit about how your metal cards differ from maybe the other major metal card provider and where you see some opportunities there?

Yeah, good question. You know, we didn't really cover it this morning, but we did have decent metal sales in Q2. We had pretty strong metal sales in Q1. Just a much smaller part of the business. That said, where we compete is at a more value price point than some of our competitors, but also while providing a high value kind of marketable product, if you will. The latest one that our teams have been working on is almost like an on-demand metal product. And that we've been slightly advertising, I'd say it's kind of in early days, but metal is a market we will continue to participate in, continue to innovate in. And we feel like our value proposition within the market, especially for those thousands of small to medium banks we serve, we feel like we're well positioned to capitalize on metal as it continues to grow from a market perspective.

Great. Okay. I appreciate it. Have a good day. Yep. Thanks, Pete.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Scutt with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey. Good morning, guys, and thank you for taking my questions and that continued progress. First, going to piggyback off the previous just question on prepaid. Just outside the packaging, you guys kind of mentioned a little bit of lumpiness in demand in the quarter. Can you guys just kind of talk about what pockets you're kind of seeing that are working and maybe some of the areas where demand might be lagging a little bit behind expectations?

Yeah, I mean, I think we said this, we knew the first half of the year would be a little bit weak. I'd say the second half, we just expect things to continue further as the market and many more. Just as a reminder, we really started entering the closed-loop market in the latter part of 2025. Did a small amount of closed-loop in the latter part of 2025, but had really decent growth in closed-loop. I mean, it's still small in relation to the whole business, but closed-loop is very positive for us, and we see a ton of customer interest from where we're positioned and what our capabilities are, especially on the packaging side for closed-loop. So, again, I think the prepaid market will remain choppy for through late 26. That's our expectation. But that said, I mean, we're well positioned to grow with prepaid market and somewhat are supporting that growth through the innovation that we have from a packaging and chip expertise perspective.

Great. Appreciate the call. And then second for me, it's wonderful to hear that continued organic growth and secure card solutions. Now, kind of as we think of the transition to the Fort Wayne How has that helped you absorb these additional volumes and can you help us quantify how much more capacity you have for continued growth?

I'll start and ask Terra to jump in. We're excited about Fort Wayne. The Fort Wayne team is doing a great job. We're now able to move work pretty much between Fort Wayne and our other site in Colorado pretty easily. The team's innovated quite a bit to make those two sites streamlined. That helps us to manage kind of where to put the best work for the best margin, if you will. But that said, capacity-wise, I think we do have a ways to go before we're at full capacity. And we essentially built the site, you know, looking, you know, 10 plus years out, not necessarily for next year, but Terra, any color you would give?

Yeah, I mean, I would just add that, I mean, we were definitely at a point where we were kind of, you know, running out of capacity. So, it was a really important investment for us to continue to be able to grow the business. And, you know, as John said, not at full capacity yet, but as you can see in our results, you know, we are continuing to grow in our Secure Card Solutions business, you know, gaining share there and, you know, Certainly, that's a very important component that we've invested in that Indiana business to, or sorry, in that Indiana site to be able to facilitate that growth as well as future growth.

Understood. Well, thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the strong first half. Yep. Thanks, Andrew.

Your next question and final question will come from Hal Goetsch with B. Reilly Securities. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Terrific results. You know, you mentioned, you know, prepaid accessibility choppies through late 2026. And are you facing basically tough comparisons or, you know, what what is what is the cause maybe of what you would think maybe is a very consistent business it's very choppy this year even in you know q q1 or q2 growth is much better than q1 um what are some explanations for that and if you have the extra color thank you yeah morning how um well there there's kind of two things one um we did have some strong uh quarters last year I would say um prepaid had a

especially a really good Q4 of 2025 if you go back and look at it. So there are kind of high comparables in comparison. And we've seen that in the prepaid business and where we sit in the market, just given our position in the market as the market ebbs and flows, right? We experienced that. But just going back broadly, I mean, if you think about our position and the market trying to protect against fraud, I think the point we would make is we still believe it's a growing market. We've heard that from our customers. Our position in the closed loop side, there's a lot of opportunity there. And whether you're in the open loop or closed loop side, it all comes back to how do you protect against fraud? Do you implement greater packaging or do you implement some sort of chip solution? And we by far are the largest packager of prepaid cards in the U.S. and have extremely deep chip expertise, which is a unique combination that no one else has in the market. So I wish I had better information on the prepaid goal for this year, but I think it's going to be a little bit choppy this year, but we're confident in the longer-term growth and opportunities set in the prepaid business.

Two quick follow-ups. One is on the balance sheet, so terrific work there, but a lot of the free cash flow stems from really getting inventories in line, accounts receivable lower. Were there some Big invoices, outstanding receivables. So it's a big working capital benefit. Probably won't get too much more of that, but it's still great to see, being able to pay that term loan. Any other comments on the free cash flow situation? We probably shouldn't expect this kind of performance every first half of the year, should we?

Yeah, I mean, there were definitely some specific drivers, Hal, of our strong Q1 performance. And, you know, as we've talked about, the, you know, the inventory optimization was accelerated by our strong growth in our secure card solutions. But, you know, some of that is due to timing. However, just kind of wanted to remind, we did take up our free cash flow guidance, though, for the full year. So to 45 to 50 million. So definitely really strong performance and expect really great performance for the full year as well.

Okay. And last one for me, like, you know, after in Fort Wayne, new plant kind of running, maybe getting optimized, is it any color on the benefits that new plant has done? Any lessons learned or any color of the learning curve of the new plant? Is it producing for you? What's your thought about expectations in line? and Nicole will be great.

Yeah, I mean, we've talked about the automation we've been investing in, really just kind of a more advanced site, if you will. I'd say the other side of it is we've been bringing customers through regularly and we're investing where many in our industry are not putting those dollars to work to really modernize their locations, right? They're trying to squeeze as much out of a site as they can. And that investment is something that really shows to our customers, shows them that we're willing to help them win in what they're doing. And so, you know, margin-wise, things will continue to prove and efficiency will continue to prove. But I think people underestimate the value of investing for customers, and that's a strategy that we'll continue to employ. But, Terra, anything else you would add?

Yeah, I mean, I think one of the initiatives, too, that is exciting that we've done as we've built out that facility is something John mentioned earlier, which is being able to really move things across site. So that really helps us as well in terms of, you know, getting to a, I'll call it that optimized, you know, production mix and making sure that we're able to put jobs in the most profitable place within that network.

Okay, you're in motion. Thanks, Al.

As there are no further questions in the queue, I would now like to turn the call back over to John Lowe for closing remarks.

Well, thanks everyone for joining us. Before we sign off, I'd like to thank our employees for their continued dedication, our customers for their trust and partnership, and our shareholders for their ongoing support. We look forward to delivering a strong second half of 2026. Have a great day.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.