Head of Strategy & Finance, ACI WORLDWIDE INC
ACI Worldwide CEO says second-half growth to accelerate 'significantly'
Odilon Almeida, chief executive of ACI Worldwide, discusses the company's latest financial results and the outlook for the coming ...
About John Kraft
In a September 2021 interview, ACI Worldwide CEO Odilon Almeida described the company as a "turnaround story," stating that while most of its growth in recent years came from acquisitions, the company now aims to combine organic growth with M&A. Almeida said the company expects "accelerated growth significantly" in the second half of the year, with guidance for "mid to high digit growth." He cited recent wins including a central hub for real-time payments in Indonesia and a major win in the United States. Almeida also discussed a partnership with Microsoft, saying the companies are "co-investing" to build a next-generation payments platform from scratch, rather than simply moving existing on-premise software to the cloud. He added that ACI Worldwide is "actively looking" at both buying and selling assets in the payment space, describing the company as "investor friendly" and focused on maximizing shareholder value through a combination of organic growth and M&A.
Transcript (6 segments)
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Interviewer0:00
I'm sort of struggling to understand why the share price performance in your sector just isn't better given the reopening boost that we've seen, particularly to anybody who's in the digital services and information space at the moment. And yet it's just a bit lackluster, isn't it, over the year-to-date story. Is there a misperception in the market about what you do and what you can deliver?
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John Kraft0:28
Yeah, I think it's not a misperception. It's much more like a turnaround story. If you look at ACI Worldwide in the last many years, most of the growth came from acquisitions and there was almost no organic growth. What you're saying now is that going forward it's going to be a combination of organic growth and acquisitions. We're going to continue with acquisitions, we're going to continue with M&A, divesting and investing as we always did in our history, but also we're going to provide organic growth. And we're saying for the second half that we're going to have accelerated growth significantly. If you look at our guidance, you're going to see that our guidance is talking about a mid to high digit growth in the second half. And I think we're very well positioned to that. So it's a turnaround story that comes from no growth to growth, to be shown in the second half. We just gave guidance for revenue, and that revenue shows that turnaround and also a very strong image that growth in the second half. So I think the story happens now in the second half. I think the street is waiting for that, and we are very confident about that.
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Interviewer1:35
Can I ask you, in terms of competition, clearly that must be something that I think the market is very focused on. What makes you a leader rather than a company that is at risk of seeing market share lost, just because we see so many aggressive entrants into this space?
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John Kraft1:57
Yeah, we had some very important wins in the last quarter, as for example the central hub for Indonesia in real-time payments. We are the engine for the real-time payments in Indonesia. We got like a Shintaq in the United States, a very, very important win. And all of them in the cloud. And that's where I think it comes this partnership with Microsoft that also we announced it. We already recognized the market as the best scalable solution in the market, but that's on premise for banks and individuals. So our software is used in their premises now. With Microsoft, you're ready to have that available, but we have this partnership with Microsoft to really go to the next generation of services. So we're not investing only on lift and shifting our offering that is on premise to the cloud. We are building from zero the best in class, the new innovation, the next generation of payments with Microsoft. And that's a very important one. Also part of that partnership, not only the product itself, but it is about the go to market. So we are going and talking to the banks and helping them on the modernization of their infrastructure with Microsoft. So the two companies going together and really explaining and helping them on the architecture of their next generation. And last but not least, we're investing together on that. We are co-investing in all of that opportunity.
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Interviewer3:28
You know, this sector, the payment space, has been many would say right for consolidation for some time now. You talk about wanting to grow organically moving forward. How should we think about ACI Worldwide in the context of further consolidation in the sector? Could we see you participate in some way?
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John Kraft3:46
Yeah, the combination. Our value, first of all, we are very investor friendly, right? So we are all about shareholder in the short and long term. And we believe in the combination of both the organic and M&A. So we are actively looking at M&A day, and I'm talking about selling and buying assets and solutions in the market. That's our history. We're going to continue to do that. So I think you can think about us as a company that is very active on maximizing shareholder value in the short and long term through M&A and organic growth.