10-K: Annual report pursuant to Section 13 and 15(d)
Published on February 24, 2023
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 10-K
| Annual Report Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 for the fiscal year ended | |||||
Commission file number: 1-7945
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization) |
(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.) |
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(Address of principal executive offices) |
(Zip Code) |
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Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (651 ) 483-7111
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
| Title of each class | Trading symbol(s) | Name of each exchange on which registered | ||||||
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. ☑ Yes ☐ No
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. ☐ Yes ☑ No
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. ☑ Yes ☐ No
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). ☑ Yes ☐ No
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and "emerging growth company" in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
| Accelerated Filer | ☐ | ||||||||||
| Non-accelerated Filer | ☐ | Smaller Reporting Company | |||||||||
| Emerging Growth Company | |||||||||||
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐
If securities are registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act, indicate by check mark whether the financial statements of the registrant included in the filing reflect the correction of an error to previously issued financial statements. ☐
Indicate by check mark whether any of those error corrections are restatements that required a recovery analysis of incentive-based compensation received by any of the registrant's executive officers during the relevant recovery period pursuant to §240.10D-1(b). ☐
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☑
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). ☐ Yes ☑ No
The aggregate market value of the voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant is $924,918,940 based on the last sales price of the registrant's common stock on the New York Stock Exchange on June 30, 2022. The number of outstanding shares of the registrant's common stock as of February 8, 2023 was 43,266,924 .
Documents Incorporated by Reference: Portions of our definitive proxy statement to be filed within 120 days after our fiscal year-end are incorporated by reference in Part III.
DELUXE CORPORATION
FORM 10-K
FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2022
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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PART I
Please note that this Annual Report on Form 10-K contains statements that may constitute “forward-looking statements” under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the "Reform Act"). Forward-looking statements include information concerning future strategic objectives, business prospects, anticipated savings, financial results (including earnings, liquidity, cash flow and capital expenditures), industry or market conditions, demand for our products and services, acquisitions and divestitures, anticipated results of litigation, regulatory developments or general economic conditions. Because actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements, we caution readers not to place undue reliance on these statements. Our business, financial condition, cash flows and operating results are influenced by many factors, which are often beyond our control, that can cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Part I, Item 1A of this report outlines known material risks and important information to consider when evaluating our forward-looking statements. The Reform Act provides a “safe harbor” for forward-looking statements to encourage companies to provide prospective information. When we use the words or phrases “should result,” “believe,” “intend,” “plan,” “are expected to,” “targeted,” “will continue,” “will approximate,” “is anticipated,” “estimate,” “project,” “outlook,” "forecast" or similar expressions in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, in future filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in our press releases, investor presentations and in oral statements made by our representatives, they indicate forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Reform Act. Readers are cautioned that all forward-looking statements are based upon current expectations and estimates and apply only as of the date of this report. We assume no obligation to update this information.
| ITEM 1. BUSINESS | ||
| OUR BUSINESS | ||
More than 105 years ago, Deluxe Corporation began providing payment solutions. Our longevity is a testament to our innovation, our ability to evolve with our customers, and the trust they place in us. We are no longer solely a check printing company, but have transformed to a Trusted Payments and Data CompanyTM that champions business so communities thrive. We support millions of small businesses, thousands of financial institutions and hundreds of the world's largest consumer brands, while processing approximately $3 trillion in annual payment volume. We operate primarily in the U.S., but we also sell our products and services in Canada and portions of Europe and South America. We operate 4 business segments that are generally organized by product type. These segments provide the following products and services:
| Business Segment | Category | Percentage of 2022 consolidated revenue | Description | |||||||||||||||||
| Payments | Merchant services and other payment solutions | 19.5 | % | Merchant in-store, online and mobile payment solutions; payables as a service, including eChecks, Medical Payment Exchange and Deluxe Payment Exchange; payroll and human resources services; fraud and security services | ||||||||||||||||
| Treasury management solutions | 10.8 | % | Receivables as a service, including remittance and lockbox processing, remote deposit capture, receivables management, and payment acceptance | |||||||||||||||||
| Total | 30.3 | % | ||||||||||||||||||
| Data Solutions | Data-driven marketing solutions | 7.9 | % | Solutions for marketing business-to-business and business-to-consumer | ||||||||||||||||
Web and hosted solutions |
4.0 | % | Web hosting and software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, including web design, logo design, financial institution profitability reporting, and business incorporation services | |||||||||||||||||
| Total | 11.9 | % | ||||||||||||||||||
| Promotional Solutions | Forms and other products | 13.0 | % | Business forms and accessories, including envelopes, labels, stationery and more | ||||||||||||||||
| Marketing and promotional solutions | 12.2 | % | Advertising specialties, promotional apparel and print services | |||||||||||||||||
| Total | 25.2 | % | ||||||||||||||||||
| Checks | Checks | 32.6 | % | Printed business and personal checks | ||||||||||||||||
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We sold our Australian web hosting business during 2022 and expect to complete the sale of our North American web hosting and logo design businesses in the first quarter of 2023, after which we will have completed an intentional strategic exit from this market.
| OUR STRATEGY | ||
Our vision is to be a trusted technology partner empowering businesses to pay, get paid and grow. To realize this vision, we will continue to leverage our strengths.
•Our customers – Our products and services are utilized by customers of all sizes and maturities. We continue to benefit from a long heritage of offering trusted service to our customers, which in turn, fuels meaningful cash flow that is redeployed to invest in our products, infrastructure and growth opportunities.
•World-class payments and data products and platforms – We continue to invest in market-leading payments and data products and platforms that are proprietary to Deluxe, encouraging our customers to build their businesses on our platforms for the long-term.
•Scale – We believe our volumes for many of our service offerings enable us to offer per-unit costs and reliability superior to our competitors. We will continue to focus on scaling our technology and product management capabilities.
•Sales and distribution channels – We have extensive market reach, with millions of small business and consumer customers and thousands of financial institution clients. We will continue to maximize the deployment of these resources, including our sales force and our various strategic relationships, to cost-effectively reach customers.
Since 2019, our focus has been on our transformational strategy, moving from a traditional manufacturing “company of companies” to a more technologically focused “company of products.” We worked to integrate the numerous technology platforms we obtained over the years through our various acquisitions to achieve a connected, modern technology platform. We assembled a talented management team and built an organization focused on developing new and improved products. As a result, we are realizing the benefit of significant new client wins in all of our segments, and in 2022, we generated consolidated sales-driven revenue growth for the second consecutive year. In June 2021, we completed the acquisition of First American Payment Systems, L.P. (First American), a large-scale payments technology company that provides partners and merchants with comprehensive in-store, online and mobile payment solutions. The acquisition enables us to expand significantly in the fast-growing payments sector, a sector known for generating significant recurring revenues and cash flows, and revenue from our growing Payments segment is expected to surpass that of our Checks segment during the first half of 2023. We now have an even stronger foundation from which to pursue future acquisitions or strategic partnerships that will allow us to potentially realize significant revenue synergies, and we believe that our scaled back-end processing will readily support incremental volume.
Moving into the next stage of our transformation, we remain focused on strategic growth and scaling our operations. This includes maximizing our payments and data products, increasing recurring revenue streams, strengthening our talent and culture, and accelerating our portfolio rationalization efforts. For example, we sold our Australian web hosting business during 2022 and expect to complete the sale of our North American web hosting business in the first quarter of 2023. We also sold two smaller product lines within our Promotional Solutions segment. The sale of these businesses allows us to focus our resources on the key growth areas of payments and data. As we invest in these growth areas, we continue efforts to lower costs and simplify and eliminate duplicative processes. We continue to review our real estate footprint, and in 2022, we closed 6 facilities, in addition to the 40 facilities we closed during 2021 and 2020. We are continually refining our operating model to match expected customer needs and anticipated volumes, as well as to gain efficiencies.
| UPDATE ON COVID-19 IMPACT ON OUR BUSINESS | ||
The health and safety of our employees, our customers and their families is always our top priority. As of the date of this filing, all of our facilities are fully operational. When COVID-19 struck, we implemented a variety of new policies and procedures, including additional cleaning, social distancing, and significantly restricting on-site visitors, to minimize the risk to our employees of contracting COVID-19. While many of these precautions have been relaxed or eliminated as the health risk of COVID-19 has decreased, we may need to reinstitute and/or modify these policies and procedures as necessary should the health risk return to an unacceptable level. In such an event, our businesses or our suppliers could be impacted further by supply chain disruptions, which together with other factors such as a shortage of labor, could result in longer delivery times and restricted manufacturing capacity for certain of our products. Governmental actions in response to a resurgence of COVID-19 could also temporarily limit our business activities and those of our suppliers.
Emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have experienced labor shortages, material and delivery inflation, and supply chain disruptions, including impacts on the supply of certain higher margin printed products in our Promotional Solutions segment. We experienced inflationary headwinds across all of our segments during the year ended December 31, 2022;
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however, these impacts were largely mitigated, with some time lag, through price increases, when possible. We expect inflationary pressures to continue into fiscal 2023, and this trend could have a materially adverse impact if inflation rates significantly exceed our ability to continue to achieve price increases or if such price increases adversely impact demand for our products.
We will continue to actively monitor the situation and may take actions that impact our operations as may be required by federal, state or local authorities or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders. The extent of additional adverse impacts on our financial condition and results of operations will be dictated by the currently unknowable duration and severity of COVID-19 and its variants, and individuals', companies' and governments' responses to the pandemic, inflation and other macroeconomic conditions.
| SALES AND MARKETING | ||
Everyone sells at Deluxe. We employ a customer-focused approach, deploying dedicated sales teams across our 4 business segments to ensure we leverage the expertise within each segment to meet our customer's needs. Our customers rely on our solutions and platforms to help their finance and marketing teams pay, get paid and grow their business (as illustrated below), allowing our business segments to help each other deliver greater value for our customers and enabling our customers to build their businesses on our platforms for the long-term.
We employ a multi-channel sales and marketing approach, selling directly to financial institutions and major global brands. We also sell our products and services through scalable partnerships, enabling us to cost-effectively reach customers, specifically leveraging our financial institution partnerships, our e-commerce assets and other strategic partnerships. In addition, millions of in-bound customer contacts buying or re-ordering our products and services provide extensive cross-sell opportunities.
| INDUSTRY TRENDS AND OUR COMPETITION | ||
Payment solutions, including checks
The payments industry continues to expand and evolve, with digital payment vehicles and transaction volumes growing around the world. The industry is continuously changing, highly innovative, and increasingly subject to regulatory scrutiny and oversight. The challenge for payment providers is to continually modernize their infrastructure to support new service offerings and to identify new revenue streams, as well as to invest in cloud computing and other digital technologies to more rapidly address evolving customer preferences. This pace of change puts pressure on payment providers to transform and adapt in order to remain competitive.
Competition in the payments industry is intense. We are competing against numerous financial technology (Fintech) companies, including independent payment processors, credit card processing firms and treasury management service providers, as well as financial institution in-house capabilities. Volume is the key to staying cost-competitive, as it allows us to drive scale in our operations, and breadth of services is critical to staying relevant to customers. We believe our competitive advantages are: our scalable platform, extensive distribution channels, superior end-customer experience, frictionless payments (i.e., non-disruptive for payer, and payment choices for payee), automated receivables management, a strong balance sheet and
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a trusted and respected brand. We also believe there is growth potential for our Medical Payments Exchange (MPX) and Deluxe Payments Exchange (DPX) platforms, which convert paper checks to digital payments.
Our Checks business remains an important part of our strategy. We believe there will continue to be demand for personal and business checks for the foreseeable future. However, the total number of checks written in the U.S. has been in decline since the mid-1990s. The cash flow generated by our Checks business partially self-funds our growth investments. Our check programs are also an important source of lead generation for cost-effective cross-selling of other products and services.
Our Checks business faces significant competition from another large check printer in our traditional financial institution sales channel, direct mail and internet-based sellers of personal and business checks, check printing software vendors, and certain significant retailers. Pricing continues to be competitive in our financial institution sales channel, as financial institutions seek to maintain their previous levels of profitability, even as check usage declines. We believe our competitive advantages come from our design and customization options, our quality and service, the trust our customers have in us, and our strong financial position. In addition, our digital and print-on-demand technology allows us to implement new customer requirements faster and expand our premium check and overall print design options.
Data Solutions
Data-driven marketing – With increased competition among businesses to target and engage new and existing customers, the use of data-driven marketing has continued to increase and evolve. Competition in this industry is intense, with a wide variety of companies in the data solutions space, including advertising agencies, marketing technology firms, data aggregators and brokers, and source data providers. Adapting to new technology is a key challenge in this industry, along with hiring and retaining the right people. We must continually adapt to the changing needs of our customers and expand our offerings to provide a greater breadth of services.
We believe we have significant growth opportunity in this market. We continue to simplify and integrate our separate businesses operating in this market, monetize the significant amount of data we process across the company, invest in technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, and consolidate our data infrastructure to reduce costs. We also believe that our pay-for-performance offerings provide us a competitive advantage, as our customers value that they get the highest return on their marketing and advertising dollars.
Web and hosted solutions – The market for web hosting services is highly competitive and commoditized, requiring significant spending on product development and customer acquisition to effectively compete in this space. Our business was largely a white label service offered through telecom partners which did not allow for material cross-selling opportunities and did not fit within our overall portfolio. Accordingly, we have strategically moved to exit this business. We sold our Australian web hosting business during 2022 and expect to complete the sale of our North American web hosting and logo design businesses in the first quarter of 2023.
Promotional Solutions
The market for business forms and certain business accessories has been declining for several years, as continual technological improvements have provided businesses with alternative means to execute and record business transactions. Greater acceptance of electronic signatures has also contributed to the overall decline in printed products. The markets for business forms and promotional products are highly competitive and fragmented. Current and potential competitors include traditional storefront printing companies, office superstores, wholesale printers, online printing companies, small business product resellers and providers of custom apparel and gifts.
We believe that our competitive advantages include our multi-channel experience, ease of use, deep sources of supply and breadth of selection of branded apparel and promotional merchandise. We also believe that, by expanding our product set and driving integration of physical and digital solutions, we will transition this segment to a technology-driven business that can respond quickly to market opportunities and differentiate us from our competitors.
| OUR OPERATIONS / SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES | ||
We continue our focus on improving the customer experience by providing excellent service and quality, while increasing our productivity and reducing our costs. We accomplish this by embedding lean operating principles into our processes, while emphasizing a culture of continuous improvement. We utilize a shared services approach, which allows our businesses to leverage shared facilities to optimize capacity utilization and to enhance operational excellence. We continue to reduce costs by utilizing our assets and technologies more efficiently and by enabling employees to better leverage their capabilities and talents.
We have formed an Enterprise Environmental, Social and Governance ("ESG”) Council that is led by our Chief Compliance Officer, with participation from our executive leadership team and senior-level staff, including our General Counsel
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and Vice Presidents representing our real estate, operations, and human resources functions. This council assesses and monitors our top enterprise ESG risks, goals and strategies and provides updates to our board of directors.
We have implemented a stakeholder-focused ESG program in order to meet the needs and expectations of regulators, our customers, shareholders and employees. We devote significant resources to addressing ESG throughout the enterprise, including waste reduction and process improvement efforts, enhancing our commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (“DEI”) through our DEI Council and employee resource groups, promoting community awareness, giving back through our volunteer time off program, and continually improving our cybersecurity and privacy processes and controls to keep our data safe. We measure our ESG goals and impacts through yearly strategic assessments that keep us accountable and inform our annual and multi-year ESG strategies.
Sustainability is also embedded into our operational model. We take sustainability seriously and focus on the following areas:
•Energy – We implemented several energy-saving measures during last year's construction of our facilities in Atlanta and Minneapolis, including installing LED lighting, daylight harvesting strategies, optimized HVAC systems and material selections that reduce carbon input and increase recycled content.
•Waste – We are focused on understanding the waste stream in all of our facilities, with the goal of reducing the amount of waste we generate and recycling as much of our waste stream as practicable. We have moved from volume inventories of custom inks to onsite mixing systems. This has greatly reduced waste stream processing, with an added benefit of better response times for customers.
•Materials – Over 90% of our check and forms paper is purchased from Forest Stewardship Council-certified supplier mills. In addition, our vinyl checkbook covers are produced using a minimum of 45% post-industrial recycled material. We also employ recycling efforts that allow us to divert more of our waste out of landfills by being diligent in the segregation of our waste streams.
•Carbon – We continue to review every aspect of our business, including the materials we use, how we manage our facilities and the the role we play in communities, to ensure our growth includes sustainable practices.
Protecting the environment and our shared future is key to our business and to delivering the products our customers need.
| CYBERSECURITY | ||
We are a trusted partner to enterprises of all sizes, and this is a responsibility we take seriously. The secure and uninterrupted operation of our networks and systems, as well as the processing, maintenance and confidentiality of the sensitive information that resides on our systems, is critical to our business operations and strategy. Each year, we process hundreds of millions of records containing data related to individuals and businesses. In addition, many of our products are hosted solutions, and the amount of data we store for our customers on our servers, including personal, important business and other potentially sensitive information, has been increasing. Technology-based organizations such as ours are vulnerable to targeted attacks aimed at exploiting network and system applications or weaknesses. A successful cyberattack could result in the disclosure or misuse of sensitive business and personal information and data, cause interruptions in our operations, damage our reputation and deter clients and consumers from ordering our products and services. It could also result in litigation, the termination of client contracts, government inquiries and/or enforcement actions.
We have implemented a risk-based information/cybersecurity program dedicated to protecting our data and solutions. Our privacy policies, together with associated controls and procedures, provide a comprehensive framework to inform and guide the handling of data. These programs dovetail with our information security program in a manner designed to protect the data we handle. We employ an in-depth defensive strategy, utilizing the concept of security layers and the CIA (confidential, integrity and availability) triad model. Our information security program is led by our Chief Information Security Officer and the Information Security department, which establishes the policies, standards and strategies to manage security risk. We devote significant resources to addressing security vulnerabilities through enhancing security and reliability features in our products and services, reviewing and auditing our systems against independent security control frameworks, such as ISO 27001, and performing security maturity assessments, which inform our annual and multi-year cybersecurity strategies and our product security plans.
We have an Enterprise Risk Management Committee that is led by our Assurance and Risk Advisory Services group, our Chief Financial Officer and our Chief Administrative Officer, with participation from our executive leadership team and senior-level staff, including our Chief Compliance Officer and our Chief Information Security Officer. This committee assesses and monitors our top enterprise risks, including cybersecurity, and provides quarterly updates to our board of directors. Our Chief Information Security Officer also provides periodic updates to our board of directors, which is responsible for ensuring that we have implemented appropriate risk mitigation strategies, systems, processes and controls.
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In the event a cybersecurity incident is identified, our Cybersecurity Incident Response team will act in accordance with our Incident and Crisis Management Program to communicate to our executive leadership team and to coordinate the response to any incident. Our Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, General Counsel, Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Compliance Officer are responsible for assessing such incidents for materiality, ensuring that any required notification or communication occurs and determining, among other things, whether any prohibition on the trading of our common stock by insiders should be imposed prior to the disclosure of information about a material cybersecurity event. We maintain cybersecurity insurance coverage that insures us for costs resulting from cyberattacks, although this coverage may not reimburse us for all losses.
For more information on risks related to data security, see Item 1A, "Operational Risks – Security breaches, computer malware or other cyberattacks involving the confidential information of our customers, employees or business partners could substantially damage our reputation, subject us to litigation and enforcement actions, and substantially harm our business and results of operations."
| OUR MATERIALS, SUPPLIES AND SERVICE PROVIDERS | ||
The principal materials used in producing our main products are paper, plastics, ink, corrugated packaging and printing plate material, which we purchase from various sources. We also purchase stock business forms and promotional apparel produced by third parties. In addition, we have entered into agreements with third-party providers for delivery services and information technology services, including telecommunications, network server and transaction processing services, as well as various other services. We also rely on third parties to provide a portion of the data used to maintain our proprietary and non-proprietary databases, including credit and non-credit data from the national credit bureaus and other data brokers.
We have engaged a third-party global sourcing group to help manage our supply chain. We believe that in the event one of our vendors fails to perform, we would be able to obtain an alternative source of supply. However, with recent stresses on the global supply chain and labor market, we are taking steps to secure multiple sources of supply for certain of the materials and services we utilize, including those related to certain higher margin printed products in our Promotional Solutions segment. We can provide no assurance that we would be able to obtain an alternative source of supply, or that such supply could be obtained at current prices, in the event one of our vendors fails to perform.
| OUR HUMAN CAPITAL | ||
Our most valuable asset is our employee-owners. As of December 31, 2022, we had 5,863 employees, with 5,310 employees in the United States, 528 employees in Canada and the remainder located in Europe. Approximately 98% of our team is full-time employees, with 59% representing non-exempt roles working in production, processing or call center functions. We are proud of our strong history of positive, productive employee relations. None of our employees are currently represented by labor unions.
The foundation of our continuing success as a Trusted Payments and DataTM company is our ability to attract and retain diverse, exceptional and motivated talent. We accomplish this by providing a culture of inclusion, diversity, equity, development, opportunity and empowerment.
Results-Driven, Community-Focused, Collaborative Culture
We focus on creating an environment where our employee-owners, also known as Deluxers, feel respected and valued, and where they can contribute to their full potential. To this end, an important component of our strategy is that all North American employees are granted restricted stock unit awards. Our heritage also reflects deep-seated roots in community support and volunteerism, which is reflected in our purpose statement: “Champions for business so communities thrive.” Additionally, our values focus on delivering results:
•Customers First
•Earn Trust
•Innovation
•Grit and Perseverance
•Power of One
In an effort to continue to improve our culture and engagement, we provide learning and development at all levels of the organization on a variety of topics, including, leadership development, mentoring, and diversity, equity and inclusion. We continue to focus on training and development programs and transparent communication channels through change pulse checks, surveys, senior leadership forums and employee resource groups. We also provide a tool that allows for anonymous feedback directly from employees to management on new ideas, concerns and questions.
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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
We embrace DEI in our workforce, customers and partners, valuing their unique backgrounds, experiences, thoughts and talents. Our mission is to empower all employees to bring their full authentic selves to work and to foster an environment that reflects the diverse communities we serve. We strive to cultivate a culture and vision that supports and enhances our ability to recruit, develop and retain diverse talent at every level. We provide our customers, partners, and shareholders information about our DEI program and our activities supporting social justice within the communities we serve. In addition, we are focused on furthering our DEI initiatives throughout our business and have, among other things, created a DEI council that is sponsored by our Chief Human Resources Officer. This council is comprised of employee-owners across multiple functions and business segments. Its top priorities include implementing a comprehensive DEI learning and development plan to build awareness and drive inclusive behaviors; further developing our diversity pipeline through hiring, mentoring and coaching; and establishing goals and metrics to ensure progress.
As of December 31, 2022, our total workforce was approximately 56% female and 44% male. Our team members located in the United States were comprised of approximately 55% white, 16% Black or African American, 11% Hispanic or Latino, 10% Asian American and 8% other. We continue to focus our development and DEI programs on growing the number of female and minorities represented in leadership roles.
Under the board’s oversight and guidance, we have taken significant actions to enhance our diverse and inclusive culture, protect and train our employees, and maintain our reputation as a great place to work. We continually strive to improve the attraction, retention, and advancement of diverse employees to grow and retain talent that represents the communities in which we operate. Below are some recent examples of our commitment to DEI.
•33% of our directors identify as from diverse backgrounds, including the independent chair of our board, who is a woman of color.
•In 2020, we formed our employee resource committee and established 4 employee resource groups ("ERGs") dedicated to fostering inclusion and diversity. Since 2020, we have grown our programs and now offer 9 ERGs, including African American, Pacific Islander Middle Eastern Asian, disabled, Hispanic and Latino, veteran, LGBTQ+, parent and women.
•In 2022, we earned the honor of becoming a Yellow Ribbon Company, a designation awarded by the state of Minnesota to those companies meeting the top criteria for supporting veterans and their families.
•In 2022, we earned a top score of 100 on the Disability Equality Index and were named a “Best Place to Work for Disability Inclusion” for the third year in a row.
•In 2022, The Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index recognized us as a Best Place to Work for the LGBTQ+ Equality.
Health, Wellness and Safety
Creating a culture where all employee-owners feel supported and valued is paramount to our strategy. We continue to monitor developments related to COVID-19 and its variants, and we continue to take steps to ensure the safety of our employees and business partners. We also continue to provide a competitive benefits package focused on fostering work/life integration. Well-being in our organization is about having a holistic commitment to provide resources and support for our employees so that they can deliver for customers and shareholders. We offer several programs to benefit our employees and support work environments that encourage growth, innovation, and productivity. These benefits range from standard medical, dental, life and disability insurance to programs that provide additional support for our employees' mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing. We provide paid parental leave and infertility, adoption and surrogacy assistance. We partner with Care.com® to offer services for employees to find tutors, nannies, children’s daycare and eldercare, and we offer an employee assistance program that provides employees with confidential counseling. We also offer employees tuition and travel assistance, and qualified long-term employees have the opportunity to take a sabbatical. Beginning in 2023, we began offering unlimited flexible time off to our salaried employees. By enabling our employees to thrive in their personal lives, we provide tools for our employees to best deliver for customers and shareholders while at work.
Community Engagement
Our employee-owners believe in the power of connection, of activity and of giving back to the communities we serve. Our partnerships and charitable work in the communities we serve are an integral part of our core values. This spirit of community is felt throughout our organization and is fostered by our paid volunteer time off (VTO) program for employees, which provides three paid VTO days per year. It is also reflected in our partnership with the Deluxe Foundation, which enables employees to donate to not-for-profit organizations of their choosing and receive a matching donation, dollar for dollar, up to $2,000 per year. Our commitments go beyond monetary donations. Several of our top executives serve on boards for major not-for-profit organizations and other community organizations that align with our company values of diversity initiatives, rebuilding communities and education.
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We continue our commitment to enriching our communities in the following ways:
•Since 1992, we have partnered with Junior Achievement USA® chapters in our local communities to inspire and prepare young people to succeed. We support Junior Achievement’s mission through foundation grants, awareness and employee volunteers.
•We have partnered with the American Red Cross® for decades, organizing blood drives at our locations and hosting fundraisers and bake sales to help fund the American Red Cross mission of preventing and alleviating human suffering in the face of emergencies.
•In 2022, in partnership with Habitat for Humanity®, we helped build new homes across the country, including inviting our technology partners to join us on a two day build in Chaska, Minnesota.
•For Black History Month in 2022, we partnered with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx to film an original YouTubeTM series called “The Come Up,” that focused on highlighting the significance of black excellence and the importance of uplifting the black community.
•Our employees pledged $133,000 in donations under our 2022 employee giving campaign.
•In 2022, our employees contributed more than 22,500 hours to our local communities through our VTO program.
| SEASONALITY | ||
Historically, we have experienced seasonal trends with some of our products and services. For example, Promotional Solutions holiday card and revenues from certain marketing services in Data Solutions are typically stronger in the fourth quarter of the year due to the holiday season, while sales of Promotional Solutions tax forms are stronger in the first and fourth quarters of the year. Our customers' marketing campaign cycles may also result in some revenue fluctuations for these segments.
| GOVERNMENT REGULATION | ||
We are subject to numerous international, federal, state and local laws and regulations that affect our business activities in several areas, including, but not limited to, labor, advertising, taxation, data privacy and security, digital content, consumer reports, consumer protection, merchant processing, online payment services, real estate, e-commerce, intellectual property, health care, environmental matters, and workplace health and safety. The complexity of complying with existing and new laws and regulations is significant, and regulators may adopt new laws or regulations at any time.
For more specific information about the effects of government regulation on our business, see Item 1A, "Legal and Compliance Risks – Governmental regulation is continuously evolving and could limit or harm our business." We believe that the impact on our capital expenditures and earnings of complying with government regulations will not be materially different in the upcoming year than it was in 2022.
| AVAILABLE INFORMATION | ||
We make available, without charge, through our investor relations website, www.investors.deluxe.com, our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to these reports filed or furnished pursuant to section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, as soon as reasonably practicable after these items are electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. These reports can also be accessed via the SEC website, www.sec.gov.
A printed copy of this report may be obtained without charge by calling 651-787-1068, by sending a written request to the attention of Investor Relations, Deluxe Corporation, P.O. Box 818095, Cleveland, Ohio 44181, or by sending an email request to investor.relations@deluxe.com.
Further information about Deluxe Corporation is also available at www.deluxe.com, www.facebook.com/deluxecorp, www.linkedin.com/company/deluxe and www.twitter.com/deluxe. The content of these websites is not incorporated by reference in this Annual Report on Form 10-K or in any other report or document we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
| OUR CODE OF ETHICS AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE GUIDELINES | ||
We have adopted a Code of Ethics that applies to all of our employees and our board of directors. The Code of Ethics is available on our investor relations website, www.investors.deluxe.com, and also can be obtained free of charge upon written request to the attention of Investor Relations, Deluxe Corporation, P.O. Box 818095, Cleveland, Ohio 44181. Any changes or
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waivers of the Code of Ethics will be disclosed on our website. In addition, our Corporate Governance Guidelines and the charters of the Audit, Compensation, Corporate Governance and Finance Committees of our board of directors are available on our website, www.investors.deluxe.com, or upon written request.
| INFORMATION ABOUT OUR EXECUTIVE OFFICERS | ||
Our executive officers are appointed by the board of directors each year. The following summarizes our executive officers and their positions.
| Name | Age | Present Position | Executive Officer Since | ||||||||
| Barry McCarthy | 59 | President and Chief Executive Officer | 2018 | ||||||||
| William "Chip" Zint | 37 | Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer | 2022 | ||||||||
| Garry Capers, Jr. | 46 | Senior Vice President, Division President, Data Solutions and Promotional Solutions | 2019 | ||||||||
| Jeffrey Cotter | 55 | Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel |
2018 | ||||||||
| Tracey Engelhardt | 58 | Senior Vice President, Division President, Checks and Chief of Operations | 2012 | ||||||||
| Jean Herrick | 54 | Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer | 2022 | ||||||||
| Yogaraj "Yogs" Jayaprakasam | 45 | Senior Vice President, Chief Technology and Digital Officer | 2022 | ||||||||
| Amanda Parrilli | 44 | Senior Vice President, Chief Strategy, Transformation and Business Development Officer | 2019 | ||||||||
| Michael Reed | 51 | Senior Vice President, Division President, Payments | 2019 | ||||||||
Barry McCarthy joined us in November 2018 as President and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining us, Mr. McCarthy served in various senior executive positions, most recently, from November 2014 to November 2018, as Executive Vice President and Head of Network and Security Solutions, a segment of publicly traded First Data Corporation, a financial services company, now part of Fiserv, Inc.
Chip Zint joined us in August 2020 as Vice President of Corporate Finance and was named Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer in October 2022. Prior to joining us, Mr. Zint held several positions with NCR Corporation, an enterprise technology provider, most recently as Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Hardware from January 2019 to July 2020 and Vice President, Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis from May 2017 to January 2019.
Garry Capers, Jr. joined us in September 2019 as Senior Vice President, Division President, Data Solutions, and in November 2021, added the Promotional Solutions segment to his responsibilities. Prior to joining us, Mr. Capers was employed by Automatic Data Processing, Inc., a provider of human resources management software and services, from January 2017 to September 2019, most recently as Senior Vice President, General Manager, National Account Services Comprehensive Outsourcing Services and Operations.
Jeffrey Cotter was named Chief Administrative Officer in January 2019. Mr. Cotter joined us in June 2018 as Senior Vice President, General Counsel. Prior to joining us, Mr. Cotter served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Tennant Company, a provider of cleaning products and solutions, from September 2017 to June 2018.
Tracey Engelhardt was named Senior Vice President, Division President, Checks in October 2019 and in May 2022, she added Chief of Operations to her responsibilities. From March 2017 to October 2019, Ms. Engelhardt served as Senior Vice President, Direct-to-Consumer.
Jean Herrick was named Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer in June 2022. From January 2016 to June 2022, Ms. Herrick served as Vice President, Human Resources.
Yogs Jayaprakasam joined us in May 2022 as Senior Vice President, Chief Technology and Digital Officer. Prior to joining us, Mr. Jayaprakasam held several positions with American Express Company, most recently as Unit Chief Information Officer for the Global and Large Client Group and head of engineering for B2B Digital Payments from June 2021 to May 2022. Mr. Jayaprakasam also served American Express Company as Vice President, Enterprise Platforms for Sales, Marketing and Data Platforms from May 2020 to June 2021, and as Vice President, Enterprise Platforms for Sales and Marketing from November 2017 to May 2020.
Amanda Parrilli was named Senior Vice President, Business Development and Strategy in October 2019, and in June 2020, she added Transformation to her responsibilities. Ms. Parrilli joined us in February 2019 as Vice President, Strategy. Prior
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to joining us, Ms. Parrilli held several positions at The Home Depot, Inc., most recently as Senior Director, Services Lead Generation from January 2018 to February 2019.
Michael Reed joined us in November 2019 as Senior Vice President, Division President, Payments. Prior to joining us, Mr. Reed served as Managing Director, Global Payments and Product for Barclays Bank Plc in London from September 2018 to November 2019. From January 2015 to August 2018, Mr. Reed served as Managing Director at BofA Merrill Lynch Merchant Services (Europe) Limited, the European subsidiary of Banc of America Merchant Services, LLC.
| ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS | ||||||||||||||
We routinely encounter and address risks, many of which could cause our future results to be materially different than we currently anticipate. These risks include, but are not limited to, the principal factors listed below and the other matters set forth in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We place no priority or likelihood based on these descriptions or order of presentation. We are also subject to general risks and uncertainties that affect many other companies, including overall economic, industry and market conditions. Additional risks not presently known to us, or that we currently believe are immaterial, may also adversely affect us. You should carefully consider all of these risks and uncertainties before investing in our common stock.
| STRATEGIC RISKS | ||
If our long-term growth strategy is not successful, our business and financial results would be adversely impacted.
Our vision is to be a trusted technology partner empowering businesses to pay, get paid and grow. Further information about our strategy can be found under the caption "Our Strategy" appearing in Part I, Item 1 of this report. We may not achieve our long-term objectives, and investments in our business may fail to impact our financial results as anticipated. Our strategic plan could fall short of our expectations for many reasons, including, among others:
•our failure to generate profitable revenue growth;
•our inability to acquire new customers, retain our current customers and sell more products and services to current and new customers;
•our failure to fully utilize new sales technology that enables a single view of our customers;
•our inability to implement additional improvements to our technology infrastructure, our digital services offerings and other key assets to increase efficiency, enhance our competitive advantage and scale our operations;
•our failure to develop new products and services;
•our failure to effectively manage the growth, expanding complexity and pace of change of our business and operations;
•our inability to effectively operate, integrate or leverage businesses we acquire;
•the failure of new products and services to achieve widespread customer acceptance;
•our inability to promote, strengthen and protect our brand;
•an unexpected change in demand for checks or other products;
•our failure to attract and retain skilled talent to execute our strategy and sustain our growth;
•unanticipated changes in our business, markets, industry or the competitive landscape; and
•general economic conditions.
We can provide no assurance that our strategy will be successful, either in the short term or in the long term, that it will generate a positive return on our investment or that it will not materially reduce our adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (adjusted EBITDA) margins. If our strategy is not successful, or if there is market perception that our strategy is not successful, our reputation and brand may be damaged and our stock price may fall.
If we are unable to attract and retain customers in a cost-effective manner or effectively operate a multichannel customer experience, our business and results of operations would be adversely affected.
Our success depends on our ability to attract new and returning customers in a cost-effective manner. We use a variety of methods to promote our products and services, including a direct sales force, partner referrals, email marketing, purchased search results from online search engines, direct mail advertising, broadcast media, advertising banners, social media and other online links. Certain of these methods may become less effective or more expensive. For example, response rates for direct mail advertising have been decreasing for some time, internet search engines could modify their algorithms or increase prices for purchased search results or certain partner referrals could decline. Because we offer a diverse portfolio of products and services, we may also face challenges in increasing customer awareness of all of our offerings. Efforts to expand customer awareness of our diverse range of products and services may result in increased marketing expense and may fail to generate additional revenue.
We continually evaluate and modify our marketing and sales efforts to achieve the most effective mix of promotional methods. Competitive pressure may inhibit our ability to reflect increased costs in the prices of our products and services and/or
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new marketing strategies may not be successful. Either of these occurrences would have an adverse impact on our ability to compete and our results of operations would be adversely affected. In addition, when our check supply contracts expire, customers have the ability to renegotiate their contracts with us or to consider changing suppliers. Failure to achieve favorable contract renewals and/or to obtain new check supply customers would result in decreased revenue.
Additionally, we believe we must maintain a relevant, multichannel experience in order to attract and retain customers. Customers expect to have the ability to choose their method of ordering, whether via the mail, computer, phone or mobile device. Although we are constantly investing in our user experience, we cannot predict the success of these investments. Multichannel marketing is rapidly evolving and we must keep pace with the changing expectations of our customers and new developments by our competitors. If we are unable to implement improvements to our customer-facing technology in a timely manner, or if our customer-facing technology does not function as designed, we could find it increasingly difficult to attract new and returning visitors, which would result in decreased revenue.
We face intense competition from other business enterprises, and we expect that competition will continue to increase.
Competition in the payments industry is intense. We are competing against numerous financial technology (Fintech) companies, including independent payment processors, credit card processing firms and treasury management service providers, as well as financial institution in-house capabilities. Volume is the key to staying cost-competitive, and breadth of services is critical to staying relevant to customers. In addition, although we are a leading check printer in the U.S., we face considerable competition in the check printing portion of the payments industry from another large check printer in our traditional financial institution sales channel, from direct mail and internet-based sellers of personal and business checks, from check printing software vendors, and from certain significant retailers. Pricing continues to be competitive in our financial institution sales channel, as financial institutions seek to maintain their previous levels of profitability, even as check usage declines.
Within our Data Solutions segment, our data-driven marketing services face intense competition from a wide variety of companies in the data solutions space, including advertising agencies, marketing technology firms, data aggregators and brokers, and source data providers. Adapting to new technology is a key challenge in this business, along with hiring and retaining the right people.
Within our Promotional Solutions segment, the markets for business forms and promotional products are intensely competitive and highly fragmented. Current and potential competitors include traditional storefront printing companies, office superstores, wholesale printers, online printing companies, small business product resellers and providers of custom apparel and gifts. The competitive landscape for online suppliers continues to be challenging as new businesses enter the space.
We can provide no assurance that we will be able to compete effectively against current and future competitors. Our competitors may develop better products or technologies and may be able to adapt more quickly to new or emerging technologies and changes in customer requirements. Continued competition could result in price reductions, reduced profit margins and/or loss of customers, all of which would have an adverse effect on our results of operations and cash flows.
If we do not adapt to changes in technology in a timely and cost-effective manner, we could lose clients or have trouble attracting new clients, and our ability to grow may be limited.
Rapid, significant, and disruptive technological changes impact the markets for our products and services, including changes in payment and internet browser technologies and the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as developments in technologies supporting our regulatory and compliance obligations and in-store, digital, mobile and social commerce. The introduction of competing products and services using new technologies, the evolution of industry standards or the introduction of more attractive products or services, including continued increases in the digitization of payments, could make some of our products and services less desirable, or even obsolete. Our ability to enhance our current products and services and to develop and introduce innovative products and services will significantly affect our future success. The impact is magnified by the intense competition we face. To be successful, our technology-based products and services must keep pace with technological developments and evolving industry standards, address the ever-changing and increasingly sophisticated needs of our customers, and achieve market acceptance. Additionally, we must differentiate our service offerings from those of our competitors and from the in-house capabilities of our customers. We could lose current and potential customers if we are unable to develop products and services that meet changing demands in a timely manner. Additionally, we must continue to develop our skills, tools and capabilities to capitalize on existing and emerging technologies, and this requires significant investment, takes considerable time and ultimately, may not be successful. Any of the foregoing risks could result in harm to our business, results of operations and growth prospects.
We may be unable to successfully identify future acquisitions, integrate past and future acquisitions and realize the anticipated benefits of the transactions.
We have completed many acquisitions during the past several years, including the acquisition of First American in June 2021, which was the largest acquisition in our history. In addition, we purchased the operations of several small business distributors with the intention of growing revenue in our dealer channels. We are currently devoting significant management
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attention and resources to integrating the business practices and operations of First American and our previous acquisitions. The integration of any acquisition involves numerous risks, including, among others:
•the inability to successfully combine the businesses in a manner that permits us to achieve the revenue synergies and cost savings anticipated to result from the acquisition, which would result in the anticipated benefits of the acquisition not being realized in the anticipated timeframe or at all;
•difficulties and/or delays in assimilating operations and ensuring that a strong system of information security and controls is in place;
•the complexities of integrating a company with different products, services, markets and customers;
•performance shortfalls due to the diversion of management's attention from other business concerns;
•lost sales and customers as a result of certain customers, retail partners, financial institutions or other third parties deciding not to do business with us;
•unanticipated integration costs;
•complexities associated with implementing necessary controls for the acquired business activities to address our requirements as a public company;
•difficulties in identifying and eliminating redundant and underperforming functions and assets;
•the complexities of assimilating the acquired business into our corporate culture and management philosophies;
•unidentified issues not discovered during our due diligence process, including product or service quality issues, intellectual property issues and tax or legal contingencies;
•failure to address legacy distributor account protection rights; and
•loss of key employees.
One or more of these factors could impact our ability to successfully operate, integrate or leverage an acquisition and could materially and adversely affect our business and financial results.
We have indicated that we plan to supplement sales-driven revenue growth with strategically targeted acquisitions over time. The time and expense associated with finding suitable businesses, technologies or services to acquire can be disruptive to our ongoing business and may divert management’s attention. We cannot predict whether suitable acquisition candidates can be identified or acquired on acceptable terms or whether any acquired products, technologies or businesses will contribute to our revenue or earnings to any material extent. We may need to seek additional financing for larger acquisitions, which would increase our debt obligations and may not be available on terms that are favorable to us. Additionally, acquisitions may result in additional contingent liabilities, additional amortization expense, and/or future non-cash asset impairment charges related to acquired intangible assets and goodwill, and thus, could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition.
The use of checks and forms is declining and we may be unable to offset the decline with profitable revenue growth.
Checks continue to be a significant portion of our business, accounting for 32.6% of our consolidated revenue in 2022, and providing a significant amount of the cash flows we invest in our growth businesses, although our Payments segment now rivals our Checks segment in terms of revenue. We sell checks for personal and business use and believe that there will continue to be demand for personal and business checks for the foreseeable future, although the total number of checks written in the U.S. has been in decline since the mid-1990s. We expect that the number of checks written will continue to decline due to the digitization of payments, including debit cards, credit cards, direct deposit, wire transfers, and other payment solutions, such as PayPal®, Apple Pay®, Square®, Zelle®, and Venmo®, as well as cryptocurrencies. In addition, the RTP® system run by The Clearing House Payments Company, LLC is a real-time payments system that currently reaches approximately 60% of U.S. bank accounts. The U.S. Federal Reserve has announced that it plans to develop its own real-time payments system, FedNowSM, with an expected launch in mid-2023.
The rate and the extent to which digital payments will replace checks, whether as a result of legislative developments, changing payment systems, personal preference or otherwise, cannot be predicted with certainty. Increased use of alternative payment methods, or our inability to successfully offset the secular decline in check usage with new check supply clients or other sources of revenue, would have an adverse effect on our business, cash flows and results of operations.
The use of business forms has also been declining. Continual technological improvements, including the lower price and higher performance capabilities of personal computers, printers and mobile devices, have provided small business customers with alternative means to execute and record business transactions. Additionally, electronic transaction systems, off-the-shelf business software applications, web-based solutions and mobile applications have been designed to replace preprinted business forms. Greater acceptance of electronic signatures also has contributed to the overall secular decline in printed products. It is difficult to predict the pace at which these alternative products and services will replace standardized business forms. If small business preferences change rapidly and we are unable to develop new products and services with comparable operating margins, our results of operations would be adversely affected.
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Our business depends on our strong and trusted brand, and any failure to maintain, protect and enhance our brand would hurt our business.
We have developed a strong and trusted brand that has contributed significantly to the success of our business. We believe that maintaining and promoting our brand in a cost-effective manner is critical to achieving widespread acceptance of our products and services, expanding our base of customers, and attracting and retaining top talent throughout the organization. We believe that the importance of brand recognition and trust is particularly essential for the success of our various service offerings because of the level of competition for these services. Customer awareness of our brand, as well as the perceived value of our brand, depends largely on the success of our marketing efforts, our ability to continue to provide useful, reliable, secure and innovative products and services, and our ability to maintain trust and be a technology leader. If we fail to successfully promote and maintain our brand or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our business could be materially and adversely affected. There is also the risk that adverse publicity, whether or not justified, could adversely affect our business. If our business partners or key employees are the subject of adverse news reports or negative publicity, our reputation may be tarnished and our results of operations could be adversely affected.
A component of our brand promotion strategy is building on our relationship of trust with our customers, which we believe can be achieved by providing a high-quality customer experience. We have invested, and will continue to invest, in website development, design and technology, and customer service and production operations. Our ability to provide a high-quality customer experience is also dependent on external factors, including the reliability and performance of our suppliers, telecommunications providers and third-party carriers. Our brand value also depends on our ability to protect and use our customers' data in a manner that meets expectations. The failure of our brand promotion activities to meet our expectations or our failure to provide a high-quality customer experience for any reason could adversely affect our ability to attract new customers and maintain customer relationships, which would adversely harm our business and results of operations.
Our cost reduction initiatives may not be successful.
Intense competition and secular declines in the use of checks and business forms compels us to continually improve our operating efficiency in order to maintain or improve profitability. Cost reduction initiatives have required, and will continue to require, up-front expenditures related to various actions, such as redesigning and streamlining processes, consolidating information technology platforms, standardizing technology applications, further enhancing our strategic supplier sourcing arrangements, improving real estate utilization and funding employee severance benefits. We can provide no assurance that we will achieve future cost reductions or that we will do so without incurring unexpected or greater than anticipated expenditures. Moreover, we may find that we are unable to achieve business simplification and/or cost reduction goals without disrupting our business, negatively impacting efforts to grow our business or reducing the effectiveness of our sustainability practices. As a result, we may choose to delay or forgo certain cost reductions as business conditions require. Failure to continue to improve our operating efficiency and to generate adequate savings to fund necessary investments could adversely affect our business if we are unable to remain competitive.
| OPERATIONAL RISKS | ||
We are unable to predict the extent to which COVID-19 or other outbreaks, epidemics, pandemics, or public health crises may adversely impact our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Although the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have declined, the sweeping nature of the pandemic makes it extremely difficult to predict how our business and operations may be affected in the longer term. The extent to which COVID-19 continues to impact our business depends on future developments, many of which are unknown, such as: the severity and duration of the pandemic, including the impact of COVID-19 variants; governmental, business and individuals' actions in response to the pandemic; vaccination rates; and the resulting impact on economic activity and the financial markets. There are no comparable recent events that provide guidance as to the effect the COVID-19 pandemic may have, and, as a result, the ultimate impact of the pandemic is highly uncertain and subject to change.
In addition to the above impacts, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, all of our employees who had the ability to work from home did so, and the success of our work-from-home model allowed us to accelerate certain site closures. Although our facilities re-opened in late 2021, a portion of our employees now work remotely on a permanent basis and many others work remotely for portions of each work week, which increases our cybersecurity and data security risk. Changes in the scope and severity of the pandemic may cause us to once again close certain of our facilities to protect the health of our employees, as a result of disruptions in the operation of our supply chain, or in response to a prolonged decrease in demand for our products and services. Disruptions caused by future facility closures, along with the subsequent reintroduction of employees back into the workplace, could introduce operational risks, negatively impact productivity or result in claims by employees.
Other cascading effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with other outbreaks, epidemics, pandemics or public health crises that are not currently foreseeable, could materially increase our costs, negatively impact our revenue and adversely impact our results of operations and liquidity, possibly to a significant degree. We cannot predict the severity or duration of any
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such impacts. Such events could have the effect of heightening or exacerbating many of the other risks described in this Risk Factors discussion.
Security breaches, computer malware or other cyberattacks involving the confidential information of our customers, employees or business partners could substantially damage our reputation, subject us to litigation and enforcement actions, and substantially harm our business and results of operations.
Information security risks have increased in recent years, in part because of the proliferation of new technologies and an increase in remote work arrangements, as well as the increased sophistication and activities of hackers, terrorists and activists. In addition, our information security risks have increased with the acquisition of companies with their own technologies, which we continue to integrate into our systems and processes. Until these technologies are integrated, we may experience a period of increased risk. We use internet-based channels that collect customers’ financial account and payment information, as well as other sensitive information, including proprietary business information and personally identifiable information of our customers, employees, contractors, suppliers and business partners. Each year, we process hundreds of millions of records containing data related to individuals and businesses. We also provide services that are instrumental in supporting our customers and their businesses, such as website/email hosting and remittance processing. Cybersecurity is one of the top risks identified by our Enterprise Risk Management Committee, as technology-based organizations such as ours are vulnerable to targeted attacks aimed at exploiting network and system weaknesses.
The secure and uninterrupted operation of our networks and systems, as well as the processing, maintenance and confidentiality of the sensitive information that resides on our systems, is critical to our business operations and strategy. We have a risk-based information/cybersecurity program dedicated to protecting our data and solutions. We employ a defensive in-depth strategy, utilizing the concept of security layers and the CIA (confidential, integrity and availability) triad model. Computer systems and networks are, by nature, vulnerable to unauthorized access. An accidental or willful security breach could result in unauthorized access and/or use of customer information, including consumers' personally identifiable information or, in some cases, the protected health information of certain individuals. Our security measures could be breached by third-party action, computer viruses, accidents, employee or contractor error, or malfeasance by rogue employees. In addition, we depend on a number of third parties, including vendors, developers and partners, that are critical to our business and to which we may grant access to our customer or employee data. While we conduct due diligence on these third parties with respect to their security and business controls, we rely on them to effectively monitor and oversee these control measures. Individuals or third parties may be able to circumvent controls and/or exploit vulnerabilities that may exist, resulting in the disclosure or misuse of sensitive business and personal customer or employee information and data.
We utilize third-party providers to help support and provide our services to customers. We have established a vendor security program that assesses the risk of these partners, and certain of our third-party relationships are subject to security requirements as specified in written contracts. However, we cannot control the actions of our third-party providers, and any cyberattacks or security breaches they experience could adversely affect our ability to service our customers or otherwise conduct our business.
Because techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service, or sabotage computer systems change frequently, may be difficult to detect immediately, and generally are not recognized until they are launched against a target, we may be unable to implement adequate preventive measures. Unauthorized parties may also attempt to gain access to our systems or facilities through various means, including hacking into our systems or facilities, fraud, trickery or other means of deceiving employees and contractors. We have experienced external internet-based attacks by threat actors aimed at disrupting internet traffic and/or attempting to place illegal or abusive content on our or our customers’ websites. Additionally, our customers and employees have been and will continue to be targeted by threat actors using social engineering techniques to obtain confidential information or using fraudulent "phishing" emails to introduce malware into the environment. To-date, these various threats and incidents have not materially impacted our customers, our business or our financial results. However, our technologies, systems and networks are likely to be the target of future attacks due to the increasing threat landscape for all technology businesses, and we can provide no assurance that future incidents will not be material.
Despite our significant cybersecurity systems and processes, a party that circumvents our security measures could misappropriate our own, our customers' or our partners' personal or proprietary information, cause interruption in our operations, damage our computers or those of our users, or otherwise damage our reputation, all of which could deter clients and consumers from ordering our products and services and result in the termination of client contracts. Additionally, it is possible that there could be vulnerabilities that impact large segments of mobile, computer or server architecture. Any of these events would adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, if we were to experience a material information security breach, we may be required to expend significant amounts of management time and financial resources to remedy, protect against or mitigate the effects of the breach, and we may not be able to remedy the situation in a timely manner, or at all. Furthermore, under payment card association rules and our contracts with debit and credit card processors, if there is a breach of payment card information that we store or that is stored by third parties with which we do business, we could be liable to the payment card issuing banks for their cost of issuing new cards and other related expenses. We could also lose our ability to accept and process credit and debit card payments, which would likely result in the loss of customers and the inability to attract new customers. We could also be exposed to time-consuming and
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expensive litigation, government inquiries and/or enforcement actions. If we are unsuccessful in defending a claim regarding information security breaches, we may be forced to pay damages, penalties and fines, and our insurance coverage may not be adequate to compensate us fully for any losses that may occur. Contractual provisions with third parties, including cloud service providers, may limit our ability to recover losses resulting from the security breach of a business partner.
There are international, federal and state laws and regulations requiring companies to notify individuals of information security breaches involving their personal data, the cost of which would negatively affect our financial results. These mandatory disclosures regarding an information security breach often lead to widespread negative publicity. If we were required to make such a disclosure, it may cause our clients and customers to lose confidence in the effectiveness of our information security measures. Likewise, general publicity regarding information security breaches at other companies could lead to the perception among the general public that e-commerce is not secure. This could decrease traffic to our websites, negatively affect our financial results and limit future business opportunities.
Interruptions to our website operations or information technology systems, failure to maintain our information technology platforms, or failure to successfully implement our new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system could damage our reputation and harm our business.
The satisfactory performance, reliability and availability of our information technology systems, and those of our third-party service providers, is critical to our reputation and our ability to attract and retain customers. We could experience temporary interruptions in our websites, transaction and payment processing systems, network infrastructure, service technologies, printing production facilities or customer service operations for a variety of reasons, including, among others, human error, software errors or design faults, security breaches, power loss, telecommunications failures, equipment failures, electrical disruptions, labor issues, vandalism, fire, flood, extreme weather, terrorism and other events beyond our control.
We have invested, and will continue to invest, significant resources to build out, maintain and improve our technology platforms and to integrate our various businesses. We are in the process of converting to a new ERP system. Any disruptions, delays or deficiencies in the design, implementation or operation of our systems, particularly any disruptions, delays or deficiencies that impact our operations, including smoothly executing the implementation of our ERP system, could adversely affect our ability to effectively run and manage our business. Frequent or persistent interruptions in our operations could cause customers to believe that our products and services are unreliable, leading them to switch to our competitors or to avoid our products and services.
In recent years, we shifted a substantial portion of our applications to a cloud-based environment. While we maintain redundant systems and backup databases and applications software designed to provide continuous access to cloud services, it is possible that access to our software capabilities could be interrupted and our disaster recovery planning may not account for all eventualities. The failure of our systems could interfere with the delivery of products and services to our customers, impede our customers' ability to do business and result in the loss or corruption of critical data. In addition to the potential loss of customers, we may be required to incur additional development costs and divert technical and other resources, and we may be the subject of negative publicity and/or liability claims.
If any of our significant information technology systems suffer severe damage, disruption or shutdown, and our disaster recovery and business continuity plans do not effectively resolve the issue in a timely manner, our results of operations would be adversely affected, and our business interruption insurance coverage may not be adequate to compensate us fully for any losses we may incur. Moreover, to the extent that any system failure or similar event results in damages to our customers or contractual counterparties, these customers and contractual counterparties could seek compensation from us for their losses, and those claims, even if unsuccessful, would likely be time-consuming and costly for us to address.
We rely on third parties and their systems for a variety of services, including significant information technology services, and the failure of these third parties to provide these services could disrupt our business.
We have entered into agreements with third-party providers for information technology services, including telecommunications, network server, cloud computing and transaction processing services. In addition, we have agreements with companies to provide services related to our online payment solutions, including financial institutions that provide clearing services in connection with our merchant services settlement activities, and we have outsourced certain activities, including portions of our finance and procurement functions. A service provider's ability to provide services could be disrupted for a variety of reasons, including, among others, human error, software errors or design faults, security breaches, power loss, telecommunications failures, equipment failures, electrical disruptions, labor issues, vandalism, fire, flood, extreme weather, terrorism and other events beyond their control. In the event that one or more of our service providers is unable to provide adequate or timely services, our ability to deliver products and services to our customers could be adversely affected. Although we believe we have taken reasonable steps to protect our business through contractual arrangements with our service providers, we cannot completely eliminate the risk of disruption in service. Any significant disruption could harm our business, including damage to our brand and loss of customers. Additionally, although we believe that most of these services are available from numerous sources, a failure to perform by one or more of our service providers could cause a material disruption in our business while we obtain an alternative service provider. The use of substitute third-party providers could also result in increased expense. Additionally, while we have policies and procedures for managing these relationships, they inherently involve a lesser degree of
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control over business operations, governance and compliance, thereby potentially increasing our financial, legal, reputational and operational risk.
If we are unable to attract, motivate and retain key personnel and other qualified employees, our business and results of operations could be adversely impacted.
We operate in a rapidly changing technological environment that requires a wide ranging set of expertise and intellectual capital. To successfully compete and grow, we must recruit, develop, motivate and retain personnel who can provide the needed expertise across the organization. In addition, we must develop our personnel to fulfill succession plans capable of maintaining continuity in the midst of the inevitable unpredictability of human capital.
Competition for employees is intense, even more so in the current challenging labor market. We have implemented various human capital initiatives, including employee wellness initiatives, the introduction of employee resource groups and a revised performance management process, to make Deluxe an attractive place to work. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working arrangements became more widely accepted and it is more challenging for us to maintain and enhance our corporate culture and to navigate the flexible working arrangements that employees may demand. Our work environment may not meet the needs or expectations of our employees or may be perceived as less favorable compared to other companies' polices, which could negatively impact our ability to hire and retain qualified personnel. We can provide no assurance that key personnel, including our executive officers, will continue to be employed, or that in the event we have to replace key employees, that labor costs will not increase. Failure to retain or attract key personnel could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Increases in prices and declines in the availability of materials and other services have adversely affected, and could continue to adversely affect, our operating results.
We are subject to risks associated with the cost and availability of paper, plastics, ink, promotional materials, merchant services point-of-sale equipment and other raw materials, as well as various third-party services we utilize, including delivery services. In addition, from time-to-time, the card networks, including Visa® and Mastercard®, increase the fees that they charge processors. Increased levels of inflation during the past 2 years have resulted in cost increases for certain of the materials and services we utilize. We expect inflationary pressures to continue into fiscal 2023, and this trend could have a material adverse impact if inflation rates significantly exceed our ability to continue to achieve price increases or if such price increases adversely impact demand for our products. Emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, we have experienced supply chain disruptions, including impacts on the supply of certain higher margin printed products in our Promotional Solutions segment, and the continuing Russia-Ukraine dispute could cause further disruption in the global supply chain. We continue to closely monitor our supply chain to promptly address any further delays or disruptions, but we can provide no assurance that our ability to provide products to our customers will not be adversely impacted if our supply chain is compromised.
Paper costs represent a significant portion of our materials expense. Paper is a commodity and its price has been subject to volatility due to supply and demand in the marketplace, as well as volatility in the raw material and other costs incurred by paper suppliers. There are also relatively few paper suppliers and these suppliers are under financial pressure as paper use declines. As such, when our suppliers increase paper prices, we may not be able to obtain better pricing from alternative suppliers.
We depend upon third-party providers for delivery services and for certain outsourced products. Events resulting in the inability of these third parties to perform their obligations, such as work slowdowns, extended labor strikes, labor shortages or inclement weather, could adversely impact our results of operations by requiring us to secure alternate providers at higher costs. Postal rates are dependent on the operating efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and on legislative mandates imposed upon the USPS. Postal rates have increased in recent years and the USPS has incurred significant financial losses. This may result in continued changes to the breadth and/or frequency of USPS mail delivery services. In addition, fuel costs have fluctuated over the past several years. Increases in fuel costs increase the costs we incur to deliver products to our customers, as well as the price we pay for outsourced products.
Competitive pressures and/or contractual arrangements may inhibit our ability to reflect increased costs in the price of our products and services. Any of the foregoing risks could result in harm to our business and results of operations.
We are subject to customer payment-related risks and payment card network rules, which could adversely affect our business and financial results.
We may be liable for fraudulent transactions conducted on our websites, such as the use of stolen credit card numbers, and we have potential liability for fraudulent electronic payment transactions or credits initiated by merchants or others. While we do have safeguards in place, we cannot prevent all fraudulent transactions. To date, we have not incurred significant losses from payment-related fraud. However, such transactions negatively impact our results of operations and could subject us to penalties from payment card networks for inadequate fraud protection.
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In addition, changes to the payment card networks' rules or how they are interpreted could have a significant impact on our business and financial results. For example, changes in the rules regarding chargebacks may affect our ability to dispute chargebacks and the amount of losses we incur from chargebacks. Changes in network rules may also increase the cost of, impose restrictions on, or otherwise impact the development of, our retail point-of-sale solutions, which may negatively affect their deployment and adoption. Any changes to or interpretations of the network rules that are inconsistent with the way we currently operate may require us to make changes to our business that could be costly or difficult to implement and that could adversely affect our results of operations.
Revenue from the sale of services to merchants that accept Visa and Mastercard are dependent upon our continued Visa and Mastercard registrations, financial institution sponsorship and, in some cases, continued membership in certain card networks.
In order to provide our Visa and Mastercard transaction processing services, we must be either a direct member or be registered as a merchant processor or service provider of Visa and Mastercard. Registration as a merchant processor or service provider is dependent upon our being sponsored by members of each organization in certain jurisdictions. If our sponsor financial institution in any market should stop providing sponsorship for us, we would need to find another financial institution to provide those services or we would need to attain direct membership with the card networks, either of which could prove to be difficult and expensive. If we are unable to find a replacement financial institution to provide sponsorship or attain direct membership, we may no longer be able to provide processing services to affected customers, which would negatively affect our business and results of operations. In addition, some agreements with our financial institution sponsors give them substantial discretion in approving certain aspects of our business practices, including our solicitation, application and qualification procedures for merchants and the terms of our agreements with merchants. Our sponsors' discretionary actions under these agreements could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.
If we fail to comply with the applicable requirements of the card networks, the card networks could seek to fine us, suspend us or terminate our registrations or membership. The termination of our registrations or our membership or our status as a service provider or a merchant processor would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. If a merchant or an independent sales organization (ISO) customer fails to comply with the applicable requirements of the card associations and networks, we or the merchant or ISO could be subject to a variety of fines or penalties that may be levied by the card associations or networks. If we cannot collect or pursue collection of such amounts from the applicable merchant or ISO, we may have to bear the cost of such fines or penalties, negatively impacting our results of operations.
| LEGAL AND COMPLIANCE RISKS | ||
Governmental regulation is continuously evolving and could limit or harm our business.
We are subject to numerous international, federal, state and local laws and regulations that affect our business activities in several areas, including, but not limited to, labor, advertising, taxation, data privacy and security, digital content, consumer reports, consumer protection, merchant processing, online payment services, real estate, e-commerce, intellectual property, health care, environmental matters, and workplace health and safety. In addition, legal or regulatory measures to address climate change may impact us in the near future. The complexity of complying with existing and new laws and regulations is significant, and regulators may adopt new laws or regulations at any time.
The various regulatory requirements to which we are subject could impose significant limitations on our business activities, require changes to our business, restrict our use or storage of personal information, or cause changes in our customers' purchasing behavior, which may make our business more costly and/or less efficient and may require us to modify our current or future products, services, systems or processes. We cannot quantify or predict with any certainty the likely impact of such changes on our business, prospects, financial condition or results of operations.
Portions of our business operate within highly regulated industries and our business results could be significantly affected by the laws and regulations to which we are subject. For example, international, federal and state laws and regulations regarding the protection of certain consumer information require us to develop, implement and maintain policies and procedures to protect the security and confidentiality of consumers' personal information. Portions of our business are subject to regulations affecting payment processing, including merchant processing, ACH, remote deposit capture and lockbox services. These laws and regulations require us to develop, implement, and maintain certain policies and procedures related to payments. We are also subject to additional requirements in certain of our contracts with financial institution clients and communications service providers, which are often more restrictive than the regulations, as well as confidentiality clauses in certain of our contracts related to small businesses’ customer information. These regulations and agreements typically limit our ability to use or disclose personal information for other than the purposes originally intended, which could limit business opportunities. Proposed privacy and cybersecurity regulations may also increase the cost of compliance for the protection of collected data. The complexity of compliance with these various regulations may increase our cost of doing business and may affect our clients, reducing their discretionary spending and thus, reducing their capacity to purchase our products and services.
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Due to our increased use of the internet for sales and marketing, laws specifically governing digital commerce, the internet, mobile applications, search engine optimization, behavioral advertising, privacy and email marketing may have an impact on our business. Existing and future laws governing issues such as digital and social marketing, privacy, consumer protection or commercial email may limit our ability to market and provide our products and services. Changing data protection regulations may increase the cost of compliance in servicing domestic and international markets for our wholesale and retail business services channels. More restrictive rules, such as new privacy laws, consumer protection “dark patterns” restrictions, search engine marketing restrictions, “anti-spam” regulations or email privacy rules, could decrease marketing opportunities, decrease traffic to our websites and/or increase the cost of obtaining new customers.
Because of additional regulatory costs, financial institutions may continue to put significant pricing pressure on their suppliers, including their check and service providers. The increase in cost and profit pressure may also lead to further consolidation of financial institutions. Additionally, some financial institutions do not permit offers of add-on services, such as bundled products, fraud/identity protection or expedited check delivery, to their customers. It would have an adverse impact on our results of operations if we were unable to market such services to consumers or small businesses through the majority of our financial institution clients. Additionally, as our product and service offerings become more technologically focused, and with expanded regulatory expectations for supervision of third-party service providers, additional portions of our business could become subject to direct federal regulation and/or examination. This would increase our cost of doing business and could slow our ability to introduce new products and services and otherwise adapt to a rapidly changing business environment.
Third-party claims could result in costly and distracting litigation and, in the event of an unfavorable outcome, could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
From time to time, we are involved in claims, litigation and other proceedings related to the conduct of our business, including purported class action litigation. Such legal proceedings may include claims related to our employment practices; claims alleging breach of contractual obligations; claims asserting deceptive, unfair or illegal business practices; claims alleging violations of consumer protection-oriented laws; claims related to legacy distributor account protection rights; or claims related to environmental matters. In addition, third parties may assert patent and other intellectual property infringement claims against us and/or our clients, which could include aggressive and opportunistic enforcement of patents by non-practicing entities. Any such claims could result in litigation against us and could also result in proceedings being brought against us by various federal and state agencies that regulate our businesses. The number and significance of these claims and proceedings has increased as our businesses have evolved and expanded in scope. These claims, whether successful or not, could divert management's attention, result in costly and time-consuming litigation, or both. Accruals for identified claims or lawsuits are established based on our best estimates of the probable liability. However, we cannot accurately predict the ultimate outcome of any such proceedings due to the inherent uncertainties of litigation and other dispute resolution mechanisms. Any unfavorable outcome of a material claim or material litigation could require the payment of monetary damages or fines, attorneys' fees or costly and undesirable changes to our products, features or business practices, which would result in a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We may be unable to protect our rights in intellectual property, which could harm our business and ability to compete.
We rely on a combination of trademark and copyright laws, trade secret and patent protection, and confidentiality and license agreements to protect our trademarks, software and other intellectual property. These protective measures afford only limited protection. Despite our efforts to protect our intellectual property, third parties may infringe or misappropriate our intellectual property or otherwise independently develop substantially equivalent products or services that do not infringe on our intellectual property rights. Policing unauthorized use of our intellectual property is difficult. We may be required to spend significant resources to protect our trade secrets and to monitor and police our intellectual property rights. The loss of intellectual property protection or the inability to secure or enforce intellectual property protection could harm our business and ability to compete.
Activities of our customers or the content of their websites could damage our reputation and/or adversely affect our financial results.
As a provider of domain name registration, web hosting services and customized business products, we may be subject to potential liability for the activities of our customers on or in connection with their domain names or websites, for the data they store on our servers, including information accessible through the "dark web," or for images or content that we produce on their behalf. Customers may also launch distributed denial of service attacks or malicious executables, such as viruses, worms or trojan horses, from our servers. Although our agreements with our customers prohibit illegal use of our products and services and permit us to take appropriate action for such use, customers may nonetheless engage in prohibited activities or upload or store content with us in violation of applicable law. Our reputation may be negatively impacted by the actions of customers that are deemed to be hostile, offensive or inappropriate, or that infringe the copyright or trademark of another party. The safeguards we have established may not be sufficient to avoid harm to our reputation, especially if the inappropriate activities are high profile.
Laws relating to the liability of online services companies for information, such as online content disseminated through their services, are subject to frequent challenges. Claims may be made against online services companies by parties who
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disagree with the content. Where the online content is accessed on the internet outside of the U.S., challenges may be brought under foreign laws that do not provide the same protections for online services companies as in the U.S. These challenges in either U.S. or foreign jurisdictions may give rise to legal claims alleging defamation, libel, invasion of privacy, negligence or copyright or trademark infringement, based on the nature and content of the materials disseminated through our services. Certain of our products and services include content generated by users of our online services. Although this content is not generated by us, claims of defamation or other injury may be made against us for that content. If such claims are successful, our financial results would be adversely affected. Even if the claims do not result in litigation or are resolved in our favor, the time and resources necessary to resolve them could divert management’s attention and adversely affect our business and financial results.
| FINANCIAL RISKS | ||
Economic conditions may adversely affect trends in business and consumer spending, which may adversely impact demand for our products and services.
Economic conditions have affected, and will continue to affect, our results of operations and financial position. Current and future economic conditions that affect inflation, business and consumer spending, including levels of business and consumer confidence, unemployment levels, consumer spending and the availability of credit, as well as uncertainty or volatility in our customers' businesses, may adversely affect our business and results of operations. A challenging economic environment could cause existing and potential customers to not purchase or to delay purchasing our products and services. Continued inflationary pressures could negatively impact our customers' ability to purchase our products and services, thereby negatively impacting our revenue and results of operations.
A significant portion of our business relies on small business spending. We believe that small businesses are more likely to be significantly affected by economic conditions than larger, more established companies. During a sluggish economy, it may be more difficult for small businesses to obtain credit and they may choose to spend their limited funds on items other than our products and services. As such, the level of small business confidence, the rate of small business formations and closures, and the availability of credit to small businesses all impact our business.
A significant portion of our business also relies upon the health of the financial services industry. As a result of global economic conditions in past years, a number of financial institutions sought additional capital, merged with other financial institutions and, in some cases, failed. The failure of one or more of our larger financial institution clients, or large portions of our customer base, could adversely affect our operating results. In addition to the possibility of losing a significant client, the inability to recover prepaid product discount payments made to one or more of our larger financial institution clients, or the inability to collect accounts receivable or contractually required contract termination payments, could have a significant negative impact on our results of operations.
There may also be an increase in financial institution mergers and acquisitions during periods of economic uncertainty or as a result of other factors affecting the financial services industry. Such an increase could adversely affect our operating results. Often the newly combined entity seeks to reduce costs by leveraging economies of scale in purchasing, including its check supply and business services contracts. This results in providers competing intensely on price in order to retain not only their previous business with one of the financial institutions, but also to gain the business of the other party in the combined entity. Although we devote considerable effort toward the development of a competitively-priced, high-quality selection of products and services for the financial services industry, there can be no assurance that significant financial institution clients will be retained or that the impact of the loss of a significant client can be offset through the addition of new clients or by expanded sales to our remaining clients.
Global events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the actions taken in response to it, as well as the Russia-Ukraine dispute, significantly increase economic uncertainty. Given the ongoing and dynamic nature of these events, we cannot predict the impact on our business, financial position or results of operations. Even after such impacts subside, the U.S. economy may experience a recession, and our business could be adversely affected by a prolonged recession.
Asset impairment charges would have a negative impact on our results of operations.
Goodwill represented 46.5% of our total assets as of December 31, 2022. On at least an annual basis, we assess whether the carrying value of goodwill is impaired. This analysis considers several factors, including economic, market and industry conditions. Circumstances that could indicate a decline in the fair value of one or more of our reporting units include, but are not limited to, the following:
•a downturn in economic conditions that negatively affects our actual and forecasted operating results;
•changes in our business strategy, structure and/or the allocation of resources;
•the failure of our growth strategy;
•the inability of our acquisitions to achieve expected operating results;
•changes in market conditions, including increased competition;
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•the loss of significant customers;
•a decline in our stock price for a sustained period; or
•a material acceleration of order volume declines for checks and business forms.
Such situations may require us to record an impairment charge for a portion of goodwill. We are also required to assess the carrying value of other long-lived assets, including intangible assets. Information regarding our 2022 impairment analyses can be found under the caption "Note 8: Fair Value Measurements" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report. We have, in the past, and may again in the future, be required to write-down the value of some of our assets, and these write-downs have been, and could in the future be, material to our results of operations. If we are required to record additional asset impairment charges for any reason, our consolidated results of operations would be adversely affected.
Our variable-rate indebtedness exposes us to interest rate risk.
Borrowings under our credit facility, including our secured term loan facility, are subject to variable rates of interest and expose us to interest rate risk. If interest rates were to continue to increase, our interest expense would increase, negatively affecting earnings and reducing cash flows available for working capital, capital expenditures and other investments. To address the risk associated with variable-rate debt, we entered into interest rate swaps to convert $500.0 million of our variable-rate debt to a fixed rate. As of December 31, 2022, $684.4 million of our outstanding debt was subject to variable interest rates.
| ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS | ||
None.
| ITEM 2. PROPERTIES | ||
As of December 31, 2022, we occupied 46 facilities throughout the U.S., 5 facilities in Canada and 2 facilities in Europe, where we conduct printing and fulfillment, payment processing, call center, data center and administrative functions. Because of our shared services approach to most of our business functions, many of our facilities are utilized for the benefit of more than one of our business segments. Approximately 20% of our facilities are owned, while the remaining 80% are leased. Our facilities have a combined floor space of approximately 2 million square feet. None of our owned properties are mortgaged or held subject to any significant encumbrance. We believe that existing leases will be renegotiated as they expire or that suitable alternative properties will be leased on acceptable terms. We also believe that our properties are sufficiently maintained and are adequate and suitable for our business needs as presently conducted. We closed 6 facilities during 2022, as we continued to assess our real estate footprint.
| ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS | ||
We record provisions with respect to identified claims or lawsuits when it is probable that a liability has been incurred and the amount of the loss can be reasonably estimated. Claims and lawsuits are reviewed quarterly and provisions are taken or adjusted to reflect the status of a particular matter. We believe the recorded reserves in our consolidated financial statements are adequate in light of the probable and estimable outcomes. Recorded liabilities were not material to our financial position, results of operations or liquidity, and we do not believe that any of the currently identified claims or litigation will materially affect our financial position, results of operations or liquidity upon resolution. However, litigation is subject to inherent uncertainties, and unfavorable rulings could occur. If an unfavorable ruling were to occur, it may cause a material adverse impact on our financial position, results of operations or liquidity in the period in which the ruling occurs or in future periods.
| ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES | ||
Not applicable.
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PART II
| ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT'S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES | ||
Our common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DLX. Dividends are declared by our board of directors on a quarterly basis, and therefore, are subject to change. As of December 31, 2022, the number of shareholders of record was 5,073, excluding shareholders whose shares are held in the name of various dealers, clearing agencies, banks, brokers and other fiduciaries.
The following table shows purchases of our common stock that were completed during the fourth quarter of 2022:
| Period |
Total number of shares purchased(1)
|
Average price paid per share(1)
|
Total number of shares purchased as part of publicly announced plans or programs |
Maximum number (or approximate dollar value) of shares that may yet be purchased under the plans or programs(2)
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
October 1, 2022 –
October 31, 2022
|
371 | $ | 16.91 | — | 287,452,394 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| November 1, 2022 – November 30, 2022 |
7,957 | 19.41 | — | 287,452,394 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| December 1, 2022 – December 31, 2022 |
192 | 16.52 | — | 287,452,394 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total | 8,520 | 19.24 | — | 287,452,394 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
(1) Under the terms of our 2022 Stock Incentive Plan, as well as our previous long-term incentive plans, participants may surrender shares that would otherwise be issued under equity-based awards to cover the withholding taxes due as a result of the exercise or vesting of such awards. During the fourth quarter of 2022, we withheld 8,520 shares in conjunction with the vesting and exercise of equity-based awards.
(2) In October 2018, our board of directors authorized the repurchase of up to $500.0 million of our common stock. This authorization has no expiration date. No shares were repurchased under this authorization during the fourth quarter of 2022 and $287.5 million remained available for repurchase as of December 31, 2022.
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The table below compares the cumulative total shareholder return on our common stock for the last five fiscal years with the cumulative total return of the S&P MidCap 400 Index and the Dow Jones U.S. Support Services (DJUSIS) Index.
| COMPARISON OF FIVE-YEAR CUMULATIVE TOTAL RETURN | ||
| ASSUMES INITIAL INVESTMENT OF $100 | ||
| DECEMBER 2022 | ||
The graph assumes that $100 was invested on December 31, 2017 in each of Deluxe common stock, the S&P MidCap 400 Index and the DJUSIS Index, and that all dividends were reinvested.
Prepared by: Zack's Investment Research, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Copyright 1980-2023.
Index Data: Copyright Standard and Poor's, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Index Data: Copyright Dow Jones, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
| ITEM 6. [RESERVED] | ||
ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
| ||
Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations (MD&A) includes the following sections:
•Executive Overview that discusses what we do, our operating results at a high level and our financial outlook for the upcoming year;
•Consolidated Results of Operations; Restructuring and Integration Costs; and Segment Results that includes a more detailed discussion of our revenue and expenses;
•Cash Flows and Liquidity, Capital Resources and Other Financial Position Information that discusses key aspects of our cash flows, financial commitments, capital structure and financial position; and
•Critical Accounting Estimates that discusses the estimates that involve a significant level of uncertainty and have had or are reasonably likely to have a material impact on our financial condition or results of operations.
Please note that this MD&A discussion contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Part I, Item 1A of this report outlines known material risks and important information to consider when evaluating our forward-looking statements. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the "Reform Act") provides a “safe harbor” for forward-looking
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statements to encourage companies to provide prospective information. When we use the words or phrases “should result,” “believe,” “intend,” “plan,” “are expected to,” “targeted,” “will continue,” “will approximate,” “is anticipated,” “estimate,” “project,” “outlook,” "forecast" or similar expressions in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, in future filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in our press releases, investor presentations and in oral statements made by our representatives, they indicate forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Reform Act.
This MD&A includes financial information prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. ("GAAP"). In addition, we discuss free cash flow, net debt, liquidity, adjusted diluted earnings per share ("EPS"), consolidated adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ("adjusted EBITDA") and consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin, all of which are non-GAAP financial measures. We believe that these non-GAAP financial measures, when reviewed in conjunction with GAAP financial measures, can provide useful information to assist investors in analyzing our current period operating performance and in assessing our future operating performance. For this reason, our internal management reporting also includes these financial measures, which should be considered in addition to, and not as superior to or as a substitute for, GAAP financial measures. We strongly encourage investors and shareholders to review our financial statements and publicly-filed reports in their entirety and not to rely on any single financial measure. Our non-GAAP financial measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies and therefore, may not result in useful comparisons. The reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in Consolidated Results of Operations.
The following discussion and analysis provides information we believe to be relevant to understanding our financial condition and results of operations. This discussion focuses on our financial results for the years ended December 31, 2022 and December 31, 2021. A discussion of our results of operations for the year ended December 31, 2021, as compared to the year ended December 31, 2020, is included in Part II, Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021 ("the 2021 Form 10-K"), filed with the SEC on February 28, 2022, and is incorporated by reference into this Form 10-K. You should read the following discussion and analysis in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes presented in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
| EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW | ||
We help businesses deepen customer relationships through trusted, technology-enabled solutions that help businesses pay and get paid, accelerate growth and operate more efficiently. Our solutions include merchant services, marketing services and data analytics, treasury management solutions, promotional products, and fraud and payroll solutions, as well as customized checks and business forms. We support millions of small businesses, thousands of financial institutions and hundreds of the world’s largest consumer brands, while processing approximately $3 trillion in annual payment volume. Our reach, scale and distribution channels position us to be a trusted business partner for our customers.
Acquisition – On June 1, 2021, we acquired all of the equity of First American Payment Systems, L.P. ("First American") in a cash transaction for $958.5 million, net of cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and restricted cash equivalents acquired. First American is a large-scale payments technology company that provides partners and merchants with comprehensive in-store, online and mobile payment solutions. The results of First American are included in our Payments segment and contributed incremental revenue of $144.2 million and incremental adjusted EBITDA of $30.2 million in 2022. The acquisition was funded with cash on hand and proceeds from new debt. Further information regarding the acquisition can be found under the caption "Note 6: Acquisition and Divestitures" and further information regarding our debt can be found under the caption "Note 13: Debt," both of which appear in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
Recent market conditions – The impact of the global coronavirus ("COVID-19") pandemic on our business and results of operations for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020 can be found in the Executive Overview section appearing in Part II, Item 7 of the 2021 Form 10-K. The environment surrounding COVID-19 and any countermeasures taken to reduce its spread may impact our future performance and remains difficult to predict.
During 2021, we began experiencing increased inflationary pressures on our labor, delivery and material costs. In response to the inflationary environment, we began implementing targeted price increases in all of our segments in late 2021. Despite the price changes, we continued to experience strong revenue volumes throughout 2022, demonstrating the strength of our business and the continued strong demand for our products. During the first half of 2022, we began experiencing some supply disruptions impacting certain higher margin printed products in our Promotional Solutions segment. We continue to closely monitor our supply chain to promptly address any further delays or disruptions, and we did see some improvement in the second half of 2022. We have also been experiencing labor supply issues in certain portions of our business. It remains difficult to estimate the severity and duration of the current inflationary environment or supply chain and labor issues on our business, financial position or results of operations.
In 2022, our interest expense began increasing as a result of the rising interest rate environment. We executed an interest rate swap during the third quarter of 2022 to effectively convert an additional $300.0 million of our variable-rate debt to a fixed rate. As of December 31, 2022, 59% of our debt was effectively fixed rate, which will partially insulate us from future interest rate increases.
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Cash flows and liquidity – Cash provided by operating activities for 2022 decreased $19.3 million as compared to 2021. The decrease reflects a $40.5 million increase in interest payments as a result of rising interest rates in 2022 and debt issued to complete the First American acquisition in 2021, as well as a $22.8 million increase in employee cash bonus payments related to our 2021 operating performance. During 2021, a portion of our cash bonuses was paid in the form of restricted stock units and the bonus payments in 2021 were unusually low because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our 2020 performance. Operating cash flow was also negatively impacted by a $19.9 million increase in income tax payments, as well as inflationary pressures, supply chain disruptions in our Promotional Solutions segment, and the continuing secular decline in checks, business forms and some business accessories. The increase in income tax payments was primarily driven by the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that became effective in 2022 and that require the capitalization of research and development and cloud computing arrangement expenditures for income tax purposes. We were able to substantially offset these decreases in operating cash flow through the incremental contribution of the First American acquisition, price increases in response to the current inflationary environment, continued cost saving actions, a $22.9 million decrease in payments for cloud computing arrangements, primarily related to our sales and finance technology infrastructure, and revenue growth from new business and strong demand for our products. In addition, we incurred acquisition transaction costs of $18.9 million in 2021 related to the First American acquisition that did not recur in 2022. Free cash flow decreased $14.7 million for 2022, as compared to 2021. Total debt was $1.64 billion and net debt was $1.60 billion as of December 31, 2022. During the third quarter of 2022, we retired $25.0 million of our $500.0 million senior, unsecured notes, realizing a pretax gain of $1.7 million. We held cash and cash equivalents of $40.4 million as of December 31, 2022, and liquidity was $335.6 million. Our capital allocation priorities are to responsibly invest in growth, pay our dividend, reduce debt and return value to our shareholders.
2022 results vs. 2021 – Multiple factors drove the increase in net income for 2022, as compared to 2021, including:
•price increases in response to the current inflationary environment;
•actions taken to reduce costs as we continually evaluate our cost structure, including workforce adjustments, real estate rationalization and marketing optimization;
•pretax gains of $19.3 million from the sale of businesses and a facility during 2022;
•acquisition transaction costs of $18.9 million in 2021 related to the First American acquisition that did not recur in 2022; and
•revenue growth from new business in all of our segments and strong ongoing demand for our products, reflecting the continued success of our One Deluxe strategy.
Partially offsetting these increases in net income were the following factors:
•a $38.9 million increase in interest expense resulting from the effect of increasing interest rates on our variable-rate debt and the additional debt issued in June 2021 to complete the First American acquisition;
•increased transformational investments, primarily costs related to our technology infrastructure;
•inflationary pressures on hourly wages, materials and delivery and supply chain disruptions within the Promotional Solutions segment that impacted certain of our higher margin printed products during the first half of 2022;
•the continuing secular decline in checks, business forms and some Promotional Solutions business accessories; and
•a $7.7 million increase in acquisition amortization, driven, in part, by the First American acquisition.
Diluted EPS of $1.50 for 2022, as compared to $1.45 for 2021, reflects the increase in net income as described in the preceding paragraphs. Adjusted diluted EPS for 2022 was $4.08 compared to $4.88 for 2021, and excludes the impact of non-cash items or items that we believe are not indicative of our current period operating performance. The decrease in adjusted diluted EPS was driven by the increase in interest expense resulting from the effect of increasing interest rates on our variable-rate debt and the debt issued in June 2021 to complete the First American acquisition, increased transformational investments, inflationary pressures on our cost structure, Promotional Solutions supply chain disruptions and the continuing secular decline in checks, business forms and some business accessories. These decreases in adjusted EPS were partially offset by price increases in response to the current inflationary environment and the contribution from First American, as adjusted EPS excludes the associated acquisition amortization. In addition, adjusted diluted EPS benefited from various cost saving actions across
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functional areas, as well as revenue growth from new business in all of our segments and strong ongoing demand for our products. A reconciliation of diluted EPS to adjusted diluted EPS can be found in Consolidated Results of Operations.
"One Deluxe" Strategy
As a result of our transformational strategy, we have realized the benefit of significant new client wins in all of our segments, and in 2022, we generated consolidated sales-driven revenue growth for the second consecutive year. We also completed the acquisition of First American in June 2021. The acquisition enables us to expand significantly in the fast-growing payments sector, a sector known for generating significant recurring revenues and cash flows, and revenue from our growing Payments segment is expected to surpass that of our Checks segment during the first half of 2023. We now have an even stronger foundation from which to pursue future acquisitions that will allow us to potentially realize significant revenue synergies, and we believe that our scaled back-end processing will readily support incremental volume. Further information regarding our strategy can be found in Part I, Item 1 of this report.
Divestitures – In May 2022, we completed the sale of our Australian web hosting business for cash proceeds of $17.6 million, net of costs of the sale. This business generated annual revenue in our Data Solutions segment of $23.8 million during 2021, and we recognized a pretax gain of $15.2 million on this sale during the second quarter of 2022. The assets and liabilities sold were not significant to our consolidated balance sheet.
In April 2022, we sold the assets of our Promotional Solutions strategic sourcing business and in August 2022, we sold the assets of our Promotional Solutions retail packaging business. These businesses generated annual revenue of approximately $29 million during 2021. Neither the gain on these sales, nor the assets and liabilities sold, were significant to our consolidated financial statements.
In January 2023, we entered into an agreement for the sale of our North American web hosting and logo businesses for an aggregate sales price of $42.0 million, plus up to $10.0 million of additional proceeds contingent upon performance against certain conditions following the closing. We anticipate that the sale will close by March 31, 2023 and that we will recognize a gain on the sale. In conjunction with this anticipated sale, we changed the name of our Cloud Solutions segment to Data Solutions. These businesses generated annual revenue of approximately $66 million during 2022, primarily in our Data Solutions segment.
We believe that the sale of these businesses allows us to focus our resources on the key growth areas of payments and data, while allowing us to optimize our operations.
Outlook for 2023
We expect that revenue for 2023 will be between $2.145 billion and $2.210 billion, as compared to 2022 revenue of $2.238 billion. The 2022 amount included revenue of approximately $69 million that will not recur in 2023 due to our divestitures. We expect that adjusted EBITDA for 2023 will be between $390 million and $405 million, as compared to $418 million for 2022. The 2022 amount included adjusted EBITDA of approximately $21 million that will not recur in 2023 due to our divestitures. These estimates are subject to, among other things, completion of the sale of the remaining web hosting and logo design businesses by March 31, 2023, prevailing macroeconomic conditions, labor supply issues, inflation and the impact of other divestitures.
As of December 31, 2022, we held cash and cash equivalents of $40.4 million and $295.2 million was available for borrowing under our revolving credit facility. We anticipate that capital expenditures will be approximately $100 million in 2023, as compared to $104.6 million for 2022, as we continue with important innovation investments and building scale across our product categories. We also expect that we will continue to pay our regular quarterly dividend. However, dividends are approved by our board of directors each quarter and thus, are subject to change. We anticipate that net cash generated by operations, along with cash and cash equivalents on hand and availability under our credit facility, will be sufficient to support our operations, including our contractual obligations and debt service requirements, for the next 12 months, as well as our long-term capital requirements. We were in compliance with our debt covenants as of December 31, 2022, and we anticipate that we will remain in compliance with our debt covenants throughout 2023.
| CONSOLIDATED RESULTS OF OPERATIONS | ||
Consolidated Revenue
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Total revenue | $ | 2,238,010 | $ | 2,022,197 | 10.7% | |||||||||||||||
The increase in total revenue for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven primarily by revenue growth from new business in all of our segments and strong ongoing demand for our products, reflecting the success of our One Deluxe strategy. Price increases in response to the current inflationary environment also contributed to the revenue increase, primarily in our Checks and Promotional Solutions segments. The revenue increase also reflected the acquisition and strong performance of First
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American, which contributed incremental revenue of $144.2 million in 2022. Partially offsetting these increases in revenue was the continuing secular decline in order volume for checks, business forms and some Promotional Solutions business accessories, as well as the divestitures discussed in Executive Overview, which resulted in a decrease in revenue of approximately $32 million for 2022, as compared to 2021.
We do not manage our business based on product versus service revenue. Instead, we analyze our revenue based on the product and service offerings shown under the caption "Note 17: Business Segment Information" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report. Our revenue mix by business segment was as follows:
| 2022 | 2021 | |||||||||||||
| Payments | 30.3 | % | 25.2 | % | ||||||||||
| Data Solutions | 11.9 | % | 13.0 | % | ||||||||||
| Promotional Solutions | 25.2 | % | 27.0 | % | ||||||||||
| Checks | 32.6 | % | 34.8 | % | ||||||||||
Total revenue |
100.0 | % | 100.0 | % | ||||||||||
Consolidated Cost of Revenue
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Total cost of revenue | $ | 1,032,116 | $ | 884,270 | 16.7% | |||||||||||||||
| Total cost of revenue as a percentage of total revenue | 46.1 | % | 43.7 | % | 2.4 pt. | |||||||||||||||
Cost of revenue consists primarily of raw materials used to manufacture our products, shipping and handling costs, third-party costs for outsourced products and services, payroll and related expenses, information technology costs, depreciation and amortization of assets used in the production process and in support of digital service offerings, and related overhead.
The increase in total cost of revenue for 2022, as compared to 2021, was primarily attributable to the revenue growth noted above, and we experienced some inflationary pressures on hourly wages, materials and delivery. The increase in total cost of revenue also reflected incremental costs resulting from the First American acquisition of $88.7 million, including acquisition amortization. Partially offsetting these increases in total cost of revenue was reduced revenue volume from the continuing secular decline in checks, business forms and some Promotional Solutions business accessories, and Promotional Solutions was impacted by supply chain disruptions for certain higher margin printed products in the first half of 2022.
Consolidated Selling, General & Administrative (SG&A) Expense
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| SG&A expense | $ | 993,250 | $ | 941,023 | 5.6% | |||||||||||||||
| SG&A expense as a percentage of total revenue | 44.4 | % | 46.5 | % | (2.1) pt. | |||||||||||||||
The increase in SG&A expense for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven, in part, by increased costs related to our continued transformational investments, primarily investments in our technology infrastructure, including sales and financial management tools, and commission expense increased, primarily as a result of increased volume from new clients in our Checks segment. The increase in SG&A expense also reflected the incremental operating costs of First American of $30.6 million. The First American acquisition also drove an increase in acquisition amortization of $10.2 million for 2022, as compared to 2021, and bad debt expense increased $6.3 million for 2022, driven by reserve reversals in 2021 as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lessened. Partially offsetting these increases in SG&A expense were various cost reduction actions, including workforce adjustments, real estate rationalization and marketing optimization, and during 2021, we incurred acquisition transaction costs of $18.9 million that did not recur in 2022.
Restructuring and Integration Expense
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Restructuring and integration expense | $ | 62,529 | $ | 54,750 | $ | 7,779 | ||||||||||||||
We continue to pursue several initiatives designed to focus our business behind our growth strategy, to increase our efficiency and to integrate acquired businesses. The amount of restructuring and integration expense is expected to vary from period to period as we execute these initiatives. Further information regarding these costs can be found in Restructuring and Integration Costs in this MD&A discussion.
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Gain on Sale of Businesses and Facility
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Gain on sale of businesses and facility | $ | 19,331 | $ | — | $ | 19,331 | ||||||||||||||
As discussed in Executive Overview, during the third quarter of 2022, we sold the assets of our Promotional Solutions retail packaging business, and during the second quarter of 2022, we completed the sale of our Australian web hosting business, our Promotional Solutions strategic sourcing business and a former facility. Net cash proceeds from these sales were $25.2 million during 2022.
Interest Expense
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Interest expense | $ | 94,454 | $ | 55,554 | 70.0% | |||||||||||||||
| Weighted-average debt outstanding | 1,682,676 | 1,402,970 | 19.9% | |||||||||||||||||
| Weighted-average interest rate | 5.19 | % | 3.60 | % | 1.59 pt. | |||||||||||||||
The increase in interest expense for 2022, as compared to 2021, was due primarily to the increase in our weighted-average interest rate driven by the rising interest rate environment and the $500.0 million notes we issued in June 2021 to fund the First American acquisition with an interest rate of 8.0%. Based on the daily average amount of variable-rate debt outstanding during 2022, a one percentage point change in the weighted-average interest rate would have resulted in a $9.1 million change in interest expense. Also negatively impacting interest expense for 2022 was the increase in our weighted-average debt outstanding driven by the issuance of debt to fund the First American acquisition in June 2021. Further information regarding our debt can be found under the caption "Note 13: Debt" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
Income Tax Provision
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Income tax provision | $ | 18,848 | $ | 31,031 | (39.3%) | |||||||||||||||
| Effective tax rate | 22.3 | % | 33.1 | % | (10.8) pt. | |||||||||||||||
The decrease in our effective income tax rate for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven primarily by the impact of the sale of our Australian web hosting business. For tax purposes, we recognized a capital loss on the transaction, and we recorded a valuation allowance for the portion of the capital loss carryover we do not currently expect to realize. These impacts reduced income tax expense $7.1 million in 2022, reducing our effective income tax rate by 8.4 points. In addition, the impact of the repatriation of Canadian earnings drove a 2.7 point decrease in the effective income tax rate. Information regarding other factors that impacted our effective income tax rates can be found under the caption "Note 10: Income Tax Provision" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
Net Income / Diluted Earnings per Share
| (in thousands, except per share amounts) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Net income | $ | 65,530 | $ | 62,772 | 4.4 | % | ||||||||||||||
| Diluted earnings per share | 1.50 | 1.45 | 3.4 | % | ||||||||||||||||
Adjusted diluted EPS(1)
|
4.08 | 4.88 | (16.4 | %) | ||||||||||||||||
(1) Information regarding the calculation of adjusted diluted EPS can be found in the following section entitled Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures.
The increases in net income and diluted EPS and the decrease in adjusted diluted EPS for 2022, as compared to 2021, were driven by the factors outlined in Executive Overview – 2022 results vs. 2021.
Adjusted EBITDA
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA | $ | 418,130 | $ | 407,765 | 2.5% | |||||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of total revenue (adjusted EBITDA margin) | 18.7 | % | 20.2 | % | (1.5) pt. | |||||||||||||||
The increase in adjusted EBITDA for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven by price increases, actions taken to reduce costs as we continually evaluate our cost structure, and revenue growth from new business in all of our segments and strong ongoing demand for our products. In addition, the increase in adjusted EBITDA also reflected the incremental contribution from
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the First American acquisition of $30.2 million. Partially offsetting these increases in adjusted EBITDA were increased costs related to our continued transformational investments, primarily investments in our technology infrastructure, including sales and financial management tools; inflationary pressures on hourly wages, materials and delivery; an unfavorable change in product mix driven by the impact of Promotional Solutions supply chain disruptions for certain higher margin printed products and growth in Data Solutions's data-driven marketing revenue combined with declines in the higher margin web hosting business; and the continuing secular decline in checks, business forms and some business accessories.
Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased for 2022, as compared to 2021, driven by planned technology investments, inflationary pressures and the unfavorable product mix. These decreases in adjusted EBITDA margin were partially offset by price increases, cost saving actions and operating leverage from the revenue growth.
Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures
Free cash flow – We define free cash flow as net cash provided by operating activities less purchases of capital assets. We believe that free cash flow is an important indicator of cash available for debt service and for shareholders, after making capital investments to maintain or expand our asset base. A limitation of using the free cash flow measure is that not all of our free cash flow is available for discretionary spending, as we may have mandatory debt payments and other cash requirements that must be deducted from our cash available for future use. We believe that the measure of free cash flow provides an additional metric to compare cash generated by operations on a consistent basis and to provide insight into the cash flow available to fund items such as dividends, mandatory and discretionary debt reduction, acquisitions or other strategic investments, and share repurchases.
Net cash provided by operating activities for the years ended December 31 reconciles to free cash flow as follows:
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | ||||||||||||
| Net cash provided by operating activities | $ | 191,531 | $ | 210,821 | ||||||||||
| Purchases of capital assets | (104,598) | (109,140) | ||||||||||||
| Free cash flow | $ | 86,933 | $ | 101,681 | ||||||||||
Net debt – Management believes that net debt is an important measure to monitor leverage and to evaluate the balance sheet. In calculating net debt, cash and cash equivalents are subtracted from total debt because they could be used to reduce our debt obligations. A limitation associated with using net debt is that it subtracts cash and cash equivalents, and therefore, may imply that management intends to use cash and cash equivalents to reduce outstanding debt. In addition, net debt suggests that our debt obligations are less than the most comparable GAAP measure indicates.
Total debt reconciles to net debt as follows as of December 31:
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | ||||||||||||
| Total debt | $ | 1,644,276 | $ | 1,682,949 | ||||||||||
| Cash and cash equivalents | (40,435) | (41,231) | ||||||||||||
| Net debt | $ | 1,603,841 | $ | 1,641,718 | ||||||||||
Liquidity – We define liquidity as cash and cash equivalents plus the amount available for borrowing under our revolving credit facility. We consider liquidity to be an important metric for demonstrating the amount of cash that is available or that could be available on short notice. This financial measure is not a substitute for GAAP liquidity measures. Instead, we believe that this measurement enhances investors' understanding of the funds that are currently available.
Liquidity was as follows as of December 31:
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | |||||||||
| Cash and cash equivalents | $ | 40,435 | $ | 41,231 | |||||||
| Amount available for borrowing under revolving credit facility | 295,177 | 362,619 | |||||||||
| Liquidity | $ | 335,612 | $ | 403,850 | |||||||
Adjusted diluted EPS – By excluding the impact of non-cash items or items that we believe are not indicative of current period operating performance, we believe that adjusted diluted EPS provides useful comparable information to assist in analyzing our current period operating performance and in assessing our future operating performance. As such, adjusted diluted EPS is one of the key financial performance metrics we use to assess the operating results and performance of the business and to identify strategies to improve performance. It is reasonable to expect that one or more of the excluded items will occur in future periods, but the amounts recognized may vary significantly.
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Diluted earnings per share for the years ended December 31 reconciles to adjusted diluted EPS as follows:
| (in thousands, except per share amounts) | 2022 | 2021 | ||||||||||||
| Net income | $ | 65,530 | $ | 62,772 | ||||||||||
| Net income attributable to non-controlling interest | (135) | (139) | ||||||||||||
| Net income attributable to Deluxe | 65,395 | 62,633 | ||||||||||||
| Acquisition amortization | 90,588 | 82,915 | ||||||||||||
| Restructuring and integration costs | 63,136 | 58,947 | ||||||||||||
| Share-based compensation expense | 23,676 | 29,477 | ||||||||||||
| Acquisition transaction costs | 130 | 18,913 | ||||||||||||
| Certain legal-related (benefit) expense | (730) | 2,443 | ||||||||||||
| Gain on sales of businesses and facility | (19,331) | — | ||||||||||||
| Gain on debt retirements | (1,726) | — | ||||||||||||
| Adjustments, pretax | 155,743 | 192,695 | ||||||||||||
Income tax provision impact of pretax adjustments(1)
|
(43,854) | (45,783) | ||||||||||||
| Adjustments, net of tax | 111,889 | 146,912 | ||||||||||||
| Adjusted net income attributable to Deluxe | 177,284 | 209,545 | ||||||||||||
| Income allocated to participating securities | (98) | (156) | ||||||||||||
| Re-measurement of share-based awards classified as liabilities | (512) | (448) | ||||||||||||
| Adjusted income attributable to Deluxe available to common shareholders | $ | 176,674 | $ | 208,941 | ||||||||||
| Weighted-average shares and potential common shares outstanding | 43,310 | 42,827 | ||||||||||||
Adjustment(2)
|
— | (16) | ||||||||||||
| Adjusted weighted-average shares and potential common shares outstanding | 43,310 | 42,811 | ||||||||||||
| GAAP diluted earnings per share | $ | 1.50 | $ | 1.45 | ||||||||||
| Adjustments, net of tax | 2.58 | 3.43 | ||||||||||||
| Adjusted diluted EPS | $ | 4.08 | $ | 4.88 | ||||||||||
(1) The tax effect of the pretax adjustments considers the tax treatment and related tax rate(s) that apply to each adjustment in the applicable tax jurisdiction(s). Generally, this results in a tax impact that approximates the U.S. effective tax rate for each adjustment. However, the tax impact of certain adjustments, such as share-based compensation expense and gains on sales of businesses, depends on whether the amounts are deductible in the respective tax jurisdictions and the applicable effective tax rate(s) in those jurisdictions.
(2) The total of weighted-average shares and potential common shares outstanding used in the calculation of adjusted diluted EPS differs from the GAAP calculation due to differences in the amount of dilutive securities in each calculation.
Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin – We believe that adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin are useful in evaluating our operating performance, as they eliminate the effect of interest expense, income taxes, the accounting effects of capital investments (i.e., depreciation and amortization) and certain items, as presented below, that may vary for reasons unrelated to current period operating performance. In addition, management utilizes these measures to assess the operating results and performance of the business, to perform analytical comparisons and to identify strategies to improve performance. We also believe that an increasing adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin depict an increase in the value of the company. We do not consider adjusted EBITDA to be a measure of cash flow, as it does not consider certain cash requirements such as interest, income taxes, debt service payments or capital investments.
We have not reconciled our adjusted EBITDA outlook for 2023 to the directly comparable GAAP financial measure because we do not provide outlook guidance for net income or the reconciling items between net income and adjusted EBITDA. Because of the substantial uncertainty and variability surrounding certain of these forward-looking reconciling items, including asset impairment charges; restructuring and integration costs; gains and losses on sales of businesses and facilities; and certain legal-related expenses, a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure outlook guidance to the corresponding GAAP measure is not available without unreasonable effort. The probable significance of certain of these reconciling items is high and, based on historical experience, could be material.
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Net income for the years ended December 31 reconciles to adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin as follows:
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | ||||||||||||
| Net income | $ | 65,530 | $ | 62,772 | ||||||||||
| Non-controlling interest | (135) | (139) | ||||||||||||
| Depreciation and amortization expense | 172,552 | 148,767 | ||||||||||||
| Interest expense | 94,454 | 55,554 | ||||||||||||
| Income tax provision | 18,848 | 31,031 | ||||||||||||
| Restructuring and integration costs | 63,136 | 58,947 | ||||||||||||
| Share-based compensation expense | 23,676 | 29,477 | ||||||||||||
| Acquisition transaction costs | 130 | 18,913 | ||||||||||||
| Certain legal-related (benefit) expense | (730) | 2,443 | ||||||||||||
| Gain on sales of businesses and facility | (19,331) | — | ||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA | $ | 418,130 | $ | 407,765 | ||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | 18.7 | % | 20.2 | % | ||||||||||
| RESTRUCTURING AND INTEGRATION COSTS | ||
Restructuring and integration expense consists of costs related to the consolidation and migration of certain applications and processes, including our financial and sales management systems. It also includes costs related to the integration of acquired businesses into our systems and processes. These costs consist primarily of information technology consulting, project management services and internal labor, as well as other costs associated with our initiatives, such as training, travel, relocation and costs associated with facility closures. In addition, we recorded employee severance costs related to these initiatives, as well as our ongoing cost reduction initiatives across functional areas. Further information regarding restructuring and integration expense can be found under the caption "Note 9: Restructuring and Integration Expense" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
The majority of the employee reductions included in our restructuring and integration accruals as of December 31, 2022, as well as the related severance payments, are expected to be completed by mid-2023. As a result of our employee reductions, we realized cost savings of approximately $20 million in SG&A expense, in comparison to our 2021 results of operations. For those employee reductions included in our restructuring and integration accruals through December 31, 2022, we expect to realize cost savings of approximately $25 million in SG&A expense in 2023, in comparison to our 2022 results of operations. In addition, we realized cost savings from facility closures of approximately $4 million in 2022, in comparison to our 2021 results of operations, and we continue to evaluate our real estate footprint. Note that these savings were, and will continue to be, partially offset by increased labor and other costs, including costs associated with new employees as we restructure certain activities and strive for the optimal mix of employee skill sets that will support our growth strategy.
| SEGMENT RESULTS | ||
We operate 4 reportable business segments: Payments, Data Solutions, Promotional Solutions and Checks. These segments are generally organized by product type and reflect the way we manage the company. In conjunction with the anticipated sale of our North American web hosting and logo businesses in 2023, as discussed in Executive Overview, we changed the name of our Cloud Solutions segment to Data Solutions. The financial information presented below for our reportable business segments is consistent with that presented under the caption “Note 17: Business Segment Information” in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report, where information regarding revenue for our product and service offerings can also be found.
Payments
Results for our Payments segment were as follows:
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Total revenue | $ | 678,580 | $ | 510,359 | 33.0% | |||||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA | 144,605 | 105,576 | 37.0% | |||||||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | 21.3 | % | 20.7 | % | 0.6 pt. | |||||||||||||||
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The increase in total revenue for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven, in part, by volume increases in our major payments products, primarily lockbox processing services and digital payments, as well as growth in merchant services. Revenue also benefited from price increases in response to the current inflationary environment. The revenue increase also reflected the acquisition and strong performance of First American, which contributed incremental revenue of $144.2 million for 2022. In 2023, we expect mid-single digit percentage revenue growth for this segment.
The increase in adjusted EBITDA for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven, in part, by price increases and the revenue growth in our payments and merchant services businesses. In addition, adjusted EBITDA benefited from the incremental contribution of the First American acquisition of $30.2 million. These increases in adjusted EBITDA were partially offset by continued sales and information technology investments and inflationary pressures on our cost structure, primarily labor costs in our lockbox processing business. Adjusted EBITDA margin increased for 2022, as compared to 2021, as the benefit of the revenue increases exceeded the impact of the investments in the business and the inflationary pressures. In 2023, we expect adjusted EBITDA margins will be in the low-to-mid 20% range.
Data Solutions
Results for our Data Solutions segment were as follows:
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Total revenue | $ | 267,525 | $ | 262,310 | 2.0% | |||||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA | 68,214 | 70,172 | (2.8%) | |||||||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | 25.5 | % | 26.8 | % | (1.3) pt. | |||||||||||||||
The increase in total revenue for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven by growth in data-driven marketing of $26.8 million for 2022, resulting from relationship expansion with key clients, sales wins and increased marketing spend by our customers. Partially offsetting the revenue increases was the sale of our Australian web hosting business, which resulted in a $16.0 million revenue reduction for 2022, and customer churn in our North American web hosting business. In 2023, we expect that revenue will decline approximately $57 million as a result of the sale of our North American web hosting and logo design businesses, as discussed in Executive Overview, and that the remainder of the business will deliver low single-digit percentage revenue growth.
The decrease in adjusted EBITDA for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven by the sale of the Australian web hosting business, which reduced adjusted EBITDA by approximately $3 million for 2022, and investments in our data-driven marketing platform, partially offset by the growth in data-driven marketing revenue. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased, as compared to 2021, driven by changes in product mix resulting from growth in data-driven marketing combined with declines in the higher margin web hosting business, as well as the platform investments in the data-driven marketing business. In 2023, we expect that adjusted EBITDA will decline approximately $20 million as a result of the sale of our North American web hosting and logo design businesses, as discussed in Executive Overview, and that the remainder of the business will deliver adjusted EBITDA margins in the low 20% range.
Promotional Solutions
Results for our Promotional Solutions segment were as follows:
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Total revenue | $ | 562,917 | $ | 546,473 | 3.0% | |||||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA | 79,549 | 85,384 | (6.8%) | |||||||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | 14.1 | % | 15.6 | % | (1.5) pt. | |||||||||||||||
The increase in total revenue for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven primarily by the impact of new clients, relationship expansion with existing clients, price increases in response to the current inflationary environment, and strong ongoing demand for our promotional and apparel products. Partially offsetting these revenue increases were lower sales of certain printed products due to supply chain disruptions in the first half of the year, as well as the continuing secular decline in business forms and some accessories. As discussed in Executive Overview, we sold our strategic sourcing business during the second quarter of 2022 and our retail packaging business during the third quarter of 2022. These divestitures resulted in a revenue decline of $16.2 million for 2022. In 2023, we expect that revenue will decline approximately $12 million as a result of business exits, and that the remainder of the business will deliver low single-digit percentage revenue growth.
The decrease in adjusted EBITDA for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven by inflationary pressures on materials and delivery and supply chain disruptions for certain printed products during the first half of the year, partially offset by price increases in response to the current inflationary environment and the revenue growth noted above. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased for 2022, as compared to 2021, as the impact of inflation and supply chain disruptions for certain higher margin printed products
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exceeded the impact of the price increases and revenue growth. In 2023, we expect adjusted EBITDA margin percentages will be in the mid-teens.
Checks
Results for our Checks segment were as follows:
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Total revenue | $ | 728,988 | $ | 703,055 | 3.7% | |||||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA | 320,498 | 324,224 | (1.1%) | |||||||||||||||||
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | 44.0 | % | 46.1 | % | (2.1) pt. | |||||||||||||||
The increase in total revenue for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven primarily by the impact of new client wins, price increases and strong demand for business checks. These increases in revenue were partially offset by the continuing secular decline in overall check volumes. In 2023, we are expecting mid-single digit percentage revenue declines.
The decrease in adjusted EBITDA for 2022, as compared to 2021, was driven by inflationary pressures on delivery and materials and the secular decline in overall check volumes, partially offset by price increases, cost saving actions, the impact of new clients and strong demand for business checks. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased for 2022, as compared to 2021, as inflationary cost pressures and the addition of lower margin new clients exceeded the benefit of the pricing and cost savings actions. In 2023, we expect adjusted EBITDA margins will be in the mid-40% range.
| CASH FLOWS AND LIQUIDITY | ||
As of December 31, 2022, we held cash and cash equivalents of $40.4 million, as well as restricted cash and restricted cash equivalents included in funds held for customers and in other non-current assets of $297.0 million. The following table should be read in conjunction with the consolidated statements of cash flows appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
Net cash provided by operating activities |
$ | 191,531 | $ | 210,821 | $ | (19,290) | ||||||||||||||
Net cash used by investing activities |
(80,325) | (1,066,601) | 986,276 | |||||||||||||||||
Net cash (used) provided by financing activities |
(48,601) | 912,961 | (961,562) | |||||||||||||||||
Effect of exchange rate change on cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and restricted cash equivalents |
(10,681) | (1,099) | (9,582) | |||||||||||||||||
Net change in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and restricted cash equivalents |
$ | 51,924 | $ | 56,082 | $ | (4,158) | ||||||||||||||
Free cash flow(1)
|
$ | 86,933 | $ | 101,681 | $ | (14,748) | ||||||||||||||
(1) See Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures within the Consolidated Results of Operations section, which defines and illustrates how we calculate free cash flow.
Net cash provided by operating activities decreased $19.3 million for 2022, as compared to 2021, driven by a $40.5 million increase in interest payments as a result of rising interest rates and debt issued to complete the First American acquisition, as well as a $22.8 million increase in employee cash bonus payments related to our 2021 operating performance. During 2021, a portion of our cash bonuses were paid in the form of restricted stock units and the bonus payments in 2021 were unusually low because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our 2020 performance. Operating cash flow was also negatively impacted by a $19.9 million increase in income tax payments, inflationary pressures, supply chain disruptions in our Promotional Solutions segment, and the continuing secular decline in checks, business forms and some business accessories. The increase in income tax payments was primarily driven by the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 that became effective in 2022 and that require the capitalization of research and development and cloud computing arrangement expenditures for income tax purposes. We were able to substantially offset these decreases in operating cash flow through the incremental contribution from the First American acquisition, price increases in response to the current inflationary environment, continued cost saving actions, a $22.9 million decrease in payments for cloud computing arrangements, primarily related to our sales and finance technology infrastructure, and revenue growth from new business and strong demand for our products. In addition, we incurred acquisition transaction costs of $18.9 million in 2021 related to the First American acquisition that did not recur in 2022.
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Included in net cash provided by operating activities were the following operating cash outflows:
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Interest payments | $ | 87,108 | $ | 46,621 | $ | 40,487 | ||||||||||||||
| Income tax payments | 38,629 | 18,761 | 19,868 | |||||||||||||||||
Performance-based compensation payments(1)
|
34,972 | 12,192 | 22,780 | |||||||||||||||||
Prepaid product discount payments(2)
|
30,603 | 40,920 | (10,317) | |||||||||||||||||
| Payments for cloud computing arrangement implementation costs | 18,649 | 41,547 | (22,898) | |||||||||||||||||
(1) Amounts reflect compensation based on total company and segment performance.
(2) See Other Financial Position Information for further information regarding these payments.
Net cash used by investing activities for 2022 was $986.3 million lower than 2021, driven by the acquisition of First American in 2021 and proceeds of $25.2 million from sales of businesses and a facility during 2022.
Net cash used by financing activities for 2022 was $961.6 million higher than 2021, driven by the net proceeds from debt issued in 2021 to fund the First American acquisition, as well as the net change in customer funds obligations in each period, primarily related to the portion of First American's business under which property tax payments are collected in December and are paid on behalf of customers in the following quarter. In addition, proceeds from issuing shares were $13.7 million lower in 2022, as certain employees of First American purchased our stock during 2021 in conjunction with the acquisition.
Significant cash transactions, excluding those related to operating activities, for each period were as follows:
| (in thousands) | 2022 | 2021 | Change | |||||||||||||||||
| Payment for acquisitions, net of cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash and restricted cash equivalents acquired | $ | — | $ | (958,514) | $ | 958,514 | ||||||||||||||
| Purchases of capital assets | (104,598) | (109,140) | 4,542 | |||||||||||||||||
| Cash dividends paid to shareholders | (52,647) | (51,654) | (993) | |||||||||||||||||
Net change in debt |
(40,613) | 854,974 | (895,587) | |||||||||||||||||
| Payments for debt issuance costs | — | (18,153) | 18,153 | |||||||||||||||||
Net change in customer funds obligations |
56,426 | 126,703 | (70,277) | |||||||||||||||||
| Proceeds from sale of businesses and facilities | 25,248 | 2,648 | 22,600 | |||||||||||||||||
| Proceeds from issuing shares | 3,112 | 16,843 | (13,731) | |||||||||||||||||
During 2022, we repatriated current year foreign earnings of $25.5 million held in cash by our Canadian subsidiaries. The associated tax expense of $1.8 million was included in our income tax provision. We believe the accumulated and remaining cash of our Canadian subsidiaries is sufficient to meet their working capital needs. We utilized the repatriated cash to reduce our outstanding debt. The historical unremitted Canadian earnings as of December 31, 2021, as well as the accumulated and future unremitted earnings of our European subsidiaries, will continue to be reinvested indefinitely in the operations of those subsidiaries. Deferred income taxes have not been recognized on these earnings as of December 31, 2022. If we were to repatriate our foreign cash and cash equivalents into the U.S. all at one time, we estimate that we would incur a foreign withholding tax liability of approximately $2 million, notwithstanding any tax planning strategies that might be available. As of December 31, 2022, the amount of cash and cash equivalents held by our foreign subsidiaries was $33.6 million, primarily in Canada.
During the fourth quarter of 2021, we repatriated accumulated foreign earnings of $85.3 million held in cash by our Canadian subsidiaries. We decided to complete the repatriation due, in part, to changes in Canadian law announced during 2021 and the reorganization of our capital structure in June 2021. We utilized this cash to reduce our outstanding debt. The associated tax expense of $4.6 million was included in our income tax provision for the fourth quarter of 2021.
In assessing our cash needs, we must consider our debt service requirements, lease obligations, other contractual commitments and contingent liabilities. Information regarding the maturities of our long-term debt, our operating and finance lease obligations and contingent liabilities can be found under the captions "Note 13: Debt," "Note 14: Leases" and "Note 15: Other Commitments and Contingencies," all of which appear in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report. In addition, we have executed contracts with third-party service providers, primarily for information technology services, including cloud computing and professional services agreements related to the modernization of our technology platform, as well as agreements for outsourcing services, the purchase of data, and payment acceptance services.
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These contracts obligate us to pay approximately $145 million in total, with approximately $60 million due during 2023, $40 million due during 2024 and the remainder due through 2027.
As of December 31, 2022, $295.2 million was available for borrowing under our revolving credit facility. We anticipate that net cash generated by operations, along with cash and cash equivalents on hand and availability under our credit facility, will be sufficient to support our operations, including our contractual obligations and our debt service requirements, for the next 12 months, as well as our long-term capital requirements. We anticipate that we will continue to pay our regular quarterly dividend. However, dividends are approved by our board of directors each quarter and thus, are subject to change.
| CAPITAL RESOURCES | ||
The principal amount of our debt obligations was $1.66 billion as of December 31, 2022 and $1.70 billion as of December 31, 2021. Further information concerning our outstanding debt, including our debt service obligations, can be found under the caption "Note 13: Debt” in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
Our capital structure for each period was as follows:
| December 31, 2022 | December 31, 2021 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (in thousands) | Amount | Period-end interest rate | Amount | Period-end interest rate | Change | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fixed interest rate(1)
|
$ | 975,000 | 6.6 | % | $ | 700,000 | 6.9 | % | $ | 275,000 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Floating interest rate | 684,375 | 6.6 | % | 1,002,125 | 2.4 | % | (317,750) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total debt principal | 1,659,375 | 6.6 | % | 1,702,125 | 4.2 | % | (42,750) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Shareholders’ equity | 604,224 | 574,598 | 29,626 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Total capital | $ | 2,263,599 | $ | 2,276,723 | $ | (13,124) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(1) The fixed interest rate amount includes the amount of our variable-rate debt that is subject to interest rate swap agreements. The related interest rate includes the fixed rate under the swaps plus the credit facility spread due on all amounts outstanding under our credit facility.
In October 2018, our board of directors authorized the repurchase of up to $500.0 million of our common stock. This authorization has no expiration date. We have not repurchased any shares since the first quarter of 2020, when we suspended share repurchases in order to maintain liquidity during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of December 31, 2022, $287.5 million remained available for repurchase under the authorization. Information regarding changes in shareholders' equity can be found in the consolidated statements of shareholders' equity appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
As of December 31, 2022, total commitments under our revolving credit facility were $500.0 million and the credit facility matures in June 2026. Our quarterly commitment fee ranges from 0.25% to 0.35%, based on our total leverage ratio, as defined in the credit agreement. Further information regarding the terms and maturities of our debt, as well as our debt covenants, can be found under the caption "Note 13: Debt" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report. Under the terms of our credit facility, if our consolidated total leverage ratio exceeds 2.75 to 1.00, the aggregate annual amount of permitted dividends and share repurchases is limited to $60.0 million. We were in compliance with our debt covenants as of December 31, 2022, and we anticipate that we will remain in compliance with our debt covenants throughout 2023.
As of December 31, 2022, amounts were available for borrowing under our revolving credit facility as follows:
| (in thousands) | Total available | ||||
| Revolving credit facility commitment | $ | 500,000 | |||
| Amount drawn on revolving credit facility | (197,000) | ||||
Outstanding letters of credit(1)
|
(7,823) | ||||
Net available for borrowing as of December 31, 2022 |
$ | 295,177 | |||
(1) We use standby letters of credit primarily to collateralize certain obligations related to our self-insured workers' compensation claims, as well as claims for environmental matters, as required by certain states. These letters of credit reduce the amount available for borrowing under our revolving credit facility.
| OTHER FINANCIAL POSITION INFORMATION | ||
Information concerning items comprising selected captions on our consolidated balance sheets can be found under the caption "Note 3: Supplemental Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Information" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
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Prepaid product discounts – Other non-current assets include prepaid product discounts that are recorded upon contract execution and are generally amortized on the straight-line basis as reductions of revenue over the related contract term. Changes in prepaid product discounts during the past 3 years can be found under the caption "Note 3: Supplemental Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Information" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report. Cash payments made for prepaid product discounts were $30.6 million for 2022, $40.9 million for 2021 and $33.6 million for 2020.
The number of checks being written has been declining, which has contributed to increased competitive pressure when attempting to retain or acquire clients. Both the number of financial institution clients requesting prepaid product discount payments and the amount of the payments has fluctuated from year to year. Although we anticipate that we will selectively continue to make these payments, we cannot quantify future amounts with certainty. The amount paid depends on numerous factors, such as the number and timing of contract executions and renewals, competitors’ actions, overall product discount levels and the structure of up-front product discount payments versus providing higher discount levels throughout the term of the contract.
Liabilities for prepaid product discounts are recorded upon contract execution. These obligations are monitored for each contract and are adjusted as payments are made. Prepaid product discounts due within the next year are included in accrued liabilities on the consolidated balance sheets and were $4.2 million as of December 31, 2022 and $11.9 million as of December 31, 2021.
| CRITICAL ACCOUNTING ESTIMATES | ||
Our critical accounting estimates are those that are most important to the portrayal of our financial condition and results of operations, or which place the most significant demands on management's judgment about the effect of matters that are inherently uncertain, and the impact of different estimates or assumptions could be material to our financial condition or results of operations. Our MD&A discussion is based upon our consolidated financial statements, which have been prepared in accordance with GAAP. Our accounting policies are discussed under the caption “Note 1: Significant Accounting Policies” in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report. We review the accounting policies used in reporting our financial results on a regular basis. The preparation of our financial statements requires us to make estimates and judgments that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses and the related disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities. We base our estimates on historical experience and on various other factors and assumptions that we believe are reasonable under the circumstances, the result of which forms the basis for making judgments about the carrying values of assets and liabilities. In some instances, we reasonably could have used different accounting estimates and, in other instances, changes in the accounting estimates are reasonably likely to occur from period to period. Accordingly, actual results may differ from our estimates. Significant estimates and judgments are reviewed by management on an ongoing basis and by the audit committee of our board of directors at the end of each quarter prior to the public release of our financial results.
Goodwill Impairment
As of December 31, 2022, goodwill totaled $1.43 billion, which represented 46.5% of our total assets. Goodwill is tested for impairment on an annual basis as of July 31, or more frequently if events occur or circumstances change that would indicate a possible impairment.
To analyze goodwill for impairment, we must assign our goodwill to individual reporting units. Identification of reporting units includes an analysis of the components that comprise each of our operating segments, which considers, among other things, the manner in which we operate our business and the availability of discrete financial information. Components of an operating segment are aggregated to form a reporting unit if the components have similar economic characteristics. We periodically review our reporting units to ensure that they continue to reflect the manner in which we operate our business.
When completing our annual goodwill impairment analysis, we have the option to first assess qualitative factors to determine whether the existence of events or circumstances leads to a determination that it is more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount. If, after this qualitative assessment, we determine it is not more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount, then performing the quantitative impairment test is unnecessary. In completing the 2022 annual impairment analysis of goodwill as of July 31, 2022, we elected to perform qualitative analyses for all of our reporting units, with the exception of our Data Analytics reporting unit. These qualitative analyses evaluated factors, including, but not limited to, economic, market and industry conditions, cost factors and the overall financial performance of the reporting units. We also considered the most recent quantitative analyses completed in prior periods. In completing these assessments, we noted no changes in events or circumstances that indicated that it was more likely than not that the fair value of any reporting unit was less than its carrying amount. The quantitative analysis of our Data Analytics reporting unit indicated that the estimated fair value of this reporting unit exceeded its carrying value by approximately $46 million, or by 39% above the carrying value of its net assets. As such, no goodwill impairment charges were recorded as a result of our 2022 annual impairment analysis.
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When performing a quantitative analysis of goodwill, we first compare the carrying value of the reporting unit, including goodwill, to its estimated fair value. Carrying value is based on the assets and liabilities associated with the operations of the reporting unit, which often requires the allocation of shared and corporate items among reporting units. We utilize a discounted cash flow model to calculate the estimated fair value of a reporting unit. This approach is a valuation technique under which we estimate future cash flows using the reporting unit's financial forecast from the perspective of an unrelated market participant. Using historical trending and internal forecasting techniques, we project revenue and apply our fixed and variable cost experience rates to the projected revenue to arrive at the future cash flows. A terminal value is then applied to the projected cash flow stream. Future estimated cash flows are discounted to their present value to calculate the estimated fair value. The discount rate used is the market-value-weighted average of our estimated cost of capital derived using both known and estimated customary market metrics. In determining the estimated fair values of our reporting units, we are required to estimate a number of factors, including revenue growth rates, terminal growth rates, direct costs, the discount rate and the allocation of shared and corporate items. When completing a quantitative analysis for all of our reporting units, the summation of our reporting units' fair values is compared to our consolidated fair value, as indicated by our market capitalization, to evaluate the reasonableness of our calculations.
While we did not record any goodwill impairment charges during 2022 or 2021, we did record significant goodwill impairment charges during 2020.
2020 goodwill impairment charges – During the first quarter of 2020, when the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic, we observed a decline in the market valuation of our common shares and we determined that the global response to the pandemic negatively impacted our estimates of expected future cash flows. We concluded that a triggering event had occurred for 2 of our reporting units and as such, we completed quantitative goodwill impairment analyses for our Promotional Solutions and Data Solutions Web Hosting reporting units as of March 31, 2020. Our analyses indicated that the goodwill of our Promotional Solutions reporting unit was partially impaired and the goodwill of our Data Solutions Web Hosting reporting unit was fully impaired, and we recorded goodwill impairment charges of $67.1 million and $4.3 million, respectively. The impairment charges were measured as the amount by which the reporting units' carrying values exceeded their estimated fair values, limited to the carrying amount of goodwill. After the impairment charges, $59.0 million of goodwill remained in the Promotional Solutions reporting unit as of the measurement date.
Our impairment analyses were based on assumptions made using the best information available at the time, including the performance of our reporting units subsequent to the WHO declaration of a pandemic and available economic forecasts. These assumptions anticipated a sharp decline in gross domestic product and a material decline in the number of small businesses. The sweeping nature of the pandemic made it extremely difficult to predict how our business and operations would be affected in the longer term. To the extent our assumptions differ from actual events, we may be required to record additional asset impairment charges.
Our impairment assessments are sensitive to changes in forecasted revenues and expenses, as well as our selected discount rate. For the March 31, 2020 assessment of our Promotional Solutions reporting unit, holding all other assumptions constant, if we assumed revenue in each year was 10% higher than we estimated, our goodwill impairment charge would have been approximately $18 million less, and if we assumed revenue in each year was 10% lower than we estimated, our goodwill impairment charge would have been approximately $18 million more. If we assumed our expenses, as a percentage of revenue, were 100 basis points lower in each year, our goodwill impairment charge would have been approximately $39 million less, and if we assumed our expenses, as a percentage of revenue, were 100 basis points higher in each year, our goodwill impairment charge would have been approximately $39 million more. If we assumed our selected discount rate of 12% was 100 basis points lower, our goodwill impairment charge would have been approximately $21 million less, and if we assumed the discount rate was 100 basis points higher, our goodwill impairment charge would have been approximately $17 million more.
Further information regarding all of our goodwill impairment analyses can be found under the caption "Note 8: Fair Value Measurements" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Item II, Part 8 of this report. Evaluations of asset impairment require us to make assumptions about future events, market conditions and financial performance over the life of the asset being evaluated. These assumptions require significant judgment and actual results may vary from our assumptions. For example, if our stock price were to further decline over a sustained period, if a further downturn in economic conditions were to negatively affect our actual and forecasted operating results, if we were to change our business strategies and/or the allocation of resources, if we were to lose significant customers, if competition were to materially increase, or if order volume declines for checks and business forms were to materially accelerate, these situations could indicate a decline in the fair value of one or more of our reporting units. This may require us to record additional impairment charges for a portion of goodwill or other assets.
Business Combinations
We allocate the purchase price of acquired businesses to the estimated fair values of the assets acquired and liabilities assumed as of the date of the acquisition. The calculations used to determine the fair value of the long-lived assets acquired, primarily intangible assets, can be complex and require significant judgment. We weigh many factors when completing these estimates, including, but not limited to, the nature of the acquired company’s business; its competitive position, strengths, and challenges; its historical financial position and performance; estimated customer retention rates; discount rates; and future plans
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for the combined entity. We may also engage independent valuation specialists, when necessary, to assist in the fair value calculations for significant acquired long-lived assets.
We generally estimate the fair value of acquired customer lists using the multi-period excess earnings method. This valuation model estimates revenues and cash flows derived from the asset and then deducts portions of the cash flow that can be attributed to supporting assets, such as a trade name or fixed assets, that contributed to the generation of the cash flows. The resulting cash flow, which is attributable solely to the customer list asset, is then discounted at a rate of return commensurate with the risk of the asset to calculate a present value. The fair value of acquired customer lists may also be estimated by discounting the estimated cash flows expected to be generated by the assets. During 2021, we also utilized the multi-period excess earnings method to estimate the fair value of acquired partner relationship intangible assets. Key assumptions used in these calculations include same-customer revenue, merchant and partner growth rates; estimated earnings; estimated customer and partner retention rates, based on the acquirees' historical information; and the discount rate.
The fair value of acquired trade names and technology is estimated, at times, using the relief from royalty method, which calculates the cost savings associated with owning rather than licensing the assets. Assumed royalty rates are applied to projected revenue for the estimated remaining useful lives of the assets to estimate the royalty savings. Royalty rates are selected based on the attributes of the asset, including its recognition and reputation in the industry, and in the case of trade names, with consideration of the specific profitability of the products sold under a trade name and supporting assets. The fair value of acquired technology may also be estimated using the cost of reproduction method under which the primary components of the technology are identified and the estimated cost to reproduce the technology is calculated based on historical data provided by the acquiree.
The excess of the purchase price over the estimated fair value of the net assets acquired is recorded as goodwill. Goodwill is not amortized, but is subject to impairment testing on at least an annual basis.
We are also required to estimate the useful lives of the acquired intangible assets, which determines the amount of acquisition-related amortization expense we will record in future periods. Each reporting period, we evaluate the remaining useful lives of our amortizable intangibles to determine whether events or circumstances warrant a revision to the remaining period of amortization.
While we use our best estimates and assumptions, our fair value estimates are inherently uncertain and subject to refinement. As a result, during the measurement period, which may be up to 1 year from the acquisition date, we may record adjustments to the assets acquired and liabilities assumed, with the corresponding offset to goodwill. Any adjustments required after the measurement period are recorded in the consolidated statements of income.
The judgments required in determining the estimated fair values and expected useful lives assigned to each class of assets and liabilities acquired can significantly affect net income. For example, different classes of assets will have different useful lives. Consequently, to the extent a longer-lived asset is ascribed greater value than a shorter-lived asset, net income in a given period may be higher. Additionally, assigning a lower value to amortizable intangibles would result in a higher amount assigned to goodwill. As goodwill is not amortized, this would benefit net income in a given period, although goodwill is subject to annual impairment analysis.
Revenue Recognition
Product revenue is recognized when control of the goods is transferred to our customers, in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to be entitled to in exchange for those goods. In most cases, control is transferred when products are shipped. We recognize the vast majority of our service revenue as the services are provided. The majority of our contracts are for the shipment of tangible products or the delivery of services that have a single performance obligation or include multiple performance obligations where control is transferred at the same time. Certain of our financial institution contracts require prepaid product discounts in the form of cash payments we make to our financial institution clients. These prepaid product discounts are included in other non-current assets on our consolidated balance sheets and are generally amortized as reductions of revenue on the straight-line basis over the contract term. Sales tax collected concurrent with revenue-producing activities is excluded from revenue. Amounts billed to customers for shipping and handling are included in revenue, while the related costs incurred for shipping and handling are reflected in cost of products and are accrued when the related revenue is recognized.
When another party is involved in providing goods or services to a customer, we must determine whether our obligation is to provide the specified good or service itself (i.e., we are the principal in the transaction) or to arrange for that good or service to be provided by the other party (i.e., we are an agent in the transaction). When we are responsible for satisfying a performance obligation, based on our ability to control the product or service provided, we are considered the principal and revenue is recognized for the gross amount of consideration. When the other party is primarily responsible for satisfying a performance obligation, we are considered the agent and revenue is recognized in the amount of any fee or commission to which we are entitled. We sell certain products and services through a network of distributors. We have determined that we are the principal in these transactions, and revenue is recorded for the gross amount of consideration.
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Certain costs incurred to obtain customer contracts are required to be recognized as assets and amortized consistent with the transfer of goods or services to the customer. As such, we defer costs related to obtaining check supply, treasury management solution and merchant services contracts. These amounts, which totaled $21.3 million as of December 31, 2022, are included in other non-current assets and are amortized on the straight-line basis as SG&A expense. Amortization of these amounts on the straight-line basis approximates the timing of the transfer of goods or services to the customer. Generally, these amounts are being amortized over periods of 2 to 5 years. We expense these costs as incurred when the amortization period would have been 1 year or less.
Accounting for customer contracts can be complex and may involve the use of various techniques to estimate total contract revenue. Estimates related to variable consideration are based on various assumptions to project the outcome of future events. We review and update our contract-related estimates regularly, and we do not anticipate that revisions to our estimates would have a material effect on our results of operations, financial position or cash flows.
New Accounting Pronouncements
Information regarding accounting pronouncements not yet adopted can be found under the caption “Note 2: New Accounting Pronouncements” in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
| ITEM 7A. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK | ||
Interest rate risk – We are exposed to changes in interest rates primarily as a result of the borrowing activities used to support our capital structure, maintain liquidity and fund business operations and investments. We do not enter into financial instruments for speculative or trading purposes. The nature and amount of debt outstanding can be expected to vary as a result of future business requirements, market conditions and other factors.
Interest is payable on amounts outstanding under our credit facility at a fluctuating rate of interest determined by reference to the eurodollar rate (derived from LIBOR) plus an applicable margin ranging from 1.5% to 2.5%, depending on our total leverage ratio, as defined in the credit agreement. We are currently in the process of modifying our existing credit facility to utilize the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR), replacing LIBOR as the reference rate in the agreement, effective March 20, 2023. Subsequent to this modification, interest will be payable based on SOFR plus an applicable margin. We also had $475.0 million of 8.0% senior, unsecured notes outstanding as of December 31, 2022. Including the related discount and debt issuance costs, the effective interest rate on these notes is 8.3%.
As of December 31, 2022, our total debt outstanding was as follows:
| (in thousands) |
Carrying amount(1)
|
Fair value(2)
|
Interest rate(3)
|
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| Senior, secured term loan facility | $ | 979,757 | $ | 987,375 | 6.6 | % | ||||||||||||||
| Senior, unsecured notes | 467,519 | 390,042 | 8.0 | % | ||||||||||||||||
| Amounts drawn on revolving credit facility | 197,000 | 197,000 | 6.6 | % | ||||||||||||||||
| Total debt | $ | 1,644,276 | $ | 1,574,417 | 6.6 | % | ||||||||||||||
(1) The carrying amount has been reduced by unamortized discount and debt issuance costs of $15.1 million.
(2) For the amounts outstanding under our credit facility agreement, fair value approximates carrying value because the interest rate is variable and reflects current market rates. The fair value of the senior, unsecured notes is based on quoted prices in active markets for the identical liability when traded as an asset.
(3) The interest rate presented for total debt includes the impact of the interest rate swaps discussed below.
As part of our interest rate risk management strategy, we entered into interest rate swaps, which we designated as cash flow hedges, to mitigate variability in interest payments on a portion of our variable-rate debt. The interest rate swaps effectively convert $500.0 million of variable-rate debt to a fixed rate. Further information regarding the interest rate swaps can be found under the caption "Note 7: Derivative Financial Instruments" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report. Changes in the fair value of the interest rate swaps are recorded in accumulated other comprehensive loss on the consolidated balance sheets and are subsequently reclassified to interest expense as interest payments are made on the variable-rate debt. The fair value of the interest rate swaps in effect as of December 31, 2022 was $3.6 million and was included in other current and other non-current assets on the consolidated balance sheet. The fair value of the interest rate swap in effect as of December 31, 2021 was $3.0 million and was included in other non-current liabilities on the consolidated balance sheet.
Based on the daily average amount of outstanding variable-rate debt in our portfolio, a one-percentage-point change in our weighted-average interest rate would have resulted in a $9.1 million change in interest expense for 2022.
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Our credit agreement matures on June 1, 2026, at which time any amounts outstanding under the revolving credit facility must be repaid. The term loan facility requires periodic principal payments through June 1, 2026, and the senior, unsecured notes mature in June 2029. Information regarding the maturities of our long-term debt can be found under the caption "Note 13: Debt" in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements appearing in Part II, Item 8 of this report.
Foreign currency exchange rate risk – We are exposed to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. Investments in, and loans and advances to, foreign subsidiaries and branches, as well as the operations of these businesses, are denominated in foreign currencies, primarily Canadian dollars. The effect of exchange rate changes is expected to have a minimal impact on our earnings and cash flows, as our foreign operations represent a relatively small portion of our business. We have not entered into hedges against changes in foreign currency exchange rates.
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| ITEM 8. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY DATA | ||
INDEX TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
| Item | Page | |||||||
Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm (PCAOB ID |
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| Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements: | ||||||||
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Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm
To the Board of Directors and Shareholders of Deluxe Corporation
Opinions on the Financial Statements and Internal Control over Financial Reporting
We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Deluxe Corporation and its subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2022 and 2021, and the related consolidated statements of income, of comprehensive income, of shareholders' equity and of cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2022, including the related notes (collectively referred to as the “consolidated financial statements”). We also have audited the Company's internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2022, based on criteria established in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO).
In our opinion, the consolidated financial statements referred to above present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 2022 and 2021, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2022 in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America. Also in our opinion, the Company maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2022, based on criteria established in Internal Control - Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the COSO.
Basis for Opinions
The Company's management is responsible for these consolidated financial statements, for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting, and for its assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, included in Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting appearing under Item 9A. Our responsibility is to express opinions on the Company’s consolidated financial statements and on the Company's internal control over financial reporting based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB) and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.
We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audits to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the consolidated financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud, and whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects.
Our audits of the consolidated financial statements included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the consolidated financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the consolidated financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the consolidated financial statements. Our audit of internal control over financial reporting included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, and testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed risk. Our audits also included performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinions.
Definition and Limitations of Internal Control over Financial Reporting
A company’s internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company’s internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that (i) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (ii) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company; and (iii) provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition of the company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.
Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.
Critical Audit Matters
The critical audit matter communicated below is a matter arising from the current period audit of the consolidated financial statements that was communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that (i) relates to accounts or
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disclosures that are material to the consolidated financial statements and (ii) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the consolidated financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit matter below, providing a separate opinion on the critical audit matter or on the accounts or disclosures to which it relates.
Revenue Recognition
As described in Notes 1 and 17 to the consolidated financial statements, product and service revenue of $1,286 million and $952 million, respectively, for the year ended December 31, 2022, are disaggregated by seven product and service offerings including checks, merchant services and other payment solutions, forms and other products, marketing and promotional solutions, treasury management solutions, data-driven marketing solutions, and web and hosted solutions. Product revenue is recognized when control of the goods is transferred to customers, in an amount that reflects the consideration the Company expects to be entitled to in exchange for those goods. In most cases, control is transferred when products are shipped. The Company recognizes the vast majority of service revenue as services are provided. The majority of the Company’s contracts are for the shipment of tangible products or the delivery of services that have a single performance obligation or include multiple performance obligations where control is transferred at the same time.
The principal consideration for our determination that performing procedures relating to revenue recognition is a critical audit matter is a high degree of auditor effort in performing procedures related to the Company’s revenue recognition.
Addressing the matter involved performing procedures and evaluating audit evidence in connection with forming our overall opinion on the consolidated financial statements. These procedures included testing the effectiveness of controls relating to the revenue recognition process. These procedures also included, among others, testing, on a sample basis, whether the criteria for revenue recognition have been met by obtaining and inspecting source documents, including customer order information, the related customer contract, invoices, proof of shipment or delivery and cash receipts, as applicable.
/s/ PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
February 24, 2023
We have served as the Company’s auditor since 2001.
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| DELUXE CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS | ||
| (in thousands, except share par value) | December 31, 2022 |
December 31, 2021 |
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| ASSETS | ||||||||||||||
| Current assets: | ||||||||||||||
Cash and cash equivalents, including securities carried at fair value of $ |
$ | $ | ||||||||||||
| Trade accounts receivable, net of allowance for credit losses | ||||||||||||||
| Inventories and supplies, net of reserves | ||||||||||||||