FleetCor Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: FLT) stock fell over 3.6% on 3rd august, 2018 (as of 12:52 PM GMT-4; Source: google finance) after the company posted mixed results for the second quarter 2018. FLT was positively affected by rise in fuel prices in the quarter, but FX worsened considerably, spreads narrowed a bit, interest rates rose and the company’s effective tax rate came in a bit worse than planned. Overall, these macro factors resulted in approximately $10 million of negative revenue impact and about $0.05 of negative cash EPS impact in the quarter versus the company’s guidance.
FLT in the second quarter of FY 18 has reported the adjusted earnings per share of $2.57, while adjusted revenue growth of 8 percent to $585 million in the second quarter of FY 18, missing the analysts’ estimates for revenue of $595.8 billion.
Moreover, during the second quarter, the fuel card organic growth improved to 5% from 1% in Q1. International fuel card growth was 8%. Inside of that, Russia grew 29%. In North America, the trucking fuel business grew 20%, cardlock business way up. However, U.S. local and partner business still impacted negatively by last year’s GFN conversion and the weakening Chevron portfolio.
Corporate Payments grew 20% in the second quarter, including the construction vertical up 30%, the direct business up 24%, the payroll card business there way, way up. Cambridge posted mid-teens growth. Further, Toll grew 20% in Q2, driven 5% by higher average tags or volume, along with higher prices for the higher-usage customers. The truckers strike did depress transactions and spend above (5:41) 5% in the quarter, but had very little impact on Q2 Toll revenue because of the subscription basis there. The new Toll sales in the quarter was up 16% over last year. Lodging grew 30% in the quarter, driven by SMB room volume. However, the gift card business posted a 19% decline in the quarter attributable to some big card orders that got pushed into Q3.
Additionally, FLT repurchased about $300 million of stock in the quarter. That brings the repurchases since 2016 to about $1 billion. The company had increased the buyback authorization in the last meeting by another $500 million
FLT expects full-year earnings to be in the range of $10.32 to $10.52 per share, with revenue is expected to be in the range of $2.37 billion to $2.42 billion.