Global Payments lifts Q4 EPS 63%, launches $250m buyback amid strategic overhaul

Global Payments posted stronger earnings in the fourth quarter of 2024, with both headline profitability measures advancing solidly year-on-year, as the payments technology group pressed ahead with a strategic overhaul aimed at returning significant capital to shareholders.

Q4 2024 Financial Highlights

The company's results, released on 13 February 2025, showed Q4 2024 GAAP diluted earnings per share of $2.25, a 63% increase on the prior-year period — a figure confirmed by two independent sources including the company's own investor relations press release. On an adjusted basis, EPS reached $2.95, up 12% in constant currency terms, also corroborated across multiple sources.

Revenue growth was more measured in headline terms. GAAP revenue for the quarter came in at $2.52 billion, up 3%, according to the company's press release. Stripping out the effect of dispositions and measuring in constant currency, adjusted net revenue reached $2.29 billion, an increase of 6.5% — a distinction that matters given the group has been actively reshaping its portfolio.

The quarterly results showed adjusted earnings per share advancing 12% in constant currency, with adjusted net revenue up 6.5% on a like-for-like basis after accounting for dispositions.

Capital Returns and Share Repurchase

Alongside the earnings release, Global Payments announced a $250 million accelerated share repurchase programme, according to the company's investor relations press release. The buyback sits within a broader capital return ambition the group has been signalling to investors: at its investor conference on 24 September 2024 — with the press release issued 25 September 2024 — Global Payments outlined a strategy targeting $7.5 billion in shareholder returns across a three-year horizon, according to the company's investor relations materials and a corroborating Nasdaq press release filing.

Transformation Programme Upgraded

One of the more significant disclosures in the February results was an upward revision to the expected financial benefit from the company's ongoing operational transformation initiative. Global Payments increased its targeted operating income benefit from that programme to $600 million, per the company's press release. The prior baseline figure against which this increase is measured was not disclosed in the verified sourcing reviewed for this article.

Strategic Direction

The group's medium-term financial roadmap, outlined at the September 2024 investor conference according to company materials, calls for double-digit adjusted EPS growth in 2025, accelerating to low-teens growth in both 2026 and 2027. The 2025 growth targets are described by the company as consistent with its previously communicated medium-term outlook.

Two structural initiatives underpin the reshaping of the business:

• Brand consolidation: Global Payments is unifying its point-of-sale businesses under the 'Genius' brand, according to the company's September 2024 investor conference materials.
• Asset dispositions: The company is pursuing dispositions of select assets as part of a broader effort to accelerate value creation, as stated in the same investor materials.

Global Payments describes itself as a "market leader at the intersection of software and payments" and a "leading worldwide provider of payment technology and software solutions" — language taken directly from its own investor relations communications and presented here as company characterisation rather than independently verified market positioning.

Editorial Context

For observers of the payments sector, the combination of a raised transformation target, a fresh buyback programme and reaffirmed medium-term EPS growth guidance suggests management is seeking to demonstrate operational momentum at a time when the group is simultaneously trimming its asset base. Whether the 6.5% constant-currency adjusted revenue growth rate — which excludes the drag from dispositions — is the more representative measure of underlying business momentum is a distinction analysts will weigh carefully, since it strips out activity the company has itself chosen to exit.

The full-year 2024 results were released at 6:55 am EST on 13 February 2025, per the company's investor relations press release.