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KICTalking Points 080608
KICTalking Points 080608
TITLE
Given that we’ve got both short and long-term topics to cover today, I’ve opted to modify our regular
meeting format.
AGENDA
I’ll open with a brief review of our 2008 performance, along with my perspective on the company’s
position, and a summary of our reengineering plans.
Al Kelly will drill down into the performance and trends in U.S. consumer spending and credit. Both of
these issues are top of mind for us, as we know they are for you. Al will share some of the data and
analysis currently supporting our credit actions, and give you a sense of how cardmember behaviors have
changed over the last few months. He’ll look at our relative performance, the actions we’re taking to
mitigate our risk exposure, and how we’re targeting investment dollars within U.S. consumer in light of the
current environment.
Despite the weakness in the U.S., as an organization we’re still very focused on moderate and long-term
growth. And one area that has significant opportunity is business to business.
Our B2B businesses include Global Commercial Card, Global Merchant Services, Global Network
Services and Global Business Travel. Ed Gilligan leads these businesses and will give you an update on
their historical performance, as well as their growth potential.
You’ll see that B2B hits the trifecta by offering high growth, high returns, and low credit risk. We’re
directing a growing share of our investment dollars into B2B, so we want to give you a better sense of this
opportunity, and what it could mean to the company’s overall profile.
We’ll then end with Q and A. Dan, Al and Ed will join me on stage to answer questions on today’s
presentations, or on any topic you wish.
*********
As I discussed in our release and on our investor call, our results through June were disappointing.
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The credit reserves added in the second quarter led to diluted EPS from continuing operations being down
(21%).
Revenue growth, however, remained strong over the last six months, up 9%, and return on equity was also
healthy at 31%.
Now, rather than go through the business metrics as I usually do, in the interest of time I’ll instead give
you a quick sense of my perspective on our company-wide results. As I look at our overall performance, I
see both positives and negatives.
As I noted in my second quarter comments, the economic environment in the U.S. has deteriorated since
the beginning of the year, beyond what a number of economists had thought, and beyond our internal
expectations. The combination of rising fuel prices, rising unemployment, record low consumer
confidence and – most critically – housing declines, have made this economic cycle unlike any other.
These environmental challenges have had a substantial impact on two of our most important business
metrics – U.S. consumer billings, primarily in discretionary spend categories, and consumer and small
business credit losses. In combination these indicators had a substantial negative impact on our results
through June.
As we saw in the second quarter, and particularly in the month of June, weakness in these metrics spread
over time. We’re now seeing this weakness across all consumer segments, even at the high end of our base.
This speaks to the pervasive impact that the collapse of housing prices is having on our cardmembers,
particularly in certain parts of the country.
Our year to date performance also included a number of positives. While clearly not equal in scope to the
negative impact of the environment, I believe these positives show that a number of our business
fundamentals remain quite strong.
Card Growth
Card growth has also been quite strong, up 10% through June. Across our franchise we continue to make
significant investments in new card acquisitions. In light of the current weakness in the U.S., we’ve used
our flexibility and diversity to target specific segments of prospects in the U.S., as well as to redirect
acquisition funds into Commercial Card and international.
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Revenue Growth
Billings and cards in force helped drive our top line growth of 9%, which achieved our on average and
over time target, despite weakness in the environment.
I’m very pleased with our revenue performance this year. To me it’s indicative of the continued success of
our multi-year investment strategy and is also evidence of our continued focus on growth. I believe it
shows the diversity of our payments business and also demonstrates that, even as we’re dealing with the
weaker U.S. environment, we’re not distracted by it.
Competitive Position
The final positive I’d note is our overall competitive position, which I believe remains strong. The credit
losses we booked in the 2nd quarter were sizable. But our relative position remains strong:
• Our billings growth of 12% was the best among our five major issuing peers, a trend that has
continued for 6 quarters. Our growth rate has moderated, but we remain the largest global player in
terms of spend. To put it in perspective, despite the weakness in the U.S., our second quarter
worldwide volume of $181 billion was still the highest quarterly billings number in our history.
• Our year to date growth in marketing and promotion also exceeds those in this group reporting this
expense. While a number of competitors have reduced their marketing, or held flat, we continued to
invest.
• And finally, as you’ll hear from Al, while our U.S. lending loss rates rose at a faster pace than in prior
quarters, we continue to outperform the industry in terms of both delinquencies and writeoffs. Using
reported numbers through June only one of these peers had lower absolute rates for these metrics.
In looking at this list it’s clear that not every item has equal weight. As I noted earlier, the slower U.S.
consumer spend and higher credit losses on the left side of the slide have had an outsized impact on our
results. But at a time when many financial companies have few, if any, positives to point to in their
performance, we continue to have a number of major growth elements working to our benefit.
BLUE BOX
Generating long-term shareholder value is a goal we strive to achieve regardless of the economic
environment. This goal requires that we navigate through near-term issues, while also keeping a firm focus
on longer-term growth.
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Given this commitment to long-term growth and, in recognition of the short-term environment, last
month we announced the acceleration of a number of substantial reengineering initiatives.
As you all know, reengineering has been a key means of funding our investment growth -- in both good
times and bad – over the last 15 years. Given that current economic conditions may continue for a while,
and given our focus on expanding our growth and competitive position over the long-term, we will be
implementing an accelerated reengineering program over the latter part of the year.
Now, we’re still early in the process of formulating plans and quantifying their impact. Some of our actions
will involve cutting costs. Others will include the strategic reengineering of processes. We don’t yet have
an estimate on the total number of positions to be eliminated, or the amount of savings we’ll achieve. We
expect to finalize our actions over the next few months and will most likely take a charge against earnings
in the fourth quarter to cover our restructuring-related costs.
A large portion of our reengineering saves will be within operating expense. Based on our preliminary
review, we expect these saves to begin in the first quarter of 2009 and build throughout the year.
As I’ve told our organization, given the unprecedented economic conditions we’re facing, as well as for the
long-term health of the company, I believe the steps we’re taking are necessary.
We want to remain a growth company, and reengineering is important to ensuring we have the flexibility
and funding to drive that growth. Now, we’re optimistic we’ll have the benefit of $880 million from the
Visa and MasterCard settlements over each of the next few years, which is a significant advantage. But our
intent is to use these funds to invest in a select number of strategic growth initiatives. Our sustaining
investments still need to be funded from earnings, and reengineering is a key means of ensuring we have
growth initiatives underway that will enhance our competitive position on an ongoing basis.
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Before turning the podium over to Al, let me give you a few final points on my perspective of our results
and the environment.
As I said earlier, this is a very difficult economic cycle. But, despite its unique challenges, it is a cycle.
And, as with all economic cycles, the tide eventually turns.
My objective is to ensure that we aggressively navigate through this period by keeping a dual perspective –
maintaining a focus on short-term issues, while at the same time keeping a firm commitment to funding
long-term growth.
When conditions begin to improve, I want our company to be in the best possible position to generate
growth, earnings and shareholder value.
And I believe it will be.
Our company fundamentals are strong. We remain in the top tier of the industry, with a strong
competitive position and a strong global brand.
Generating growth in any environment requires that we meet customer needs, and customers across all
segments increasingly demand flexibility and options from their payment products. So, to be a leader in
global payments we can’t only be a charge card provider. We must be in lending.
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To grow in lending requires that you take on risk, and lending is clearly taking a hit in this current cycle.
Now, as you know, our lending activities are focused on driving spend. Generating balances alone is not
our objective, and therefore lending on its own is not the major driver of our financial performance. In
fact, spread represented only about 20% of our revenues last year.
But, that said, lending has been a critical contributor to our billings, revenue and earnings growth over the
last several years. And, over the moderate to long-term, it remains quite profitable. We believe that, even
if writeoff rates continued for a time to be higher than we’re currently seeing, our current lending
investments and lending relationships would generate attractive economic returns.
As you’ll hear from Al, our underwriting principles have generally remained the same over the last few
years. When deciding to extend credit to a cardmember or prospect, we continue to consider the full
economics of our actions. As we’ve told you before, we look to optimize profitability, not minimize losses.
As we assess the performance of our portfolios, our view is that our loss rates have been driven
predominantly by the collapse in home prices, a decline that is more severe than at any time since the
1930’s. We haven’t loosened our underwriting discipline over the last few years. And, in fact, our base
continues to be of high quality.
I believe we’re taking appropriate action to moderate our risk to the extent we can, with the goal of
balancing our short-term needs against our long-term customer relationships. We’ve implemented a range
of deliberate actions over the last year, which we enhance and expand on a daily basis.
Credit is clearly a major focus of our organization. But I believe it’s important to note that we’re also still
investing in growth.
We’re investing in international. We’re growing GNS. We’re expanding our sales forces. The internal
structure I put in place last year aligned our organization around consumer and B2B customers. This
focus has sharpened our investment options, while also highlighting both our business diversity and our
balance. It allows us to better target our investments and reallocate them as needed, based on conditions.
Given the flexibility inherent in our model we will scale back on some discretionary spending. But I don’t
intend to shut-off the investment valve. It takes too long to regain momentum if you’re forced to
accelerate from a standing start, so we intend to keep investing at appropriate levels despite current
conditions.
We adhered to this strategy in 2001/2002 and it clearly paid off. During that time of weak spending and
high credit losses, we expanded our commercial card middle market sales force, launched OPEN, our
small business network, and further expanded our merchant base into everyday spend categories, each of
which has been a significant contributor to growth over the last 5 years.
We evaluate all of our investments over a multi-year period – in good economic times and bad. This
approach has served us well over time, and I don’t intend to deviate from it during this downturn.
As we said in our second quarter release, we’re taking a very cautious view of economic conditions. And I
don’t expect that we’ll meet or exceed our long-term financial targets until we see some improvement in
the economy.
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Given our caution, we’ve developed contingency plans that cover a range of economic scenarios. While I
can’t share the details of our plans, I can offer you some insight into our approach to the environment by
sharing our short-term priorities.
Our first priority: that we continue to carefully navigate through the current credit environment, using the
full breadth of our information capabilities, as well as the lending expertise we’ve developed over the years.
Second, that we successfully execute our reengineering plans, which will be critical to the funding of our
investments and to our bottom-line.
And third, that we continue to implement our multi-year investment strategy, using the flexibility of our
business model to carefully balance our short-term needs against our long-term growth objectives.
Our entire organization is focused on these priorities. We’ve had experience dealing with periods of
weakness before. And, given the confidence I have in our people, our spend-centric model, our growth
potential and our business fundamentals, I believe we’ll manage through this current cycle, even as we
position ourselves for growth over the moderate to long-term.
***********
Now, achieving our goals requires balance – a balance of short-term against long-term, a balance of risk
against profitability. And in today’s presentations we’ll provide you with a perspective on how we’re
managing this balance.
Over the short-term we’re clearly focused on U.S. credit and spending, and Al will discuss these topics in
depth.
Over the moderate to long-term, one area with significant potential for growth is business to business.
B2B is already a major contributor to our current results, generating 29% of the company’s revenues and
38% of earnings in 2007, with strong double digit growth. But I believe the potential here is even more
impressive. Ed Gilligan will take you through the key elements of our B2B strategy, including the strong
foundation we’ve established, the attractive financial dynamics of these businesses and the long-term
drivers of growth.