Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Kartik Mehta with Northcoast.
Kartik Mehta - Northcoast
Good afternoon. David, a question on the debt -- obviously you have that debt from the HSBC transaction and I am wondering what the goal is as far as reducing that debt? Will it be like you’ve done previously or you try to pay it off as quickly as you can or do you have intentions to continue with that debt for a while?
David E. Mangum
I think what you will see is the debt will continue for a while but as we accumulate cash, you should not be surprised to see us work to pay down to the most expensive portions of that debt, so it shouldn’t surprise you in the least to see us start paying down a little bit of debt as we have accumulated a bit of cash now in the last couple, three quarters.
Kartik Mehta - Northcoast
Paul, you had a fantastic first quarter, obviously much better than anybody expected yet you are keeping your full-year guidance where it is. I am just wondering, is it that we just all under-estimated what you could earn in the first quarter or did something happen in the first quarter that gives you pause about the remainder of the year and as a result you are not raising guidance?
Paul R. Garcia
It’s primarily the first part. We give you guys annual guidance and I think you guys generally, the street consensus built in a little more of a hockey stick into the plans than quite frankly our expectation and we are pretty spot on with our plan, so that’s the primary reason.
Kartik Mehta - Northcoast
So would you expect in the past, you’ve had a second quarter that is seasonally a lot lower than the first quarter -- would you expect similar seasonal trends this year as in the past, or because of FX, you will see something different?
David E. Mangum
I think what you will see, if we focus on just the current year, not comparisons to last year, as Paul mentioned Q1 was about right on our plan and at the end of the day, if you look annually, you will see FX drive swings in the growth so let’s set all that aside for the moment -- what we really expect to see now is a year that is shaped like our traditional years have shaped. So go back to 2008 or even before where you will see the traditionally our first quarter contributed something in the order of 27% of our full-year earnings and then Q3 contributed substantially the least of our earnings for that year with each of Q2 and Q4 somewhere in between. That is generally how we see the year shaping, meaning that we exit Q1 on track for our full year expectations but it is as Paul said really we’re kind of dead on our own plan for full year as we exit Q1. I realize we are ahead of published estimates because you guys are jumping really off of Q4 but we do see the year shaping like you have traditionally watched Global Payments have a year shape.
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