And now the game is really marketing and sales. We put the brand out a while ago. We’ve added head count as you see in the sales growth rate. So that’s the game now. It’s really just to drive new sales faster and get those implemented. And unlike some other people have reported, to your point, because we’re a middle market, the book is pretty stable, right? Our same-store sales look stable exiting the quarter, so we’re not seeing any of that.
Thomas Panther: We haven’t seen erosion on the supplier level either. We continue to see good network expansion. Cardable spend continues to gradually move up. So the interest level from the merchant side and the supplier side continues to be favorable.
Darrin Peller: That’s really helpful color. Ron, just a quick follow-up to the prepaid business decision. Just maybe just take a step back on why you decided to keep that now? And are there any other non-core assets that do make sense to sell potentially?
Ronald Clarke: Good follow-up. I think ultimately, Darrin, we just like the business more than some of the people that looked at it. So when you look at the tax leakage and dilution from that, I’d say that we spent a lot of time making that a better business than when we shopped it 3 years ago. And so the premium that we were looking for about what it’s worth today, right, to pay the tax, I think people didn’t get close enough to where we or I wanted to see the thing. So we feel good enough to hold it. With that said, as part of this review, we went through all the other kind of small non-core things. So we do have 2 kind of non-core things that we’re kind of actively talking to buyers about. So there’s a couple of hanging chads left there. But both that and the broader counter-party thing, we will have mopped up when we come back to you in 90 days.
Operator: And your next question comes from the line of Ramsey El-Assal from Barclays.
Ramsey El-Assal: I have a quick follow-up on the consumer, the new consumer business. How should we think about that from kind of a geographic perspective? Is it a plan that you’re kind of going to execute sort of all over the place, depending on whether helpful assets become available in key geographies? Or are you focused just on the U.S. or Europe? Or how are you looking at that?
Ronald Clarke: Yes. Look, great question, Ramsey. So if you step back, our current business is really in 3 markets, 3 countries, call it, 90% of the company. Right here, Brazil and the U.K., so that would be the answer. So we’re — of the $1 billion target, we’re, I don’t know, $350 million or $400 million consumer payment business in Brazil today and close to 0, right, in the U.K. and the U.S. And so part of this PayByPhone idea was to get a big customer base in the U.K. and in the U.S. where we already have these networks again was the idea. So there’s no plan, for Tien-Tsin’s other question, for us to go fire a young man to far away places and to try to build a business where we don’t have networks and management and stuff. So Brazil, U.K., U.S., in that order, is how we’re thinking about it.
Ramsey El-Assal: All right. Makes a ton of sense. And one follow-up. On the Lodging segment, you called out the tough year-over-year comparison this quarter. Also mentioned some softening in a subvertical. I think it was managed services. Just trying to think through how to model that out next quarter. The comp gets easier, but did the headwinds you’re seeing in that managed services sort of subvertical stick around? Or should we expect more of a bounce back on the easier comp next quarter?
Ronald Clarke: Yes. Good question. And unclear, I’d say. We thought — I think I called this out because we started to see it in Q2. So again, let me go to the top and maybe this will be helpful. So inside of our Lodging business, we serve, call it, 4 or 5 different customer subsegments. So we do things like airlines, insurance, railroads, construction, things like that. So one of those segments is kind of this project-based segment. So think like consulting firms, retail merchandising people, environmental companies. It’s only, I don’t know, Ramsey, 300 to 400 clients in it. But they field pretty big teams of people. They go to places and stay for a while. So maybe 10 people go to a city and stay there for 2 or 3 weeks. So that’s the nature of the business.
So literally starting in Q2 and more in Q3, say 50 out of those 300 clients just start to go like super soft. So when we call them, they would say things like, oh, hey, Walmart, who’s a big client for merchandising, moved that in-house. They’re not using our third-party company to go there and do merchandising in their stores. Or hey, a couple of our construction clients flipped over to using some local contractors instead of their own people. So I’d say we’re just not really sure. The good news is the other segments, we don’t see it. It’s mostly resident kind of in this one place. So I think we’ve printed, what Tom, 10% organic. So that thing actually went backwards, that a bit, while obviously, the rest of the businesses went forward. So we’re kind of outlooking, Ramsey, the thing to kind of stay softish here in Q4.
And then obviously, we hope to get a better idea when we make a turn in the next year.
Operator: And your next question comes from the line of Peter Christiansen from Citi.
Peter Christiansen: Ron, I’m just curious now that you’re through a good portion of the strategic review, and it seems like you certainly have a team set up for the next couple of quarters. Just curious on your thoughts on the use of share repurchase, leverage levels? And then secondary to that, how are you generally thinking about the trade-off between margin and growth here? Do you see an opportunity to invest? Maybe perhaps accelerate growth a bit more? Get more behind sales? Just curious on your thoughts on those relationships.
Ronald Clarke: Good question, Pete. So I’d say it’s been a pretty busy and active, whatever it’s been, 6 or 9 months strategic review. So look, the good news in it is when you put out an ad like that, it does generate incremental activity. So we do have, as I said, not only some separation discussions still going. But we’ve surfaced some additional M&A targets that are kind of interesting in and around the same space as people look to the phone. So look, I think our priorities around capital and leverage are kind of the same. Our target is 3. I think we’re running, I don’t know, 2.5 or 2.6. We’re buyers of our stock. Obviously, at this price, if we grow 9% to 11% next year, we grow the bottom faster. That’s a 10x EBITDA multiple for company compounding in the team.
