WEX Inc. (NYSE:WEX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jagtar Narula: Nik, this is Jagtar. Thanks for the question. Yes, we are on track with our cost reduction program. As a reminder, we’re expecting about $100 million of operating expense run rate reduction exiting 2024. And as I’ve previously talked about, we expect to exit the year at about half to 2/3 of that on a run rate basis. So we’re continuing to project that in our forward guidance that we’ve — that’s embedded into our guidance.

Melissa Smith: And just to add a little bit to that, the type of projects that we’re working on are really focused around streamlining what we’re doing operationally within the company, but also the items that we expose to our customers we think we have this great opportunity to create a twofer. We have the ability to actually create an even better customer experience but to do that at a lower cost structure.

Nik Cremo: And then for my follow-up. Could you guys just provide what you’re seeing for trends in the fuel segment, the quarter-to-date and also just expectations for the cadence of growth throughout the year? Because it looks like you should have continued strong organic revenue growth in Q1 based upon the guidance. Any color on that would be helpful? Thank you.

Jagtar Narula: Yes, Nik. Sure. So we are seeing good strong growth in the fuel segment, the fleet segment. As I noted in my prepared remarks, we are projecting in our guidance some slowing of the economy as we go through the year. So really, we’re forecasting a higher growth in the early part of the year and some moderation as we go through the back half of the year. And as I talked about in my prepared remarks, I mean, we’re expecting kind of the lower end of our long-term range for the fuel segment, but really will be higher in the first part of the year and then slow as we get to the back part of the year.

Melissa Smith: In the slowing in the back part of the year, we talked about the fact we’re expecting a slow growth environment is a macro environment, which we use when we put together our guidance assumptions. In terms of what we’re seeing in the marketplace today, we’re seeing continued strength across the — our fleet portfolio, with the exception of the over-the-road business. So we continue to have really strong sales momentum but same-store sales are down 2% in that segment. So that segment, as we’ve talked about, is going through a tougher times, particularly with the smaller fleets within the over-the-road marketplace. It is a piece of what we do business with across all the fleet. If you look at the rest of what we have in our portfolio, specifically in North America that had same-store sales growth in the fourth quarter of 3%.

So you’ve got this dichotomy of one particular sliver within the fleet segment is having a harder time but the rest of the portfolio continues to grow nicely. And then on top of that, we have really strong sales pipelines and anticipate to continue to deliver strong growth across that portfolio.

Operator: Next, we’ll go to Ramsey El-Assal with Barclays. Your line is now open.