Priority Technology Holdings, Inc (PRTH) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript
Priority Technology Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ: PRTH)
Q4 2018 Earnings Conference CallMarch 21, 2019, 8:30 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Priority Technology Holdings Fourth Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we'll conduct the question-and- answer session and instructions will follow at that time.
(Operator Instructions) As a remainder this call will be recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference. Chris Kettmann. Please go ahead.
Chris Kettmann -- Co-founder and Partner
Good morning and thank you for joining us today. With me are Tom Priore, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Priority Technology Holdings and Mike Vollkommer, Chief Financial Officer. Before we provide our prepared remarks, I would like to remind all participants that our comments today will include forward-looking statements as defined as in the Private Security Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding future expectations about the Company's business, management's plans for future operations or similar matters, which were subject to certain risks and uncertainties.
The Company's actual results could differ materially due to several important factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control, including those risks and uncertainties described in the current report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 14, 2018. Any forward-looking statements we made today are only as of today's date, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statements.
Additionally, we may refer to non-GAAP measures, including adjusted revenue, EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA and earn-out adjusted EBITDA during the call. Please refer to our public filings and disclosures, including those referenced in our press release announcing this call for definition of our non-GAAP measure and the reconciliation of these measures to net income.
With that, I would now like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Tom Priore.
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Chris. And thanks to everyone for joining us. I begin the call this morning in a bit of a quandary. As a steward of the investments we've made together, it is my responsibility to acknowledge the challenges of the past quarter and 2018 more generally. Nevertheless, I would submit that the reportable metrics by which we are measured are overshadowing the real subject we should be discussing. The underlying story of strength of the enterprise as a whole and the foundation that we -- that has been reinforced for continued growth.
In fact, if you indulge me by allowing my comments to largely focus on the subjects to growth and opportunity, I'm confident you will come away from this call aligned with us on the future of Priority. For the fourth quarter of 2018, consolidated revenue of $105 million declined 16.3%.
This decline was being driven by one factor and one factor only. As we initially discussed two quarters ago in a prudent risk management decision, we chose to close the accounts of roughly 1,200 merchants in order to ensure compliance and good standing with MasterCard's subscription e-commerce criteria.
The closure of these merchants was not necessarily the issue, but rather the delay on the part of MasterCard to provide the necessary revised merchant guidelines that would allow us to resume -- to resume boarding. After receiving the new standards in mid-October and confirming our ability to satisfy the new requirements. We have reestablished our boarding activity in this segment.
In fact, adjusted consolidated revenue, excluding the impact of the subscription billing e-commerce merchants actually grew by 4.2% to $93 million for the quarter. Gross profit margin for the quarter, an important metric for priority, also increased to 29.8% from 24.6%.
Overall, consolidated revenue was -- was relatively unchanged year-over-year. With a subscription e-commerce billing business impact, largely offset by increases in bankcard processing, dollar volume -- dollar value and merchant bankcard transaction volume of 10.1% and 6.1% respectively.
So, in fact, extracting the impact of subscription e-commerce merchants adjusted consolidated revenue of $359.2 million represents an increase of 8.9% over 2017. And a gross profit margin increase to 25.9% from 24.5% in 2018.
Now, Mike will discuss in far greater detail both our fourth quarter and full year 2018 results. The impact of the lost e-commerce revenue from the aforementioned merchants will absolutely be addressed. As well a break out of the strong underlying growth we've seen throughout the Company after carving out the subscription e-commerce business.
Like the rest of the leadership at Priority, Mike believes in transparency and accountability. And his comments will reflect that dedication to the facts. Before that however, I'd like to draw your attention to the progress we're seeing across the enterprise and the incredible opportunities we have ahead of us.
I'd like to change things up a bit and begin by talking about one of the less developed, but arguably most exciting segments of our business. Our integrated partners channel. This area represents a key component of Priority's future and exemplifies why we view ourselves more as a Fin Tech enterprise with strong core payments technology rather than a traditional payment process or a merchant acquiring.
In fact, one need only look at our established SaaS platform products in real estate, healthcare and hospitality verticals. To see that we're evolving at an extremely rapid pace.
One of the fastest growing segments of the payments ecosystem, integrated payment solutions provide an opportunity for Priority to revolutionize traditional merchant services and leapfrog into software based transaction technology products and services.
The Integrated Partners Division has been purpose-built from the ground up to supply the resources that our reselling partners, ISV's, third party integrators and progressive minded merchants need to leverage the full range of software integrated payment options available by Priority's proprietary payments cloud, a cloud we call vortex.
In addition to providing high utility revenue generating resources, the Integrated Partners Team offers consulting and development services, enabling priority to address the specific business requirements of prospects and partners, creating lucrative new revenue streams of payments and payment adjacent services in the process.
Additionally, pursuit of these sorts of businesses has little downside risk with incredible upside and increased stickiness as a result of the embedded nature of software combined with the payment solution. With those thoughts as back dropping, I'm excited to announce we have just entered into a transformational partnership in our real estate payments business Priority real estate technology.
This new venture involves real estate payments assets expected to generate more than $10 million in EBITDA over the next 12-months, which would only increase as we expand our sales and marketing efforts. Everything is signed. The funds for the acquisition are in escrow in both Priority and our new partners are prepared to disclose all the details.
Due to travel issues with one of our partners companies board members. We are still waiting for their Board approval to make the formal announcement, which we expect to do in the next few days.
Regardless, what I can say is that this partnership provides an explosive launching pad into the high growth real estate payment space by creating a single platform that addresses the needs of a wide range of landlord constituents from integrated enterprise property managers like the large REITs in the United States, as well as middle market, landlord partners and small and local landlords.
It is meaningful to note that our prior acquisition of RadPad and Landlord Station were vital in gaining access to these assets. In addition to giving us the ability to enable small to midsize landlords and property managers to accept -- to access tools normally only available to large enterprises, these acquisitions gave us the legitimacy necessary to partner with a proven industry leader in a real estate vertical.
Now, we look forward to providing you more detail in the partnership in the days ahead. Some additional thoughts on integrated partners. This operating entity also contains our in-house asset accelerator, which plays host to a portfolio of assets of priority and is responsible for moving these growing businesses to the point that they become parts of a larger payment ecosystem.
The accelerator can provide payments-focussed development resources, components of payment technology or guidance and assistance to third parties with aligned interests. Like our Priority real estate technology platform our other integrated partner businesses, Priority healthcare technology and Priority hospitality technology focus on specific industry verticals, but share common resources in our technology development teams providing economies of scale and the chance to share innovation and solutions with one another.
The effects of these synergies and our evolving model are beginning to show impressive results. In the healthcare space, for instance, Priority PayRight has continued to refine both our technology and sales approach, making great headway in both their core business and the burgeoning third party payer business space.
The team has carved out a respectable niche in home -- in the home and healthcare arena, as well as promising business development efforts with some key vertical markets brought to the table by our ISO and agent partners. Since becoming part of the Priority platform in early 2018, some highlights of the PayRight performance over -- performance year-over-year include a 713% increase in third party payer billing volume, 150% increase in PayRight's payment gateway processing volume. A 285% increase in portfolio residuals and approximately 140% increase in total gross revenue, and 270% increase in net revenue.
In addition to this initial success, discussions have begun with some industry leading enterprise players and revenue cycle management and healthcare procurement to make Priority PayRight a part of their larger solution.
I think it is clear that we are off to a great start after only nine-months, and we believe the future is even brighter for Priority PayRight and healthcare payments optimization.
The other example, I mentioned, Priority hospitality technology was just created a short number of months ago has been steadily gaining momentum with new adoption of its e|tab product.
In the first month of operation on Priority's platform, merchant boarding of e|tab increased from 15 merchants per month to over 100. To this last point, just as important as the promise for the future is the success we've already -- we're already seeing in integrated partners as it stands today.
While we acknowledge its revenue base is relatively small compared to our merchant acquiring business, it grew in triple digits over the past year. What's more, operating margins in these businesses not only beats those of traditional payment processing, but also those of software as a service companies. Building on these results and the platform we've built including our imminent partnership in the real estate vertical. We're expecting great things from integrated partners in 2019 and beyond. As we further leverage our technology, infrastructure advantages and new market opportunities.
And now let's talk about our core acquiring business. 2018 was a year of growth and change for Priority's flagship business, Priority Payment Systems. During the year, PPS became the sixth largest non-bank merchant acquirer in the U.S., the fact, we are proud of.
This was driven by strong performance and overall volume with more than 10% growth in dollar volume on a processing basis compared to the prior year, as well as an increase in transaction volume with in the portfolio -- within in the portfolio realizing five plus percent growth year-over-year.
New merchant boarding held steady at approximately 4,000 new merchant boards per month and portfolio attrition continues at one of the lowest rates in the industry, driven by our industry leading technology and service, key acquisitions of several high-performing brands and offices and strategic purchases of several other assets allowed us to enter new verticals, leverage technologies and deploy resources toward inside sales and other direct product selling efforts, in partnership with our resellers.
A great example of Priority's focus to strategically grow our customer business was our recent acquisition of the merchant portfolio of assets from Direct Connect Merchant Services and Blue Parasol Group. As part of the transaction, Priority added a diverse and low risk merchant portfolio, crossing $1.7 billion in annual volume, as well as a productive sales engine contributing to enterprise growth.
This transaction was not just about the purchase of quality assets, however. Direct Connect's increasing focus on software integrated payments, perfectly aligned with our technology oriented growth story and the strong sales relationships we gain increased diversification across industries, geographies and merchant sizes.
We expect to capture operational expense synergies as part of the acquisition, as well as the opportunity to enhance effectiveness and productivity via access to Priority's purpose-built reseller tools and merchant products.
It's also worth noting that during the quarter we expanded our senior secured credit facility by an additional 130 million to finance acquisitions such as Direct Connect. The remainder will be used to complete other contracted transactions in acquiring and the aforementioned real estate venture.
In addition, to our growth in acquisitions, there were a number of significant operational enhancements during the year. Citizens Bank became a new sponsor and bank partner and our confidence in that relationship continues to be extremely high. We were also able to improve our processing expense with current vendors and disciplined moves have been made to place Priority Payment Systems in a better position to capitalize on what we see as increasing demand for differentiated products and services including consumer finance, hospitality, rent payments and healthcare payments and cash discount programs among others.
There has also been a renewed focus on investing in our most important assets, our employees. In addition to adding talent throughout the organization, we have implemented more advanced employee training and education programs, as well as new systems to promote employee engagement and participation.
Furthermore, we've instituted an employee stock option and restricted stock program. To further align our employee base with shareholder goals. Looking ahead, 2019 will see long anticipated deployment and adoption of MX Connect, a critical asset for evolution as a truly integrated enterprise. MX Connect will allow us to consolidate our network of resellers, ISOs and agents on a single platform. A platform designed from the ground up to enable Priority to further differentiate itself in the marketplace and operate at the highest levels of efficiency.
We will be all -- we will also be introducing a host of enhancements to our MX merchant platform, including the roll-out of our integrated partners offerings, furthering our technological competitive advantage. MX Connect has been largely implemented for in-house workflows and is poised for broad release externally to our reselling partners pending final quality assurance testing.
Well, there will be additional challenges as we seek to expand and grow our business in core acquiring, particularly relating to the e-commerce merchant business. We will continue to cement our leadership position in the evolving -- in the evolving landscape of payments.
Now moving onto commercial payments. In a recent study published by Goldman Sachs, the Global Payments Business for B2B or commercial payments was estimated at over $120 trillion of commerce annually and as anticipated to grow to $200 trillion over the next decade.
Surprisingly, we continue to see an incredible lack of efficiency in the space. For example, in the US alone, over 50% of the B2B volume is still remitted by paper checks, which can cause businesses significant processing fees. In fact, it is anticipated that businesses incur over $2.7 trillion in annual B2B administrative costs, 80% of which is paid by small businesses.
Technology deployed intelligently here has the potential to cut these costs by up to 75%, translating into a potential $1.5 trillion opportunity for those that can bring solutions to bear against this challenge. And that's where Priority commercial payments and our -- proprietary CPX platform excels.
In the past year alone, our commercial payments division has advanced steadily, growing nearly 13% over 2017. In really what we would characterize as a year of investment.
Additionally, as I'll note slightly later in this discussion, we've been awarded what we believe are some of the most sought-after contracts in the B2B payment space. While we know we can do even better, we are pleased with the traction we are seeing in the platform for growth that has been built.
A standout example of these sort after contracts is the business partnership we announced with Restaurant365. Restaurant365 is an industry leader in integrated restaurant management software and represents $6.5 billion payment opportunity. Our CPX automated AP system will be directly integrated into their platform, allowing us to support their merchants in making payments to vendors and suppliers.
And this relationship will allow us to offer merchant acquiring services as well to those restaurants, greatly increasing the potential value of our business relationship with them. Along with this and other notable wins including Citizens Bank's, automated payables contract, commercial payments has seen strong growth from within.
The 2018 CPX acquiring grew approximately 36% over the prior year. And the supply enablement team exceeded the previous year's performance closing approximately 41% of all leads generated.
Additionally, ACH.com was awarded the business of Daxko, a leading supplier of solutions for health and wellness software making them eligible to handle $800,000 to $1 million in total transactions per month. From a technology perspective, we believe the CPX portal continues to extend its competitive advantage and a full support for virtual card, ACH and check on a single platform.
It is now completely operational and supporting several hundred corporate clients and thousands of suppliers. Additionally, aspects of some of the larger integrations taking place will further enhance and extend the reach of our proprietary commercial payments platform. The combination of our agile technology platform, a seasoned team of industry experts guiding the business and momentum from the recent success stories creating enhanced visibility to the enterprise. We're confident, Priority commercial payments is well positioned for a breakout performance in 2019.
We expect this component of our business to exceed 200% growth in revenue for the 2019 calendar year. In summation, positive fundamentals and strong underlying growth in the fourth quarter were somewhat marginalized by the suspension and boarding of e-commerce subscription merchants.
We are fighting through this challenge with strategy and tactics we believe will be proved to be a winning combination over the long term. Maintaining our commitment to our core acquiring partners. And growth trajectory while further differentiating ourselves in commercial payments and the integrated payments segments. Our partnership with a leading real estate platform, along with the acquisition of Direct Connect in the fourth quarter solidifies our foundation of growth and we remain more excited than ever about the opportunities ahead of us.
I believe when you take the entire picture into account, you will see consistency, an unwavering focus on driving long term shareholder value. I appreciate the opportunity to share that perspective with you.
And now, I'll ask Mike Vollkommer, to provide further information on our financial results. Mike?
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
Thank you, Tom and good morning. I'll review the fourth quarter and full year consolidated results and provide additional comments on segment performance. You will note that we have changed the allocation of our corporate expense to our reportable segments. Previously, all overhead and shared service costs were allocated to the consumer payments segment. We performed an analysis of the drivers of these costs and have allocated the cost accordingly to both consumer payments and commercial payments and managed services segments.
While consumer payments continues to be allocated the largest share of these costs. The new unallocated corporate expense component reflects expenses retained at Priority Technology Holdings, which are solely related to the functions of the corporate office. This allocation methodology has been retroactively applied to all periods presented and those revised amounts are included in our press release for your reference.
Throughout my summary, I will cite GAAP and Adjusted Non-GAAP measures. Today's press release provides a reconciliation of these measures. The comparative revenue for the fourth quarter and full-year periods have been negative -- negatively affected by the wind down of high margin accounts with certain subscription billing e-commerce merchants, which I'll refer to as subscription billing merchants.
The wind down of merchants in this channel was due to the industry wide changes for enhanced card association compliance. This revenue entirely within the consumer payment segment was $7.5 million and $13.7 million in the fourth quarters of 2018 and 2017 respectively, and was $65.2 million and $95.6 million for the full year ended December 31, 2018 and 2017 respectively.
Income from operations for the fourth quarter and full-year periods has also been negatively affected by the subscription billing wind down, as well as the incurrence of non-recurring expenses largely associated with the July 2018 business combination and conversion to a public company such as legal, accounting, advisory and consulting expenses plus certain legal settlements incurred in those periods.
Income from operations associated with the subscription billing merchants was $3 million and $10.3 million in the fourth quarters of 2018 and 2017 respectively. And was $21.3 million and $31.9 million for the full year ended December 31, 2018 and 2017.
The non-recurring expenses entirely within corporate were $2.1 million in both fourth quarters and were $12.4 million and $5.6 million for the full year ended 2018 and 2017. Within my comments, I will refer to adjusted revenue and adjusted income from operations, both non-GAAP measures which exclude these amounts from the comparative periods.
We do review these non-GAAP measures to evaluate the underlying revenue, profitability and trends. Now, consolidated revenue in the fourth quarter of 2018 amounted to $100.5 million, a decline of $19.5 million compared with the 2017 fourth quarter. As Tom mentioned, this decline was driven by the wind down of subscription billing margins, adjusted consolidated revenue was $93 million in 2018 -- in 2018 quarter, compared with $89.3 million in the 2017 quarter, which is a 4.2% increase.
Total merchant bankcard volume processed of $9.4 million -- $9.4 billion grew by 6% in the fourth quarter of 2018 as compared with $8.9 billion in the 2017 fourth quarter. Consumer payments revenue in the fourth quarter of 2018 amounted to $92.5 million, a decline of $20.7 million or 18.3% compared with the 2017 fourth quarter. Revenue from the subscription billing merchants declined $23.2 million, so adjusted revenue in this segment grew 3%.
Commercial payments and managed services revenue in the fourth quarter of 2018 amounted to $8 million, 17.9% increase over $6.8 million in the 2017 fourth quarter.
Consolidated revenue for full year 2018 of $424.4 million approximated full-year 2017 revenue of $425.6 million. Now, adjusted consolidated revenue was $359.2 million for the full year 2018, which compares with $330 million in 2017, and that's an 8.9% increase. Total merchant bankcard volume processed of $38.2 billion grew by 10.1% in the full year 2018, as compared with $34.7 billion in the full year 2017.
Consumer payments revenue for 2018 amounted to $395 million, a decline of $5.3 million compared with 2017. Revenue from the subscription billing merchants declined $30.4 million. So, adjusted revenue in this segment grew 8.2%. Commercial payments and managed services revenue for the full year 2018 amounted to $29.4 million, a 16.3% growth over $25.3 million in 2017.
Consolidated operating expenses in the fourth quarter of 2018 amounted to $95.2 million, compared with $109 million in the 2017 -- fourth quarter. The decline was driven by $19.9 million of lower costs to revenue, which will partially offset by increases of $3.6 million in depreciation and amortization, $2.4 million of salaries and SG&A costs. Both fourth quarters included $2.1 million of non-recurring expenses in the corporate segment.
Consumer payments, operating expenses in the fourth quarter of 2018 amounted to $79.4 million, a decline of $16.2 million compared with $95.6 million in the 2017 fourth quarter. The reduction was driven by $20.3 million of lower costs of revenue, partially offset by increases of $3.3 million in depreciation and amortization and $0.8 million of all other costs.
Commercial payments and managed services operating expenses in the fourth quarter of 2018 amounted to $9.5 million and as an increase of $2.6 million, compared with $7 million in the prior year fourth quarter. The increase was driven by $0.5 million of higher cost of revenue, $2 million increase in salaries and SG&A and a slight increase in depreciation and amortization.
Corporate expense in the fourth quarter of 2018 amounted to $6.2 million and that compared with $6.4 million in 2017 fourth quarter. And as I have mentioned, nonrecurring expenses amounted to $2.1 million in both fourth quarters.
Operating expenses for the full year 2018 amounted $404.5 million, compared with $390.4 million in the full year 2017. Increases of $9.1 million in salaries and other administrative costs, $6.8 million in nonrecurring expenses and $5.1 million in depreciation and amortization were partially offset by a decline of $6.9 million in cost of revenue.
Now, nonrecurring cost as I had mentioned totaled $12.4 million in the full year 2018, compared with $5.6 million in 2017.
Consumer payments, operating expenses for the full year amounted to $344.5 million, compared with $344.8 million in full year 2017. Now, a decline of $9.3 million in cost of revenue was almost entirely offset by an increase of $4.6 million in depreciation and amortization and $4.3 million of all other costs.
Commercial payments and managed services' operating expenses for full year 2018 amounted to $32.4 million, compared with $24.3 million in full year 2017. Increases where $2.5 million across the revenue, $5.3 million in salaries and SG&A and $0.3 million in depreciation and amortization.
Corporate expense for full-year 2018 amounted to $27.7 million, compared with $21.2 million for full-year 2017. Nonrecurring expenses amounted to $12.4 million in 2018, compared with $5.6 million in 2017. So, excluding nonrecurring expenses, the corporate expense amounted to $15.3 million in 2018 and that compares with $15.6 million in 2017.
Consolidated income from operations was $5.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared with 10.9 million in the 2017 fourth quarter. Adjusted consolidated income from operations of $4.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, compares with $2.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Consumer payments income from operations in the 2018 fourth quarter amounted to $13.1 million and that's the decline of $4.5 million compared with the 2017 fourth quarter. Income from operations driven by the subscription billing merchants declined $7.3 million quarter-over-quarter. So, adjusted income from operations in this segment grew 38.5%.
Commercial payments and managed services operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2018 amounted to $1.5 million, and that compares with an operating loss of $0.2 million in the 2017 fourth quarter.
Consolidated income from operations was $19.9 million for the full year 2018, compared with $35.2 million for the full year 2017. Subscription billing income from operations was $21.3 million in 2018 and $31.9 million in 2017. And also adjusting for the corporate nonrecurring expenses discussed earlier adjusted income from operations was $11 million in the full year 2018 and that compares with $8.9 million in 2017, which is a growth of 22.8%.
Consumer payments, income from operations for full year 2018 amounted to $50.5 million, a decline of $4.9 million compared with full year 2017.
The income from operations driven by the subscription billing merchants declined $10.6 million. So, adjusted income from operations in this segment grew 23.8%. Commercial payments and manage services' operating loss for full year 2018 was $2.9 million and that compares with full year operating income of just about $1 million for 2017.
Now, the consolidated gross profit margin in 2018 improved as the year progressed with 24.6% in the fourth quarter of 2017 and also the same percent in the first quarter of 2018, expanding to 29.8% in the fourth quarter of 2018.
Consolidated operating income margin was 5.3% in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 9.1% in the 2017 fourth quarter. The adjusted operating income margin was 4.7% in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 3.1% in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Consumer payments' operating income margin was 14.1% in the 2018 fourth quarter and 15.5% in the 2017 fourth quarter. The adjusted operating income margin was a 11.8% and 8.8% in the fourth quarters respectively.
Now, the full year consolidated gross profit margin was 25.9% in 2018 and 24.5% in 2017. But as I said earlier, the gross profit margin improved as the year went on, so the full-year average is less than what the fourth quarter gross profit margin was reported. Full year consolidated operating income margin was 4.7% in 2018, and that compares with 8.3% in the prior year. The adjusted operating income margin was 3.1% and 2.1% in the two years respectively.
Consumer payments' operating income margin was 12.8% for the full year 2018 and 13.9% in the full year 2017. And the adjusted operating income margin was 8.9% in 2018 and 7.7% in 2017.
So, the effect of income tax rate for the full year 2018 was 10.5% and the fourth quarter was 17.3%. The full year 2018 tax benefit was only applicable to pre-tax earnings subsequent to July 25th, when we moved from a pass through partnership entity to a C corporation tax status. On a pro forma basis, considering as of C Corp. status applied for the full year, the 2018 effective tax rate would have been 15.6%.
The actual and pro forma effective rates for 2018 may not be indicative of the effect of rates for the future periods. However, the full-year pro forma rate is a reasonable rate to model for 2019 at this point. Certain permanent differences in state and local taxes are currently causing the pro forma rate to be below the statutory rates.
Net loss for the fourth quarter of 2018 of $3.7 million compares with net income of $1.9 million in the 2017 quarter. The adjusted loss was $4.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2018 and that compares with $6.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Full year 2018 net loss of $15 million compared with net income of $4.6 million in 2017. Adjusted net loss was $22.4 million in the full year 2018 and that compares with $21.7 million in the full year 2017. And I would refer you to the attachments to our press release which reconcile the GAAP numbers to these adjusted numbers.
Adjusted EBITDA amounted to $14.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, compared with $16.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. The full year amounts were $52.9 million in 2018 and $56.9 million in 2017.
Reconciliation of net income loss to these amounts are included in the attachments to the press release. Next, I'll talk about liquidity at year-end 2018 as compared with 2017. Our liquidity -- our working capital, current assets plus with current liabilities was $21.1 million at year-end 2018 and $39.5 million at year-end 2017. As of December 31, 2018, we had unrestricted cash totaling $15.6 million compared to $28 million at December 31, 2017. These unrestricted balances do not include cash of $18.2 million at the year-end 2018 and $16.2 million at the year-end 2017, related to customer settlement funds and reserves.
At year-end 2018, we had availability of $25 million under our revolving credit facility. On January 11, 2018, the Second Amendment to the senior credit facility increased borrowings by $67.5 million on December 24, 2018, the Third Amendment increased borrowings by an additional $60 million. Now, this Third Amendment also allows for a delayed draw of an additional $70 million, which Tom talked about earlier.
As of year-end 2018, we had outstanding long term debt of $412.7 million compared with $283.1 million at year end 2017, an increase of $129.6 million. The debt consisted of outstanding term debt of $322.7 million under the senior credit facility and $90 million in term debt under the subordinated Goldman Sachs credit agreement. Additionally, under the senior credit facility, as we had mentioned, we have $25 million untapped revolving credit facility.
Now talking briefly about our outlook for 2019. Based on a reasonably conservative view of 2019, we expect to deliver modest revenue growth over 2018, despite a forecasted $50 million gross revenue decline from the subscription e-commerce business year-over-year.
In addition, we are targeting earn-out adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure of approximately $75 million for the full year 2019. Our underlying growth continues to be driven by strong organic volumes and improved gross profit trends, along with positive impact of several strategic accretive acquisitions.
That concludes my comments and I'll turn the call back over to Tom.
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Mike. Now, we'd like to open the line up for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from the line of George Mihalos with Cowen. Your line is now open.
George Mihalos -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Hey, good morning, guys. Just a two part question to kick things off. I guess, you know, firstly, if we back out the impact from the e-com business, that's dwindled down. Should we expect the underlying growth in the rest of the business to accelerate from that 4% growth, that you saw in the fourth quarter? And then, somewhat related to that, you know, your forecasting sort of a further decline in the e-com revenue, can you talk a little bit about some of your on-boarding efforts maybe to bring some of that revenue back online? And how you're thinking about that throughout the course of the year?
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
Sure. Yeah, (Multiple Speakers) Why don't you lead off, Mike, and I'll supplement sort of the second part of George's question.
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
Yeah, I think the -- in the fourth quarter, that revenue growth, it was a mix of the volume brought the number down to that. So, I would suspect that we will see, acceleration from that as we go into 2019. That percentage of growth.
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
And I would just answer it this way, George. Part of the, so we feel like we're being very conservative about our reboarding efforts. The -- our largest quarters for those -- that aspect of our portfolio was quarter four and quarter one --
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
In 2017 --
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
-- and 2018. So quarter four of 2017 and quarter one 2018. So net-net, even with new boarding, we would expect there to be an overall decline. Now the other aspect of this business is, as it boards its income profile, increases because of elements of the revenue is chargebacks, which don't show up for a number of months. So, the book sort of builds up and then you get some consistency around that component of revenue.
So, even as we board, let's say, a merchant in January, I'll call the revenue peak of that merchant probably wouldn't show up until April or May. So, it takes some time to build the portfolio, we're going -- we've taken a very judicious approach to how we've anticipated it, which, you know, given the circumstances, we think is the pragmatic approach. But, we do anticipate a remaining a component of our portfolio and you know, but as a lesser percentage, even as -- even on a constant basis, sort of as a component of our portfolio.
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
The reboarding of those merchants would be incremental to the base forecast that we (inaudible) based our outlook on. So we've been very conservative about with respect to that segment of business.
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
Now, I think the second part of your question is, you know, if you look at the growth trend we're anticipating with the remainder of the business. We see that being in the mid-double digits this year across the breadth of the platform. So, including, higher percentage growth in integrated partners and in commercial payments in particular. We're looking at, and we have a expected growth rates of mid-teens.
George Mihalos -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Okay, that's helpful. And that includes obviously the contribution from Direct Connect in 2019, the mid-teens?
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
Yes.
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes.
George Mihalos -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Okay. And then maybe just switching gears on the real estate opportunity that you have, is that embedded in the guidance today, that sort of 10 million annual run rate number? Is that in the guide now? And to the extent that comes on, is -- I'm assuming that's more of a second half event for 2019?
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
It is -- it is in the guidance and, we'll have that as of the back half of Q1.
George Mihalos -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Okay. And then just last question for me, as we look at the commercial payment segment, again, I understand there's a benefit there from Direct Connect, but you want some big business, it seems to be accelerating. Can you talk about outside of Direct Connect, what else is driving that business? Is it one big win, for example? I know you did mention Citizens and then maybe related to that what the outlook is for winning more of these Citizens type deals to the extent they're out there?
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
So, it's not a result of one big contract. And we do have expectations that, you'll see substantial announcements out of that business of other large institutional wins and those will be a combination of both financial institutions and other software platforms.
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
Yes, I would be surprised if we don't beat our outlook for that business this year -- just based on the momentum that they have in the pipeline, but we didn't work that in -- into the base outlook.
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
I would say it this way, George, the existing pipeline that is in process of being negotiated exceeds $25 billion of processing volume for acquiring and a percentage of that will be card based revenue as well. And I mean, you know, virtual card issuing other card based payments.
George Mihalos -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions). And our next question comes from the line of Eric Spector with Fortress. Your line is now open.
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
Thanks for taking my questions. Just a few one here. What portion of the 8.9% growth in 2018 when you exclude the e-com subscription versions is organic versus from acquisition?
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
Okay. In '20, well, the percentage -- I don't have off-hand, but we have about revenue in 2018 with respect to acquisitions of about $3.7 million.
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
So, the overwhelming majority of that is organic.
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
Yes.
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
And the reason for that, just if you look at the acquisitions we executed -- nearly all of them would with equal, actually, all of them with the exception of Direct Connect, which came in the fourth quarter were existing resellers. So that, revenue was already in our -- was already in our numbers.
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
All right. Got it. Thank you.
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
Yes, the revenue from acquisitions coming from PayRight and RadPad and Direct Connect -- and Direct connect was at the tail end of the year.
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
Got it. In your 2019 revenue expectations, you called out growth and just want to make sure that is all -- so you're expecting organic growth there, that this real estate acquisition is kind of skewing it from an organic decline to organic growth?
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
Yes, it's not, in fact the numbers that we've quoted do not include the impact of acquisitions at the revenue line.
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
Okay. Thanks. For the bridge that you, guys, provided from adjusted EBITDA to that earn-out adjusted EBITDA, can you just quickly clarify what is included in the line items pro forma impact for acquisitions and the line item contracted revenue and savings?
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
Before Mike answer that question, I also -- and thank you for asking that because it helps me with a reminder. As a follow up to this call, we will be posting a short slide deck that provides a bridge on the consolidated adjusted EBITDA and adjusted revenue components that we discussed on the call today. So that, you can see the extracted impact of the subscription e-commerce book of business.
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
So the earn-out adjusted EBITDA is a calculation that has its worth in the -- in our loan facility and we use that in determining compliance with leverage ratios. So the pro forma impacts for acquisitions in that document, you pro forma your current last 12-month performance as if those the acquisitions made in period happened at the beginning of that period. So that's what that pro forma impacts of acquisitions is. And the contracted revenue and savings, that's kind of another piece of that, it's, new contracts where we're driving, you know, savings and costs that can be reflected as if they had been in place for the entire year. So that's a true pro forma recast of the year. The adjusted EBITDA before, those further adjustments is really a true view of, -- although EBITDA is not a GAAP measure its a true view of GAAP EBITDA, your base EBITDA and other non-recurring and non-cash items added back.
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
Thank you.
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
Does that answered your question?
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
Yes, thank you. Just a couple more. In the commercial payments segment, we're seeing a nice top line growth, 16% for the year. Can you kind of help bridge me between that level of growth and the decline in operating income, sort of what happened sort of, in the middle and maybe what's going on with gross margin? Is that a better way to look at it? And what would that sort of have been?
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
So, your question was commercial payments. Yes, well, this year Tom had mentioned that, this year was a year of investment in commercial payments. So we've added folks, you know, to sales team and the administration and that's largely driving the pipeline of business, that Tom had mentioned that $25 billion. So, it was a year of investment, both not only in finishing out the technology but also the people. So, that has, with that level of revenue, it has a depressing effect on margins, but it is an investment in what's coming this year and in the future.
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
Got it. Okay. And then my last sort of set of questions is a follow up to that. Can you kind of guide us to a gross margin profile for the consumer payment segment and the commercial payments segment?
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
We're not at this point, but I think it is, as we progressed, we will do that.
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
Is there anything that you can call out with respect to gross margin percentage for those segments? So even though we saw an operating income decline in commercial payments was -- are the gross margin percentage trends favorable sort of inter-segment irrespective of overall mix?
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
I think we can come back to you with also just some further specificity. And now that we've kind of carved out this corporate segment, but historically our Op margin has run at, I would say by industry standards a pretty high level, which is a testament to our efficiency with which we operate the platform. It's historically run in the high 40%, on an Op margin basis. Last year, did not -- that did not change. I think it was 47 versus the prior year was closer to 49. But now that we've kind of better reflected the corporate segments, I think we should provide you with an update of that profile in each of the operating businesses, which will be how we measure it going forward. And we're happy to do that, we can add that to the slide deck. (Multiple Speakers) we're flip forward in really a -- a day or so here. It just hides up some of the material that we discussed which we know are hard to follow on the phone.
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And then my final question, and it might be something that you guys follow up with in the slide deck or can speak to you offline, but as it relates to this specific reseller channels within consumer, if there was anything you could call out with respect to gross margin trends, be it retail, e-Com and wholesale or ISV and VaR?
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes, you know, we haven't really seen a meaningful change and I would submit to you that the industry is generally seeing a compression of margins and ours -- and I'll say this ex -- the e-commerce impact right, which is that is a high margin sector. So ex e-commerce, we've actually had a steady to slightly increasing historically margin and that's been a result of selling software as a service product into those channels, it increase margin for merchants, it's given better revenue opportunities to our resellers. And by the way, I'm happy to, if you'd like to take this conversation off line, I can give you specificity around. Just the types of products that resonate with different channels because they are different by channel. But historically, we've seen a slight increase, but certainly a stability in our margins. And then, of course, the one influence that's been negative on margin has been the erosion of high margin subscription e-commerce, which, we're reestablishing at a new baseline.
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
Thank you.
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
Sure.
Operator
Thank you. And that does conclude today's question-and-answer session. I would like to now turn the call back to Tom Priore for any further remarks.
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, I'd like to thank everyone for their participation in the call. We are very, very much look forward to the -- to 2019 and delivering the results that we anticipate. We'll look forward to our update in the coming quarter and obviously, if there's any follow-ups that folks would like to address coming out of this call, feel free to either follow with me directly or Chris Kettmann to arrange time to speak further. Thank you very much.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude today's program. You may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.
Duration: 63 minutes
Call participants:
Chris Kettmann -- Co-founder and Partner
Thomas C. Priore -- Chief Executive Officer
Michael Vollkommer -- Principal Financial and Accounting Officer
George Mihalos -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst
Eric Spector -- Fortress Investment Group -- Analyst
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