Shift4 Shifts Its Focus to International Deals

Shift4 Payments Inc. early Thursday announced some record results while its top management underscored the company’s increasing focus on overseas opportunities, along with ambitious plans for a stepped-up sales force. “We are taking lessons learned [domestically] out into the world,” said chief executive Taylor Lauber during a group call to discuss the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 and full-year results.

A big overseas thrust materialized last summer with the close of Shift4’s $2.5-billion acquisition of Global Blue, a Swiss company focused on technology for tax-free shopping and currency-conversion services for shoppers of luxury goods. Now, Shift4 is focused on stirring up new business for that operation, starting with sales. “Global Blue didn’t have an in-house sales force focused on [small and medium-sized businesses],” Lauber said, a situation the company is acting to rectify.

Indeed, the company is adding sales strength across the board. “We have been scaling our sales force,” he said, without setting out specific numbers. The effort is aimed at leveraging the Shift4 brand, he said, which is now “much more powerful,” with operations in 75 countries. That’s the foundation of an ambitious strategy both domestically and overseas. Across the board, said Lauber, “We don’t have a volume priority, [but] we know several thousand merchants a month is a reasonable outcome.”

With the close on Global Blue and the company’s $180-million acquisition of the Australia-based payments firm Smartpay in November, Shift4 will have plenty of merchant deals to close overseas. Now, the company plans to top off those operations with what Lauber calls an “all-in-one payment product.” That includes the company’s MyTab POS product for restaurants along with mobile handheld terminals, e-commerce support, and business intelligence.

Nor is Lauber ignoring further acquisition possibilities, though not on a grand scale. “In a year like this, we are focused on smaller M&A,” he said. “If we can buy a particular team overseas, we will do that. I’d love to buy a small, successful team in Spain or France” rather than conclude much bigger deals, he noted.

The stress on overseas markets, at least for now, follows from Shift4’s growth projections. “The world market [represents] faster growth” for Shift4, noted chief financial officer Christopher Cruz during the call, in part because of deals like the one for Global Blue. Indeed, the company expects U.S. revenue growth in the mid-teens in percentage terms, he said, in contrast to “high 20%” for the world outside the U.S. “America is our most mature market,” he noted.

For the quarter, Shift4 posted $59 billion in transaction volume, up 23% year-over-year. Revenue totaled $1.19 billion, a 34% increase, while for the year revenue came to $4.18 billion, a 25% rise. Gross profit was $429 million less network fees, up 58%. Net income fell from $139 million a year ago to $53 million.