Shift4 Payments: Strong Buy on Inflection and Synergy Upside

Digital Value, Real Yield  We initiate coverage on FOUR with a Strong Buy rating and $216 PT. Shift4

Payments is not just a merchant acquirer; the company provides an integrated payment and technology platform across restaurants, hospitality, and venues around the world – tying everything from POS to eCommerce together with its cloud native infrastructure. In this seemingly mature sector, Shift4 has built-up volume momentum and operating leverage that is at an inflection today. Strong FY25 guidance (management expects PV to grow 26-28% while US hospitality volumes remains resilient and international signings accelerate), sets up a clear path to FY26 revenue of $5.0bn (+18% YoY) and all lines are mostly in view under our conservative yield assumptions. Meaningfully, Shift4's disciplined cross-sell opportunity across recent acquisitions is contributing synergies that are quantifiable at a $20m run-rate in early-2025 and annualize to a quarter billion new gross revenue line in FY26 – a positive that is not often seen so early in the cycle. The disconnect lies in a valuation that assumes growth and margin durability is over. Despite industry-leading EBITDA margins (45.7% adjusted) at the top of the decile, and with a massive, firm backlog of enterprise signings still to come online, trading at 2.29x EV/Sales, FOUR has widened its discount to peers that assumes management transition risk, but discounts the breadth of the gross yield architecture. Assigning a forward 3.3x EV/Sales multiple implies 135% upside from a base-case. While we acknowledge macro