May 4, 2016
Executives
Eric Richard Dey - Chief Financial Officer Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Analysts
James Schneider - Goldman Sachs & Co. Steven Kwok - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.
David M. Togut - Evercore ISI Danyal Hussain - Morgan Stanley & Co.
LLC Timothy Wayne Willi - Wells Fargo Securities LLC Ramsey El-Assal - Jefferies LLC Tien-Tsin Huang - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Operator
Greetings and welcome to the FleetCor Technologies, Inc. First Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call.
At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation.
As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr.
Eric Dey, Chief Financial Officer with FleetCor Technologies, Inc. Thank you.
You may begin.
Eric Richard Dey - Chief Financial Officer
Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us today. By now, everyone should have access to our first quarter press release.
It can be found at www.fleetcor.com under the Investor Relations section. Throughout this conference call, we will be presenting non-GAAP financial information including adjusted revenues, adjusted net income, adjusted net income per diluted share, and adjusted EBITDA.
This information is not calculated in accordance with GAAP and may be calculated differently than other companies' similarly titled non-GAAP information. Quantitative reconciliations of historical non-GAAP financial information to the most directly comparable information appears in today's press release and on our website as previously described.
Also, we are providing 2016 guidance on a non-GAAP basis. Finally, before we begin our formal remarks, I need to remind everyone that part of our discussion today will include forward-looking statements.
This includes forward-looking statements about our 2016 guidance, new products and fee initiatives, and expectations regarding business development and acquisition. They are not guarantees of future performance, and therefore you should not put undue reliance on them.
These results are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. Some of those risks are mentioned in today's press release on Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Others are described in our annual report on Form 10-K. These documents are available on our website as previously discussed and at www.sec.gov.
With that out of the way, I would like to turn the call over to Ron Clarke, our Chairman and CEO.
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Eric, thanks. And thanks to each of you for joining the call today.
Upfront here, I'll plan to cover three subjects. First, I'll comment on our Q1 results; second, I'll discuss our 2016 guidance; and finally, I'll update you on our company's strategic progress.
Okay, so on to the quarter. We're delighted to report Q1 revenue of $414 million versus for $416 million last year, so essentially flat.
We reported Q1 cash EPS of $1.53, that's versus $1.45 last year, so up 6%. So that earnings result is a bit better than our guidance.
On a macro neutral basis, that is adjusted for fuel price, fuel spreads and FX, revenues actually grew 10%. That's excluding SVS and cash EPS grew 20%.
So, growth of 10% on the top and 20% on the bottom on a constant macro basis. Recall the macro environment right to the quarter, fuel prices and FX came in virtually on our plan.
Fuel spreads were a bit worse than planned because fuel prices started to rise in mid-March, but basically, as we planned. There were five primary drivers of growth in Q1.
So first, the MasterCard business, a great quarter. Volume was up 17% helped by Uber and revenue was up 48% on a constant macro basis for the quarter.
So that product continues to have legs. Second, Comdata was solid.
Comdata trucking fuel card business up 11% in the quarter and corporate payments business up 13%, excluding healthcare; so a good Comdata quarter. Pac Pride; a business we acquired about a year-and-a-half ago, doubled revenue in the quarter versus last year; a good result.
The Shell Europe outsourcing business was up 150% for the quarter, mostly due to the rollout of additional markets, so lot of help from Shell. And then lastly, we enjoyed lower interest expense as we de-levered, and a lower tax rate than last year, both of those adding to our earnings growth.
Sales; we had a really good sales result in Q1. Our new sales booking dollars, the way we look at new business, was up 27% versus the prior year.
Increase is really across the board. New sales are the best indicator of market demand or market receptivity for our products.
So it suggests our offerings continue to be quite relevant. So look, in summary for the quarter, we're basically out of the blocks here where we expected to be.
We're delighted to see Comdata in double-digit territory, happy to see the macro environment trending up at the end of the quarter and pleased with our underlying growth fundamentals staying around the 10% mark for the quarter. Okay.
Let me transition now over to our 2016 guidance. We're revising full year guidance today to $6.53 in cash EPS at the midpoint.
That reflects the $0.03 beat we had in the first quarter. We're keeping our rest of the year guidance intact for now.
Despite the fact that fuel prices and FX have improved in recent weeks, the trend is quite short. So we're not prepared to extend those current levels for the full year.
We'll look to make adjustments as we see more data. Obviously, there's upside to the $6.53 full year cash EPS guidance.
Probably in the range of $0.20 to $0.25, if macro factors were to continue to hold where they are today and we complete the STP acquisition in Q3, so some upside there. Okay.
Let me shift gears and provide a bit of an update on FleetCor's overall strategic progress. So first off, number one, our portfolio.
That's the product lines and the geographies that we serve. So we signed STP, the Brazil toll company deal in Q1 that put FleetCor into a new category – electronic toll payments.
And the Shell Europe outsourcing deal has helped us enter seven new European markets, bringing our total markets served to 12 of the world's top 20. So now, actively in generating business in 12 of the world's top 20 markets.
So as we continue to extend our market potential, that extends the company's opportunity to grow, as we enter these new products categories and serve yet new geographies. We clearly like the diversification and the added ratability that it brings.
Second, our build strategy organic growth. We continue to make investments in organic growth.
Our 2016 plan calls for $15 million of additional sales and marketing spend along with the addition of 250 sales people. We're also going live testing outsourced telesales.
We're doing that both in our Comdata corporate payments business and a couple of our European businesses looking for new ways to scale sales faster. We're busy testing lots of new products; first off, BuilderPro.
It's a purchasing card for the construction industry. It lets clients buy fuel and construction supplies in a controlled manner.
We're reselling Kabbage lending products to our existing clients to further leverage our client relationships. We're live with our Comdata Hotel Card program.
That's a rebranding of our CLC program but targeted to Comdata trucking clients who are big users of mid-priced hotel rooms. And we're also bundling something called fuel tax compliance along with our new Comdata trucking card sales, and we're getting over half of the new accounts to take that bundle.
So, the summary is we're working hard to keep our products fresh everywhere. Third, partner strategy.
We've reorganized our partner group to put even more pressure against our global partner business. That focus has resulted in a number of new partner wins over the last couple of years, including two new relationships in Canada.
So although it's been slow, we remain very bullish on the long-term partner opportunity. We're actively chasing a couple of partner RFPs right now and expecting decisions some time here in 2016, so still believe in the upside there.
And fourth area, acquisitions. We announced the $1 billion acquisition of STP in March.
We've started our planning work for that business and hoping to get antitrust approval in Q3, along with continuing to work on a couple of additional acquisition targets. So overall, we're making good strategic progress.
We're expanding our portfolio and the opportunity set in which we play. We're investing in more sales.
We're investing in more new products. We're winning new partners.
We're signing up new deals. We are continuing the build, buy and partner strategy we outlined five years ago when we went public and it's working.
So with that, let me turn the call back over to Eric. He'll provide some additional detail on the quarter and our outlook.
Eric?
Eric Richard Dey - Chief Financial Officer
For the first quarter of 2016, we reported revenue of $414.3 million, relatively flat to the $416.2 million in the first quarter of 2015. The revenue from our North American segment increased 1.6% to $303.5 million from $298.8 million in the first quarter of 2016.
Revenue from our international segment was down 5.7% to $110.7 million from $117.4 million in the first quarter of 2016. For the first quarter of 2016, GAAP net income increased 16.8% to $110 million or $1.17 per diluted share from $94.2 million or $1 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2015.
The other financial metrics that we routinely use are adjusted revenues and adjusted net income, which we sometimes also refer to as cash net income or cash EPS. Adjusted revenues equal our GAAP revenues less merchant commissions.
We use adjusted revenues as a basis to evaluate the company's revenues, net of the commissions that are paid to merchants who participate in certain card programs. We prepare adjusted net income to eliminate the effects of non-cash items that we do not consider indicative of our core operating performance.
A reconciliation of adjusted revenues and adjusted net income to GAAP numbers are provided in Exhibit 1 of our press release. Adjusted revenues in the first quarter of 2016 of $386 million were relatively flat compared to $388.8 million in the first quarter of 2015.
Adjusted net income for the first quarter of 2016 increased 6% to $144.3 million or $1.53 per diluted share compared to $135.9 million or $1.45 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2015. Included in the first quarter results was the impact of the macroeconomic environment, which continued to be unfavorable versus the prior year.
When we talk about the macroeconomic environment, we are referring to the impact that market fuel spread margins, fuel prices and foreign exchange rates can have on our business. Changes in foreign exchange rates were unfavorable in most geographies for the quarter and overall, we believe negatively impacted revenue during the quarter by approximately $13 million.
Fuel prices and spreads were also unfavorable during the quarter. And although we cannot precisely calculate the impact of these changes, we believe negatively impacted revenues by approximately $25 million.
In total, the impact of these changes negatively impacted our revenues by approximately $38 million in the first quarter and adjusted net income per diluted share by approximately $0.21. On a constant macro basis, revenues would have been up approximately 9% and adjusted net income per diluted share would have been up approximately 20%.
For the first quarter of 2016, transaction volumes increased 13% to 487 million transactions compared to 431.3 million transactions in the first quarter of 2015. North American segment transactions grew 13%, driven primarily by growth in the MasterCard and SVS businesses.
Transaction volumes in our international segment grew 12% and were primarily impacted by the addition of new Shell markets in 2015 and a small tuck-in acquisition in the first quarter of 2016. For discussion on revenue per transaction, we're going to exclude the impact of the SVS business, which had approximately 342 million transactions in the quarter at a very low revenue per transaction.
Revenue per transaction for the first quarter of 2016, excluding the SVS business, decreased 10.6% to $2.56 from $2.87 in the first quarter of 2015. Revenue per transaction can vary based on the geography, the relevant merchant and customer relationship, the payment product utilized, and the types of products or services purchased.
The revenue mix is influenced by our acquisitions, organic growth in the business, and fluctuations in the macroeconomic environment. Revenue per transaction excluding SVS, decreased 8% in North America, due primarily to the impact of lower fuel prices during the quarter and lower fuel spread margins versus prior year.
And although we cannot precisely calculate the impact of these changes, we believe they negatively impacted our revenues by approximately 24 million in the first quarter. On a constant macro basis, revenue per transaction in North America segment would have been approximately $3.09 versus $3.07 in 2015.
In the international segment, revenue per transaction decreased 16%, due primarily to unfavorable foreign exchange rates in most of our geographies. Foreign exchange rates impacted revenues unfavorably by approximately 13 million in the quarter.
On a constant macro basis and excluding the small tuck-in acquisitions, which had transactions at a very low revenue per transaction, revenue per transaction in the international segment would've been approximately $2.72 versus $2.51 in 2015. Now, let's shift over and discuss some other drivers of our first quarter performance.
For our North American segment, most of our lines of business performed well, resulting in approximately 10% organic growth rate in the quarter and a constant fuel price spread and foreign exchange rate basis. Some of the positive drivers in North America revenue during the quarter were similar to the last several quarters, including the exceptional performance of our MasterCard product, which had revenue growth of approximately 48% over the first quarter of 2015, assuming constant fuel prices.
The CLC Group, provider of our lodging card program had another solid quarter with 7% revenue growth over the first quarter of 2015. This revenue growth was driven primarily by increases in our check-in direct product, which targets smaller accounts, partially offset by softness in some of our larger accounts that primarily do business in the oil and gas sector.
Our Comdata business performed well in the quarter. The trucking business was up about 11% in the quarter and growth in the corporate payments business was also up 13% excluding healthcare.
Our Pac Pride business is off to a great start and we have already nearly doubled the revenue of the business since we acquired it in 2014. International segment revenue was down approximately 6% in the first quarter of 2016 versus the first quarter of 2015.
This decrease was driven primarily by unfavorable foreign exchange rates in most geographies, which negatively impacted revenues by approximately $13 million in the quarter versus last year. On a constant currency and fuel price basis, organic growth was approximately 6% for the first quarter.
Results in our international business were impacted by the continued conversion of the Shell small business portfolio. We are now in a total of seven markets with a plan to convert the remaining markets during the remainder of 2016.
On the downside, the economies in Brazil and Russia continue to struggle and are impacting revenues in those markets. Now moving down the income statement.
Total operating expenses for the first quarter were $238.3 million compared to $252.4 million in the first quarter of 2015, a decrease of 5.6%. As a percentage of total revenues, operating expenses decreased to 57.5% of revenue compared to 60.6% in the first quarter of 2015.
Included in operating expenses are merchant commissions, processing expenses, bad debt, selling and general administrative expense, depreciation and amortization expense and other operating net. Included in the first quarter 2016 operating expense were favorable impacts resulting from foreign exchange rates being down in most of our foreign businesses, which resulted in an approximately 10 million favorable adjustment to amortization and a 6 million adjustment in other expense lines.
Also stock-based compensation expense in the first quarter of 2016 was $15.9 million compared to $17.7 million in the first quarter of 2015. Credit losses were $6.8 million for the quarter compared to $8.1 million in the first quarter of 2015.
The decrease in bad debt was primarily due to lower bad debt in some of our U.S. businesses in the quarter.
Interest expense decreased 17% to $16.2 million in the first quarter of 2016 from $19.6 million in the first quarter of 2015. The decrease in interest expense was due primarily to the impact of delevering from the first quarter of 2015 through the first quarter of 2016.
Our effective tax rate for the first quarter of 2016 was 29.9% compared to 32.6% for the first quarter of 2015. The decrease in the effective tax rate was primarily due to certain favorable discrete items booked in the first quarter of 2016 of approximately $3 million and an overall lower tax rate related to tax planning initiatives that were implemented late in 2015.
The 2016 tax benefit booked in the first quarter related to tax planning initiatives was approximately $1.2 million. Now, turning to the balance sheet.
We ended the quarter with approximately $545 million in total cash, approximately $145 million of which are restricted and are primarily customer deposits. As of March 31, 2016, we had approximately $1.894 billion outstanding on our Term A loan, $247 million outstanding on our Term B loan, and $90 million drawn on our revolver, leaving approximately $945 million of undrawn availability.
We had approximately $551 million borrowed against our securitization facility. As of March 31, 2016, our leverage ratio was 2.35 times EBITDA, which is well below our covenant level of four times EBITDA.
We intend to use our free cash flow to temporarily pay down the balance in our revolving credit facility and securitization facility and maintain liquidity for acquisitions and other corporate purposes. To remind everyone, on February 4, 2016, our Board of Directors authorized a repurchase of up to $500 million of FleetCor's common stock during an 18-month period, ending August 1, 2017.
During the first quarter of 2016, the company did not repurchase any stock as our trading window did not open due to the impending announcement of the STP transaction. Our intention is to implement a 10b5-1 share buyback plan when the window opens in the next few weeks.
There is no guarantee as to the number of shares that will be repurchased and the stock repurchase program may be extended, suspended or discontinued at any time without notice at FleetCor's discretion. Any repurchases are expected to be funded by available cash flow from the business and undrawn revolver.
And finally, we are not a capital-intensive business and we spent only $12 million on CapEx during the first quarter of 2016. Now, onto our outlook for the remainder of 2016.
Before I begin our discussion on guidance, I want to update you on our latest thinking about the macroeconomic environment. Although foreign exchange rates and fuel prices are trending a little better than our 2016 assumptions we provided on the January call, we are keeping our prior macro guidance unchanged until more of a trend can be established.
We don't know the environment will actually play out in 2016, but if it stays anywhere where it is today or continues to improve, some of the headwind we have been experiencing may come back as a tailwind. For the balance of the year, we are keeping our prior macro guidance intact.
And we're estimating that foreign exchange rates will negatively impact revenue by approximately $32 million for the next three quarters compared to the 2015 average for the same period. And the absolute price of fuel (25:54) revenue of approximately $32 million for the last three quarters versus the 2015 average over the comparable period.
In addition, we believe market spreads will be better than historic levels, but contribute approximately $7 million less revenue than 2015 spreads for the balance of the year. In aggregate, we believe the macroeconomic environment creates an approximately $70 million in revenue headwind and approximately a $0.50 cash EPS headwind for the rest of the year versus the 2015 averages.
That being said, we expect total revenues to be between $1.730 billion and $1.780 billion, adjusted net income to be between $608 million and $628 million. And adjusted net income per diluted share to be between $6.43 and $6.63 or $6.53 at the midpoint.
Some of the assumptions that we have made in preparing this guidance include the following. Weighted fuel prices equal to $1.91 per gallon average for 2016 compared to $2.56 per gallon average in 2015.
A reduction of approximately 25%. Market spreads returning to more historical levels for the rest of 2016, down approximately $7 million versus 2015.
Foreign exchange rates equal to the seven-day average, ending January 15, 2016. The SVS business has retained for all of 2016, continued weakness in the company's Russian and Brazilian businesses, a full-year tax rate of 31.9%, fully diluted shares outstanding of 94.7 million shares and no impact related to acquisitions or material new partnership agreements.
We have also not included any impact related to the previously announced STP acquisitions. We may have upside to this guidance in the range of $0.20 to $0.25 in adjusted net income per diluted share, if we close STP as expected in the third quarter and the macro stays where it is today.
As we stated on the STP call in March, we expect that an STP closing in the third quarter could add approximately $0.10 in incremental adjusted net income per diluted share. Also if the macro stays where it is today, we could expect incremental revenue of approximately $20 million to $25 million and adjusted net income per diluted share of approximately $0.10 to $0.15.
For those of you that are looking for guidance for the second quarter, I want to remind everyone that our business has some seasonality and the macro will have an impact on the second quarter, as I previously discussed. For the second quarter, we are expecting adjusted net income per diluted share to be approximately the same as the first quarter.
Finally, to remind everyone, our volumes build throughout the year and our new asset initiatives gain momentum throughout the year, resulting in a much higher earnings per share in the third and fourth quarters. Traditionally, our third and fourth quarters' earnings tend to be quite similar.
We have no plans to provide quarterly guidance going forward, but rather to update our annual guidance each quarter. And with that said, operator, we will open it up for questions.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we will be conducting a question-and-answer session.
Our first question comes from the line of James Schneider with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.
James Schneider - Goldman Sachs & Co.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question.
Good performance in the Comdata fleet business, again, I think 12% growth you called out versus 13% growth last quarter. That's an improvement after you acquired it clearly, but as we go into the back half of the year, how would you expect that business to trend?
Would we see a deceleration there down to the high single digits or 10% range, or is that a little bit too aggressive?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
James, hey, it's Ron. I would say if you looked at our plan, we will probably step it up 1 point or 2 points as we head through the year.
James Schneider - Goldman Sachs & Co.
Okay. That's fair enough.
And then, maybe you could just update us on the same-store sales trend that you saw in the quarter. I don't think you broke it out, but you did last quarter.
Any improvement in any of the verticals that you touched on last quarter that was driving headwinds, or is it pretty much same old same old there?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
I'd say it's a little better. I think our consolidated number for Q1 is kind of minus 1%.
So, still a bit of a headwind. But, I'd say it's more pocketed.
There are places that are kind of, okay to good and then some other places like, CLC with the railroads and Russia, Brazil that are still quite bad, 7%, 8% negative. So, it's not kind of an average across the board, it's quite pocketed.
James Schneider - Goldman Sachs & Co.
And then, just one last one if I could. Can you maybe just comment on the overall pricing landscape with respect to your different customer segments?
Do you feel you are sort of maxed out there in terms of what you're able to achieve in terms of pricing actions or do you feel there's a little bit more in some areas that you can do?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. James, there's always more.
It's just the decision of, like we say, how – where to push and how to push. I'd say, we're pretty comfortable where we are, but I would say, there's always more opportunity.
James Schneider - Goldman Sachs & Co.
Thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sanjay Sakhrani with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.
Please proceed with your question.
Steven Kwok - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.
Hi, this is actually Steven Kwok filling in for Sanjay. I guess just the first question is around STP, what are the next steps that you need to take in order to close the deal?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Steven, hey, it's Ron. So, I'd say, there's some set of kind of closing conditions – a handful of closing conditions, with the primary one being antitrust approval.
So, we have filed that a few weeks back and you know, are, quote, in that process. Our best estimate again is, kind of early Q3.
So, I'd say that's probably the long pole.
Steven Kwok - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.
Got it. And then, just if you could comment around like same-store sales trend, have you seen any diverging trends within, whether it's the U.S.
or the rest of the world?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I mean, that was the comment I made.
I'd say, again, that kind of on a weighted consolidated basis, we were minus 1%. But, if you looked across our 15 or 20 businesses or geographies, there were a number that were in the plus column, some that were kind of flat and then the few that I called out were still quite negative -- Brazil, Russia, the CLC, railroads, 7% to 8% softness.
So, mixed bag on same-store.
Steven Kwok - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.
Got it. And then, last question just around the M&A landscape.
Any particular areas you are looking at? Thanks.
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I mean, I think we sound like a bit of a broken record. I'm actually looking at our deal pipeline page sitting here on the call.
So, I would repeat again that we have a number, so more than two. Things that are, quote, active in our pipeline beyond STP.
And I'd say looking at the list, it runs the gamut. We've got a couple, two, three kind of tuck-in small things that are in markets we're in, couple of things that get us into a new geography.
So, again, I'd say it's a range of different opportunities.
Steven Kwok - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Togut with Evercore ISI.
Please proceed with your question.
David M. Togut - Evercore ISI
Thank you. Good afternoon.
Could you comment on AllStar performance in the quarter? You've been rolling out a chip card with AllStar through Visa.
I'm wondering if that's affecting same-store transactions at all and or are you seeing any incremental revenue per transaction as you upgrade from mag stripe to chip card?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Hey, David, it's Ron. I'd say, it's probably still on the disappointing side, not much different than I think when we spoke.
Last, I don't have it in front of me, but I'd say, the UK was probably south of 5% organic for the quarter and it's mostly just pace. I think it's the same comments from the last call that the pace of conversions, we have about half the book converted.
And then, getting people to use the card properly, that gives us the advantage. Economics is a bit of a learning and then again getting the incremental sales people to sell more of that product.
So, it's the combination of the two or three things that will create lift are still getting worked. So, I would hope and our plans here that thing will trend up as we move through the year.
David M. Togut - Evercore ISI
Got it. And then, staying on international, could you comment on the big oil pipeline a bit, whether you're seeing any movement in that and what are some of the big oils looking for in Europe to make a decision to outsource?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I think we've mentioned, although this thing is glacial, there are actually a couple opportunities – partner opportunities that have moved from kind of RFI to RFP. And I would say that we think there would be at least a couple to partner decisions that would happen in this year in 2016.
So, we will obviously be back here. But, I'd say the good news – like there were a couple, over the last couple of years, it appears that at least a couple have moved far enough ahead that they're going to make a decision.
David M. Togut - Evercore ISI
And would those be more on the SME portfolio like Shell or could you see some of the larger fleet business being outsourced?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
There is actually a couple of flavors in the two. There is one that's kind of more traditional, take the program and there's another one that looks more like the Exxon and Shell model.
David M. Togut - Evercore ISI
Got it. Just a quick final question on Uber, I think you or Eric called out Uber as a growth driver.
Could you put some numbers around that so we can understand how substantial that is and what the outlook might be?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Eric, you might have the numbers.
I'd say, David, the thing again is rocking, right. We introduced it not quite a year ago and both the adoption of drivers and usage has been high and then Uber has continued, because people like it, drivers like it to extend the offer to more drivers.
So, the thing is literally building sequentially. I mean, it is – I would say, it's probably one of the top three or four largest clients that we have now in terms of volume, in North America already and it's not a year-old.
And obviously, as you know – I mean, although not agreed or whatever, the opportunity to take that thing beyond the U.S. is still another huge opportunity if Uber gives a call for that.
Eric Richard Dey - Chief Financial Officer
Hey, David, this is Eric, just to add on to that, although Uber does have a lot of gallons and it is progressing very, very nicely, it is a lower revenue per tran product just so you're clear, so it's not as revenue-intensive as some of the other products that we have.
David M. Togut - Evercore ISI
Got it. Thank you very much.
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Good to talk to you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Danyal Hussain with Morgan Stanley.
Please proceed with your question.
Danyal Hussain - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC
Hi, Ron and Eric, thanks for taking the question. It sounds like macro is in line, so were there any surprises in the quarter on a metal basis versus your expectations or it was broadly in line?
Thanks.
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Danyal, hey, it's Ron. I'd say of the key macros again fuel price and FX was kind of spot on our plan.
We did a little bit of headwind, I think call it, $4 million or $5 million, lower than our plan on spreads, because fuel prices ticked up kind of starting mid-March that, obviously, contracted spreads a bit. So, I'd say that the only macro thing in the quarter and then, I'd say again if you looked at our plan versus the consolidated thing, I'd say most virtually all businesses kind of are where we expect it.
So, I'd say in the past few years, this was about as ratable a period as we've had in terms of our expectations against actual.
Danyal Hussain - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC
Got it. And you called out being in now 12 of the top 20 fuel markets, can you give some color or examples of what the other eight are and if those countries even have fuel cards or what the sort of path might look like to penetrate those markets?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I mean, the first thing I'd say is, to have started out the first seven years and the company being in the U.S. and to be in 12 of the top 20 and I said repeatedly of those 12, six of them were just barely in.
So, the first point is there is enormous runway in the 12 served. But of the eight, not served, I mean, the biggest block would be, obviously, Asia.
So, the first three to come to mind would be China, Japan, South Korea, so we're not in those three, obviously, two of those are huge. And then in Continental Europe, the couple that jumped off to me are Italy and Spain.
That we are not in. I think Turkey as well is a top 20 that were not in and then I guess, the last one to come to mind that's huge that were not in is India, which I think is a lot farther way.
So, I would say that we are chasing hard, the couple of European geographies that we're not in. And I'd say the Asia ones probably a bit more difficult.
Danyal Hussain - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC
Got it. And Eric maybe you can just clarify the tax benefit in the quarter.
It sounded like it was $3 million of total benefit, and is it of which $1.2 million was planned and might recur over the course of the year, or maybe you can just give it up, I guess kind of some guidance on what the full year rate might look like? Thanks.
Eric Richard Dey - Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, I mean, I think you're correct the way you said it. We worked on a couple of tax projects last year and those tax projects concluded toward the end of the year last year.
We did have some carryover effect to a couple of the projects where we booked some favorability into the first quarter. That really pertained to last year.
It was kind of a couple or three million dollars that we called out. In addition to that, the tax projects will have an ongoing favorable impact to our tax rate of about call it, $1 million or so per quarter, which we called out as well and that will be ongoing.
The balance of the year tax rate expect something in the 31.9% range.
Danyal Hussain - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC
Perfect. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tim Willi with Wells Fargo.
Please proceed with your question.
Timothy Wayne Willi - Wells Fargo Securities LLC
Hi, thanks. Good afternoon.
A couple of questions, first, just going back to CLC, I think that 7% number probably one of the lowest, at least, I can recall in a while. And I know you called out oil as sort of the energy markets as a drag.
Could you maybe if you were to separate that vertical or those industries, what were the rest of CLC look like on an underlying basis just approximation if you don't have it exactly?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Tim, it's Ron. So, the short story on CLC which was running you know kind of mid teens, mid to high teens, so this softness started call it, Q3 last year so kind of three quarters in, Q3, Q4, Q1.
And basically again, CLC is a business with two portfolios, one, it's got 25, 30 big clients been around a long time to huge volumes. It includes railroads, trucking firm, some oil companies, et cetera, and then it's got thousands and thousands of SMB that got 10, 15 cards.
So the problem is in the first group where that group is quite soft and causing about 8% softness versus Q1 the prior year. So, effectively if those accounts were doing the volumes they were a year ago, that business will be at 15%, again organic for the quarter.
So, the other half of the book is growing high teens, revenue close to 20% and the large account book is obviously not growing much, because it's negative 8% softness.
Timothy Wayne Willi - Wells Fargo Securities LLC
Okay. And a follow-up on this.
And then, I had one more. Just I can't remember if this was asked on a prior call, but within those large enterprises and thinking about the Comdata customer base, can you just refresh some memory if you talked about it before the cross sell opportunity are they there or a lot of this big Comdata customers already CLC customers?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
That's a great question. We actually – I think I did mention this, we private labeled or Comdata labeled the CLC program starting in Q4.
So, we took the CLC thing, we created a way to use the Comdata card at the hotels. We trained up the Comdata sales group and they've been out selling to both big and small accounts.
And the last review I had a couple of weeks ago, I think we onboarded 300 new accounts, you know, in the first whatever, 90 days, 120 days. So, yes, we've had trucking – CLC's had trucking clients before we owned Comdata, but now we've packaged the product for Comdata and targeted our salespeople back to the Comdata base.
And so, the early views are great. The clients like that we have something else to offer them that's got some value and a bunch of them are taking us up on it.
Timothy Wayne Willi - Wells Fargo Securities LLC
Great. And then, my last one, just going to sort of the corporate payment side of SVS.
I know you referenced the growth rate ex-healthcare. Just sort of curious now that you've had that asset, I guess, for a little bit over a year now – 15 months, give or take, have any new specialized verticals emerged for that application in terms of growth opportunities or anything around the sales side just generally speaking around corporate payments, where you're sort of making the investments and maybe are on the cusp of some things happening or is it going to be more sort of just a steady as she goes kind of performance there ex-healthcare?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Are you on SVS or you're on corporate payments, Tim?
Timothy Wayne Willi - Wells Fargo Securities LLC
I'm on corporate payments – the corporate payments business.
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. So, the corporate payments business, again is a bit of a tale of two cities.
The healthcare thing continues to be soft. The couple of big accounts we called out a year ago – one of those is kind of gone for good and the other one is kind of slowly coming back.
We got a bit of it, but we'll see more as we exit the year. So that business is really down – that little sub-segment, but the rest of the business is up crazy amounts.
The construction business is up 20% to 25%. The reseller business is up 30%.
So we are – I think, I mentioned we're pouring – I think we've doubled the sales head count in that business in the last six months in terms of people literally on the street today. So, the quote, business without healthcare is growing well.
And I'd say the sales, which are the lead indicator for revenue, are quite good. So, again, I think we like it a lot other than the stub we had in healthcare.
Timothy Wayne Willi - Wells Fargo Securities LLC
Great. That's all I had.
Thanks so much.
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Tim.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ramsey El-Assal with Jefferies.
Please proceed with the question.
Ramsey El-Assal - Jefferies LLC
Hi, guys. The growth in your MasterCard offering has been – it was obviously incredibly impressive in the quarter and has been healthy for a long time.
Can you, once again help us think through the drivers of that growth, maybe have those drivers changed over time, and also just a little bit of color on the sustainability of the growth? I know you mentioned Uber was a contributor this time around.
But should we expect this kind of healthy revenue growth in this product category to just continue as far as the eye can see, or what are your thoughts there?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Ramsey. It's Ron.
So, yeah, I'd probably say no to 48%. I think we'd sound a little bit like Google with that.
But, I'd say we are super bullish on that thing being a high-teens, low-20%s grower for kind of as far as we can see, because it's a product that just fits everybody, right, every geography, every size group. So, it's really – we dial that product in to be a really attractive product.
The drivers of it are sales. We poured sales into it.
So the volume, I think I quoted up 17%. Some of that Uber and some of that's just again the sales investment.
It's mix again. We're pouring money into digital.
So, we're going down market a bit in some of that volume, so we're getting obviously much better rates as the mix keeps getting smaller in that portfolio. And then, lastly, we did pour some rate stuff in Q1 of 2015 when we saw the fuel prices tank.
And so we're at a point here where we have that rate kind of sitting in Q1 of 2016, and it didn't sit all that much in Q1 of 2015. And so, I'd say that the 48% is a bit artificially high for those couple of reasons, but again this is a long-term grower for us.
Ramsey El-Assal - Jefferies LLC
Great. That's super helpful.
A couple of quick ones on Sem Parar. How did the company do in the quarter?
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
You know, it's funny, we reviewed that. I'd say it was exactly on expectation.
So, as part of our acquisition and thesis, the company had a budget and we, FleetCor built a model. And what they've shared with us is basically spot on what we thought, which was quite comforting.
Ramsey El-Assal - Jefferies LLC
And last one also on Sem Parar. Any changes in the financing terms on that transaction, if I'm not mistaken it seems like spreads have gotten a little bit more favorable since you announced the deal.
I am not sure if that's the case or not, but any incremental view on financing cost there?
Eric Richard Dey - Chief Financial Officer
No, it's about the same. We are financing that transaction through our existing debt facilities.
So, rates are effectively fixed in debt facility, so expect to see something at LIBOR plus 175, from a rate standpoint, that deal.
Ramsey El-Assal - Jefferies LLC
All right. Great, Thanks.
That's all for me. Thank you.
Eric Richard Dey - Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Ramsey.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tien-Tsin Huang with JPMorgan.
Please proceed with your question.
Tien-Tsin Huang - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Great. My name is terrifying for the operators, I'm sure.
So, a lot of good details always, guys. Just the sales, the booking dollars, I think, Ron, you said up 27%.
Where are you seeing some of that good sales performance, is it more international, domestic, is it in the same areas, is there maybe some new areas? Just trying to understand that better.
Ronald F. Clarke - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, Tien-Tsin, it's literally almost across the board. I've got the page here in front of me.
I mean, the U.S. numbers were up big, partly because we didn't have as good a quarter a year ago.
The Comdata bookings are way, way up, right, because we made big investments both in the trucking line of business and in the corporate payments business. Shockingly, even our Russia sales are way up.
As that thing started to stabilize a little and the people have stabilized, the sales are way up. So, I'd say other than Brazil most other areas of – the CLC business had a rocking up 34% over the prior year.
So, it's – I don't know, investors are not as focused because it doesn't make its way into the P&L, but for us, it's the single best indicator of health, right? Shop your stuff today and the people want it and so, it's quite encouraging for us to be up that much.
Tien-Tsin Huang - JPMorgan Securities LLC
Sure. Yeah, I know it sets the stage for growth to come, so which is why I wanted to ask, on the international side organic growth, I think Eric you said was 6%.
With some of the new sales and sales and marketing going into different areas, can we see that improve or is it really going to be more of a macro cyclical thing that drives it?
Eric Richard Dey - Chief Financial Officer
Yes, hey, Tien-Tsin, it's going to be a little of both. I mean, obviously, the macro impacted a lot of our international segments pretty dramatically in the quarter and same as last year.
The good news is we are building some sales momentum in some of those geographies that we are investing more money in, as Ron called out, Russia as an example, where we are pouring more money into places like the UK and hope to see some better results, as we look kind of for the rest of the year. And I would say, if we had one spot where we need to improve again it's kind of Brazil where we are seeing a bigger macro impact.
But, all in all, the sales were kind of really good in the quarter and those will eventually translate into revenue as we move along.
Tien-Tsin Huang - JPMorgan Securities LLC
That's great. Thank you, guys.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that's all the time we have for questions today.
This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time.
Thank you for your participation.