As a company that provides technology services for financial institutions, Fidelity National Information Services Inc., or FIS, was impacted by the global banking crisis that began in 2007.
However, as the banking industry began to recover a couple of years later, along with the U.S. economy, FIS began a streak of increasing revenue and earnings every year.
“Since the recovery we’ve seen really nice growth,” President and CEO Gary Norcross said Wednesday after the company’s annual shareholders meeting.
FIS has grown earnings by 14 percent a year over the last five years, Norcross told shareholders at the meeting at the Riverside Avenue headquarters complex that the company shares with Fidelity National Financial Inc. FIS was spun off from FNF in 2006.
As earnings have grown, FIS has produced a total return for shareholders (including dividend payments) of 186 percent over those five years, outperforming the 105 percent return for the Standard & Poor’s 500 stocks, Norcross said.
The outlook for FIS’ business is strong, he said.
“The macro trends for spending by banks remains positive for FIS,” he said.
One headwind FIS is dealing with this year is the strong U.S. dollar. For FIS and other companies that do business overseas, the strong dollar reduces the value of sales in countries with currencies that have been devalued.
FIS generates about one-fifth of its revenue in overseas markets, Norcross said after the meeting. The company has felt the impact of devalued currencies in Brazil and in Europe, he said, but its business in Asian markets has not been affected as much.
The short-term trends are not discouraging FIS from pursuing business overseas, Norcross said, and he expects foreign economies like Brazil that are down now to eventually rebound.
“They’re great markets for us,” he said.