Business Strategy and Outlook:
Mastercard has multiple characteristics that draw investors’ attention. Despite the evolution in the payment space, a wide moat surrounds the business and view Mastercard’s position in the current global electronic payment infrastructure as essentially unassailable. Mastercard benefits from the on-going shift toward electronic payments, which provides plenty of opportunities to utilize its wide moat to create value over the long term. Digital payments, on a global basis, surpassed cash payments just a few years ago, suggesting that this trend still has a lot of room to run, and the emerging markets could offer a further leg of growth even if growth in developed markets slows.
Mastercard is moderately skeptic to more modest movements in the electronic payment space, as it earns fees regardless of whether payment is credit, debit, or mobile. Cross-border transactions, which are particularly lucrative for the networks, came under heavy pressure due to the fallout from the pandemic and a reduction in global travel. Full recovery is forecasted, and this should drive relatively strong growth in the near term. From a longer-term point of view, it is likely that smaller and more regional networks are building out capacity for cross-border transactions, which could eat into growth a bit in the coming years.
Financial Strength:
Mastercard’s balance sheet is solid. The company added a small amount of debt to its balance sheet in 2014 and in the years since has steadily increased debt. Still, debt/EBITDA at the end of 2021 was a very reasonable 1.3 times, and Mastercard’s leverage is still a bit below Visa’s. It is predicted that debt will increase a bit more, but Mastercard will retain relatively modest leverage in the long run.
The company has shown a relatively limited appetite for M&A, and the business model requires very little balance sheet investment, so management has considerable flexibility. Given the integral nature of Mastercard to the global payment infrastructure, it is discredit that management would be eager to get too aggressive with its capital structure. On the other hand, an overly conservative balance sheet structure could impede long-term shareholder returns. It is believed that the current amount of leverage strikes a reasonable balance.
Bulls Say:
Mastercard has been outperforming Visa in terms of growth. Its smaller size and some leveling in market share between the two could maintain this trend.
- There is still plenty of runaway for growth in electronic payments. Electronic payments only surpassed cash payments on a global basis a couple of years ago.
- Management is appropriately focused on long-term growth opportunities and not near-term margins.
Company Profile:
Mastercard is the second-largest payment processor in the world, having processed close to $6 trillion in purchase transactions during 2021. Mastercard operates in over 200 countries and processes transactions in over 150 currencies.
(Source: Morningstar)
General Advice Warning
Any advice/ information provided is general in nature only and does not take into account the personal financial situation, objectives or needs of any particular person.