Global Payments reported full-year 2025 adjusted earnings per share of $12.22, an increase of 11% year-on-year, as the Atlanta-based payments technology company completed one of the most significant strategic overhauls in its history during the twelve-month period. The results were announced on 18 February 2026 through a press release published on the company's investor relations website, with the full-year figures reflecting the combined effect of the Worldpay acquisition, the divestiture of the Issuer Solutions business, and the disposal of the Payroll business to Acrisure for $1.1 billion in October 2025.
The full-year adjusted operating margin expanded by 97 basis points to 44.2%, a meaningful improvement that reflects the operating leverage inherent in the continuing business and the contribution of portfolio reshaping to the profitability profile of the combined group. Alongside the annual results, Global Payments announced a new $2.5 billion share repurchase authorisation, signalling that management is confident in the company's financial position and cash-generating capability following the completion of the major transactions that defined the 2025 financial year.
WORLDPAY DEAL AND PORTFOLIO RESHAPING
The completion of the Worldpay acquisition is the centrepiece of the strategic repositioning that Global Payments has pursued, combining its merchant acquiring capabilities and vertical software platforms with Worldpay's large-scale transaction processing volumes and established relationships with merchants across multiple geographies. The combination is intended to create a more diversified and higher-volume payments processor, capable of serving merchants across a broader range of channels and sectors than either business could address on a standalone basis. The scale of the combined entity positions it to compete more effectively in a merchant acquiring market that has seen consolidation and technological change accelerate in recent years.
The divestiture of the Issuer Solutions business represents the other defining element of the strategic pivot, with Global Payments choosing to exit the card issuer processing segment in order to concentrate its resources and management attention on the merchant-facing parts of the payments value chain. The disposal of the Payroll business to Acrisure in October 2025 for $1.1 billion further streamlined the portfolio by removing a non-core asset and generating proceeds that contributed to the group's financial flexibility as it manages the balance sheet implications of the Worldpay transaction and the associated financing.
Q4 RESULTS AND CAPITAL RETURNS
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Global Payments generated adjusted net revenue of $2.32 billion, an increase of 6% in constant currency terms excluding the impact of disposed businesses. The use of the constant-currency, ex-disposition framing gives investors a cleaner view of the underlying organic growth trajectory of the operations that will constitute the continuing business going forward, stripping out the distortive effects of exchange-rate movements and the significant portfolio activity that characterised the year as a whole. A 6% constant-currency growth rate at the quarterly level provides a credible foundation from which management can point to the durability of the core business's revenue generation.
The new $2.5 billion share repurchase authorisation that accompanied the results will be interpreted by investors as a commitment to capital return discipline alongside the growth investment associated with integrating Worldpay and realising the synergies that the combination is expected to generate over time. With the major structural transactions now complete, the key questions for Global Payments over the coming quarters will centre on integration execution, the pace at which revenue synergies materialise, and the extent to which the reshaped organisation can convert the strategic ambition of the portfolio overhaul into sustained improvement in adjusted earnings per share and operating margin expansion.