Ricky Mulvey: Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley all up about half, if not more for this year. When I see that, I see lower interest rates, I see more trading volume. You see that on the retail and on the institutional side, and you’re starting to see some green shoots in the IPO market as companies go public again after that deep freeze of 2022, early 2023. What’s standing out here for that big bank performance? Is this a lot of things they’re doing themselves or is this tailwinds happening to these companies?
Matt Frankel: Well, one to be fair, you’re coming from a very low bar. There was essentially no ongoing public in 2023, for example, so investment banks weren’t getting that revenue. But I don’t want to really discount it because Goldman Sachs investment banking fee you mentioned, up 20% year over year. JP Morgan investment banking revenue was up 29% year over year. You’re starting to see it’s not just IPOs and things like that, you’re seeing a lot of debt underwriting. You mentioned lower interest rates. Companies are more willing to take on debt when the economy is strong and interest rates are going down. You’re seeing a lot of debt underwriting revenue. Goldman Sachs debt underwriting revenue was up 46%. You’re seeing a lot of positive tailwinds, and if the Fed keeps cutting rates, that could get even better.
Ricky Mulvey: A lot of these big banks are cyclical-ish businesses. You see some exponential growth, looking at these big banks that are mature. We’re talking growth numbers for banks that in some cases are older than 100 years. Does this say anything to you about where we are in the business cycle? Is this information important for individual investors?
Matt Frankel: Well, I’ve said the words normal business cycle and normal recession so many times in my 25 year investment career that I have no clue what a normal recession is. I don’t know what a normal cycle is. It’s really hard to time these things, you can’t really say we’re at the peak of a cycle. I thought we were at the peak of a cycle in 2014, and the market ended up tripling from there.
Take this with a grain of salt, but I do think it says that we are expecting things to be really strong for the next year or two. That’s being priced into bank stocks, you’re pricing in further interest rate cuts, you’re pricing in a stronger economy. You’re pricing in very good IPO activity and just really good conditions. I do think it says the market thinks we’re toward the top of the business cycle.
Ricky Mulvey: Let’s look at some payment processors, and one that I care deeply about because it’s a stock where I have my highest cost basis, if you want that for your conviction notes there is Paypal. This was the first full year under new CEO Alex Chriss. He was hired in late September of last year, but 2024 was really the year that he got his feet under him, and you were able to implement some things when you’re in the job for a couple of months. He promised a more focused PayPal. We’re not going to do these silly acquisitions, and we’re really going to focus on helping merchants sell more things to you, the consumer. When you look back on his first full year at PayPal, what are some of the highlights you’ve seen from Year 1?
Matt Frankel: Well, he’s been busy, and it’s worth noting, it’s not just him. Alex Chriss isn’t the only new one. PayPal’s entire C suite is new. He’s the longest tenured person in their senior leadership team at this point. A lot of new hires. He’s been busy. His focus has been twofold on efficiency and on increasing engagement. On efficiency, we saw PayPal’s revenue, it’s only up about 6%. We saw it’s earnings per share up 22%, which indicates efficiency is working.
You’re seeing them really allocate capital in shareholder friendly ways, very aggressive stock buybacks. They’re buying back $5-6 billion of stock on an annual basis, and a lot of really interesting developments. I’m not sure if you’re aware, even, but PayPal went on its biggest ad campaign ever in September. I don’t know if you saw the Will Ferrell ads with PayPal, [laughs] but they rolled out their PayPal Everywhere product, which is essentially the best cashback debit card that I know of anywhere in the market. It’s 5% cashback debit card, not a credit card that can just be used with your PayPal account wherever you go.
The fast lane checkout has gotten a lot of headlines, and more important than the product itself is who they’re partnering with. They got partnerships with people who are thought of as their competitors like Adient and Fiserv. PayPal is going to be an option for Shopify checkout in the US. Previously, that was just in France. They’re rolling out a lot of new features like the ability to pool money between different PayPal accounts. Let’s say you’re traveling with a group of friends, you’ll be able to pool it in a separate basket.
Really interesting features, and a lot of what they’ve been doing and building out the ad platform, which I almost forgot to mention. Advertising is a natural fit for a company that has spending data on 400 million people. They hired the former general manager of Uber’s advertising business to lead it, and everything I just mentioned is not reflected in PayPal’s numbers yet. That’s one thing to keep in mind as an investor. They’ve been busy, but the numbers still show flat revenue, flat account growth, things like that. 2025 could be an exciting year for them.
Ricky Mulvey: I’ve certainly noticed more PayPal checkouts in online shopping, and the advertising business makes sense. You think about it, not just sending it to outside parties, but for businesses that use PayPal, hey, we can have a more differentiated solution for you because we can see where people are abandoning their carts and maybe what discounts things you can offer them in order to get them to stick around. In Chriss’ first year, he’s turned earnings around, and some of that, I think, has been one time because he cut people from the company. You’re doing some disciplined things that you can’t really rinse and repeat.
But when you look at the multiples on this thing, and I’m trying to be a long term buy and hold investor here because I see this as a critical infrastructure business, and I’m looking for two things. One is the narrative. Can you change the narrative? Then number two is, can you change the business? What do you think could happen where Wall Street sees PayPal as a growth story again, something where we’re going for that 40-ish earnings multiple instead of that 20-ish earnings multiple we have right now or am I focused on the wrong thing as a PayPal shareholder?
Matt Frankel: So far, you mentioned they got earnings per share growing again. Earnings growth is over 20% over the past year. The analysts think that is just PayPal maximizing its existing business. All those things I just mentioned that they’re doing over the past year need to really translate to growth to get back to a high multiple. You need to start seeing more accounts come on the platform.
They have over 430 million active accounts, they added less than a million over the past year. Things like that need to change. You really need to start building out, not just maximizing the efficiency of the current business, but really increasing payment volumes, increasing the user base at a faster rate than we’ve seen, and that will be the inflection point. If all the things I mentioned start translating into growth.
Ricky Mulvey: Very well those things couldn’t. Maybe people will go with other payments platforms. I could very well be wrong about this. This is certainly something I’m going to be watching in 2025.
Matt Frankel: I’m a shareholder, too. [laughs]
Ricky Mulvey: Speaking of companies where you’re a shareholder. I’m shoehorning this company in because I think it’s one of the most interesting dramatic stories of 2024, and that’s Boston Omaha. Why are we doing it in a financial show? That’s a Billboard and broadband business. We talked about that a little bit, maybe, but this also is an asset management business, which it threw out the window.
Matt Frankel: I was just going to say, it was an asset management business.
Ricky Mulvey: It was an asset management business. I think it still hasn’t. It still has insurance there, so we got some financials there. You follow this company very closely. This is a very difficult company to follow. What is your 2024 recap for Boston Omaha?
Matt Frankel: Well, talk about very difficult company to follow. You said PayPal is your biggest investment by cost basis. Boston Omaha’s mine. It’s been a difficult 2024. It looks like they’re finally turning it around a little bit. The biggest news was that one of their co CEOs abruptly exited the business. He was one of the biggest parts of the thesis for a lot of people. You probably heard the connection that Warren Buffett’s great grand nephew or whatever was running it, he’s the one that left. That part of the thesis was out. No more Buffet comparison, which I didn’t really buy that in the beginning anyway.
Ricky Mulvey: I’m pretty sure I’m Genghis Khan’s great, great nephew or something too, but please continue.
Matt Frankel: Well start a holding company and hype that up. Boston Omaha, you mentioned the asset management business. They finally admitted that that wasn’t working until earlier this year they were trying to raise third party capital, essentially be an early stage like Brookfield and raise third party capital to pursue built for rent housing, broadband infrastructure, a few opportunities they saw.
They were able to get no traction on that. The asset management business existed for that reason. They’re winding it down right now. The build for rent fund still has, I think six million dollars or so, but they’re winding that down now. The business is stagnant in a lot of ways. We’ll get to insurance in a second, because I know you want to talk about that. The Billboard revenue is up 6% year over year. Broadband revenue is up 5% year over year. The most exciting part of the business now is the Sky Harbor investment. They took a company called Sky Harbor public by SPAC, still own a whole I think, 20% or so of it, and that makes up a third of their market cap because it’s been doing well.
But if I want to own Sky Harbor, I’ll just buy Sky Harbor. You mentioned insurance. Boston Omaha, they write surety insurance. It’s a very specific type of insurance. Back when I used to manage other people’s money as a financial planner, I used to have to have a surety bond. That is the best growing part of the business. Their revenue from surety insurance was up 67% year over year in the third quarter. Everything else was mid single digits. They have a 13% net margin from the insurance business, which is very strong. A loss ratio of 17%, most insurance companies run about 70. It’s a very profitable type of insurance, but it’s small.
My question is, can it continue to scale? I’m not as excited about the company as I once was. The asset management division, to me, was the number one reason to be excited. I’m not saying it’s a bad business. Billboard, the economics are fantastic. Broadband, the economics are great, like 80% gross margins, things like that. Surety insurance is a great business, but I’m not as excited as I was.
Ricky Mulvey: To be clear, Adam Peterson, who’s the now sole CEO of Boston Omaha, has an open invite to join us on Motley Fool Money to answer some questions from us shareholders. Would love to see him on in 2025, but since he’s not here, we’re going to ask questions into the void. Matt, what questions would you like to see him answer as a shareholder of Boston Omaha?
Matt Frankel: I’d really just echo what I just said. Why should investors be excited at this point? I get what you’re doing. You’re building the billboard business, great economics around this business. The most exciting part of the company is a passive investment in Sky Harbor, which I could just buy on the open market. Now that asset management is gone, why should investors be excited to buy this stock? What’s the market beating potential here?
Ricky Mulvey: This was also when I hope they answer that question, because recently this year, they also canceled the virtual version of their annual shareholders meeting. You could only go in person, which to be frank, I took that as an unnecessary shot at smaller investors like me. I’m not paying for a trip to Omaha to go hear from them. Put it on video, let me see what the highlights are. I thought that was an unsavory move, even though I’m a shareholder.
Matt Frankel: I agree. They were only in person last year, but they did it the same weekend as the Berkshire meeting, so people were there anyway. I do that. If you’re going to do it in person, do it on a weekend when I’m already in Omaha. I don’t want to make a separate trip just for that.
Ricky Mulvey: Let’s talk about some payment processors as they have had a pretty significant year. Have you been following Shift4 or Toast over the past year? Because those have had some pretty big years. These are companies Shift4, which we’ll get to in a second. If you’re at a stadium and you buy a beer, you’re probably using a Shift4 terminal, and if you’ve ever been in a restaurant where a server has to ask you a couple of quick questions on an iPad, at the end of a meal, then you’ve used Toast. Have you been following these over the past year?
Matt Frankel: Yes, that was a perfect description of both of these companies. Now, Shift4 is one of the more interesting stories in business in general. I know we talked before the show, their founder CEO Jared Isaacman left. He’s going to be the leader of NASA, which I can’t blame him for leaving. He founded Shift4 in 1999 when he was 16-years-old, 16. It’s pretty impressive business. They’re not only growing really fast. The revenue has grown at a 50% annualized rate for the past three years, even at their current scale. You mentioned the sports vertical, that’s been by far the most successful recent one.
If you go to a hotel, you’re probably going to use a Shift4 terminal. That was their big vertical before that. Really, a lot of potential here, and it’s not only growing that fast, but it’s a profitable business. I love that they specialize in vertical by vertical by vertical. The sports vertical, the non profits vertical is another one that they’re building right now. I think the business has a lot of traction. Jared Isaacman did a great job of getting it to where it is, but at this point, I’m not sure that his second in command, who’s been with him the whole time can continue this trend.
Ricky Mulvey: As an American, I’m happy to see Jared Isaacman go lead NASA. If you read his post on X, it’ll get you fired up about space. Basically, we’re going to be a spacefaring civilization again and buckle up because I remember we’re going to get shuttles back on the moon, that thing. I wish I could do a space show with him. Maybe he’d come back on, he’s been on Motley Fool Money before. But now, you just have the business of Shift4 without the charismatic leader.
That was something that investors were willing to pay for was this rock star CEO who was getting big growth and also going up in space planes. Now that you just have the business and maybe it’s a wait and see thing, is the business of Shift4 still interesting to you as an investor in the financial space?
Matt Frankel: In the same way that if Elon Musk had become the leader of NASA and had to step down from Tesla, that Tesla would still be a great business.
Ricky Mulvey: It’s not impossible that happens.
Matt Frankel: No, and the post you just read from X sounded like it could have been written by Elon Musk, honestly. [laughs] Yes, I think it’s still a great business, and I think they’ve scaled and have the recipe in place to the point where someone who’s been working under Isaacman this whole time can step in into the role.
Ricky Mulvey: Also, so a big year for payment processors. I mentioned Toast a little bit earlier. This is also one I own. More restaurants adopting them. You’re seeing those growthy growth double digit revenue numbers. They’re cutting their losses. I think you mentioned earlier, Shift4 makes a profit. Toast is getting there, they’re trying to. But it’s a growth story that investors are now willing to pay for. Over the past year, why do you think sentiment has changed so much for the iPads, asking you a couple of questions?
Matt Frankel: Well, in the past month or two, one their earnings completely knocked it out of the park in the third quarter. They beat on the top and bottom line. Their guidance was fantastic. They’re growing revenue at 28% year over year, and now they’re profitable. They’re not as profitable as Shift4, but they’re profitable. Really, it’s a business story. A pro business administration is going to be in the White House next year. People are expecting corporate tax cuts. They’re expecting people to be more excited about spending money and just a stronger than expected economy is what the expectation has shifted to, and that’s why the market as a whole has really lifted over the past month or month and a half. Toast is really doing a great job of being the all in one.
Branded mobile apps for restaurants is something they just recently rolled out. It’s not just a little payment terminals, which I wish they would get a little more honest about. It’s going to ask you a question and just ask for a tip. Just say, leave me a tip here. But they’re doing a great job. They’re everywhere. Somehow they continue to add thousands of new locations every quarter. It’s just a really impressive growth story, and they completely knocked it out of the park this year.
Ricky Mulvey: Are there any other financial stories that we didn’t hit that investors should have paid more attention to in 2024?
Matt Frankel: I think Block is a big one. Block really got it back on track this year. They were like PayPal, where they were trying to acquire everybody and try to really disjointed. I remember Jack Dorsey led this. I think it was the first quarter, but don’t quote me on that. I think he went one of his shareholder letters with we’ve been quiet because we’ve been focused, and so they’re really just doubling down on the core businesses. You remember they acquired Tidal a couple of years ago. They acquired Afterpay. Now they’re really just focusing on the Cash App and Square. They’re doing a great job of that, and so far has really surprised me. A lot of people, they’ve doubled in the past six months that stock has.
The banks really kept momentum going, and all banks should pay attention to what’s going on politically in 2025. Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, the reality is there’s a high probability that we’ll see lower corporate taxes in the next four years than we otherwise would have. That’s disproportionately helps the banking industry because banks are one of the most heavily taxed industries when you look at tax as a percent of net income, and this is what happened in 2017. That’s why they were such good performers, and it’s something to keep an eye on as we go into 2025.
Ricky Mulvey: I think you answered the final question of other story lines to watch in addition to what story lines investors should pay attention to. Matt Frankel, appreciate you being here. Thank you for your time and your insight. Motley Fool Money.
Matt Frankel: Always a pleasure.
Mary Long: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks we talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. Don’t buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and are not approved by advertisers. The Motley Fool only picks products that it would personally recommend to friends like you. I’m Mary Long. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you tomorrow
Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Mary Long has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Matt Frankel has positions in Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Block, Boston Omaha, Brookfield Asset Management, PayPal, and SoFi Technologies. Ricky Mulvey has positions in Boston Omaha, PayPal, and Toast. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Block, Boston Omaha, Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase, PayPal, Shift4 Payments, and Toast. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2027 $42.50 calls on PayPal and short December 2024 $70 calls on PayPal. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
“Motley Fool Money” Looks Back at Financials Stocks in 2024 was originally published by The Motley Fool