Earnings call transcript: Xerox Q4 2024 misses expectations, stock drops

Xerox Holdings Corporation reported its fourth-quarter 2024 earnings, revealing a significant miss in both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue compared to analyst forecasts. The company’s EPS for the quarter was $0.36, falling short of the expected $0.67. Revenue also missed expectations, coming in at $1.61 billion against the forecasted $1.69 billion. Following the announcement, Xerox’s stock experienced a decline, dropping 11.23% in pre-market trading. According to InvestingPro data, this decline continues a challenging period for Xerox, with the company showing a negative return on assets of -14.38% over the last twelve months.

Key Takeaways

• Xerox’s Q4 2024 EPS and revenue both fell short of analyst expectations.
• The company’s stock dropped over 11% in pre-market trading following the earnings release.
• Xerox aims for low single-digit revenue growth in 2025, focusing on IT solutions and digital services.

Company Performance

Xerox’s performance in the fourth quarter of 2024 highlighted ongoing challenges, with revenue declining by 8.6% in actual currency. The full year 2024 saw a 9.7% decrease in revenue, reaching $6.2 billion. Despite these setbacks, the company achieved $200 million in cost savings through its reinvention initiatives. Equipment revenue saw a significant decline of 17% for the year, reflecting broader industry challenges.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $1.61 billion for Q4 2024, down from forecasts of $1.69 billion.
• Earnings per share: $0.36, missing the forecast of $0.67.
• Free cash flow: $467 million for 2024.
• Adjusted operating income margin: 4.9% for 2024.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Xerox’s reported EPS of $0.36 was 46% below the forecasted $0.67, marking a significant miss. Revenue also fell short by approximately $80 million, coming in at $1.61 billion compared to the expected $1.69 billion. This underperformance contrasts with previous quarters where the company had managed to meet or exceed expectations.

Market Reaction

The earnings miss resulted in a sharp decline in Xerox’s stock price, which fell by 11.23% in pre-market trading. The stock closed at $8.62, down from its previous close of $9.71. This movement places the stock near its 52-week low of $8.02, reflecting investor concerns over the company’s ability to meet financial targets. InvestingPro analysis indicates the stock is currently trading slightly below its Fair Value, with a beta of 1.61 suggesting higher volatility than the market. Despite recent challenges, Xerox maintains a significant dividend yield of 11.71% and has consistently paid dividends for 18 consecutive years. For deeper insights into Xerox’s valuation and 8 additional exclusive ProTips, subscribers can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Xerox projects low single-digit revenue growth in 2025, with a focus on expanding its IT solutions and digital services. The company expects an adjusted operating income margin of at least 5% and free cash flow between $350 million to $400 million. InvestingPro data shows analysts are forecasting EPS of $1.13 for FY2025, suggesting a potential return to profitability. The company’s current gross profit margin stands at 32.33%, while maintaining a stable current ratio of 1.11. Strategic initiatives include the acquisition of Lexmark and the expansion of the A4 color market.

Executive Commentary

Steve Banderszak, Xerox’s CEO, emphasized the significance of 2024 as a pivotal year in the company’s reinvention strategy. He noted, "2024 was an important year for Xerox. We executed a critical phase of our reinvention journey." Banderszak also highlighted the company’s focus on debt repayment as a primary capital allocation priority.

Risks and Challenges

• Continued revenue decline in core markets could pressure financial performance.
• Integration challenges with recent acquisitions like Lexmark.
• Potential macroeconomic pressures impacting IT and print markets.
• Execution risks associated with the company’s reinvention initiatives.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the business model of IT Savvy, the company’s recent acquisition. There was also interest in understanding the continuation of Xerox’s reinvention strategy and its impact on future revenue. The company addressed questions regarding its gross margin trajectory and the status of its forward flow program.

Full transcript - Xerox Corp (NASDAQ:XRX) Q4 2025:

: Thank you

Conference Operator: for standing by, and welcome to the Xerox Holdings Corporation’s 4th Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question and answer session. As a reminder, today’s program is being recorded. And now I’d like to introduce your host for today’s program, Mr.

David Beckel, Vice President and Head of Investor Relations at Xerox Holdings Corporation. Please go ahead, sir.

David Beckel, Vice President and Head of Investor Relations, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Good morning, everyone. I’m David Beckel, Vice President and Head of Investor Relations at Xerox Holdings Corporation. Welcome to the Xerox Holdings Corporation 4th quarter 2024 earnings release conference call hosted by Steve Banderszak, Chief Executive Officer. He’s joined by John Bruno, President and Chief Operating Officer and Myrlanda Gitsay, Incoming Chief Financial Officer. At the request of Xerox Holdings Corporation, today’s conference call is being recorded.

Other recording and or rebroadcasting of this call are prohibited without the express permission of Xerox. During this call, Xerox executives will refer to slides that are available on the web at www.xerox.com/investor and will make comments that contain forward looking statements, which by their nature address matters that are in the future and uncertain. Actual future financial results may be materially different than those expressed herein. At this time, I’d like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Banderschak.

Steve Banderszak, Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Good morning, and thank you for joining our Q4 2024 earnings call. 2024 was an important year for Xerox. We executed a critical phase of our reinvention journey by implementing widespread structural changes all in efforts to better position Xerox for sustainable growth in revenue and profit. Changes include the shift from a geographic to a business unit led operating model, realignment of our sales organization and the centralization of key business processes within the newly formed global business service organization. We now have stronger alignment with the economic buyer of our offerings and improved organizational efficiencies, both of which are critical enablers of our long term reinvention goals.

Further, a simpler and more resilient operating model put us in a better position to acquire and integrate IT Savvy and Lexmark. Transactions which are expected to accelerate our path towards revenue stabilization and double digit adjusted operating income margins. We ended the year with improved execution, achieving revised full year revenue and free cash flow guidance. And for the 2nd consecutive quarter, adjusted operating income and margin improved year over year despite a decline in total revenue, which we view as a proof point of the intended benefits of a more efficiently run business. Summarizing results for the year, revenue of $6,200,000,000 decreased 9.7 percent in actual currency and 9.5% in constant currency.

Excluding the benefits of around 5 weeks of IT Savvy results, revenue declined 10.2% in constant currency. Adjusted EPS was $0.97 $0.85 lower year over year. We generated $467,000,000 of free cash flow, which was $182,000,000 lower year over year and adjusted operating income margin of 4.9% was lower year over year by 70 basis points. The decline in full year revenue was affected in part by backlog reductions in the previous year, the impacts of geographic and offering simplification and other intentional reduction of non core revenue. We expect reinvention related reductions in revenue to largely cease after 2025.

Core organic revenue, which excludes these effects and the acquisition of IT Savvy declined around 4% in 2024, reflecting modest market share losses in equipment and lower page volumes, offset by growth in digital and legacy managed IT services. Throughout the year, underlying print market conditions were stable and demand for our products and services remained strong. We attribute the decline in our equipment market share primarily to the pace and scale of business model changes implemented at the beginning of last year. With the benefit of lessons learned from 2024, we are confident our team has the experience and knowledge to once again grow print equipment share, helping drive an improved trajectory in core print revenue in 2025. I commend the team’s hard work and resiliency over the past year in driving structural improvements to Xerox core business and sustainable operating efficiencies amidst widespread organizational change.

Starting with our core business, the organizational redesign streamlined our sales, marketing and distribution teams, allowing a more efficient and effective means of driving positive outcomes for our clients through Xerox offerings. Sales force productivity is an important leading indicator to our ability to improve revenue trajectory as we continue optimizing our go to market operations. We did not experience a large enough increase in sales productivity in 2024 to fully offset reductions in headcount. However, the ongoing implementation of productivity initiatives drove a 20% sequential improvement in sales force productivity in Q4, continuing the progress observed earlier in

David Beckel, Vice President and Head of Investor Relations, Xerox Holdings Corporation: the

Steve Banderszak, Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: year. Greater alignment with our client, a more focused selling approach and improved client perception resulted in an increase in new business signings year over year. And for the year, we once again grew our digital and legacy managed IT service businesses, key contributors to our planned shift in revenue mix towards markets with higher underlying rates of growth. We expect the acquisition of IT Savvy and the pending acquisition of Lex Mart to further strengthen our core businesses. IT Savvy’s enhanced offering should drive increased penetration of Xerox IT Solutions business across our existing client base.

And Lexmark provides an opportunity to strengthen the print business by diversifying our supply chain, market reach and exposure to growing markets within print such as A for Color. Assuming the second half closing of the Lexmark transaction, we plan to begin realizing the benefits of both transactions in 2025 with greater benefits expected in 2026. Moving to costs. In 2024, we achieved the targeted $200,000,000 of gross reinvention cost savings and total company operating expenses declined close to 12%, excluding IT Savvy and one time transaction costs. The successful execution of geographic and offering simplification efforts resulted in a more efficient distribution model in select countries and streamlined print portfolio, both of which are critical enablers of future cost reductions.

Finally, in 2024, we executed a balanced approach to capital allocations. We used $467,000,000 of free cash flow generated to pay $141,000,000 in dividends, repay secured debt obligations as they came due and acquire IT Savvy. Through a series of debt refinancing transactions, we improved liquidity by extending the maturity of our unsecured debt obligations. The announced acquisition of Lexmod is expected to result in an immediate reduction in pro form a debt leverage and free cash flow accretion from that transaction should improve our capacity to reduce debt further. Finally, additional forward flow programs such as the recently executed deal with Delag Landed Financial Services Canada Inc.

Are expected to support free cash flow generations over the next few years. I’ll now move to 2025 priorities. In 2025, we plan to build on the structural changes implemented in the past year to focus on 1, executing the next phase of our reinvention strategy 2, realizing the benefits associated with the IT Savvy and announced Lexmont acquisition and 3, improving balance sheet health. Starting with the execution of reinvention. The focus of reinvention in 2025 will progress to specific initiatives designed to further optimize our commercial operations and simplify the business and will continue to leverage the GBS organization to design and implement continuous operating efficiencies.

John Bruno will describe some of the reinvention initiatives expected to be implemented this year in more detail. 2025 is an important year for realizing the benefits of the IT Savvy acquisition, which closed last November and planned acquisition of Lexmark. With the addition of IT Savvy, Xerox IT Solutions business offers clients a more comprehensive suite of IT infrastructure solutions better position Xerox to target a wider spectrum of clients’ IT budgets, a TAM we estimate to be around 10 times the size of print. Our IT Solutions business is favorably positioned to take advantage of key market tailwinds, including growth in endpoints driven by hardware refreshes, Windows 11 upgrades and the AI PC, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Cloud solution adoption and spend on the modern data center aided by return to work trends. We expect an enhanced IT solutions offering to drive incremental penetration of these services within our existing client base.

Xerox IT Solutions will be a separately reported segment beginning Q1 of this year. We will provide updates on client penetration and other KPIs associated with the growing business as the integration is completed. And we are well on our way to realizing the more than $15,000,000 of expected run rate cost synergies from this acquisition, most of which we intend to realize this year. Separately, we are working diligently to close the Elekmaq transaction and begin integration planning in order to capture the more than $200,000,000 of expected cost synergies over a 2 year period. Finally, balance sheet strength.

We continue negotiations to expand our forward flow program to Europe. Finance receivable sales associated with the expansion are expected to generate incremental free cash flow as we reduce our finance receivable portfolio. As noted during the Lexmont acquisition conference call, our primary capital allocation priority is now the repayment of debt, and we plan to return cash to shareholders via an annual dividend of $0.50 per share. I’ll now hand the call over to John to provide an overview of our operational roadmap as we move forward in our reinvention journey.

John Bruno, President and Chief Operating Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Thank you, Steve. As Steve noted and I’ve discussed on previous calls, we’ve implemented comprehensive and widespread organizational changes last year aligned to a new operating model, which were necessary to streamline decision rights and improve accountability. These changes created headwinds to our performance and we work through them. However, we never wavered in our resolve to realize the benefits of the targeted improvements to our operating model, organizational structure and management systems supporting the strategy. We’ve applied many lessons learned in 2024 as we plan and execute our operational roadmap as shown on Slide 6, and we are encouraged with our progress.

2025 marks the start, the 3rd year of our reinvention. In the previous 2 years, we removed structural and business segment complexity, clearing the way for us to implement additional tactical initiatives going forward. This year, we will continue the implementation of more than 100 reinvention initiatives designed to enhance revenue and profitability. We classified these initiatives across 4 broad categories, geosimplification, operational simplification, commercial optimization and growth, and the realization of acquisition benefits. Starting with geographic simplification.

In the past 15 months, we took a targeted approach to optimize the markets we serve. In 2024, we executed transitions of our direct operations in 11 countries to partner lead bottles. This year, we are slated to complete up to an additional 4, primarily in Europe. This will mark an end to the geographic simplification program as we now work to maximize the profitability of our operations in these regions. We have full confidence our partners in these countries will deliver Xerox products and service is in line with our own high standards for client success.

Moving to operational simplification. In 2024, we established a global business services organization to enable technology driven operating efficiencies efficiencies and executing multi year $700,000,000 gross cost reduction program. GBS moved quickly throughout the year to build roadmaps for enterprise wide operational enhancements and implement foundational enablers for immediate and future operating efficiencies. As an example is the restructuring of our commercial arrangements with some of our largest technology and business process outsourcing partners to create greater flexibility and in line with centers. In 2025, GBS plans to leverage these foundation enablers along with new tools, technology and client centric process flows to reduce operating expenses while also making it easier to do business both with and within Xerox.

Additionally, this year GBS will begin implementing a new enterprise wide technology platform that will both drive and automate the standardization of our business processes, greatly reducing the complexity associated with our legacy infrastructure. Moving to commercial optimization and growth. This category encapsulates the gainshare mix shift component of our reinvention strategy. In 2024, we stopped manufacturing of high end production equipment to focus on production frame submarkets print submarkets with the most favorable growth and return profiles and create a services led software enabled ecosystem designed to enable superior operator productivity. We also began utilizing AI based pricing tools in select markets to optimize pricing structures across our client base.

In 2025, we look to extend these pricing tools across additional geographies and routes to market. Other initiatives planned for this year seek to optimize service delivery costs and further strengthen go to market performance through improved sales coverage and additional productivity tools. We expect improved revenue diversification as we integrate recent acquisitions and expand our investment in and focus on key channel partners. Since establishing our Global Partner Group last year, feedback from this client segment has improved. Accordingly, Partner Score, a third party gauge of partner sentiment reached new highs in Q4.

The final operating objective on our roadmap is the realization of acquisition benefits, which I will mention shortly. Collectively, these initiatives are expected to drive a more favorable revenue mix and unlock additional gross cost savings, which are key to driving higher operating margins over time. In 2024, we achieved our targeted gross cost savings of more than $200,000,000 and we continue to expect our pipeline of reinvention initiatives to deliver gross cost savings of more than 400,000,000 dollars Before handing the call to our incoming CFO, Rolanda Getzaj, I want to spend a minute reflecting on 2 recently announced acquisitions, IT Savvy, which closed in November and Lexmark, which was announced last month. Both transactions demonstrate progress against our gainshare mix shift strategy by diversifying Xerox’s revenue mix and strengthening our core print business. Starting with IT Savvy, to be known as Xerox IT Solutions.

The combined team under the leadership of the acquired company is aggressively working on the integration of both businesses to leverage best practices and drive growth in 2025. In 2024, on a standalone basis, IT Savvy grew revenue double digits, leveraging a proven business model and a team that has delivered organic and inorganic growth for the past several years. We expect the integration to be complete before the Lexmark transaction closes. The acquisition of Lexmark was announced a little more than a month ago. The proposed transaction combines 2 leaders in print, familiar with each other through our current OEM relationship with complementary sets of operations.

Lexmark adds manufacturing capacity for A 4 and E3 office product lines, expands our market reach and provides greater exposure to growing segments within print. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to adjusted EPS and free cash flow, improve our adjusted operating income margin and lower our pro form a debt leverage ratio from 6.1 today to about 5.4. The realization of more than $200,000,000 of cost synergies is expected to drive more than $1 a share of adjusted EPS accretion and reduced debt leverage by one times EBITDA. We are working to close this transaction, look forward to welcoming Lexmark to the Xerox team. I’ll now hand the call over to Miranda, our incoming CFO, who replaces Xavier Heiss at the end of this month as Xavier begins his well deserved retirement.

On a personal note, I’m excited for Melantha, but remiss if I didn’t say how much I would love Xavier, his unique style and his unwavering commitment to Xerox for over 3 decades. You will be missed my friend.

Myrlanda Gitsay, Incoming Chief Financial Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. I’m honored to join you today on my first earnings call as Xerox’s incoming CFO. Before I discuss the results, I want to convey my genuine excitement for the opportunity to lead Xerox’s finance organization through the next phase of the company’s reinvention. My transition has been facilitated by the steady leadership of my predecessor, Xavier Hess (NYSE:HES), who will officially transfer his responsibilities to me at the end of this month. In Q4, revenue declined 8.6% in actual currency and 8% in constant currency, in line with our expectations.

Excluding the effects of backlog fluctuations and reinvention actions, equipment revenue trajectory improved quarter over quarter, reflecting sequential improvement in sales force productivity, the successful launch of our refreshed PrimeLink product in EMEA and growth in A four equipment revenue. Post sale revenue declines were roughly consistent with the prior quarter, inclusive of the benefits of IT Savvy results since the close of that acquisition on November 20. Turning to profitability. Adjusted gross margin declined 190 basis points year over year as a higher mix of entry A four equipment, lower print volumes and the inclusion of IT savvy results were somewhat offset by the beneficial impacts of reinvention savings and favorable currency effects. Adjusted operating margin of 6.4% was 100 basis points higher year over year due principally to reinvention related cost reductions and lower executive compensation expense partially offset by the effects of lower revenue and gross profit.

A focus on operating discipline drove total operating expenses lower by almost $90,000,000 year over year or 18% when adjusting for reinvention and transaction related costs as well as the inclusion of IT Savvy. This represents an acceleration of cost reductions from recent periods. Adjusted other expenses net were $1,000,000 higher year over year as changes in various non operating expenses largely offset one another. Adjusted tax rate of 32.9% compared to 15.2% in the same quarter last year. The increase was largely due to lower non recurring tax benefits from the release of deferred tax asset valuation allowances and the release of reserves from tax audit settlements.

Adjusted EPS of $0.36 was $0.07 lower than the prior year as the benefits of higher adjusted operating income were more than offset by a higher tax rate and currency effects. GAAP loss per share of $0.20 improved $0.30 year over year and includes an after tax intangibles write off of $28,000,000 or $0.22 per share and after tax reinvention and transaction related costs was $15,000,000 or $0.12 per share. The prior year quarter included an after tax restructuring charge of $78,000,000 or $0.62 per share. Let me now review revenue and cash flow in more detail. Starting with revenue, Q4 equipment sales of $393,000,000 declined 14.2% in actual currency and 13.4% in constant currency.

The effects of backlog fluctuations in the prior year and reinvention actions accounting for close to 900 basis points of the decline. The remainder of the decline reflects unfavorable mix between and within product families and a large production equipment sale in the prior year quarter. For the 2nd consecutive quarter, total equipment installations increased double digits. Installations grew 19% year over year in the 4th quarter, reflecting growth in entry and mid range products. Entry equipment is sold at a lower price and margin than the mid range and high end categories, but drives high margin supplies revenue in future periods.

Entry installations grew approximately 28%, outpacing revenue growth due to a higher mix of sales to indirect channels. Mid range installations grew modestly, but revenue declined due to unfavorable A3 product mix and higher sales through channel partners. Improved mid range installations will support post sales trends in future periods. High end equipment installations and revenue both declined year over year reflecting the ongoing evolution of our production print portfolio and high end offering rationalization actions taken this year. For the full year, equipment revenue declined around 17% in actual and constant currency.

Excluding the impact of backlog fluctuations and reinvention actions, equipment revenue declined around 6% for the year. In 2025, we expect to grow equipment market share through expanded channel partner participation, the full global rollout of our refreshed PrimeLink product, ongoing sales force productivity enhancements and early benefits of initiatives designed to double our share of the A four market. For Q4, post sale revenue of $1,200,000,000 declined 6.7% in actual currency and 6.1% in constant currency, a pace that is consistent with the prior quarter. Excluding reductions of non strategic revenue and the effects of reinvention actions, post sale revenue declined 2% in actual currency, reflecting lower supplies and page volumes, partially offset by the inclusion of IT savvy revenue since the acquisition closing and growth in digital and legacy managed IT services. For the full year, post sale revenue declined approximately 7% in actual and constant currency.

Excluding reductions in non strategic revenue and effects of other reinvention actions, post sale revenue declined 3% in actual currency, inclusive of benefits from IT savvy revenue in the period since the acquisition closing. In 2025, we expect organic core post sale revenue trajectory to improve driven by AI enabled pricing benefits, initiatives designed to improve client retention rates and growth in digital services and legacy IT solutions. Let’s now review the cash flow. Free cash flow in the quarter was $334,000,000 lower by $45,000,000 year over year. Operating cash flow was $351,000,000 dollars 38,000,000 lower than the prior year quarter due to a higher restructuring payments and the timing of executive compensation, interest and tax payment, partially offset by a higher source of cash from working capital and higher cash from finance receivables.

Investing activity was a use of cash of $172,000,000 compared to $8,000,000 in the prior year, due primarily to the cash payment for IT Savvy. Financing activity consumed $122,000,000 this quarter, reflecting $78,000,000 of net debt repayments, dividends of $34,000,000 $10,000,000 of other financing cash outflows. Turning to segments. In Q4, XFS revenue was down around 11% year over year due to lower finance income and other fee revenue associated with a decline in our finance receivable balance, partially offset by higher commission from the sale of finance receivable assets in line with our forward flow strategy. XFS’ finance receivable balance declined around 12% sequentially and around 30% year over year in actual currency, mainly due to XFS’ strategy to return its focus to captive only financing solutions.

Q4 XFS segment profit increased by $10,000,000 as lower operating expenses more than offset reductions in gross profit associated with lower revenue. Print and other revenue fell 9% and segment profit decreased by 2% as gross profit declines associated with the Print and Other segment exceeded the reduction in direct and indirect operating expenses allocated to this segment. Focusing on capital structure, we ended Q4 with $631,000,000 of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, around $1,700,000,000 of the remaining $3,400,000,000 of outstanding debt supports our finance assets with remaining core debt of $1,700,000,000 attributable to the non financing business. Total (EPA:TTEF) debt increased sequentially due to the addition of a $220,000,000 seller note associated with the IT Savvy acquisition, partially offset by secured debt repayments. Core debt increased by a larger amount due to a $250,000,000 sequential decline in total finance assets.

I’ll now provide an update on reinvention savings. In 2024, we realized more than $200,000,000 of gross cost savings, bringing the combined total to date to more than 300,000,000 dollars We continue to maintain a pipeline of around $400,000,000 of gross cost savings, which includes close to $175,000,000 of savings relating to actions already expected to be implemented in the near term. We expect to realize more than $100,000,000 of gross cost savings associated with reinvention related actions in 2025. Finally, I will address guidance which does not include any impacts associated with the pending acquisition of Lexmark. We expect revenue in 2025 to grow low single digit in constant currency, inclusive of a full year of revenue associated with the recent IT Savvy acquisition.

Revenue guidance includes around 400 basis points of headwinds from ongoing reinvention actions, including the flow through of geographic simplification effects, reductions in high end equipment sales associated with our decision to end the manufacturing of high end production print equipment, the sale of our European paper business and the continued reduction of XFS revenue associated with a declining finance receivable portfolio. Organic core revenue is expected to decline, but at a lower rate than we experienced in 2024. An improved core revenue trajectory is expected to be driven by stable print market demand and equipment market share gains as well as higher rates of growth from digital services and legacy IT solutions. In 2025, adjusted operating income margin is expected to be at least 5%, a slight year over year improvement reflects incremental gross cost savings, partially offset by higher product costs. Finally, we expect full year free cash flow to be in a range of $350,000,000 to $400,000,000 The year over year decline in free cash flow is primarily attributable to reduction in finance receivable forward flow benefits as expected, partially offset by improved adjusted operating income and working capital.

As a reminder, Q1 is seasonally our lowest quarter for revenue and adjusted operating income. In line with our guidance for the year, we expect only modest year over year growth in revenue and adjusted operating income margin in Q1. In summary, we ended the year with stronger execution, a slate of reinvention actions aimed at improving revenue trajectory and profitability and an enhanced IT solutions business give us confidence in our outlook for 2025. We’ll now open the line for Q and A.

Conference Operator: Certainly. And our first question for today comes from the line of Ananda Baruah from Loop Capital. Your question please.

Ananda Baruah, Analyst, Loop Capital: Yes, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Really appreciate it, Orlando. Welcome.

Looking forward to working with you and Xavier, if you’re out there listening, we’ll miss working with you, really enjoyed it. Yes, so I guess Steve and maybe John, just real quick on IT Savvy, can you sort of look, you’ve walked through a lot of the details on the last couple of calls, including this call in greater detail. Can you describe to us how they operate? Like I’ve been to their website. Are they an IT solutions company with deep relationships with IT vendors?

Are they like a systems integrator, VAR type as well? And just being on the website, it looks like they sell you guys sell everything from rack servers to networking with relationships across all verticals, all end customer verticals. So I guess just a bit more of a description there would be super helpful for me. Appreciate it.

Steve Banderszak, Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Yes, great, Nanda. Thank you. I’ll start and I’ll turn it over to John for enhancement on the conversation. So think of IT Savvy as a VAR with tremendous relationship with some of the largest suppliers that can address 90 plus percent of the total addressable spend within a CIO’s budget. With that, we then added services around that.

So if you think about endpoints that are now AI enabled, how do we put services and wrap services around that, tie that into infrastructure. As companies are building out infrastructure for AI capacity, we have the ability to build and help them along that journey. The ability to take workloads and move it into the cloud, transition on Microsoft to version 11 and what Microsoft is trying to drive their clients to the cloud and their utilization of things like AI. And so we have the ability to wrap services around that, help our clients along that journey. And it’s both a combination of

David Beckel, Vice President and Head of Investor Relations, Xerox Holdings Corporation: obviously great relationship with our partners and you saw some of

Steve Banderszak, Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: the partners on our website, but more importantly, with our partners and you saw some of the partners on our website. But more importantly, adding value added services around that, so we can help our clients in the journey. Many of our clients today, and we’ve talked about this before, especially in the mid market, don’t have the expertise and the capabilities to put these things together to create end solutions that drive outcomes. So that’s really where we stand. We have the ability to drive end outcomes and implement these solutions so that we can help companies and specifically in verticals, whether it’s in education, whether it’s in law firms, whether it’s in hospitals.

We have the ability to take these technologies, wrap it together, put it inside of either verticals or horizontal processes to drive outcomes. And that’s really where we have a tremendous differentiator as we go forward. We have the ability to be that value added reseller and actually add value and services around some of these great technologies. John, anything else you

John Bruno, President and Chief Operating Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: want to add? I think the only thing I would add is, VAR is probably a term that’s very well used. But as it relates to IT savvy, I would call them I would put the emphasis on the V and a lot less emphasis on the reseller part. The reseller part is an important component. We were very attracted to their model because their flow through and equipment margins are quite good because of the not only what they do on the installation and the maintenance and the life cycle, but on the reclamation and on the turnovers, they do product refreshes.

But their business differentiated from a lot of others in this space. Many of them are private companies, a lot of regional players because of their value added services are the ones that Steve pointed out. And with such movement moving into the cloud hosted space for all these IT related activities from provisioning of laptops to the refreshes as to the emergence of AI laptops to all the stuff that you’ve heard us describe. They’re very well positioned in this and have capabilities, largely in North America, somewhere in Western Europe. And if you add to that the capabilities we did, we essentially doubled that business and it’s a reverse into an already existing operating model that they’ve demonstrated over the last several years that they can show consistent growth both organically and inorganically.

So there’s a number of very large SI systems integrator VARs out there, but most of them have very large businesses and a lot of emphasis on the reseller part of the program. IT savvy has great comparable reseller contracts with discounts, add them to ours, takes us to much higher levels of platinum diamond etcetera, which will help margin expansion purely just in the IT hardware space, but it also allows them to cross the threshold of all of our captive clients with a set of offers that are value added that will differentiate them. We’ve been talking about that a year, and as you know, we were pretty excited to have the opportunity to add these guys to the company.

Ananda Baruah, Analyst, Loop Capital: And so just a quick follow-up there, John and Steve, appreciate it. What’s a useful way to think about IT Savvy’s kind of revenue growth or amplification potential now with the Xerox backing?

Steve Banderszak, Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Yes, I think it’s a couple of things. First of all, the industry that they’re in, right, high single digits growth over the next 3 to 5 years, the CAGR is there and you can take a look at whether the big trends, whether it’s around endpoints, whether it’s around infrastructure, movement to the cloud, all of those are big TAMs that are growing over the next 3 to 5 years. But more importantly, you think about the 200 plus 1000 medium SMB clients that we have today that we can now take IT Savvy and put them through those clients and those infrastructure. I’ve said this before, if you take a look at our addressable market with the existing Xerox clients, we now have the ability to look at the full IT spend and full IT stack. So our execution and bringing IT solutions into existing Xerox relationships is very significant in terms of the ability to grow.

It also I think will help with helping stabilize our core business. If you think about our core business, print is really with the real estate team, with the procurement team. We now have conversations at the CIO level in very strategic different ways, so we can wrap that and we can put that in there. The other thing is IT Savvy has not been selling print solutions and manage print solutions. So we can take Xerox solutions and bring it into IT Savvy customer base.

So it’s all about execution on there. It’s all about getting my sales team. And by the way, my partners, right? We have thousands of partners that want to be able to grow in the IT solution space. We have to enable them, train them and bring them these solutions so that they can grow as well.

Ananda Baruah, Analyst, Loop Capital: Awesome guys. Super helpful. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Sameet Chatterjee from JPMorgan. Your question please.

: Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. And Xavier, congrats on the red diamond, Milan, I look forward to working with you. Maybe if I can start with project reinvention and I think if I get the numbers right, you’re saying about 400 basis points of headwind in 2025 from the effects of project reinvention that’s comparable to what we saw in 2024 on the revenue line. Maybe just sort of outline for us what the spillover effect largely is and particularly it seems like most of the actions you took in 2024 have that have a spillover effect in 2025 revenue.

Is that then fair to assume that we’d sort of continue to see this headwind continue into 2026 as well? And then is there sort of an expansion of project reinvention given the pending Lexmark acquisition? And I have a quick follow-up there. Thank you.

Myrlanda Gitsay, Incoming Chief Financial Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Yes. Thank you, Samit. So our headwinds that we are describing, the 400 basis points in 2025, they are continuations of actions that we took in prior years. What we are looking for in 2025 as it relates to reinvention, it’s more tactical. We have kind of finished the deep organizational changes that we saw in 2023 2024.

So yes, that’s the difference and what we see in 2025. And we’ll continue to implement the reinvention actions to deliver our gross cost savings of about $400,000,000 that we still have to deliver in the next couple of years. As it relates to Lexmark and reinvention, our plan is to continue to deliver on reinvention. And then once we close Lexmark, we’ll reassess. We will see what we need to do from a synergy perspective, but those 2 just see them for now as separate and us continue in full speed with Reinvent.

John Bruno, President and Chief Operating Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Yes. And I would just add that to answer your question specifically on 26, no, there’s not a carryover that you should forecast or look as a headwind. The foundational elements that Rhonda pointed out are correct. The geo simplification, the product simplification that we did in the production side of our business are the ones that are behind us or the OD model issues. We still have more work to do on the technology platform upgrades and all the process optimization.

But think about that as all the simplification necessary to make acquisition integration easier to attain and to drive the type of business that we want moving forward as we do our gainshare mix shift strategy of more A for Color, more print, more Lexmark integration, more IT solutions. So 1st year and a half going behind us at this point as we exit kind of middle of this year is the foundational elements that carry through this year, but we do not expect it into 2026 and we will handle the standalone integration of Lexmark separately. The $200,000,000 is the standalone goal we have on cost integration.

Steve Banderszak, Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: One of the things I’d ask you to think about, we get asked the question around IT savvy integration, now Lexmont and reinvention, how do you think about that in terms of is it too much? So a couple of key points. IT savvy will be largely done before the Lexmont acquisition closes, right? So that integration will be done behind us, we’ll be running. The reinvention, we’re 2.5 years into it, right?

So we talked about a 3 year journey. We’re at the tail end of implementing those programs and running that out. Whatever is left, we will put that as part of the overall Lexmod integration. So think about IT savvy done, good portion, if not three quarters of the reinvention done, we’ll wrap that and roll that into the overall Lexmod integration. So we don’t see it as trying to run with 3 different balls.

Lexmod will be really all encompassing in terms of an overall program, we’ll roll reinvention into that and we’ll have one integration strategy as we go forward into 2026.

: Got it. And quickly for my follow-up, maybe just to walk through the puts and takes on the free cash flow guidance, particularly the step down from 464 this year to at 3.75 sorry, 464% in 2024 to 3.75% at the midpoint in 2025. On what largely looks like you’re guiding to sort of similar operating profit? Can you just walk me through the drivers? Is it less forward flow or are the underlying business sort of cash flow generation?

Myrlanda Gitsay, Incoming Chief Financial Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Yes. So, thank you. So 2025 free cash flow, as you mentioned, we’re guiding lower and it’s primarily driven when you think about lower inflow from the sale of finance receivable and this is planned and this is in accordance with what we have disclosed and where we see our finance receivable assets will be at the end of 2026. But it also will be impacted by higher working capital and higher operating net income. So net net really is lower finance receivable assets inflow and improvements operating margin and working capital for 2025.

: Got it. Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Eric Woodring from Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS). Your question please.

Eric Woodring, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Super. Thanks so much for taking my question guys and echo the sentiment from Samik and the rest of the team on Zavvi’s retirement and Miranda looking forward to working with you. Steve or Miranda, either one of you guys, I’ll target this question too. And it’s just around gross margins. The gross margins have been on a fairly consistent downward trajectory.

You’re obviously taking out a lot of costs as you go through reinvention. But even with a lower share count, you still face some EPS pressure. There’s some puts and takes, obviously, around OI and E and tax rate. But can you maybe just walk us through the actions you’re taking to stabilize gross margins? And really how we should be thinking about the trajectory of total company gross margins in 2025 before accounting for anything related to Lexmark?

And then I have a quick follow-up. Thank you.

Myrlanda Gitsay, Incoming Chief Financial Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Yes. So thank you. So in 2024, as I mentioned in Q4 specifically, gross margin did decline 190 basis points and was primarily driven by mix of our A four equipment. We had some lower print volumes and inclusion of IT Savvy. All these were partially offset by benefits of reinvention and currency.

Looking into 2025, we expect gross margin to be lower than 2024 and that is primarily driven by inclusion of IT Savvy. IT Savvy has lower gross margin than our print business as well as some product increases. We will and plan to offset those with benefits from technology enabled pricing and offering productivity initiatives.

Steve Banderszak, Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Yes, I would say the other thing to add on to that is, we had a very good growth in our A four business in Q4 and A four is a growing segment that is a lower upfront gross margin, but supplies and the tail of that is high margin business, right? So we won’t see the effects of that until we start to see 2nd, 3rd year of the actual supplies coming in. But an important indicator for us is we’re trying to really grow that A four business, actually double the share next year and growing that. We had good solid growth in Q4 and we’re seeing significant unit expansion, which will pay off in future years.

John Bruno, President and Chief Operating Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: And my last point that I’d say is, we are continued to focus on operating margin increase, our profitability, our free cash flow generation. These are the things necessary as we do that and deleverage the company, as we do the acquisition integrations. EPS and the associated adjustments of EPS are different ballgame. The operating efficiency purely comes down to mix shift in the gainshare strategies we’ve articulated. That’s where you can see every bit of the performance of the business and the benefits of the work we’re doing.

Eric Woodring, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay, super. Thank you guys. Really helpful with that detail. And then maybe I just want to double click on Samik’s question about free cash flow. If we kind of go back to the early days of these original forward flow announcements, I think you had alluded to $400,000,000 of cash flow tailwinds per year for 4 consecutive years.

I think you’ve done something to the effect of almost $1,300,000,000 thus far. So pulled that forward a little bit. Can you maybe just talk about the kind of future of this program and how we should be thinking about the contribution from this program, not just in 2025, but beyond? And really what I’m trying to get to is, is there a point at which we should be thinking this program really comes to a halt and just focusing on your core free cash flow? Just trying to maybe understand the timing of that or any factors that would help us help impact that.

And that’s it for me. Thanks so much.

Myrlanda Gitsay, Incoming Chief Financial Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Yes. Thanks, Eric. And you are correct, right? We this program, 4 year program, we expect finance receivable balance to be around $1,000,000,000 We started with $3,600,000,000 As you mentioned, we’ve done about close to $1,300,000,000 And right now, we have about $800,000,000 of finance receivables that we think we will sell over the next 2 years. So when I think about sort of trailing 12 months basis, we sold about 44% of total originations to our HPS partner.

And that kind of like when you look at that rate and next 2 years and what’s to come, we will review that balance. We review our plans and we will be able to or if we could sell more finance receivables and benefit our free cash flow. But again, it’s a 4 year program. We still have finance receivable that are planned to go through the forward flow program in the next 2 years, 2025, 26.

Eric Woodring, Analyst, Morgan Stanley: Okay, super helpful. Thank you so much guys.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And this does conclude the question and answer session of today’s program. I’d like to hand the program back to Mr. Vandejacks for any further remarks.

Steve Banderszak, Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Holdings Corporation: Thank you. Recapping today’s call, we ended the year with a solid execution and see steady progress from reinvention actions taken to date. In 2025, we expect these actions, new initiatives focused on further optimization, our business and benefits of acquisitions to drive growth in revenue and adjusted operating income. I’d also like to wish Xavier Heis, our Alco and CFO, the best of luck in his retirement. Xavier has been an impactful leader at Xerox more than 30 years.

He is a champion of change, rigorously dedicated to operating excellence and most importantly a friend, a mentor to 100 if not 1,000 of current and former Xerox employees. On behalf of everyone at Xerox during his tenure, we thank you for your service and leadership. And my personal thanks to Xavier for helping me as I took the CEO role at the company, helping me get comfortable and get me up to speed and really helping me along the journey. And I’m going to miss him greatly as many, many of my colleagues will as well. Thank you for today’s call.

Have a great day.

Conference Operator: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.

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