WEX: Fuel Transactions Down, But Serviced Vehicles Rise To 15.8 Million

WEX reported as part of financial results that its average number of vehicles serviced increased 4 percent from the first quarter of 2020 to approximately 15.8 million in the first quarter of 2021, according to a Thursday (April 29) announcement.

However, the FinTech also reported that total fuel transactions processed decreased by 3 percent from the first quarter of 2020 to 146.4 million in the first quarter of 2021. Payment processing transactions decreased by 3 percent to 118.4 million in the first quarter of 2021.

WEX also reported that travel and corporate solutions purchasing volume decreased by 24 percent from $8 billion in the first quarter of 2020 to $6.1 billion in the first quarter of 2021. The health and employee benefit solutions’ average number of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) accounts domestically increased 7 percent from 14.5 million in the first quarter of 2020 to 15.5 million in the first quarter of 2021.

“In the first quarter, we built upon our strong technology foundation and are accelerating our innovation by integrating our product capabilities across the entire WEX platform and exposing these capabilities through APIs [application programming interfaces],” WEX Chair and Chief Executive Officer Melissa Smith said in the announcement.

As for its overall results, WEX reported $1.79 per diluted share in adjusted net income attributable to shareholders on $410.8 million in total revenue, a 5 percent decrease year over year, but exceeding the quarter’s expectations.

“Improvements in macroeconomic factors, the faster pace of vaccinations and increasing reopenings across WEX’s end markets, combined with underlying strength across the business, drove WEX to see sequential improvements and exceed our revenue expectations this quarter,” WEX Chief Financial Officer Roberto Simon said in the announcement. Simon also noted that the company’s “balance sheet and liquidity remain healthy with the amended credit facility that closed in April as we prepare to make the strategic acquisitions we have announced.”

Earlier in April, WEX announced that it had inked a deal to purchase cloud-based benefits administrator benefitexpress for $275 million. With the acquisition, WEX will add a collection of benefits administration offerings for WEX Health customers. The offerings include dependent verification services, Affordable Care Act compliance and employee enrollment tools. The acquired company is a long-time partner of WEX Health. The deal is anticipated to be completed in the second quarter of 2021, pending regulatory approval.