As a company that provides technology services to financial companies, Fidelity National Information Services Inc.’s fortunes are tied closely to the banking industry.
Even during the worst banking crisis that anyone can remember, the company continued to grow revenue and earnings, Chairman and CEO Frank Martire told shareholders at Wednesday’s annual meeting.
FIS, as the company calls itself, has grown revenue by 20 percent a year since 2008 and increased earnings per share by 15 percent annually.
“We’ve done quite well even during difficult times,” Martire said at the meeting at the company’s Riverside Avenue headquarters.
The revenue growth is due in part to acquisitions, but FIS also had organic revenue growth — that is, growth from existing operations — of 5.2 percent last year.
“We did pretty well from an organic growth standpoint,” Martire said.
Shareholders also have done well, with a cumulative three-year return of 67.4 percent through 2011, beating the S&P 500’s return of 48.6 percent.
So far in 2012, FIS has produced a 25 percent return for shareholders, and the company‘s board of directors in February quadrupled the company’s annual cash dividend to 80 cents a share.
FIS was spun off from another Jacksonville-based Fortune 500 company, Fidelity National Financial Inc., in 2006 and has become a Fortune 500 company on its own.
In fact, FIS ranks No. 425 on Fortune’s most recent list of the 500 largest U.S. companies with more than $5.7 billion in 2011 revenue, ahead of Fidelity National Financial, which ranks No. 472 with more than $5.1 billion in revenue.
Martire wanted to tell shareholders about another top 500 list. FIS ranked third last year and No. 25 this year in the Barron’s 500, which ranks the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. and Canada by their financial performance.
The financial newspaper ranks the companies with a formula based on sales growth, return on investment and cash flow.
“We’re really proud of the Barron’s 500,” Martire said.
He also pointed out that FIS ranks No. 1 in the FinTech 100, a listing of the top technology providers to the financial services industry compiled by American Banker and Bank Technology News.
“We’re confident that we’ll continue to grow and stay number one in the industry,” Martire said.
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