Dear Fellow Stockholder:
We would like to begin by expressing our sincere gratitude to all EVO Payments stockholders, particularly those
who
stood by us as we weathered the impact of COVID-19 during the past two years.Your continued support, together
with
the support of our board of directors and the more than 2,200 EVO employees across the globe, enabled us to
deliver
outstanding results in 2021.Perhaps more importantly, we turned the page on 2021 with EVO well positioned to
resume
its long-term global growth strategy.
EVO entered 2021 with the vaccine rollout in Europe and the Americas underway and optimistic of a strong 2021
bounce-back.Unfortunately, with the Delta variant rapidly spreading globally in the first quarter and
governments
reinstating lockdowns, mask mandates, and work from home orders, those early recovery expectations dimmed as we
exited the first quarter of 2021. Despite these headwinds, the spirit of the global ‘credit card
consumer’ ultimately prevailed.With a rebound in consumer and business-to-business spending by mid-year, our
year concluded better than we expected at its outset.The international distribution network of financial
institution
and technology partnerships we built over the past 12 years continues to drive our success.These partnerships,
which
remained resilient in the face of the pandemic, pushed thousands of new, profitable merchant relationships to
our
in-house acquiring technology solutions each month.
We took the opportunity of the 2020-2021 global commerce slowdown to refocus on further improving our operating
efficiencies.This effort represented a significant undertaking across all our markets as we shed costs by
leveraging
existing internal capabilities and eliminating unnecessary functions.This effort resulted in sustained margin
improvement, providing increased cash flows to further support future investments, debt repayment, and
acquisitions.
Our growth strategy remains focused on positioning our investments in high cash-to-card markets, supported by our
proprietary technology solutions which allow us to further grow market share. We saw a post-COVID-19 resumption
of
this strategy with the announcements of our entry into two new markets, Chile and Greece.As we have in other
markets
around the world, we are entering the Chilean and Greek markets through long-term partnerships with leading
financial institutions that should deliver sustained market growth well into the future.Additionally, we
augmented
our capabilities through the acquisition of a technology gateway in Chile which will further compliment and
support
our growth in this new market by enabling e-commerce transactions.
We are very excited about the year ahead.While we all learn to live with and around COVID-19, the negative
effects of
this illness will continue to fade.For EVO, there have been some bright spots from the pandemic.COVID-19 further
accelerated cash-to-card conversion trends in many of our markets and increased the use of e-commerce by
consumers,
driving an increase in our overall transaction volumes.COVID-19 also highlighted the solid performance of
EVO’s global team as they grew the business in the face of continued work-life challenges, staffing shortages,
and government mandates.All 2,200 EVO employees remain focused on a singular goal – delivering superior
merchant acquiring services to the markets we serve.As markets continue to open in 2022, we believe EVO remains
well
positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities that exist in all markets, both existing and new.
We are also pleased with the progress we made this year to advance a number of corporate responsibility and
governance initiatives.Specifically, we appointed two new Board members, Stacey Panayiotou and Nikki Harland,
and
recently launched our ESG website to provide additional disclosures related to the Company’s many ESG
priorities. We also continued to be active in our local communities across our markets, both through donations
and
partnerships with non-profit organizations. We remain committed to advancing the interests of our stockholders,
merchants, partners, employees, and communities, and we look forward to building upon these programs going
forward.
These past two years demanded that EVO be nimble to adapt our business quickly and efficiently to meet market and
macroeconomic change.We remain committed to continuing to do so across all markets.While the Ukrainian conflict
may
present new challenges in the year ahead, we have no exposure to the markets directly impacted and are confident
in
our ability to address any impact from this latest global challenge.
We would like to cordially invite you to attend the 2022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders of EVO Payments, Inc.,
which
will be held on June 8, 2022, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time, at the EVO Payments, Inc. headquarters, 10 Glenlake
Parkway, South Tower, Suite 950, Atlanta, Georgia 30328. A notice of the meeting and a proxy statement
containing
information about the three proposals to be voted upon follow this letter. Further information regarding the
meeting
is contained in our proxy statement.
Your vote is important to us. Whether or not you plan to attend the annual meeting, we encourage you to promptly
vote
your shares by submitting your proxy by telephone, via the internet, or by completing, signing, dating, and
returning the enclosed proxy card or voting instruction form.
We thank you again for your continued support of EVO Payments and look forward to seeing you at the meeting.
Sincerely,