The new leaders of Fiserv gave investors a harsh reality check: The payments technology company wouldn’t hit the financial forecasts set under its former boss Frank Bisignano before he left for the Trump administration.
The disclosure sent the company’s stock tumbling 44%, erasing $30 billion in market value. Fiserv slashed its financial goals for the year and reported third-quarter results below Wall Street’s expectations. It also said its chief financial officer was leaving and it was shaking up its board of directors, replacing the chairman of the board and the head of the audit committee.
Though largely unknown to consumers, Fiserv provides much of the financial technology that connects Wall Street to Main Street. It processes payments and handles transactions at Walmart registers, gas-station pumps and apps like Lyft.
Chief Executive Mike Lyons, who joined from PNC, said he was seeking to reset the company. As the company analyzed its business, many of the assumptions and projections set by prior leaders were too rosy, he said, with some products and projects behind schedule and macroeconomic factors proving harder than expected.
Lyons said the analysis revealed several initiatives he found to be “short-term driven” that were being used to achieve prior targets.
“As I got a more fulsome understanding of those, that obviously prompted some dissatisfaction with the way we do the process, and we’ve made leadership changes around that,” Lyons said on a call with analysts.