Dive Brief:

• Digital payment processor Shift4 singled out the restaurant industry as an avenue for future growth in an earnings call last week.
• “We are focused on adding new merchants while simultaneously expanding our share of wallet in restaurants,” Shift4 President Taylor Lauber said in his prepared marks on the call Tuesday with analysts.
• Shift4 directors will vote on whether to appoint Lauber as the company’s new chief executive if Jared Isaacman, the company’s founder and current CEO, is confirmed by the Senate to lead NASA, Lauber said. The Commerce Committee on Wednesday advanced Isaacman’s nomination to the full Senate, where a vote has not yet been scheduled.

Dive Insight:

Allentown, Pennsylvania-based Shift4 is known largely for working with athletic venues and professional sports teams, but Lauber said the company has lately experienced success partnering with restaurants, especially in Europe.

“We are making tremendous progress signing up restaurants, particularly in the U.K., Ireland and Germany,” he said on the call. “Our momentum has picked up significantly this year. We’re now signing up over 1,000 restaurants a month internationally.”

Shift4 spokespeople did not respond to a message asking how many restaurants the company works with, or how that figure has grown in recent months.

Analysts struck a cautious note about the dining strategy, given that much of Shift4’s business already comes from sectors like sports and entertainment that rely on consumers’ disposable income.

“The sensitivity of these industries to discretionary spending could result in cash flow volatility if the company’s growth slows under recessionary periods,” analysts from the credit ratings firm Fitch Ratings said in a note to investors Tuesday.

Analysts for investment bank Stephens were more optimistic but also struck a guarded tone.

“While consumer spending remains a concern, we note that (Shift4’s) same store sales in hotels and restaurants have performed in line with expectations” in the first quarter, the analysts wrote in a note to investors Tuesday.

Lauber insisted in the earnings call that consumers will continue to show up at restaurants, even if the economy sours.

On another front, Lauber said Isaacman won’t sell his shares when he leaves the company to become the head of NASA. Trump nominated Isaacman to lead NASA in December. The CEO faced numerous questions during a Senate confirmation hearing on April 9.

The Senate Ethics Committee determined that Isaacman doesn’t have to sell his shares in Shift4, according to Lauber, but that couldn't be confirmed on the committee's website. A spokesperson for the committee didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Nonetheless, Isaacman will give up the extra voting power he has held as Shift4’s controlling shareholder since the company went public in 2020 and limit himself to a single vote per share, the company said.

“Going forward, he’ll have the same one share, one vote privileges as all the other shareholders,” Lauber said. Isaacman will convert his class B and class C shares into class A and will own “approximately 25% of outstanding class A shares,” he added.

As of April 30, Isaacman owned class A, B and C shares, including the super-voting stock, for a combined 76% voting power stake in the company, according to the latest Shift4's proxy statement filed on that date.

A spokesperson for the Senate Ethics Committee did not respond to a request for comment on the committee’s recommendation.

“Isaacman is not required to and does not intend to divest his equity interests in the Company as a result of, and in the event of, his confirmation,” the proxy statement said.

Isaacman’s personal and corporate connections to Elon Musk, and his missions for that billionaire’s rocket company, SpaceX, were discussed as a possible conflict of interest in Isaacman’s confirmation hearing given SpaceX’s role as a major NASA contractor. Shift4 committed to invest $27.5 million in SpaceX in 2021.

Isaacman dismissed those concerns at his confirmation hearing, saying that SpaceX is NASA’s customer. “They [SpaceX] work for us,” he told senators. “Not the other way around.”

The payment processor reported $19.5 million in net income for the first quarter, a 31.6% drop from the $28.5 million the company reported in the same time period in 2024. Shift4 reported gross revenue of $848.3 million for the quarter, a 20% increase from the year-ago quarter, the earnings release said.