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Last month, shares a Pioneer Global Film more than thirteen percent after the fintech firm with drewist guidance for the year, citing on certain macro conditions. The company also reported adjusted IBITA for the first quarter tim that beat alist expectations.
John Kaplan is the CEO and director at Pioneer. It's got a roughly two point four billion dollar market cap, shares down about thirty three percent so far this year. He joins US now from our Chicago bureau. John, Welcome to Bloomberg Business Week Daily. I'm curious how you see conditions out there. Are macro conditions more or less certain now than they were a month ago when you pulled your guidance.
Yeah, it's great to be here, and I think that's a really important question as it relates to the global trade environment, we have not seen a pullback in US consumers. I'd also say that as the trade relationships between China and the US and the US and other countries gets resolved, that will lift uncertainty. But we still are existing in an uncertain environment, and we are seeing our customers entrepreneurs around the globe who do business cross border increasing their
focus on globalizing their business. A pioneer, forty percent of our revenue is businesses doing business with one another that never touches the United States, fifteen percent of our revenue is customers in China exporting to countries around the globe, not including the US, And twenty percent of our revenue comes from China based entrepreneurs who are selling high quality,
low cost consumer goods to US consumers. And as you know, the US consumer is forty three percent of the world's consumer consumption and seventy percent of the US economy is driven by the US consumer. So it's super important that US consumers are healthy, that they're spending money and getting the products that they want.
Why So, if you think about where you are now and given what you just told us, John, do you stand by the decision to pull the guidance about a month ago, was that the right move.
It absolutely was. You know, one of the things that we do a pioneer is we are building the firm for long term growth, and in doing that, it's establishing a trusted relationship with our shareholders and helping them understand
exactly what we see. So at the time of our May seventh earnings announcement, the tariffs were still one hundred and forty five percent, effectively an embargo between China and the United States, as Secretary Besson had described it, and so it was important at that time to not play chicken with the US administration or with the market about how trade would resolve, which is call balls and strikes, And at the time it was prudent and responsible to
give our shareholders exactly the guidance we did, and we feel comfortable about it.
Do you feel like you have better visibility today?
You know?
You know what we said at earnings was that our Q two results we anticipated would look very similar to our Q one results, and I can reaffirm that message here. I'm hopeful that the politicians around the world will meet with one another resolve their structural issues because I know the entrepreneurs around the world want to continue to do business with one another.
Is it really because of the strain between US and China specifically, or is it more than that.
Yeah, for our business, you know, really our emphasis as we looked at guidance was primarily related to the US and China. But it's important what you just mentioned, which is, you know, at the time there was a pause and a reduction in the in the tariffs as it relates to countries like Vietnam and elsewhere those are anticipated to. That pause was ninety days mid July. That ends and we're hopeful to see resolution, but we got to wait
and see. One thing about our customers that we've seen is they are you know, on the front foot growing their business exporting goods and services around the world. You know, we have customers in one hundred and ninety countries and territories. We have you know, really broad broad business in terms
of industries, geographies, size, and sort of category. So when we look at our customers, we feel very confident and about what the long term future looks like for payoneer and in fact see value at these levels.
Well, can you tell us about how you're looking at stable coins and what you do right now with stable coins.
Yeah, you know, I'm glad you asked the question because the paying your customers hold seven billion dollars of funds in their payoneer account. The pain aer account is one hundred percent of an entrepreneur's cross border accounts receivable and accounts payable, and we view the momentum and energy around stable coins as confirmation of the innovation that's going to come in cross border trade.
Today.
We have not made any significant announcements as of yet of where we'll go with stable coins. I think rest assured you read lots about Circle and Ripple and other folks. I think they envy the distribution we have, the brand, we've built, our last mile relationships, our network of licenses. We feel well positioned to bring the hype into the reality cycle and drive adoption. We choose to sort of put our foot on the gas there.
So are you working on a stable coin?
I'm not going to share yet here today what our plans are, but we're very focused on providing solutions for customers in partnership with others to enable our customers to move funds around the world in a fast, effective inexpensive way.
How would it make it faster and less expensive if you were to have a stable coind.
Yeah, in some ways, pay your account functions as the promise of the of the new currencies and new technology. Today, customers use payoneer to send an invoice to their business customers around the globe. They get paid. They get paid practically instantly today. So I don't think it will largely change the speed, although we may pick up seconds here or there. What likely it'll give us is more diversity, and that diversity is something we think pockets of the
globe are excited about. Argentina and freelancers in Argentina, for example, excited about some of that innovation. We have the ability to drive its penetration.
And that's what I was going to kind of ask you what particular regions would this be the most useful and if you count is it Argentina, is it elsewhere? Yeah.
So we do see you know, adoption, you know, quality adoption occurring in Latin American in some pockets. We see quality adoption and interest occurring in APAC in some regions. But it is you know, the hype cycle is pretty intense right now. We're very focused on the practical applications of helping two million active customers eighty billion dollars of funds transacted across the pay in Aer platform in twenty
twenty four. We are, you know, a big platform helping cross border SMBs, and they are diverse and have different needs depending on just what country they're in, what use case they're deploying against.
All right, super appreciate it, John, Thank you so much, John Kaplan. He is Chief executive officer director at Pioneer, joining us from our news bureau in Chicago,