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First Advantage Reports Third Quarter 2025 Results

globenewswire.com
FA The company's positive financial results, strategic progress, and refined guidance suggest a bullish sentiment.

Third Quarter 2025 Highlights 1

Refining Full Year 2025 Guidance

ATLANTA, Nov. 06, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Advantage Corporation (NASDAQ: FA), a leading provider of global software and data in the HR technology industry, today announced financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2025.

Key Financials

(Amounts in millions, except per share data and percentages)

“We delivered another quarter of profitable growth through continuing go-to-market success in new logo and upsell/cross-sell, demonstrating our ability to perform amid the current uncertain macroeconomic environment in which hiring growth has been consistently flat. Our strategy of diversified exposure across verticals and geographies supported our results with strong momentum in our retail & e-commerce and transportation & logistics verticals, and for the sixth quarter in a row, our International business has achieved year-over-year revenue growth,” said Scott Staples, Chief Executive Officer.

“On October 31, we celebrated the one-year anniversary of closing on the Sterling acquisition, and I am extremely pleased with the performance of our entire team as our integration is progressing ahead of schedule and we are delivering strategic and financial benefits as promised. We have maintained excellent customer satisfaction as evidenced by our high retention levels and the feedback we are receiving. We are seeing consistently increasing interest in our expanded best-of-breed solutions and are excited to partner with our customers to apply our leading products and technologies to solve their hiring and onboarding challenges. Looking ahead, we remain focused on executing on our strategy to increase share across our targeted verticals, accelerate international growth, and deliver on our best-of-breed product and platform approach,” Staples concluded.

Refining Full Year 2025 Guidance

“We delivered strong top line growth in the third quarter with Adjusted EBITDA margins of 29% and solid cash flow,” commented Steven Marks, Chief Financial Officer. “Our results were supported by consistent execution on our integration and synergy plans. We are laser-focused on deleveraging and made a voluntary principal repayment of $25 million subsequent to the end of the quarter, bringing total principal repayments this year to $70.5 million. This has been enabled by our strong free cash flow generation. Our results year to date, as well as the momentum we have seen heading into the fourth quarter, give us confidence in narrowing our full year 2025 guidance ranges, with refined midpoints at or above our original guidance midpoints.”

The following table summarizes our updated full year 2025 guidance.

Actual results may differ materially from First Advantage’s full year 2025 guidance as a result of, among other things, the factors described under “Forward-Looking Statements” below.

Conference Call and Webcast Information

First Advantage will host a conference call to review its third quarter 2025 results today, November 6, 2025, at 8:30 a.m. ET.

To participate in the conference call, please dial 800-579-2543 (domestic) or 785-424-1789 (international) approximately ten minutes before the 8:30 a.m. ET start. Please mention to the operator that you are dialing in for the First Advantage third quarter 2025 earnings call or provide the conference code FA3Q25. The call will also be webcast live on the Company’s investor relations website at https://investors.fadv.com under the “News & Events” and then “Events & Presentations” section, where related presentation materials will be posted prior to the conference call.

Following the conference call, a replay of the webcast will be available on the Company’s investor relations website, https://investors.fadv.com. Alternatively, the live webcast and subsequent replay will be available at https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/5075946/AB315DBF336BEFF744ACAA7EF22E2F21.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements reflect our current views with respect to, among other things, our operations and financial performance. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts. These forward-looking statements relate to matters such as our industry, business strategy, goals, and expectations concerning our market position, future operations, margins, profitability, capital expenditures, liquidity and capital resources, and other financial and operating information. In some cases, you can identify these forward-looking statements by the use of words such as “anticipate,” “assume,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “future,” “will,” “seek,” “foreseeable,” “target,” “guidance,” the negative version of these words, or similar terms and phrases.

These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties, assumptions, or changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict or quantify. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the following:

For additional information on these and other factors that could cause First Advantage’s actual results to differ materially from expected results, please see our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), as such factors may be updated from time to time in our filings with the SEC, which are or will be accessible on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this press release, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except as required by law.

Non-GAAP Financial Information

This press release contains “non-GAAP financial measures” that are financial measures that either exclude or include amounts that are not excluded or included in the most directly comparable measures calculated and presented in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (“GAAP”). Specifically, we make use of the non-GAAP financial measures “Adjusted EBITDA,” “Adjusted EBITDA Margin,” “Adjusted Net Income,” “Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share,” and “Adjusted Operating Cash Flow.”

Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income, and Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share have been presented in this press release as supplemental measures of financial performance that are not required by or presented in accordance with GAAP because we believe they assist investors and analysts in comparing our operating performance across reporting periods on a consistent basis by excluding items that we do not believe are indicative of our core operating performance. Management believes these non-GAAP measures are useful to investors in highlighting trends in our operating performance, while other measures can differ significantly depending on long-term strategic decisions regarding capital structure, the tax jurisdictions in which we operate, and capital investments. Management uses Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income, and Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share to supplement GAAP measures of performance in the evaluation of the effectiveness of our business strategies, to make budgeting decisions, to establish discretionary annual incentive compensation, and to compare our performance against that of other peer companies using similar measures. Management supplements GAAP results with non-GAAP financial measures to provide a more complete understanding of the factors and trends affecting the business than GAAP results alone.

Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin, Adjusted Net Income, and Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share are not recognized terms under GAAP and should not be considered as an alternative to net income as a measure of financial performance or cash provided by operating activities as a measure of liquidity, or any other performance measure derived in accordance with GAAP.

We define Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, and as further adjusted for loss on extinguishment of debt, share-based compensation, transaction and acquisition-related charges, integration and restructuring charges, and other non-cash charges. We define Adjusted EBITDA Margin as Adjusted EBITDA divided by total revenues. We define Adjusted Net Income for a particular period as net income before taxes adjusted for debt-related costs, acquisition-related depreciation and amortization, share-based compensation, transaction and acquisition-related charges, integration and restructuring charges, and other non-cash charges, to which we then apply the related effective tax rate. We define Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share as Adjusted Net Income divided by adjusted weighted average number of shares outstanding—diluted.

Additionally, we use Adjusted Operating Cash Flow to review the liquidity of our operations. We define Adjusted Operating Cash Flow as cash flows from operating activities adjusted for cash costs directly associated with the Sterling acquisition and related integration. We believe Adjusted Operating Cash Flow is a useful supplemental financial measure for management and investors in assessing the Company’s ability to pursue business opportunities and investments and to service its debt. Adjusted Operating Cash Flow is not a measure of our liquidity under GAAP and should not be considered as an alternative to cash flows from operating activities.

For reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, see the reconciliations included at the end of this press release.

The presentations of these measures have limitations as analytical tools and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. Because not all companies use identical calculations, the presentations of these measures may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures of other companies and can differ significantly from company to company.

Numerical figures included in the reconciliations have been subject to rounding adjustments. Accordingly, numerical figures shown as totals in various tables may not be arithmetic aggregations of the figures that precede them.

About First Advantage

First Advantage (NASDAQ: FA) is a leading provider of global software and data in the HR technology industry. Enabled by its proprietary technology and AI, First Advantage’s platforms, data, and APIs power comprehensive employment background screening, digital identity solutions, and verification services across over 200 countries and territories. With a strong emphasis on innovation, automation, and customer success, First Advantage empowers 80,000 organizations to hire smarter and onboard faster. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, First Advantage is modernizing hiring and onboarding on a global scale. For more information, please visit our website at https://fadv.com/.

Investor Contact

Stephanie Gorman

Vice President, Investor Relations

Investors@fadv.com

(678) 868-4151

Condensed Financial Statements

Reconciliation of Consolidated Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Reconciliation of Consolidated Non-GAAP Financial Measures (continued)