Aspen Technology, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Aspen Technology First Quarter Fiscal 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After this speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press the star, then the one key on your touchtone telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require our assistance, please press star, then zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker host today, Brian Downey. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, ending September 30th, 2021. With me on the call today are Antonio Pietri, Aspen Tech's president and CEO, and Chantel Brightup, CFO of Aspen Tech. Before we begin, I will make the safe harbor statement that during the course of this call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements about the financial performance of the company that involve risks and uncertainties. The company's actual results may differ materially from such projections or statements. Factors that might cause such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in today's call and contained in our most recently filed Form 10-Q. Also, please note that the following information relates to our current business conditions and our outlook as of today, October 27, 2021. Consistent with our prior practice, we expressly disclaim any obligation to update this information. The structure of today's call will be as follows. Antonio will discuss business highlights from the first quarter and our pending agreement with Emerson, and then Chantel will review our financial results and discuss our guidance for fiscal year 2022. With that, let me turn the call over to Antonio. Antonio?

Thanks, Brian, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. We had a strong start to the year with annual spend coming in above our expectations. We saw a notable improvement in the spending environment during the quarter as the continuing economic recovery has improved end market conditions for many of our customers. As we have discussed over the past 12 months, we have seen consistently strong demand indications from our customers about expanding adoption of Aspen Tech solutions to increase operational efficiency and sustainability. While the market is not yet back to pre-COVID levels, we believe the first quarter was an important indicator that spending by our customers is improving. More importantly, the recent announcement of our transaction with Emerson is a transformational moment for Aspen Tech. I will discuss it in more detail later, but we could not be more excited at the opportunity for the new Aspen Tech to deliver faster and greater value in sustainability innovation, and profitability to a broader set of customers. Looking quickly at our financial results in the first quarter, revenue was $136 million, GAAP EPS was 58 cents, and non-GAAP EPS was 77 cents. Annual spend was $630 million, up 1.4 percent in the quarter, and 5.6% year-over-year. And free cash flow was $33 million. Looking at our first quarter performance in more detail, we saw clear signs of normalization in spending across our owner-operator markets. In particular, while the extra steps and scrutiny around the transaction approval process have remained in place, customer executives are noticeably more comfortable giving the final approval to transactions. We believe customers remain mindful of the fluidity with which market conditions can change, but the improved environment is enabling them to focus on the future, including how to deliver on their long-term strategic objectives. We're optimistic this will be reflected in the CAPEX and OPEX budgets for calendar 2022 that customers are now developing. Looking at the business by vertical, we saw the most notable improvement amongst our owner-operator customers, but especially with refining customers. Spending by these customers grew our MSC business by 3.2% sequentially and 9% in the last 12 months, just shy of its historical double-digit growth rate which is a strong performance, especially when compared to the growth of the MSC business in fiscal year 2021 at 5.8%. As we mentioned on our last earnings call, we have seen a marked increase in the level of engagement with these customers in recent months about their future investment priorities. Our results in the quarter are an indication that improved conversations were signaling and improving sentiment from higher refining margins resulting in increased spending. Our chemicals business also performed better and continued to improve, sequentially contributing to the acceleration of the MSC business. While overall trends are encouraging, there are still sectors of the chemical supply chain that are recovering from the lingering economic effects of COVID. We're confident chemicals will continue to be an important growth contributor going forward. Aspen Tech solutions are essential to chemical customers' ability to achieve their operational and supply chain efficiencies and sustainability targets. Our E&C business performed as expected during the quarter. Conditions remain challenging, and we have seen only modest improvement in capex and backlog trends. We expect this will be the part of the business that takes the longest to return to normal, and we anticipate modest levels of growth from these customers for the foreseeable future. Attrition in the quarter was in line with our expectations, which, if you recall from our last earnings call, was expected to be higher in the first quarter given the timing of renewal this fiscal year. While we're optimistic about the improved spending environment and higher budgets in calendar 2022, We believe it is appropriate for now to maintain our guidance for growth in annual spend in the range of 5 to 7 percent. We're also maintaining our guidance for attrition in the year, which, as we've previously stated, is mainly a reflection of the reduction in capex in the ENC space and elevated levels of renewals in our fiscal year 2022. Following are some notable wins from the quarter. A global energy company in the Middle East and a long-time user of Aspen Tech's engineering and MSC suites signed an agreement to standardize on the use of Aspen Tech's PIMS-AO planning solution for refining. After a rigorous process to evaluate the capabilities and incremental value creation opportunities of PIMS-AO, the customer committed to standardize on the technology and executed on a global rollout of this technology. The deployment of PIMSAO is expected to generate tens of millions of dollars of benefits for this customer. Second, a U.S.-based multinational food processing and commodities trading company, user of our engineering and MSC suites, has committed to roll out our recently released batch APC capabilities across their bioproducts manufacturing business. Bioproducts manufacture amino acids from corn through fermentation. After a rigorous trial of the technology, the customer recognized sufficient value from improving production yields in their bioproducts manufacturing to commit to the technology. A new batch APC technology is expected to open up new use cases in batch production processes, as opposed to the continuous processes found in refining and bulk chemicals. We expect our batch APC technology to extend our reach further into specialty chemicals, bioprocesses, pharma, and other industries that use batch processing. Third and final customer reference, a U.S. energy company and a subsidiary of a global Middle East energy company expanded the use of the engineering and MSC suites to execute on a comprehensive deployment of production planning and production operations optimization programs solutions to realize benefits in excess of $50 million per year in their manufacturing complex. The products involved are planning, scheduling, dynamic optimization, or GDOT, multivariable process control, and the engineering suite. One of the key themes you've heard from Aspen Tech in recent years is our commitment to a sustainable future. To that end, in just a few days, Aspen Tech will join companies from around the world at COP26. to discuss and share solutions to address the global climate challenge. Next Thursday, November 4th, I will be speaking on a COP26 panel with executives from Microsoft and Wood discussing the digitization of the energy sector. This panel discussion will address how digital technologies are increasingly highlighted as key enablers to grow efficiencies across systems and to accelerate the technology development that is required to address demanding climate goals. Similarly, as we have mentioned before, Aspen Tech is an active member of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, supporting innovation to build a more sustainable global plastic value chain to create circularity. I'm actively involved on the board of the Alliance, and several Aspen Tech delegates participate in Alliance work groups and committees that are focused on regional plastic waste issues and technology development. Our contributions to the alliance will continue by providing expertise in advanced recycling and modeling with our engineering suite, and we expect to play an even greater role here as the alliance advances towards achieving its mission of plastic circularity. I would now like to talk about the pending transaction with Emerson. We believe this agreement offers compelling value for our customers and shareholders and positions New Aspen Tech as the leading industrial software company. There are several compelling benefits of this combination. First, New Aspen Tech will have the most comprehensive portfolio of mission-critical software products that expand the entire capital asset lifecycle. Aspen Tech's rich heritage in asset optimization will be extended and strengthened with Emerson's grid energy management and advanced distribution management systems technology and the geological simulation software. These software portfolios are highly complementary and provide exciting upsell and cross-sell opportunities into our respective installed bases. Second, we will significantly diversify Aspen Tech's business and increase our total addressable market. New Aspen Tech will have an immediate leadership position in the power and utility transmission and distribution vertical and an enhanced portfolio to model the entire oil and gas supply chain and reservoir modeling capabilities for resource extraction and carbon capture and sequestration. Third, this combination will enhance our capabilities to support our customer sustainability initiatives. We have long had a critical role to play in our customers' efforts to operate assets safer, greener, faster, and longer. The combined company will now be able to more fully support a broader array of sustainability initiatives, including electrification and carbon capture, among others. Fourth, New Aspen Tech will have greater scale and a compelling financial profile with more than a billion dollars in revenue and more than 3,000 global customers. We believe new Aspen Tech can be a consistent double-D grower with high recurring revenue, best-in-class margins, and substantial free cash flow. This increased scale and broader footprint will also make new Aspen Tech a vehicle to pursue additional M&A in the future. Fifth, we will deepen our existing commercial relationship with Emerson, which will provide exciting new go-to-market opportunities for resale, co-sale, and OEM of the entire suite of Aspen Tech products and solutions into all the industries where Emerson is installed, including those that Aspen Tech is targeting today through organic investments. The commercial relationship will also lead to joint package solutions and the development of next-generation software capabilities. Finally, this transaction provides significant near and long-term value for our shareholders. Aspen Tech shareholders will receive $6 billion in cash and will own 45% of new Aspen Tech. This attractive structure will give our shareholders upfront liquidity and the opportunity to benefit from new Aspen Tech's increased scale, expanded growth opportunities, and future margin expansion. A key aspect of this transaction will be converting the OSI and geological simulation software businesses to our token-based term license model. For those of you that were around when AspenTech first introduced our new commercial model in fiscal year 2010, you recall the significant improvements in growth, sales productivity, and user adoption that we experienced. We're confident we can deliver similar results this time as well. During our executive advisory board meeting that we hosted in Houston following the announcement of the transaction with Emerson, we received a strong endorsement from those customer executives in attendance. They understood the synergies from the stronger relationship between the two companies, the possibilities for joint package solutions, and the even stronger ability new Aspen Tech will have to deliver sustainability solutions that can help transform their businesses. Let me finish by reinforcing how excited we are by the recent developments for Aspen Tech and the future potential for new Aspen Tech. Our core business is beginning to show signs of improvement and we're executing well on the growth investments we're making in product development and our go-to-market capabilities. When you put that together with the great software businesses that are being contributed to new Aspen Tech and the deeper partnership with Emerson, We believe we have all the pieces in place to generate meetings growth and reach $1.5 billion in annual spend in fiscal year 2026. My sentiment has only been reinforced. I'm the most excited I've ever been about the future of Aspen technology. Now, let me turn the call over to Chantel. Chantel?

Thank you, Antonio. I will now review our financial results for the first quarter fiscal 2022. As a reminder, these results are being reported under topic 606, which has a material impact on both the timing and method of revenue recognition for our term license contracts. Our license revenue is heavily impacted by the timing of bookings and more specifically renewal bookings. A decrease or increase in bookings between fiscal periods resulting from a change in the amount of term license contracts up for renewal. is not an indicator of the health or growth of our business. The timing of renewals is not linear between quarters or fiscal years, and this nonlinearity will have a significant impact on the timing of our revenue. As a result, we believe our income statement will provide an inconsistent view into our financial performance, especially when comparing between fiscal periods. In our view, annual spend will continue to be the most important metric in assessing the growth of our business, and annual free cash flow the most important metric for assessing the overall value our business generates. Annual spend, which represents the accumulated value of all the current invoices for our term license agreements at the end of each period, was $630 million at the end of the first quarter. This represented an increase of approximately 5.6% on a year-over-year basis and 1.4% sequentially. Total bookings, which are defined as the total value of customer term license contracts where the associated term licenses were deemed delivered in the quarter under Topic 606, was $128.2 million, a 30% increase year-over-year. Total revenue was $136 million for the first quarter, an 18% increase from the prior year period. Turning to profitability beginning on a gap basis. Operating expenses for the quarter were $81.3 million compared to $65.3 million in the year-ago period. This year-over-year increase in GAAP operating expenses was primarily driven by the ramp of new investments in our go-to-market organization and product development, in addition to the timing of equity grants and M&A-related expenses. Total expenses, including cost of revenue, were $96.1 million, which was up from $80.8 million in the year-ago period. Operating income was $39.9 million, and the income for the quarter was $39.4 million, or 58 cents per share. Now turning to non-GAAP results. Excluding the impact of stock-based compensation expense, amortization of intangibles associated with acquisitions and acquisition-related fees, we reported non-GAAP operating income for the first quarter of $55.4 million, representing a 40.7% non-GAAP operating margin compared to non-GAAP operating income margin of $42.7 million and 37.2% respectively in the year-ago period. As a reminder, margins will fluctuate period to period due to the timing of customer renewals and therefore license revenue recognized during the quarter. Non-GAAP net income was $51.6 million, or 77 cents per share based on 67.4 million shares outstanding. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow, we ended the quarter with approximately $248 million of cash and cash equivalents and $289 million outstanding under our credit facility. In the first quarter, we generated $32.7 million of cash from operations and $33 million of free cash flow, after taking into consideration the net impact of capital expenditures, capitalized software, and acquisition-related payments. From a capital allocation perspective, we successfully completed our $150 million accelerated share repurchase agreement during the quarter, buying back 1.1 million shares. It is our intention to continue buying back up to $50 million of stock per quarter, subject to market conditions, until the transaction with Emerson is which is currently expected to occur by the end of the second quarter of calendar 2022. I would now like to close. With respect to annual spend, we are maintaining our target of 5% to 7% annual spend growth. We are also maintaining our bookings guidance range of $766 million to $819 million. Our expected revenue range is also unchanged at $702 to $737 million. As a reminder, we expect license revenue in the range of $481 to $515 million, and maintenance revenue and service and other revenue of approximately $192 and $30 million, respectively. From a defense perspective, we now expect total GAAP expenses of $389 to $394 million. Taken together, we expect GAAP operating income in a range of $313 to $343 million for fiscal 2022 with GAAP net income of approximately $285 to $311 million. We expect GAAP net income per share to be in the range of $4.19 to $4.57. From a non-GAAP perspective, we continue to expect non-GAAP operating income of $361 to $391 million, and now expect non-GAAP income per share in the range of $4.75 to $5.30. From a free cash flow perspective, we continue to expect free cash flow of $275 to $285 million. Our fiscal 2022 free cash flow guidance assumes cash tax payments in the range of $60 to $66 million. To wrap up, Aspen Tech delivered a strong first quarter performance. We are seeing positive signs of improvement in our business, and we are focused on building upon our success in the first quarter. We are also incredibly excited at the future value creation opportunities that we believe will be possible with new Aspen Tech, which will have a broader product portfolio, greater end market diversification, and a deeper partnership with Emerson. We are confident that the strategic initiatives we are executing on will generate significant value for shareholders. And with that, operator, let's begin the Q&A, please.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, you will need to press the star, then the one key on your touch-tone telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Now, first question coming from the line of Andrew Elpin with Bank of America. Hi, guys.

Good morning. Good morning. Good afternoon. It's been a long day for me. Sorry about that.

Hi, Andrew.

Hey, how are you guys? So you highlighted that spend in the quarter was above expectations What would make you guys comfortable in terms of what kind of benchmarks or, you know, for you to get, you know, for you to raise guidance? Is it just seeing it for a couple more quarters? Are you looking at any specific industry events? You sound better, but, you know, I appreciate it's first quarter, but you haven't raised guidance. So if you could expound on that. Thank you.

Yeah, Andrew and Michelle can supplement what I say as well. Look, as I like to say, one data point doesn't make a trend, but certainly if you look at the macro KPIs that we track, they're all open to the right. Price of oil, refining margins, chemicals production and chemicals margin, chemicals demand and chemicals margins. And even with EPCs, while certainly there's been a significant reduction in CAPEX, it's already been almost a year, and we believe that the situation there is stabilizing, but we have to work through the contract. So we're being cautious, as I said. We're maintaining our guidance for now, and as we see the year progress, we'll make the appropriate decisions at the time.

Just a follow-up question. It seems there really are a lot of opportunities to integrate the channel with Emerson. How long do you think it will take to start seeing the impact in your numbers from this better integration?

Well, look, as we said when we announced the transaction, we expect to close the transaction in the second calendar quarter of 2022, and then we will start working on executing our integration plans and what's agreed on the commercial agreement between the two companies. So I certainly hope, you know, if you think about timing, you're looking now Q4 fiscal 22 for Aspen Tech. July 1st next year is fiscal 23. So we would expect that perhaps we start to see some of those benefits later in fiscal 23, then into 24, 25.

Well, good to see the things are improving. Congratulations on the deal. Thanks.

Thank you, Andrew.

Thank you. Thank you. Now, next question coming from the line of Rob Oliver with Baird. Your line is open.

Hi, Rob. Hey, Antonio. Hi, Chantal. Thanks for taking my questions. My first one is on, you know, Antonio, your comments around some of the pockets of improvement that you're seeing within your end market. So I wanted to dig in a little bit deeper on that. It sounds, you know, based on what you said, that, you know, core owner-operators are seeing the most movement, but there are pockets within chems. I'm just curious, you know, if you could elaborate a little bit more on some of that and maybe within CHEMS what some of the puts and takes are there. And then just as a corollary, you know, we're certainly, you know, commodity prices up and to the right. At the same time, we're experiencing some major global supply chain issues. So just curious how we balance those factors relative to, your core customers and how we think about annual spend for the remainder of the year. And then I had a follow-up.

Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, if you look at refining and the opening up of economies around the world, there's definitely been a material change in automobile traffic, which has driven higher consumption of fuels. Refining margins in the last few months have tripled. And really, that's put them at the low end of their historical margin range. These are not record margins, but now they're within the historical range, which is very good. And talking to our refunding customers, they are very optimistic about that. So that's been a marked change from three months ago, let's say. That's why I think we've seen the performance in refining that we saw in our Q1 quarter. On the chemical side, you only have to look at the announcements from chemical companies, record margins and cash flow generation. And certainly, you know, there's cautiousness within that customer sector around supply chain issues, dampening demand for their products. And that's something to keep an eye on. And there are still sectors, small sectors, but there are still sectors within the chemicals industry that are not doing as well as they were doing before the pandemic. But on the whole, bulk chemicals, which is ethylene and polymers, has done very well in this calendar year. So if you look at those two, I mean, global economic growth continuing to drive demand and so on, I think the outlook is positive. And then EPCs. Even with EPCs, look, EPCs are going through their own transformation. They're focusing a lot more on sustainability areas, such as hydrogen, biofuels, and others, which I think over time will make that industry a healthier industry. And Rob, I would say that Now you're starting to see the debate develop over the last week or two around whether the oil industry is spending enough TAPEX to supply global demand over the next few years. And that's a real issue. That was a concern, frankly, back in 1890. It got exacerbated over the last 12 to 18 months with the calls for reduced investments in oil and gas. And the real question here will be whether, you know, the sustained level of cap expense will facilitate a balanced demand-supply scenario going forward. So, look, overall good, but, you know, I think we need to be cautious, and it's still a very fluid environment. That's helpful.

And if I could add – I'm sorry, Rob. I was going to add something.

No, thanks, Adele.

Hi, Rob. Yeah, no worries. I think that – so I very much agree with Antonio's thoughts around operating, our customers operating in their day-to-day environments with the pressure of supply chain. The other thing, back to the question on annual spend, how we see it going forward, is we're also waiting for this calendar year flip on sustainability. This is a – It's a new topic with new funding and new importance for our customers. So that's another signal we're waiting to see outside our regular, you know, kind of metrics that we look at. And so that's another thing going into our Q2 we're looking for, just to give you some additional.

Got it. That's really helpful from both you guys. And I'll just make my follow-up a quick one, even though I wanted to ask a bunch about Everson, but it's probably a broader discussion. But just I know – Chantal, Antonio referred to the attrition number, but I just want to make sure we got the exact number because I know it wasn't in the press release. What was the attrition this quarter, and what do you expect it to be for the remainder of the year?

Well, what I can share with you, Rob, is that we're sticking to the guide we had in Q4 of 6% attrition for the year. Okay.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it.

Yeah, you're very welcome. Our next question coming from the line of Matt Piafowicz. William Blair, Yolanda Saltzman.

Hi, Matt. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to first follow up on the sustainability comments. Is there any way to guess how many of your deals today are driven by sustainability initiatives? And then, Chantel, your comments, was that related to maybe the anticipation of some of your customers or carving out budgets specifically related to investing in technologies that help achieve their sustainability initiatives?

Yeah, maybe I can start with the second and then Antonio, we can work on the first one together. Yes, absolutely. You know, when Antonio referred to the executive advisory customer meeting that we had in Houston a few weeks back, you can hear customers speak of kind of two budgets that they're working in as they go forward. One is they're operating CapExOptics. And the other is either guided from their board or their shareholders, you know, their onus to spend more on sustainability and how that rearranges in the company is yet to be seen. But we definitely hear two conversations emerging in the sense of what the customers will be focused spending their funds on.

Yeah, Matt, in a way for us, A lot of customers, as they've said, their net zero carbon emission goals, that overarching initiative and ambition is driving the thought process and prioritization of investments inside these companies. And the expectation through some of our own research surveying customers You know, where corporate sustainability will probably be a top influencer on software spend over the next few years, especially in the areas of analytics and benchmarking. So we're pretty optimistic about this. And what we do every day is about creating efficiencies that reduce emissions or plastic waste or reduce the consumption of, you know, water and so on. These, coupled with the assets that we're getting from Emerson around global electrification and the ability to model for carbon capture and sequestration, will just open up tremendous opportunities for Aspen technology. And by the way, that reservoir modeling capability that we're also getting from in the geological simulation software business, we'll also be able to take into mining for modeling of rock formations and resources. So very exciting stuff.

Got it. And then just wanted to ask on... APM and how that performed in the quarter and related, maybe an update on what you saw in pharma and metals and mining as well.

Yeah, I mean, look, so we give you an update on APM every six months, and we continue to sign APM customers. I'll say that. We're seeing also better progress in Asia with our APM solutions. At the same time, we've learned a lot over the last 18 to 24 months as the market adjusted, as the solution has been implemented in our customers' environments and what they're looking for and how we need to add capabilities to the solution. We're also, while excited about what we're seeing in the market, we're also working to continue to deliver innovation in the solution that we believe will strengthen, not only strengthen the suite, but also Aspen Amtel specifically, which I know where the question is or is focused on. But we'll give you an update when we report the Q2 results in January.

Okay. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question coming from the line of Jackson Adair with JP Morgan. Hi, Jackson.

Thanks for taking my questions, guys. Hey, Antonio. So the bookings number, if you net out the bookings up for renewal, if you want to call that kind of gross bookings or growth bookings or something, was was up a bunch year over year. And I'm just curious, you know, how much that had to do with maybe some easy comparisons. I remember a year ago you mentioned that customers in the first quarter just didn't really want to have conversations with you in July and August versus maybe some upside in execution or net new demand or net new interest. Just what drove that growth booking speed?

Chantal, do you want to take that, or do you like me to take it?

Well, I can start, certainly. I think that, you know, I would actually, one of the things I think that we're proud of is the fact that we are seeing that gross growth, to your point, Jackson, so I think it's a great point to highlight. You know, I think that if you look at some of the areas we see the growth in, you know, we talked about the MSC growth, and maybe, Antonio, you wanted to give some more more color on from a customer viewpoint or end market viewpoint?

Yeah. Yeah. No, about Jackson, in a way, it's very simple. You know, we overperformed in Q1. You know, in August, we told you, meaning investors in general and the market, that we felt we were going to have a quarter that was where growth was going to be dampened by the amount of attrition that we saw coming in the quarter as a result of a larger number of engineering renewals, ENC renewals. That all happened, and there was a larger accumulation of that, but we also saw tremendous growth on the MSC side, gross growth, and that accounts for a lot of that overperformance in bookings. as well. So it's a combination of multiple factors, but certainly the MSC over performance helped in that regard.

Yeah. And I think to that point, Jackson, what we're triangulating is, is it the pent-up demand that now it's flowing through that our customers need to get back to their steady states? And some of that pressure is being released through this gross growth is how I would articulate it.

Yeah. And then just a quick follow-up on MSC. Well, I guess it's really chemicals. I mean, is there any way to quantify what type of a headwind the chemicals piece is at the moment so that we can get a sense for, you know, what we would expect that normalized MSC growth might look like without the supply chain headwinds?

At the moment, if you talk to chemical customers, they are not yet seeing a headwind. At least anecdotally, talking to them, they will be announcing very strong results for the September quarter. There is a certain level of concern with regards to you know, the supply chain issues getting worse and having an impact on demand for their products. But it's not something that they have yet seen, and they're not able to quantify themselves. And that is whether it would even show up. So, look, I think in the overall, I'm looking, I'm focusing a lot more on economic growth across the board and how that will continue to drive demand for all sorts of products, you know, regardless of the supply chain. All right.

All right. Thank you. Thank you.

And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, to ask a question, please press star one. Our next question coming from the line of Hey, thank you for taking my questions.

The first one is just in terms of the MSC parts of the business clearly performing well. The question for me is what has changed is the confidence, the main reason here. And then you guys mentioned kind of pent-up demand is starting to kick in. Do you have an idea of how much of that pent-up demand is left for the year? In other words, this isn't kind of a one-quarter phenomenon that you're seeing, right?

Well, I mean, look, Al, look, again, you can only, in a way, that's a hard question to answer, okay, how much pent-up demand is left. But I can point you to the last time we troughed. In 2017, when we dropped at 4.1, the following year was 6.4. And when we had two consecutive years of normal budgets, we went from 6.4 to 10.6% growth. And in my opinion, a lot of that is initially driven by pent-up demand, and then it normalizes at double-digit growth. That's my point of view. So I think if history is an indication of the future, I think what we're seeing is, again, back to a release of spending to do a catch-up on technology implementation that will eventually normalize at a higher level. once we have two consecutive years of good budgets. And to me, that will be calendar 22 and calendar 23.

Perfect. And then just on the flip side, on the E&C, obviously you've got a lot of renewals this year, so you're still kind of guiding for this higher churn. But would you expect that to kind of work through and the budgets there also recover based on what you're seeing in the end market right now? Or is this more like a two-year process that if the oil prices remain stable, then we might see more CapEx budgets being tied into the next year and we'll probably need to wait for that in order to kind of get the confidence?

You know, Gal, this is a very good question. And the thing about, you know, demand and supply and macro trends is that you have to give time time, meaning you have to let time pass for things to prove themselves out. And this narrative that CAPEX spent in the oil and gas industry was at a level that wasn't sustainable for future demand has been a narrative. Now, that narrative has been overwhelmed by, you know, certainly climate change and sustainability, the focus on renewables, which is all important and necessary. But look, energy transitions happen over a long period of time. And in this context, there's a sense that we could be facing a very tight supply-demand balance, which could accelerate or continue to drive oil prices up, which, by the way, I don't think is necessarily healthy because it may impact economic activity at some point. So on a personal basis, I'd rather see oil somewhere between around $70 a barrel. But having said all that, what this could all mean is that some companies or countries do see an incentive to start putting more CapEx to work because they see an opportunity to supply more to the market down the road. So we'll see. We'll see, but at the same time, look, out of the last recovery from 16-17, what we saw was low single-digit CapEx growth to mid-single-digit, really 5% at the high end, and that was enough for our growth to accelerate back to double-digit with the contribution from our APM suite. Today, we have a lot more things in play, not only APM, but AIoT, pharma, mining, but also the Emerson relationship, the contribution of these assets, the OSI asset and the GSS assets, and this commercial relationship with Emerson that will be so comprehensive and global that will support an acceleration of our growth rate. So look, all the KPIs look good. We've signed a transformational transaction that will support our growth and diversify our business going forward as well. So I said, look, my closing statement was I'm the most excited about our future than I've ever been. and remain so.

Perfect. Thank you so much for your answers.

Yeah. Yeah. I just want to, before the next step, I want to highlight to Jackson's comment or question around supply chains and chemicals. Look, one of the things that's happened as well over the last 18 months with COVID is a is a reassessment of supply chains around the world, not only the unshoring of production and sites, but also the reconfiguration of the supply chains and really building resiliency into supply chains in preparation for future disruptions. So we are seeing much greater interest from chemical companies on supply chain management capabilities, supply chain logistics, the concept of the control tower. And this is certainly opening up an increased area of investments by chemical companies around their supply chain, but also other companies, by the way, in pharmaceuticals, and including oil companies. So I think the whole... discussion around supply chains is one that actually will be a tailwind for Aspen technology as well.

Next question coming from the line of Jason Salino with KeyBank.

Hi, Jason. Antonio. Hi, Chantel. Just a couple questions for me. So Q1 has seasonally been the weakest growth quarter. This Q1, biggest sequential increase that we've seen in two years, actually. Maybe can you talk about the linearity of the strength, how it might have started, where you started seeing it? That would be great. Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, look, no doubt Q1s by nature are the sort of lowest growth quarters, the lowest growth quarter that we normally have. And, well, you know, we just had a very strong Q1, especially considering the attrition that we experienced. The amount of cross-growth that was generated this quarter in Q1 was – was outstanding. Look, there was also, I'll say, an easy comp versus Q1 FY21 as well. Look, Q2 tend to be stronger quarters historically than Q1. And then you get into Q3 and Q4 normally being our strongest quarters. But just because it's the end of a fiscal year, normally our sales cycle is 9 to 12 months, and the sales organization is gearing to exceed their quotas and get into accelerators for commissions. So that's how I would view it. But I also want to be cautious here. But yes. We're happy about Q1. I'll take this Q1 versus last year.

Sorry, go ahead.

Well, what I was really trying to understand is how the quarter improved throughout the quarter. Oh, sorry.

Yeah, I think that's a – yeah, sorry, I was going to just add to Antonio's comment. I think that the attrition, most of the renewal activity, to your point, is in the same hockey stick as every other company, so that's the third quarter. But I would say from the beginning pipeline to the conversion through the quarter, I would say that probably mid to later we started to really solidify those conversations with our customers. But we were definitely out of the gate Q4 having the gross growth conversations But, you know, it takes time and it still has the tough approvals that Antonio referred to. So you don't really see that momentum, Jason, until the second, third month.

Yeah. Perfect. No, sorry, Jason. I misunderstood your question. No worries. The one nuance about Q1, our Q1 quarter, September, is that July and August are heavy vacation months and really is the first few days of September. when a business activity begins to accelerate. So it tends to be a quarter that is very concentrated into four weeks in September. And it was a great four weeks. Perfect. That is very helpful.

Thank you.

I'm showing up for the questions at this time. I would now like to send a call back over to Mr. Antonio Pietri for any closing remarks.

All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. And, you know, we look forward to, again, participating in events and hopefully starting to meet some of you in person, which we've started to do with customers. And it's a very different experience to be meeting customers in person than over video. So hopefully we'll start seeing some of you in person in the future. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's the conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.