Aspen Technology, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fiscal First Quarter 2023 Aspen Tech Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephones. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Brian Denue with ICR. You are now able to talk.

Thank you, Justin. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2023, ending September 30th, 2022. With me on the call today are Antonio Pietri, Aspen Tech's President and CEO, and Shantel Brightup, Aspen Tech CFO. 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 may 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, as well as those contained in our most recently filed Form 10-K with the SEC. Also, please note that the following information relates to our current business conditions and our outlook as of today, October 26, 2022. Consistent with our prior practice, we expressly disclaim any obligation to update this information. Please also note that we have posted a financial update presentation on the . The structure of today's call will be as follows. Antonio will discuss business highlights from the first quarter and fiscal year, and then Chantel will review our financial results and discuss our guidance for fiscal year 2023. With that, I'll turn it over to Antonio. Antonio.

Thanks. Brian. And thanks to all of you for joining us today. Our first fiscal quarter performance was in line with our expectations. This was the fourth quarter since the completion of the Emerson transaction.

I remember when the quarter was springing together, and there was a lot of uncertainty. We enter the fiscal year with a clear focus to execute on our integration plan after the seven and a half months of

completed before the close of the transaction on May 16. During the quarter, we validated many of our expectations from the integration planning phase, but also learned of additional opportunities for process improvements and potential scenarios. We also put new processes and systems in place to support the transformation efforts that will deliver the significant growth and profitability expectations we have for the business in the coming quarters and years. Some of these include successfully validating the token licensing model and designing the suite for SSE, which was released last week for Windows. The prompt release timeline was achieved through the focused effort by our software development and product management teams. The SSE suite has quickly been embraced by customers that we have engaged with in this discussion. This is the first step in the transformation of the SSE business and a clear demonstration of the learning and expertise gained from our own transformation in the 2009 to 2014 period. As we have experienced, when Heritage Aspen Tech introduced the token licensing model for the engineering and MSC suites, customers quickly recognized that by providing the entire portfolio of products in a single suite, it is much easier to try new products and accelerate adoption under a token licensing model. We expect the Linux version of the Aspen One SSE suite to be released in the near future as the final component of the tokenization of the SSE product portfolio. Second, we began the process of migrating the DGM, or Digital Grid Management, product portfolio to a termed contract structure with the ultimate objective being the introduction of the token licensing model and BGM suite, which is expected to happen in the second half of this fiscal year. As a reminder, the BGM product portfolio has been historically a perpetual license business, so there is a significant transition for existing customers that needs to occur to get them onto the token licensing model while we will live with the suite and tokens when engaging new customers. The introduction of the BGM suite will also enable the cross-selling opportunity of BGM products into heritage Aspen Tech markets where customers are accustomed to this licensing model. Third, we have signed and been awarded multiple commercial agreements for DGM products that will be implemented solely by third parties to demonstrate separability of software licenses and services. Achieving separability will result in an earlier inclusion of software licenses into ACV. Today, software licenses in the DGM business are recognized on a percent of completion basis during projects since these are considered bundled. Therefore, DGM transactions are currently not included in ACV when signed. We aim to achieve this separability within the second half of fiscal year 2023. Fourth, we have successfully onboarded and aligned the sales teams from OSI and SSE, including establishing a common sales and forecasting methodology, defining territories and accounts ownership, standardizing quota and commission structures, and establishing cross-sale procedures. Ensuring alignment across the sales organization and the entire company is critical and we're pleased with how we have come together throughout the first quarter. And last, we have established a commercial organization that will support Emerson's go-to-market teams in the verticals and territories identified for them to resell our products. Emerson has also established teams for individuals with Aspen-type product quotas that will be compensated for selling them. Overall, we could not be more pleased with the progress made in the partnership. In regard to the synergies expected from the transaction, We expect to deliver synergies in four areas, growth, business transformation, costs, and commercial agreement. Each of the signature streams are now broken down into substraints with peer team and individual accountability for each. Overall, we're pleased with the progress made in the first quarter in each substraint to put us on the trajectory to meet or exceed them. We have made great progress on the cost synergies, already capturing a significant percentage of them. We expect to begin generating synergies in the three other areas in the second half of this fiscal year. We feel confident about our ability to deliver on the synergies, and as mentioned before, we have also identified other potential areas of opportunity. I'm very proud of the performance of the team in the first quarter. We successfully laid the foundation to set us in the right trajectory to achieve our fiscal year 2023 and longer-term objectives. Now, turning to our first quarter financial results. Annual contract value, or ATP, was $809.6 million, up 7.7% year over year. Revenue was $250.8 million. Gap loss per share was $0.17, and non-gap EPS was $2.20, and free cash flow was $10.7 million. Additionally, we are sharing the following information to provide you with visibility into the early transformation momentum created with the BGM and SSE product portfolios in the quarter. The BGM product portfolio generated $16.9 million in software license orders, not accounted for in the HCV results, $5.5 million of which were term agreements and the rest perpetually. While the term licenses cannot be included in ACB when signed, due to the bundle arrangement nature of the transaction, this outcome demonstrates our ability to introduce term licensing to OSI customers. We're very happy with this outcome right out of the gate, considering that it was the first full quarter since the transaction closed. For the SSE product portfolio, we saw the start of the transformation of the commercial relationship with customers. Some customers with agreements up for renewal accept the new terms and conditions typical of Heritage Aspen Tech software agreements, converted from perpetual to term license agreements, and or, in some cases, extended the term of their agreements. An example of the change in the commercial relationship with customers is the agreement with an international oil company based in the Asia Pacific region that consolidated a legacy perpetual license agreement and multiple all their contracts into one contract at the time of renewal of one of their existing agreements, signing up for a three-year term with significant growth, all due to the newly perceived value in the relationship with Aspen Debt. Again, this is an early demonstration of the value creation opportunities we have with these new businesses and the changes we're making in how we will approach customer relations. Now, moving on to the macro environment. Overall demand trends were similar to what we have seen in recent quarters. While we remain vigilant about the uncertain economic backdrop, fundamentals in each of our core end markets remains constructive. We continue to see strong deal activity across each of our key end markets and in each region around the world. Our customers recognize that the dual challenge of meeting the rising demand for resources globally with the urgent need to minimally reduce environmental impact will be the key strategic priority facing their businesses for many years to come. Failing to meet this objective will result in an increasingly difficult regulatory environment that may eventually challenge their license to operate from society. Meeting the dual challenge will require rethinking how our customers design and operate their assets, including the reliance on electrical power from renewables. This, in turn, will drive a significant investment in technologies to modernize the electrical grid, capture and sequester carbon in industrial hubs, and scale new energy sources such as hydrogen, which we believe will all ultimately benefit Aspen Tech's business in meaningful ways and methods, and increasingly strategic partner to them. As we have also seen in recent months, energy security has become a critically important geostrategic concern. It's spurring substantial new demand in areas like LNG and more broadly reinforces the fact that many of the traditional sources of energy will remain essential to securing a steady and secure flow of affordable energy for the foreseeable future. The breadth and depth of Aspen Tech's product portfolio and our decades of experience in this market also puts us in a unique position to benefit from this trend. I would now like to provide some more color on our performance by vertical. Refining had a solid start to the year. Demand for refined products remained strong, and refiners settled into a more normalized profitability profile in the quarter following the record crack spreads earlier this year. Increasing diesel and jet fuel demand is expected to continue to climb over the next 12 months, providing greater support for improved financial performance for this company. Refining has long been a source of strength for Aspen Tech, and we believe this industry segment will continue to be well-positioned in the remainder of fiscal year 2023. The upstream vertical is now a more meaningful contributor to Aspen Tech and had a strong quarter as we saw exciting initial demand for our SSE products. Customer feedback has been fantastic on the value of bringing together Aspen Tech's engineering solutions with SSE's capabilities in areas like subsurface modeling and carbon capture. Having a product portfolio that supports the entire lifecycle of upstream operations is unprecedented and solidifies our leadership in this market. We believe there is significant upside potential in the coming years in the upstream market for the SSE suite as oil and gas companies increase capex budgets after several years of underinvestment. And new opportunities for sequestration, or CCS, and geothermal energy become more prevalent. We also got off to a great start in the power transmission and distribution market, or T&D, generating new momentum with DGM after the two-year ownership transition process for the OSI business. The scale of investment needed in the green in the coming years to support increased electricity demand and the complexity introduced by renewable sources of power like wind, solar, and hydro is large. We signed a number of important wins in BGM during the quarter, including the first multimillion-dollar term license order in that business. We're very pleased with how the pipeline for this business is building and the breadth of customer conversations we're having. Utilities recognize that they will need much more sophisticated technology across their operations to manage the growing complexity of power transmission and distribution. And while it is early, we are having exciting conversations with some of our energy and chemical customers about the potential benefits of microgrids to their business. This opportunity will take time to play out, and we believe it will be significant. Chemicals had a good quarter, and we have been very pleased with how customers in this market have embraced the need to increase investments to meet the dual challenge, which for them also includes plastic circularity. In the near term, this market, particularly in Europe, will need to work through the challenges related to the energy supply disruptions from a cost and demand perspective. This is a situation that we're monitoring closely and is probably the biggest area of uncertainty in our business currently. In the past, we have often seen that these types of situations can benefit Aspen Tech as it becomes an even bigger imperative to run a potential plan as efficiently as possible. Finally, we're pleased with the trends in the E&T vertical. As we have discussed in recent calls, the need for sustainability is opening up new business opportunities for E&Ts, which is helping to strengthen and diversify their businesses. For example, in 2021, over 100 CCS or carbon capture and sequestration facilities were announced. Traditional oil and gas capital investment is also growing meaningfully after several years of underinvestment during the pandemic. The net result of all of this is a vertical that is as well positioned as it has been in years to generate consistent growth for Aspen Tech. The macro environment referenced above supported the performance of the Heritage Aspect Tech Suite in line with our expectations. As a reference, following our vignettes for the three agreements signed in the quarter, or for three agreements signed in the quarter. First, one of the largest public utility companies in the United States and a decade-long customer of OSI committed to the implementation of two large Monarch SCADA systems for advanced distribution management, or ADMS, and distributed energy management, or DEM, tapability. We were selected following a highly competitive sales process in which they evaluated technology from multiple competitors. This win expands their deployment of DGM solutions to its distribution and outage management business from its existing deployment in its transmission business. This expanded agreement is an important step forward in the customer's effort to invest in its regulated businesses, accelerate its carbon reduction targets, and streamline the value for customers, communities, and investors. I would note that we were able to successfully transition the sales process to a third-person contract after starting at the perpetual supply discussion prior to the completion of the Emerson transaction. Second, a state-owned oil company in one of the major oil-producing countries in the Eurasian region signed a new five-year agreement using Aspen Tech's customary terms and conditions for a range of products in the SSE portfolio. This has been a former SSE customer who expired long ago and decided to return in part due to the broader portfolio and vision of the new Aspen deck. This new agreement sets up the relationship for further expansion in the use of SSE products. And third and final, an international oil company and a long-time Aspen Tech Engineering Suite customer expanded its total spend commitment for the third time since the renewal of the agreement in fiscal year 2021 and has now increased its total spend by more than 40% in two years. This amendment increases software access to their gas business for use of the integrated front-end engineering design capabilities, including the Aspen Opti-Plan product. There are many more initiatives being pursued with this customer for further expansion in the use of Aspen Text products. From an innovation perspective, we have finalized the work on version 14 of Aspen One, which we will release for general availability soon, and where our continued investment in sustainability will be further demonstrated with many new application models. Meeting the dual challenge will also require co-innovation and partnering by customers and suppliers of technology. We now have a dedicated team co-innovating with our customers where one of the most interesting developments is the partnership group we have established to develop a solution to record, report, and manage the potential CO2 emissions by leveraging several of our products. This is a great indication of the increasingly important role Aspen Tech is playing with our customers in the sustainability space. We will also be hosting Open Forum, our global conference for the power T&D industry for users of the DGM product portfolio in Las Vegas in early December. This is an exciting opportunity for the new Aspen Tech to establish our vision and direction for this industry and engage with this customer group to introduce them to the capabilities of the new company. Finally, we continue to execute on our M&A strategy. During the quarter, we acquired InMation, a market leader in industrial real-time information management. InMation adapts to the needs of its customers by connecting an organization's industrial data from various data sources, from client-level historians to enterprise systems, to create a real-time industrial data infrastructure. We will combine this capability with Aspen Tech's existing portfolio of plant-level solutions and AI capabilities to create a unique enterprise-wide data infrastructure. We will make InMation the cornerstone of our AIoT industrial data and connectivity business. In addition, we continue to make progress in integration planning for MicroMath and are having positive conversations on how to capitalize on the opportunity in the metal and mining markets. We expect the transaction will close late in our second fiscal quarter, subject to regulatory approval. I would like to wrap up with some quick thoughts on business dynamics and our outlook for fiscal year 2023. We are tracking well against our full-year ACV growth target of 10.5% to 13.5%, including four points of contribution from DGM and HSE, as well as against our pre-pass flow guidance. As we have indicated previously, historically, the second half of the fiscal year is much stronger for heritage as content. We expect the growth and synergies from BGM and SSE to begin materializing in earnest in the second half of the fiscal year, considering the sales cycle for the Python of these products and the time required to evolve the commercial relationship with customers. We also want to reiterate that spending trends and opportunity dynamics in the first half of fiscal year remain positive, reflecting customers' calendar year 2022 budgets. As we approach the second half of the fiscal year, today we remain optimistic that customer budgets for calendar 2023 will be supported. Anecdotally, we've heard positive feedback on customer oil and gas capex budgets for next year. Also, please recall that budgets in the power and P&D market are typically regulated, so there's a good deal of visibility in that market. While our customers' businesses have continued to do well, we recognize that they face a number of potential challenges, particularly in the chemicals market in the near term. As a reminder, our guidance range was intentionally set wider than normal to account for a range of outcomes that also include geopolitical considerations. We believe that was prudent back in August, and we continue to think it's the right approach. Let me wrap up by saying how pleased I am with the progress we made in the first quarter. The hard work by everyone at New Aspen Tech to bring together these three businesses in such a short time has been a great success. We have set the stage to deliver on the growth and financial objectives we have guided through for fiscal year 2023 and beyond. With that, let me turn the call over to Chantelle. Chantelle?

Thank you, Antonio. I will now review our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2023. As a reminder, these results are being reported under topic 606, which has a material impact on both the timing and method of our 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-licensed 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 non-linearity will have a significant impact on the timing of our revenue. As a reminder, we have transitioned from annual spend to ACV, annual contract value, as our primary growth metric. We define ACB as an estimate of the annual value of our portfolio of term license and term and perpetual swap or maintenance and support or SMS agreement. ACB provides insight into our annual growth and retention of our recurring revenue base, which is the majority of our overall revenue as well as recurring cash flow. Annual contract value was $809.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2023, up 7.7% year over year. This includes approximately $2.7 million of contribution from the recently acquired business of InMation. Please also note that we booked a $1.7 million reduction in ACB during this quarter due to a Russia sanction-related write-off. As Antonio mentioned, while we work through the transition of the DGM portfolio to term licenses, orders from this business are not included in ACB when signed due to the lack of separability from the Aspen Tech provided services. We expect DGM to contribute more meaningfully to H-2B in the second half of this fiscal year after we achieve separability. Annual spend for Heritage Aspen Tech, which the company defines as the annualized value of all term license and maintenance contracts at the end of the quarter for the businesses other than OSI and SSE was approximately $682.3 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2023. which increased 8.3% compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2022 and 1.2% up sequentially. This includes approximately $1.6 million of contributions from InMation. As a reminder, we intend to provide this disclosure on annual spend for Heritage Aspen Tech only for fiscal 2023 to provide investors comparability with our historical disclosures. Total bookings, which we define as the total value of customer term license and perpetual SMS contract signed in the current period, less the value of term license and perpetual SMS contract signed in the current period, but where the initial licenses are not yet being delivered under Topic 606, plus term license and perpetual SMS contract signed in the previous period, for which the initial licenses are being delivered in the current period, was $224 million, a 43% increase year over year. Total revenue was $250.8 million for the first quarter. As a reminder, as a result of the Emerson transaction, the subsidiary that included the DGM and SSE businesses became the surviving entity. As a result, the year-ago comparisons you see in our financial statements only include DGM and SSE in the first quarter of fiscal 2022, and year-over-year comparisons are not meaningful. Turning to profitability beginning on a GAAP basis. Operating expenses for the quarter were $210.9 million. Total expenses including cost of revenue were $302 million. Operating loss was $51.2 million and net loss for the quarter was $11.2 million or 17 cents per share. The net loss reflects the non-cash expense recognized for the mark-to-market adjustment for an Australian dollar foreign currency derivative related to the announced micromine acquisition. This will continue to fluctuate until the closing of the transaction. Turning to non-GAAP results. Excluding the impact of stock-based compensation expense, amortization of the tangibles associated with acquisitions and acquisition-related fees, and excluding the impact of the unrealized loss on the foreign currency derivative. We reported non-GAAP operating income for the first quarter of $92.6 million, representing a 36.9% non-GAAP operating margin. As a reminder, margins will fluctuate period to period due to the timing of customer renewal, and therefore license revenue recognized during the quarter. Non-GAAP net income was $142 million, or $2.20 per share, based on 64.5 million shares outstanding. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow, we ended the quarter with approximately $382.5 million of cash and cash equivalents and $270 million outstanding under our credit facility. During the quarter, we spent approximately $75 million for the acquisition of InMation. As Antonio highlighted, we are excited to bring InMation together with Aspen Tech and believe it is a great example of the opportunity we have to expand our product portfolio and increase the value of delivery to customers via acquisition. From a financial perspective, InMation is expected to be immaterial in fiscal 2023 from a revenue, profitability, and ACV contribution perspective. In the first quarter, we generated $5.1 million of cash flow operations and $10.7 million of free cash flow after taking into consideration the net impact of capital expenditures, capitalized software, and including acquisition and integration funding-related payments. As a reminder, the first quarter is typically our lowest cash flow quarter due primarily to the seasonality of cash collections. I would now like to close with guidance. We have gotten off to a strong start in fiscal 2023 and we see positive underlying demand trends across the business. Our outlook for fiscal 2023 reflects these trends while also considering a wider range of potential outcomes to reflect the growing uncertainty in the economy. I am pleased with the progress that we have made on our integration initiatives during the quarter. We believe we are well positioned for the long term from a growth and profitability perspective and our ability to realize the $110 million of adjusted EBITDA synergies by 2026. With respect to ATV, we are maintaining a target of 10.5% to 13.5% growth for the year, including four points of growth contribution from the DGM and SSE product portfolios. The spending environment remains favorable overall, and we believe we are on track to drive greater contribution from the DGM and SSE portfolios in the second half of the year. We are maintaining our bookings guidance in the range of $1.07 billion to $1.17 billion, which includes $547 million of contracts that are up for renewal in fiscal 2023. This includes approximately $111 million of contracts up for renewal in the second quarter. We continue to expect revenue in the range of $1.14 to $1.2 billion. We expect license revenue in the range of $765 to $826 million, and maintenance revenue and service and other revenue of approximately $312 and $64 million, respectively. From an expense perspective, we expect total gap expenses of $1.197 to $1.207 billion. The increased expense outlook is related to acquisition, integration planning, and amortization of purchase and tangible expenses associated with in-nation acquisition. Taken together, we expect GAAP operating loss in a range of $57 to $5 million for fiscal 2023, with GAAP net loss in the range of $32.5 to $22.5 million. We expect GAAP net loss per share to be in the range of $0.49 to $0.34. From a non-GAAP perspective, we expect operating income of $503 to $555 million and non-GAAP income per share in the range of $6.76 to $6.91. From a free cash flow perspective, we continue to expect free cash flow of $347 to $362 million. Our fiscal 2023 free cash flow guidance assumes cash tax payments in the range of $94 to $104 million, which is unchanged. To wrap up, Aspen Tech is off to a strong start in fiscal 2023. We are successfully executing on our integration plan and have set the foundation to deliver on our near and long-term financial objectives. We believe we are uniquely positioned to create even greater value for our customers and shareholders over the long term and are keenly focused on maximizing the opportunity. With that, operator, let's begin the Q&A.

And thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. And we please ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Again, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. And one moment for our next question. And our first question comes from Matthew Fowle from William & Blair. Your line is now open.

Hi, Mike. Hey, Antonio. Thanks for taking my questions, guys. Appreciate it. You wanted to ask, I appreciate that you left the guidance ranges the same for your key metrics to account for a range of macro outcomes, but with another quarter of data points and conversations with customers, do you feel any differently about the probability of the low end versus the high end there?

Let me look at, like we said in our prepared remarks, Matt, today We see a solid macro environment out there for our customers. Oil prices have remained in a very good range for these customers. The utilities industry continues to execute on what are capex budgets resulting from investments approved for them by local governments and other type of entities. And as we said, it's only chemicals, especially European companies where we're seeing a degradation of their performance around revenue growth and margin. But we've also seen that sort of situation before where these customers also decide to invest more in technology to drive greater efficiencies to try to overcome the margin degradation. Overall today, we feel like the macro environment has remained and will remain through the remainder of this calendar year. And so far, what we've heard anecdotally is that budgets will still be solid for calendar year 2023. The refining industry, if anything, continues to improve their performance. If you look at the results announced by some of the independent refiners here in the U.S., incredible results. So overall, we feel good about the outlook as of today.

And then on the increased focus on energy security and your expectation to benefit from that, is that something you're already seeing play out in your business, or is that something that will take some time to materialize? Thanks.

I think some of that is already playing out through final investment decisions around some of the LNG facilities that are going to be built to increase LNG production and then export out of the U.S. into other parts of the world. If you follow Qatar, as a country, they issue significant or they sign significant agreements with some of the major international oil companies for share production agreements to increase their gas production as well. That all eventually flows through our customers, starting with the EMCs and eventually facilities that are running that they will have a chance to optimize their operations and improve their reliability. And eventually, we also hope to be getting them excited about deploying some of the microgrid technology capabilities from OSI. So overall, you know, we just see a good environment and one that is driven by multiple factors that are benefiting us. Great.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Mike.

And thank you. And one moment for our next question, please. And our next question comes from Rob Oliver from Baird. Your line is now open.

Hi, Rob. Hi, Antonio. Hi, Chantel. Thank you guys for taking my questions. I'm in a loud spot, so I want to put them both out there and then mute. So, Antonio, just following up on Matt's question, just regarding the macro, appreciate your commentary. It sounds like the only, you know, change or modest change in that from your prepared remarks was around chemicals, where there's some uncertainty there, and you mentioned supply and demand issues and stuff like that. Can you talk a little bit about how that then is factored into that wide range of outcomes, meaning Are you seeing strength in other areas that are potentially making up for that in driving the ACV? And then the second question, which was my follow-up, was just around your comments relative to strength and upstream. Really interesting. And I think you alluded to a combo core-ASP and SSE deal, if I heard that right. And I apologize because the audio wasn't great for me. If so, can you talk a little bit about that? Are those deals happening right now? What the pipeline looks for that and what the kind of increase in deal sizing opportunity looks versus what you saw for core Aspen? Thank you.

Yeah. Well, let me clarify as well regarding the first part of your question, Rob. I mean, chemical companies reported in their second calendar quarter results, meaning the June quarter, record profitability and record revenues. Now what we're seeing here in the September quarter are results that are coming down from that record profitability and record revenue to perhaps a profitability more in line with the historical performance. But nonetheless, it's not what it was back in June. So while we're keeping an eye on these, our chemical business performed well in our Q1 fiscal quarter. It's a change and therefore we're monitoring to see if we detect any behavior change from these customers, but so far so good. If there were to be a deterioration, if there's one, it's something that we have accounted for in that range, as you said. I mean, and what other puts and takes? Well, you said it. We believe that the combination of Aspen Tech Heritage, Aspen Tech's engineering suite with SSE's subsurface science and engineering suite. is a great, great new offering for our customers. Customers get excited about the potential to optimize their operations, both combining the subsurface and above-surface facilities. And this is leading to not only great conversations, but a completely different perspective about the new aspects from these customers. that they want to have with us going forward, which is changing the conversations completely. So we're optimistic that the SEC business could have the potential for other performance in fiscal 23. It's early days, but based on the conversations in this first quarter, again, it's just a degree of optimism.

Great. Thank you guys very much.

Thank you both.

And thank you. And one moment for our next question. And our next question comes from Andrew Obin from Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Hi, guys. Good afternoon. Hi, Andrew. I just want to ask a question about the sort of the InMation acquisition, because I think it's actually very interesting. It goes to the heart of your working closer with Emerson, right? Because I think, I believe Emerson, you know, built their platform based on, you know, sort of data capabilities based on that, right? And you had a competing product. And now you're effectively taking over that sort of rationalizing, I think, the two approaches. Can you just expand on that and just maybe talk about where you see more opportunities to sort of rationalize the approaches between the two companies in terms of technology? Thank you.

Yeah, so, and Andrew, you're exactly right. Emerson was an early investor in Emation. They invested in Emation in 2020, and you're starting to see some of the benefits of the relationship between Emerson and Aspen Technology. Emerson highlighted to us what they thought was the strength of Emation and why we should be interested in Emation. After doing diligence and doing our own assessment of the capabilities that we mentioned, we felt that their technology would be a step change in our capabilities. And now, while we close the transaction, what I can tell you, though, and the rationale for why we think information is so important, the fact is that over the last 12, 18 months, as we engage with customers in person, more and more customers are telling us that now they have all their data in these massive data lakes that are being created by the cloud services companies. They have a real difficulty making sense of all this data, relating this data to each other, and therefore they're asking for help in that regard. And this is exactly what InMation does. InMation brings order to data. It contextualizes data. It creates data relationships. And as such, customers that deploy InMation will be able to then exploit the latent value that exists in the data by, you know, using that data in applications or other use cases, for example, with Aspen Tech's application and settings capabilities. So we're very excited about this. It's going to become the cornerstone of our AIoT business. And now that Aspen Tech owns it, in a way, Emerson has increased its investment in Emation because they own 55% of Aspen technology. The location is now in Aspen Tech, and this is now, you know, the two companies are going to be basically a foundation for our customers going forward. Look, other areas where there will be opportunities, certainly in the control, advanced process control area, historians and other opportunities, but this is all areas that we still have to explore with Emerson. But this is going to be part of that commercial relationship that Emerson has established that also has to be vetted by a related public transactions committee to make sure that it is properly done and an arm's length type relationship. But we're very excited and this is the first step in perhaps many of these types of relationships between the two companies going forward.

Congratulations, and thank you for a great answer. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. And thank you for your question. And one moment for our next question. And our next question comes from Jason Salino from KeyBank Capital. Your line is now open. Hi, Jason.

Hey, Antonio. Hey, Antonio. Hey, Chantel. Good afternoon. Maybe my first one is, You know, I understand that Q1 is typically a lower sequential growth quarter. It's been always like that. Maybe, you know, why did ACV, and particularly the heritage annual spend metric, you know, that's kind of flat, you know, decelerated just a hair, but anything to call out on that?

Let me give you an answer, and then Chantel can certainly pull out So look, Q1s are our lowest growth quarters typically, and that is the case. We're happy with our performance in Q1. Chantelle did highlight in her prepared remarks that we had a transaction in Russia that we had to write off because eventually we didn't meet the requirements under the sanctions. structure that exists or framework that exists with some Russian companies. And that impacted the net growth in ACV that we deliver. But otherwise, it would have been... Great. And then when we think about

acquisitions. So in Nation, it's interesting that that lead came from Emerson and obviously we have Micromind, but how should we think about the pace of your acquisitions going forward and then maybe how you intend to fund them if you do see a pickup? Thanks.

Well, we certainly also want to be as judicious on the M&A front. With regard to how much we're taking on, I consider the first July and August to have been months of a lot of work. It required a lot of, if you will, activation energy to put in place everything that we talked about in the prepared remarks so that we can execute the rest of this fiscal year and beyond. And so I would say we were through the bulk of not only integration board, also sort of the transformation infrastructure that we needed to put in place to be successful going forward with the SSE and OSI. You know, we are patiently waiting for the micromine transaction to close. that's a well-run business. It's been run by private equity for almost four years. High profitability, high growth. So there's little transformation that has to be done there. It's only about immigration. And immigration is a small company. I also believe that if you want to be judicious about M&A, you do acquisitions when they're available, and that availability will dictate our next move from an M&A standpoint. But we're making good progress. We've built an organization that is focused on diligence and integration of acquisitions that is performing incredibly well. So I believe that, you know, we've grown a new muscle in the company around diligence and integration of these acquisitions that we didn't have two years ago. And that is a muscle that, you know, we'll rely on going forward.

Yeah. I think the other thing I would add, Jason, just to kind of give you why we're in a comfortable zone on what the activity we are doing. Each of them has their own flavor to it, their own bespoke-ness. So like Antonio mentioned, the Emerson owners have seven months. We have the integration. We kind of hit the ground running. We have the muscle memory built in with the IMO team that we have. If you look at InMation, it's a horizontal play, more of a tuck-in. And then Micromind is almost like its own standalone business that's running. So I think that the difference in variety of them also complements that it's a doable venture that we went under. That's the way to look at it, Jason, versus all the same and putting strain on the same board who is in the same team in the organization. So I think that's another way to look at it.

Great. No, that's actually quite helpful. Thank you.

And thank you. And one moment for our next question. And our next question comes from Clark Jeffries from KeyBank Capital Market. Your line is now open.

Hello. Thank you for taking the question. You know, first question is, you know, Antonio, How optimistic are you about the profitability and demand environment for the refining industry and maybe specifically LNG? Lots of headlines around reaching kind of peak storage capacity in the EU right now. Any signs that you're seeing in terms of, you know, potential cuts to OpEx budgets? Or do you see the current levels as still elevated enough to facilitate those final investment decisions for those? export facilities or any other business related to LNG that you have.

Yeah, but let me first address LNG, Clark, and then I'll talk about refining. Look, the fact is that when these customers, operators, make final investment decisions, they're making an investment decision for a 20, 30-year timeframe. And the outlook for the use of LNG as a source of energy is So these short-term fluctuations, I don't think they're going to change anything. The fact is that gas is considered a transition fuel for next-year carbon emission ambitions, and the demand profile is there to support that greater investment that's going into the ground to build this asset. So I don't think any of these changes, whether the storage is filled or not in Europe. With respect to refining, the fact is that refiners are feeling very bullish. I had the opportunity to meet over the weekend an individual in the trading function of an independent refining company and I was actually surprised of how optimistic this person felt about their margins going forward because it's only now that jet fuel demand is starting to come back but this individual was also incredibly excited about diesel demand coming back and these are two things that I've been missing over the last 12 months so So, yeah, this individual was not only optimistic about today, but even about the next six to 12 months. So, I think, and it's what we're seeing from refiners, a good, solid, continuous spend on our technologies.

All right. A little bit of technical difficulties there, but a follow-up question is just on The pace of migration for SSE and DGM, I mean, certainly encouraging to see the SSE suite launched and DGM coming in the second half. You know, were those timelines ahead of schedule or roughly what you expected when you set out with guidance and, you know, any incremental confidence you have in the ACV growth in those segments for the rest of the year, either off of benefits to attrition or kind of the net new funnel here?

Yeah, I believe our best R&D organizations in the software industry, and they perform accordingly. So they were ahead of plan on the release of the SSE suite for Windows. I hope they achieve the same feat for the Linux version and the DGM suite, because that would help us with our trajectory. Look, transformations are hard and you have to build momentum into transformations because there's a lot of infrastructure you have to put in place, systems, processes, best practices, organizations. And we've done a lot of that now in the Q1 quarter. I believe we've built momentum and will continue to build momentum in Q2. And that's why in the prepared remarks, we stated that we expect a lot of the transformation benefits to start showing up, to really show up in Q3, Q4. And look, from my own assessment, I do believe that our year will come together beautifully in the Q3, Q4 QSTAR quarters in the first half of next calendar year.

Perfect.

Thank you very much for taking the questions.

Yeah.

Glad to do it. Thank you. And one moment for our next question, please. And our next question comes from Mark Chappelle from Loop Capital. Your line is now open.

Hi, Mark.

Hi, Mark.

Hi. Hi, Antonio. Hi, Chappelle. Antonio, I just want to go back to your comments around the chemical industry and just make sure I understand that correctly. Are you actually seeing usage or buying hesitation from these customers, or are you just raising a few red flags given the recent profit warnings from some of the members of the sector?

Yeah, just to say later, we didn't see any behavior change from chemical customers in Q1. We just want to acknowledge that we're seeing the dynamic, and like I said, They're just coming down from record profitability and revenue in the other report to something more normal, but nonetheless, it's a change, and we just want to highlight that to all of you.

Helpful. Thank you. And then talk a little bit about the APM suite. Maybe just give us a little bit of an update in terms of any new pilots or customer wins that are worth mentioning.

So we keep our updates for APM to the half year. So we do that in the January call. But look, we continue to gain traction. I do think the market has sort of unfrozen from the pandemic period. We're seeing a lot more engagement with customers. We're seeing also bigger deals in the pipeline and more interest. I also think that customers, after two, three years of trying to figure out what everything that they were being told by all these suppliers of technology and ideas, that they're sort of cutting through the noise and focusing on those technologies and capabilities that they think will help. And I'd like to think that in that category.

Great. Thank you.

And thank you. And one moment for our next question. And our next question comes from Arsengi Matovic with Wolf Research. Your line is now open.

Hi, thanks for taking the question. Hi, Antonio. Hi, Chantal. Thanks for taking the question. And so just a few quarters into working with Emerson Software Assets, what are the key impressions and what has maybe surprised you most thus far? Thanks so much.

Well, I'll give you my impression and Chantal can give you hers. Look, first of all, When I first met with a lot of cars on buy, one of my key asks was the OSI business, because I felt they had the potential to truly become a technology leader in the utilities industry. And basically the last four or five months have only corroborated what I thought was the case. They have great technology. Their customers love their technology and what they do for them. And now with the scale of the new Aspen Tech and our channel to market on a global basis, because they're a very North America focused company, we'll be able to accelerate their expansion into international markets. So very excited about that. Look, SSE has been a great pleasant surprise as well. They have unbelievable technology. We're going to be investing in that technology to accelerate some of their innovation. But more importantly, the whole perception of SSE by customers has changed now in their partnership and ownership by Aspen Tech. Again, back to this opportunity to optimize subsurface and above-surface facilities, Aspen Tech's own capabilities in software, and how we can contribute to SSE and SSE's expertise in upstream. And now Aspen Tech being really the only company in the market that can model the entire petroleum supply chain from the rocket. to the corner gas station. It's a very unique capability. I started having meetings with customers immediately after we closed the transaction and I've been so excited about what I'm hearing from these customers. So I'm very optimistic. I love the fact that we own these two businesses and they totally repositioned us and help us reposition sustainability, CCS, geothermal energy, electrification with our own capabilities of inefficiencies and circularity. So a really strong sustainability position I've been holding.

Yeah. I think the things I would only add to what Antonio mentioned, because I agree with those. I would say for the overall, I'm completely energized by the enthusiasm to lean into the synergies that we have together. So I think that's fantastic. I think for the OSI, BGM, I think that the team realizing the tremendous opportunity to digitalize that industry, the transition distribution industry, is very encouraging. I think for the SSD side, having the team jump in with the token suite that's now available for Windows and Linux coming, the ability for that team to take that and run with it in the first quarter was very impressive. So I think those really good data points in the first quarter are very encouraging.

Great. Thank you so much.

And thank you. And I am showing no further questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Antonio Pietri, CEO, for closing remarks.

Thank you, Justin, and thank everyone for joining what is the first earnings call of the new Aspen Tech. We look forward to engaging with all of you on the road here in the next few weeks and months. Thanks.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.