HealthEquity, Inc.

Q4 2021 Earnings Conference Call

3/15/2021

spk15: Good afternoon, and welcome to HealthEquity's fiscal 2021 earnings conference call, 2021 earnings conference call. My name is Richard Putnam. I do investor relations for HealthEquity. And joining me today is John Kessler, president and CEO, Dr. Steve Neelaman, vice chair and founder of the company, Darcy Mott, the company's executive vice president and CFO, Tyson Murdoch, executive vice president and deputy CFO, and Ted Bloomberg, our Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Before I turn the call over to John, I have two important reminders. First, a press release announcing our financial results was issued after the market closed this afternoon. The metrics reported in the press release include the contributions from our wholly-owned subsidiary WageWorks and accounts it administers. Press release also includes definitions of certain non-GAAP financial measures that we will reference today. A copy of today's press release including reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures and comparable GAAP measures and a recording of our webcast can be found at our investor relations website, which is ir.healthequity.com. Second, our comments and responses to your questions today reflect management's view as of today, March 15, 2021, and will contain forward-looking statements as defined by the SEC, including predictions, expectations, estimates, or other information that might be considered forward-looking. There are many important factors relating to our business which could affect the forward-looking statements made today, and these forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties that may cause our actual results to differ materially from the statements made here today. As a result, we caution you against placing undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, and we also encourage you to review the discussion of these factors and other risks that may affect our future results or the market price of our stock that are detailed in our latest annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent periodic reports filed with the SEC. We assume no obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements in light of new information or for future events. And at the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will turn the call over to our operator to provide instructions and to host our Q&A. I'll now turn the call over to our CEO, John Kessler.
spk14: Thank you, Richard. And in deference to my mother's favorite TV show, you are my American Idol. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us this afternoon. Today, we are announcing strong results for health equities fiscal fourth quarter and for the full fiscal 2021, which ended on January 31st. And we're providing guidance for fiscal 22. After briefly touching on our fiscal 21 results, I will, after I do that, Ted will review operations and touch on the recent loom acquisition. Darcy and Tyson will tag team the financial results, details of fiscal 21, and guidance for fiscal 22 based on the results we're reporting today. And Steve is here to join us for Q&A. Fiscal 21 revenue of $734 million is up 38% year over year. And along with adjusted EBITDA of $241 million is both a record due largely to our wage works acquisition last fiscal year. As reported last month, we ended FY21 with 12.8 million total accounts, and our 5.8 million health equity HSA members ended FY21 with 14.3 billion in HSA assets. We were pleased with that growth in results, but we hadn't yet seen how those compared to the market. Devonier, our scorekeeper of sorts, reported a January addendum to its 2020 year-end report, that estimates market-wide growth of 6% year-over-year in HSAs compared to our 11% organic growth and 22% market-wide HSA asset growth compared to our 26% organic HSA asset growth. Note the organic numbers exclude losses from the wage works acquisition and migration, but either way, those are good. We're beating the market, and that's what we promised to do. We continue to hold number one market share of HSAs, with 19%, and we're in second place in HSA assets at 16%. Now let's look forward. While the pandemic remains with us and could result in conditions we are not anticipating, the health equity team is committed to beating fiscal 2021 results that I've just reviewed, demonstrating the strategic value of our total solution strategy. Last month, we talked about headwinds felt in fiscal 21 that might be turning into tailwinds for fiscal 22. And Ted, in addition to touching on our sales results, which, Ted will touch on our sales results, which are an example of that, we think, so far this year. But we're also starting to see other tailwind evidence as well. For example, we've seen a reversal in bond yields, as indicated by the 10-year Treasury moving from you know, around 0.9% at the start of January this year to above 1.5% this week. While treasury yields are not directly related to yields that our depository partners provide, there's a high long-term correlation, particularly between five- and ten-year treasuries and five-year jumbo CDs. With our HSA cash assets already placed for fiscal 22, we don't expect that we'll see much of an impact for this year's yields but we think a steepening yield curve does bode well for next year and beyond. We're also seeing more opportunities in M&A, and we think we're well-positioned to opportunistically attract both portfolio acquisitions and to expand our capabilities to serve our partners, our clients, and our members. For example, we announced the acquisition of Loom last week. Loom is a SaaS-based technology company that provides a commuter solution beyond monthly passives. and that employers are looking for as they need help returning their teams to work safely. Loon's flexible platform supports tailored policy and incentives for the post-pandemic hybrid workplace and helps employers to thoughtfully approach green initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of community. We welcome our new teammates, as Ted will say, our luminaries in Seattle, and we're excited about how they will help our partners, clients, and members return to work. And finally, from a headwinds perspective, the government passed the third stimulus bill in the last week or so that, among other benefits, provides for COBRA subsidies for six months and increases, more precisely doubles, the dependent care FSA spending limits for the 21 calendar year. Both of these provide relief to families who have been impacted by the pandemic and its effect on access to health care. and also indicate that legislators and regulators are listening when we talk about opportunities to do the right thing. I'll now turn the call over to Ted to review operations. Ted.
spk06: Thanks, John. Hello, everybody. We are very pleased with the operating results that we delivered in Q4 and for all of fiscal 21, especially given the very challenging circumstances COVID presented. We were able to make tremendous progress on integrating wage works, and we found efficiencies that allowed us to raise our synergy target from $50 million to $80 million, with 60 million of run rate synergies achieved to the end of FY21. We onshore member phone calls. We completed 13 migrations with a heavy focus on HSA. We saw that our member and client experience scores improve. We unified our brand. released the first version of our integrated platform to strong reviews on both portal and mobile and met our service-level commitments during this year's busy season. There is more work to be done, however. We're targeting another six migrations this year, along with integration work to support our newest acquisition of Loom. We intend to roll out the next iteration of our integrated platform with features that our clients, members, and partners are excited about. As I mentioned in February, our sales results year to date remain ahead of where they were last year. We believe this performance can be attributed to market receptiveness of our total solution, the work we have done building strong distribution partnerships, and the incredible work our onboarding teams did making new clients feel the purple love this December and January. We hope to see this positive trend continue as unemployment bottoms out, Americans get vaccinated, and clients and members return to work and re-engage with their benefits solutions. Speaking of returning to work, let me share a little bit about our newest teammates, or Luminaries, in Seattle. We are so excited to acquire Loom to help us drive our commuter benefit beyond monthly transit passes and help solve real back-to-work challenges for our clients. The post-COVID commute environment will look very different. with employers wanting to deliver flexible benefits and incent employee behaviors to manage tight parking solutions and make better use of alternative transit. Loom can also help companies take basic ESG steps as they have a proven track record of lowering drive-alone rates and reducing car trips. We believe in that mission, and we believe that Loom will fulfill our commitment to continuously innovate our services to meet the evolving needs of our clients large and small. We also see opportunity as legislative and regulatory relief is extended to our members and clients through the passing of a 100% COBRA subsidy that will help Americans stay covered. We will shortly roll out plans to help our clients fulfill their obligations and help our members find the coverage that is right for them. While there is a significant operational undertaking to pull this off, It is our obligation to serve our clients and members in this capacity. There is a lot going on, and I would like to say thank you to our over 3,000 teammates who are working so hard on behalf of our members, clients, and partners to deliver all the work I referenced above in purple fashion in challenging circumstances. Now I will turn it over to Darcy to talk about our results.
spk17: Thank you, Ted. I will review our fourth quarter GAAP and non-GAAP financial results. A reconciliation of GAAP measures to non-GAAP measures is found in today's press release. Our fiscal fourth quarter financial results, as you know, include the operations of WageWorks, which was acquired in August of 2019 and included five months, including the full fourth quarter of fiscal year 2020. Fourth quarter revenue declined 6% as the economic effects of the pandemic impacted each of our three categories. Service revenue declined 9% to $111.3 million, representing 59% of total revenue in the quarter. The decrease is primarily attributable to a 5% decline in CDB accounts at year end, including an over 50% decrease in commuter. While the growth in HSAs helped average total accounts remain flat year over year. Custodial revenue decreased 2 percent to $48.6 million in the fourth quarter, representing 26 percent of revenue in the quarter. The decline was primarily due to a 31 basis point decline in the annualized yield on HSA cash with yield assets, partially offset by year over year growth of 16 percent in average HSA cash with yield and 66 percent growth in average HSA investments with yield. The annualized interest rate yield was 1.97 percent on HSA cash with yield during the fourth quarter this year. This yield is a blended rate for all HSA cash with yield during the quarter. The HSA assets table of today's press release provides additional details. As previously mentioned, we have migrated 97% of the HSA assets to the health equity custodial platform. Interchange revenue declined 5% to $28.3 million, representing 15% of total revenue in the quarter. The interchange revenue decline was primarily due to reduced spend across our platforms in the quarter. Gross profit was $100.9 million compared to $113.7 million in the fourth quarter of last year. Gross margin was 54 percent in the quarter. Operating expenses were $100.8 million, or 54 percent of revenue, including amortization of acquired intangible assets and merger integration expenses, which together represented 17 percent of revenue. Income from operations was $0.1 million compared to $14.5 million in the prior year. Net income for the fourth quarter was $5.4 million or 7 cents per share on a GAAP EPS basis compared to a loss of 0.2 million or a loss of 0 cents per share in the prior year. Our non-GAAP net income was $33.3 million for the quarter compared to $28.4 million a year ago, a 17 percent increase. Non-GAAP net income per share was 42 cents per share compared to 40 cents per share last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter decreased 8 percent to $56.6 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 30 percent while operating through the impact of COVID. For the full fiscal year, revenue was $733.6 million, resulting in gross profit of $415.3 million, or a gross profit margin of 57 percent. Income from operations was $35.7 million and adjusted EBITDA was $240.8 million. Turning to the balance sheet, as of January 31st, 2021, we had $329 million of cash and cash equivalents with $987 million of debt outstanding net of issuance costs with no outstanding amounts drawn on our line of credit. The cash balance, of course, does not include the rough roughly $460 million of additional cash from our equity offering a few weeks ago, nor the outflow of funds used in the Loom acquisition. Since I will be turning the CFO reins over to Tyson in a couple of weeks, I will turn the time over to him to provide the guidance for his first fiscal year of responsibility.
spk01: Thanks, Darcy. It's been a pleasure serving with Darcy, and we're all glad he's sticking around to help us with other areas of the company going forward. Darcy makes everyone better when he's around. Okay, based on where we ended fiscal 21 and our current view of the economic environment now expected for fiscal 22, we expect to generate revenue for fiscal 22 in a range between $750 million and $760 million. We expect our non-GAAP net income to be between $115 million and $119 million. resulting in non-GAAP included net income between $1.37 and $1.42 per share based upon an estimated 84 million shares outstanding for the year. We expect health equities adjusted EBITDA to be between $240 and $246 million for fiscal 22. Today's guidance includes our most recent estimate of service, custodial, and interchange revenue based on early fiscal 22 results. as well as modest revenue expectations from the acquisition of Bloom, and COBRA uptake based on the recent stimulus bill weighted towards the latter part of the year. Guidance also assumes a yield on HSA cash with a yield of approximately 175 basis points, as well as the effect of approximately $60 million of achieved run rate synergies Ted discussed, which will be fully realized in fiscal 22. The outlook for fiscal 22 assumes a projected statutory income tax rate of approximately 25%. As we've done in recent reporting periods, our full year guidance includes a detailed reconciliation of GAAP to the non-GAAP metrics provided in the earnings release, and a definition of all such items is included at the end of the earnings release. In addition, while the amortization of acquired intangibles is being excluded from non-GAAP net income, the revenue generated from those acquired intangible assets is not excluded. With that, I'll turn the call back over to John for some closing remarks. Thanks.
spk14: Thanks, Tyson. Well done. Plus one to Ted's thanks to the team for a very special year under very unique circumstances. And also to Tyson's thanks to my friend Darcy Mott. None of you would ever have heard of health equity, and purple culture certainly would not be as strong and stable. without Darcy and his 14 years of service to our team and our mission. When Darcy joined the small team of less than 100 team members here, HealthEquity had a handful of health plan relationships, 20,000 HSA members, and all of 20 million of HSA assets. He's remarkable in the truest sense of the word. His wisdom and financial talents turned the company profitable, prepared it for our IPO, grew it to where we stand here. But Darcy is a complicated guy, outwardly mild mannered, drives the fastest car of the lot. That's true. He's a finance guy through and through, but he's stepping out of the CFO role and signing up to continue to work just as hard at HealthEquity's mission, but for less money. Well, I don't know, but I think we've got a great bargain and All of us truly look forward to continuing to work with Darcy for as long as we can keep him. Thank you, my friend. With that, let's open the call up to questions. Operator.
spk10: Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press the star and then the number one key on your touchtone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. Again, to ask a question, please press star one. And we have a question from Greg Peters of Raymond James. Your line is open.
spk03: Well, good afternoon, everyone. And Darcy, I guess you're going to be giving up your responsibilities. But I guess remember the Next best round of golf is right around the corner. I think it's Ben Hogan that said the most important shot in golf is the next one. And it looks like you're going to have a lot of opportunities going forward. Um, so let's, let's look, I guess I'm only allowed to ask one question in one part. So, uh, with that, um, I know you raised the capital, uh, you've, you've announced the one transaction. We've been hearing in the marketplace about increased interest from others who are well-capitalized, well-funded, about interest in doing M&A in the space. So the question for you, John, and your management team is, do you feel like the multiples for deals is moving up, and do you feel like the competition for these deals has increased to the point where maybe some of them will not be as attractive as they once might have been?
spk14: Well, I guess I would say the way we look at – let me back up to this. Our plan with regard to the capital that we've raised and the capital of the business generated, by the way, really is to deploy from an M&A perspective in two areas. The first is – and I think the primary area of deployment is around competitive and portfolio-type acquisitions, and I'll come back to that. The second is in areas where we can expand our capability. Lume's an example of that. I think your question is kind of about the first. I do think that there are lots of people who are interested in our market, and that should say something to those who think that, well, to the extent anyone thinks there won't be growth here, that's strong evidence in the opposite direction. That having said, our competitive advantage when we look at the transactions that work for us, Greg, is that I think nobody knows how – no one knows this business better than us, and no one knows how to generate synergies, broadly speaking, better than us. And we've done it time and time and time again from portfolio acquisitions, and on the cost side certainly have already done it with wage works if you think about it as in part of product extension type acquisition. So I think we have some real advantages in terms of deploying capital for return. I don't doubt that there are other people who will deploy capital. What I think our investors are interested in is when we deploy it, you know, are we deploying it to generate a high return for them? And I have every confidence that we're going to identify what we have identified and we will successfully pursue transaction activity that helps us grow, take advantage of our scale, et cetera, and do what we do well to generate return for you. So that's kind of how I feel about it. Thanks for the answer. Thank you, sir.
spk10: And your next question is from Robert Jones of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
spk12: Great. Thank you. Hey, how are you, John? Thanks for taking the question. I guess the question is really just hoping to learn a little bit more about Loom. You know, I guess just within that, you know, a little bit more around the type of offering specifically, you know, the customer overlap, cross-sell opportunity, and then anything you'd be willing to share on just how the economic model is set up with the offering would be helpful. But, yeah, just in general, a little bit more on Loom would be great.
spk14: Ted, why don't I throw this one to you? Is that all right?
spk06: That's great. We were doing rock, paper, scissors for who would get the loom question and I won. Thanks for the question. We are enormously excited about loom. Here's the way we think about it operationally and then I'll turn it back over to John to see if he has anything to add strategically. Our commuter business is by and large monthly transit passes today, transit passes and parking passes. When we studied the landscape throughout the last year, as we watched what happened to the commuter business during COVID, we realized that the needs that our critical employers and our, you know, most, you know, kind of challenging and thoughtful business partners had was for a more holistic solution, right? Someone that could help them expand the commuter benefit to include daily parking, to include alternative modes of transportation, to include making sure their junior analysts at Goldman Sachs get home safely if they stay late at night with a connected Uber or Lyft, right? All of those types of benefits was sort of where the next generation commuter benefit was heading for the most discerning clients. And so then we started going out in the marketplace to figure out whether it made more sense for us to build those incremental capabilities or to acquire them, and we found this amazing company that was like-minded about what the demands were in the marketplace, had already signed up some of the most sort of forward-thinking and critically discerning enterprises in the U.S. as their clients, and had worked with those clients to build a model that would work. And we just felt really good that Loom was where the puck was going on Commuter. And that's sort of, you know, kind of how we intend to deploy it. We do think there are cross-sell opportunities, but, you know, really just kind of broadening the commuter value proposition within our own commuter base. You know, there's no league tables like there are with HSA, but we believe we're the largest or near the largest commuter provider in the U.S., and we think this is, you know, we have an opportunity to take this awesome, you know, kind of incremental solution to those partners and help them kind of in a post-COVID commute environment. So that's sort of the operational answer. John, if you want to add, touch on any of the strategic stuff on top.
spk14: No, I think that was well put. I'm not sure I would add much to that except to say, you know, Rob, that we felt like, well, I guess two things. One is we felt like, you know, over the next, you know, really the remainder of this year, it's almost as though we are, from a member's perspective, you know, reintroducing our commuter business. Now, members still have accounts and so forth, and there's not much work for them to do, but they're busy. And at the same time, we know that our customers are reintroducing, for lack of a better term, members to work. And it's funny to think about this way, but for a lot of people, that's a big challenge. And from our perspective, the combination of Loom and our existing commuter benefits product really is the best way to do that. It's the best way to reintroduce people to work from a commuting perspective. There are lots of other issues out there, but on this one, we have the best solution, and we have the ability to take that to thousands and thousands of clients over time. And that's a really attractive thing and will serve us well broadly. So when I talked at the beginning of the conversation about tailwinds to headwinds, No, the other way around. Headwinds to tailwinds, I always forget. You know, commuter is something where it will be great to have tailwinds again. And I think Loom really lets us make the most of those tailwinds.
spk12: Makes sense. Thanks.
spk10: And your next question is from George Hill of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
spk05: Hey, good afternoon, guys, and thanks for taking the question. I guess, John, what I wanted to ask you is that should we think of loom as the right playbook for deals that might happen in the healthcare space? And I might even ask you what you think of as the loom of healthcare and talk a little bit more about where you see the M&A white space on the healthcare side of the business.
spk14: Well, first of all, if I've got a loom of healthcare, I'm not going to announce it here. So I'm not going to answer that one. But you knew I was going to say that. But I do think that there are elements of this that are very attractive from a playbook perspective. Loom is not a large company. It is not bringing with it a bunch of sort of legacy revenue, et cetera. And it's a company that has had to kind of, let's say, I'm going to say live or die, but the right answer probably is innovate. uh, or, or not ever get off the ground, um, faced with some very, very new challenges. And so they've had to come up with some very, very new solutions. And, um, so I, I, from, from a kind of a, the right way to bring in new talent and the right way to bring in, um, uh, if we're going to do, you know, build a buy type things as we add capabilities on the help side, um, it's exactly how I'd want to do it. I think in general, um, The white space on healthcare, in my mind, continues to be around the consumer's role in the financial side of the healthcare. So basically, we have not yet cracked the code on helping consumers truly understand everything that's going on with their healthcare finance and making that a process that people that is not stress-causing. And so while that may not be the most interesting thing if you're a managed care organization or the most interesting thing if you're a healthcare provider or the most interesting thing if you're a pharma, it's really interesting to us. And I think that reflects the fact that we occupy a very unique position within healthcare and one that we will continue to try and use to drive change in the system. So I guess that's a long way to say Yes, I think it's the kind of playbook we hope to follow in health care. And, yes, I do think there are opportunities in health care, and they're likely to be centered around the continued effort that we have to connect health and wealth to assure that consumers, when consumers understand the money side, they just make the system better. We see that over and over and over and over again. And so where there's more opportunity there, we're going to be ready to do it.
spk05: I'll say, John, if I can have a quick follow-up, I guess one thing I would ask about is the selling season that's upcoming. We've started to hear from some benefits consultants, while there wasn't a lot of movement in calendar 20, calendar 21 seems to be all for the bang. Would love any up-to-the-minute comments you'd be willing to provide around kind of sale and selling season and RFPs.
spk14: Well, this is going to make Greg and Marco very jealous because they didn't get a second thing, so I'm not sure I can do that at Part B, but But, Ted, if you wouldn't mind maybe commenting on what we're seeing kind of from a sales funnel perspective and also, you know, in our channel checks with the consultants and so forth.
spk06: Sure. And I think what we find echoes your channel check as well, right, which is we've seen one of the reasons why, as I've stated, our results year-to-date are ahead of last year-to-date is in part because some of those slipped RFPs became closed sales in the early part of this year. So I would say our findings are pretty consistent with what you're hearing from your benefits consultant connections, and we certainly hope it continues. But thus far, we do feel a little wind at our back early from a volume perspective.
spk05: That's helpful. I appreciate it. And, John, I guess technically you didn't answer the first one, so maybe that's my first question. You didn't answer the second one either. I did.
spk14: See, Greg, it's okay. It's okay, Greg. I didn't just let you. Well put, George.
spk10: And your next question is from Sandy Truist. Securities, your line is open.
spk13: Thanks very much. And Darcy, I know you're still going to be hanging around, but I'm glad. It's been great working with you. Just wanted to share that. I think this is one question, John. I think this is one question, and I'm not sure if it goes to Darcy or if it goes to you, John, or maybe to Tyson, but I'm going to try to wrap it up. When I think about sort of the puts and takes around impacts to cash flow over the next couple of years outside of like where rates go and what accounts you win, I feel, I think about one, you've got, I think it's 26 million a year projections of merger integration costs. I'm pretty sure that ends at the end of this year. Then you've got commuter is still down 50%. You know, I think we all probably don't ever believe it's going all the way back up, but could you remind us where commuter sort of was and sort of to think about what that lift looks like? And then Tyson, you talked about COBRA being a lift at the end of this year. Is there a potentiality that maybe going into next year, the year out, that that drops off? I'm just trying to think about those puts and takes, and as we think about sort of a baseline normalized EBITDA or cash flow number, I'm just thinking about those three buckets. So I think that's one question, but that's my best attempt at bringing it into one.
spk14: Well done. Tyson?
spk01: Sure. That's a pretty wholesale question. I'll start with the one that was just a number in there. I mean, we've talked about, and I think we even talked about in the last call, that Commuter was a 75-day run rate revenue business. product and it was profitable and still profitable even being down over 50%. So that's kind of the answer to that point of the question. And you talked about essentially these all-column tailwinds that approve EBITDA or cash flow metric. You know, certainly in the long term, as John pointed out and we continue to point out, the rates are one of the largest drivers of that. And so even with things like a COBRA lift, middle of this, you know, middle to latter part of this year around, you know, what we need to do as far as cover work on notifications and some of the fees we may get from that. People are able to use that effectively. That will kind of be within the year, but the rate is really the thing that's going to drive that long-term margin. You know, also, you know, the other thing I'd say is just the interchange and sort of normalizing that. I talked about that before as well. We're starting to, you know, see that normalized. It's, you know, It's still, you know, not quite like pre-COVID levels, and we still have this Q1 sort of normalized quarter to get through before the comps sort of change relative to those pandemic quarters. And I guess the last thing I would say is I've never come out of a pandemic, so I'm not sure, you know, what the timing will be as far as how everything kind of comes back together. But I certainly like seeing some of those rate indicators go up because that means a lot to our business given the amount of assets that we're able to generate in this last season.
spk13: Great. And that $26 million, just to confirm, that's the last of the merger integration expenses?
spk01: Yeah. Sorry, that was the other point there. Yes, that is. And we're committed that we'll be on budget and that will be gone relative to the wage works acquisition at the end of the year. And Ted's on track to make that happen operationally, and we're tracking it. Okay, great. Thanks.
spk10: And your next question is from Donald Hooker of KeyBank. Your line is open.
spk08: Great. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Yeah, so I guess maybe just to follow up there on Sandy's question on cash flow, just when you look into next year, just to hone our models here, obviously the balance sheet is much better now with the equity offering. But just to hone our models, in terms of CapEx, I'll just kind of keep it to that. What is kind of a sort of assumptions around CapEx has been, you know, obviously it's only one year with the two companies together. And are there any investments you need to make into Loom that might elevate that in the near term?
spk14: Yeah, so I'll comment in generally and then throw to Tyson to talk through kind of what we're expecting from a CapEx perspective this year. The things that are driving CapEx for us are primarily around the investment that Ted and his team are overseeing in the conversion of our platform to a true API-driven microservices environment. The value of doing that, well, let me back up. The way we're paying for it in the sense of generating sort of bankable return, for lack of a better phrase, is that it's making... our development activity occur faster and with less hours and therefore less costs. And you can see that to some extent in what we've released over the last quarter with PLUM sort of V1 or round one, I guess. And the fact that we've committed to over a dozen new release items over the course of this year, that's what that's about. And that will be something that will pay dividends for us for a long time forward, though, not just in that cost savings, but also when we do transactions. And Loom is an example. While I think we will have a little bit of spend on Loom in the short term, we think that we can get this done a lot more effectively today than we could have gotten it done two years ago. And That'll be a great, assuming we can do it, that'll be a great lesson and it'll impact what else we're willing to do because we can integrate more effectively with what we already have. So that's really the bulk of where our investment is going beyond areas like security and so forth that we all know kind of continue to have to be, we have to be keeping up with the big boys no matter how you want to define big boys on that one. Tyson, you want to speak a little bit to directionally where we see CapEx this year relative to last?
spk01: Yeah, I mean, it has gone up a little bit, and it's going to be, you know, we'll say 10% of revenue approximately in that area. And all the things that John outlined are true. I mean, we're going to – and those investments in technology are really the thing that's driving that. And so we've got our foot on the gas there to make those improvements and also tracking what we think the returns, you know,
spk10: be as well to that so excited to get that done and uh and really upgrade our technology great that's all i had to be well darcy thank you thank you thank you and your next question is from stephanie davis of svb leering your line is open thank you guys for taking my question hey hey darcy obviously a very well-deserved move but you will be so very very missed
spk11: But since you're transitioning from that CFO seat, that means I also get to harass Tyson about my guidance questions. So not a bad time to move. He's getting used to it. From the press release, it sounds like you guys are executing well on wage energies. There's 20 million more coming this year, but profitability did look a little bit soft in the guidance. Is this a function of the expectations for a strong selling season, which was talked about in a pair of remarks? would that cost kind of offsetting the wage savings? Is it some of the investments you've talked about before, or is there really anything else to call out? Maybe some conservatism in the back to work assumptions?
spk01: Yeah, I think, yeah, sure. And Stephanie, where I would go with this is it's really, you go back to the rates, right? And the, and the, and where we generate big part of our profitability is when those rates start to improve. And of course you now see, you know, what Darcy announced, we're close to 200 bps for the quarter, but, you know, it'll be 175 bps for the annual period. And you have seen that, you know, as you track closely, you've seen that come down over the course of the decline in interest rates. And so when I think about that, that's really one of the things that, you know, tempers that margin improvement. Now, you know, think a commuter comeback, if we get some of that, you know, And those dollars back up through that $75 million, I think Loom helps us potentially do that. That's not included in there because I just haven't seen that happen. And it's something that I, you know, if I were to think it's going to happen, it would maybe be in the latter half of the year. And when I see some movement there, we'll, of course, talk about that. And that's, that's been a, you know, that's one of the things that's tempered that a lot. I mean, loom won't really add anything from a margin perspective. It's a, you know, startup with minimal revenue and, and really it's reinvesting that back into the business. And so you don't, you don't get much there. And so those are kind of the top, you know, three things that I would think really is the reason why we're, we're still, we're kind of where we're at. And, and, you know, I think if we had a good end of the year and, And being consistent with that and what we're trying to push is pretty good and gives us a good base to come off of.
spk11: All right, understood. And then one quick follow-up, John. I need to hear how you definitively know that Darcy drives the fastest car in the lot. Very important.
spk14: Thank you. He's taken me in it. And let's put it this way. If it's not the fastest car in the lot, the fastest car is very well hid. I'm pretty sure that everyone in, and by the way, it's not the first, right? This is, he used to have the fastest one and he got a faster one. So, you know, we're talking, but for those who are concerned about the environment, I believe it's a hybrid of some sort. So, so it's not one of them Teslas. It's a, some kind of other car that's a hybrid of some sort. So he's, he's running fast, but he's running clean. Yeah. Thank you. He cars up Provo Canyon. You know how it is. He's a dragster. What can I tell you?
spk11: Just living on the wild side. Yeah.
spk14: There may be bigger cars, but I don't think there are faster ones. Operator, did we lose you?
spk10: Your next question is from David Larson. of BTIG. Your line is open.
spk04: Hi, Mr. Larson. Congratulations. Hi. Congratulations on a good quarter. Can you talk a little bit about how Loom is priced? I mean, does the revenue coming from Loom depend on people actually commuting to work, or is it more of a subscription sort of model? And let's say half of your customers were to purchase Loom what sort of revenue run rate could you get to, let's say, five years from now? Could it bring you up to $75 million five years from now? Just any color around that would be very helpful. Thanks.
spk14: I'll give this one a shot and then ask Ted to add to it. Maybe he'll add the coherent part. Loom's primary business is a subscription-type business, so more So it's somewhat similar to the core of COBRA, where it's dependent on the number of team members or employees you have as opposed to who's driving or what have you. And that's because the solution has something to offer for kind of everybody. So one item, for example, that Ted hasn't touched on or didn't touch on in his conversation is the opportunity to help employers to the extent that we see, for example, work from home, uh, cost reimbursement mandates coming out. Um, you know, loom has some capabilities in that area. Um, that again, sort of like the theory is it's, you know, uh, being there for every commute or no commute at all. And so, um, uh, that's how, how loom is priced. And so it does provide in the broader commuter business, some stability related to variability in commuting. Um, I don't know that I have done the calculation you asked for. And so I would not want to do it on the fly. But I will say that what I think is – I'll say one other thing, which is I think what's particularly interesting also about Loom is that because we – is that it can make a meaningful contribution to the return of this commuter business. I mean, one thing I might have said in response to Greg's question is, One thing I like about this transaction from the perspective of our shareholders is I am absolutely certain that it will yield, or as certain as I can be, that it will yield material return expressed in terms of IRR or return on invested capital or what have you for our shareholders. I'm certain of that. You know, whether the percentage will be big and the numbers won't is to be seen, but the IRR is going to work here. And I think one reason for that, as your comment suggests, is that there are a lot of clients who really never had to think about these issues or never thought about commuter benefits because most of their people were either driving solo or driving in carpools or whatever. But now with return to work, some of the examples Ted offered, there are things to think about. Then with ESG and all of that, I mean, nobody, I don't think anyone wants the outcome of the pandemic to be that we all abandon alternative commute modes and everyone drives to work alone. So, you know, there's that too. I think about, you know, for example, Loom has a solution for closed loop carpool reservations so that if, let's say you have a staggered work schedule and you want to do carpooling only with people on your work schedule, that's the kind of thing that you can do with Loom. And so, I think those are really neat. They're the kinds of things that folks who are out there and hungry and really focused do, and we're happy to bring that solution to a much larger audience.
spk04: Okay, great. Thanks very much. And then just one more quick one. With the synergies from wage, you're going to be at, I think, $80 million by the end of fiscal 2022. So should we expect to see a pretty sizable increase in adjusted EBITDA in fiscal 23, assuming that, you know, there's some improvement in yield and at a minimum commuter doesn't get worse? Because it's like there's very modest adjusted EBITDA growth from 21 to 22.
spk14: I mean, we're not giving guidance here, but I would sure hope so. Okay.
spk04: All right. Thanks very much.
spk10: And your next question is from Mark Markin of Baird. Your line is open.
spk02: Hey, good afternoon. And Darcy, congratulations. It's been truly a pleasure, you know, working with you since the IPO. And you will be missed, but it's been fantastic and hope we can stay in contact.
spk16: Thank you, Mark. Thank you.
spk02: I mean, what you've done has been remarkable. And I thought John said it. incredibly well, but it really is something. Questions on Loom? I'm just wondering, you know, as you're thinking about it, first of all, how much of a contribution will it make for this year in any sort of parameters that you can give us in terms of a revenue expectation, an EBIT, EBITDA margin expectation, just any sort of framing of just the current size? I know it's small. And then strategically, what I'm wondering is, you know, to what extent is there an opportunity to sell it as a standalone, being additive to your existing client base, and to what extent will it end up helping you in RFPs from a commuter perspective, but also to greater differentiate all of your CDB clients you know, offerings on a holistic manner where you're you're really showing, hey, we're really being forward thinking in terms of, you know, being comprehensive and holistic with regards to our solutions and thinking about areas that are going to be important in the future.
spk14: Ted, why don't you take the second half of that question and then and then we'll come back to Tyson for the first
spk06: Sure, thanks. We have high hopes for Loom's ability to, A, be added to our existing many thousands of commuter clients. Not all of them. There will be certain types of clients that will lend themselves more to a more comprehensive solution like Loom is offering, but that's definitely one of our deal hypotheses, and we're pretty excited about it. And then, you know, I would kind of concur with your implied assessment, which is that in the RFP process, as we're, you know, deepening our distribution relationships, being able to offer something as part of a benefits package that really no one else can, we think will help, right? Exactly how much it will help an HSA sale, we don't know, right? But we think it will get us into more conversations. It will make our RFP responses stand out a little bit. Our preliminary conversations with both clients and prospective clients have definitely been a lot of sort of I'm intrigued, tell me more, which has been excited, and we're just kind of getting warmed up. The Loom team, they are exceptional. They're thoughtful, go-to-market people, and they have some great ideas, and we have some great ideas, and we're looking forward to putting it together, and we feel pretty optimistic about it. I'll turn it over to Tyson to answer your economic question.
spk01: Mark, it's small and it doesn't drive margin, but there's upside, right? I think if you go take a look at their website and you see what kind of clients and partnerships they have, you know there's a good market check there on who they're working with. I think there's a nice opportunity there to support us kind of clawing back through getting the commuter business back through because I think it's going to sync up nicely with that because of the way the cards integrate and those type of things. But it's small from a revenue perspective to begin with.
spk14: I'll say one other thing about this and not to pile on here, but Sawyer and the team are accomplished guys. They've been – well, I'm using the term guys colloquially. It's an accomplished team. Sawyer and his team did real stuff at Microsoft and then really saw this area as an area that they felt passionate about. And what's really underneath it is a passion for engagement and using the employee relationship as a way to drive engagement. So they're actually underneath the covers. A lot of talent commonalities and a lot of sort of philosophical commonalities among our teams, you know, the focus on engagement, the use of technology to drive that engagement, the opportunity to do well while doing good. And so it really felt like a good fit and as sort of the first of this type of transaction that we've ever done as sort of this public company, like something we could do that would work for investors and that would give us a lot of room to grow and explore and be successful together. Terrific. Thank you.
spk10: And your next question is from Sean Todge of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
spk09: Thanks. Good afternoon. Hi, everyone. So, Tyson, you said a couple of times now rates are one of the bigger kind of long-term swing factors for margins. And, John, you said rates accurately noted the rise in tenures that we've seen. You said yields probably don't impact you much this year, but maybe could, should future years. Can you just walk us through how quick and to what extent do these moves typically flow through to you all? I know it takes some time to affect the instruments you're benchmarking. I guess how often are you placing new cash? Is it only annually? And then you ladder it in three, four years, so every year you've got some rolling off, too, that's being replaced. But I guess maybe just a quick re-education just given how maybe for the first time in a while there's something to be encouraged about on the kind of the rate outlook.
spk14: Darcy, why don't you take this one?
spk17: Sure. I'd be happy to. We generally ladder things and most of our placements occur in the kind of the December-January timeframe. So when Tyson guided that you know, our rate for 175, it's because most of the money that we anticipate this year is already, you know, we have depository agreements in place to take care of that. Because of the wage migration this past year, we did enter into some newer contracts more mid-year than we normally would. And so when those start rolling off in the future, there might be a little bit more mid-year movement. But on the other hand, we're always looking for opportunities of getting yield enhancement. And so some of these contracts, you know, have some ability to, you know, move between contracts because they have mins and maxes, et cetera. So if the rate environment starts increasing, that would be helpful. But as we said on the call, most of that benefit will come to next year based on placement that we do in December and January. Does that make sense?
spk09: Yes, that makes sense. Thank you.
spk10: And your next question is from Alan Lutz of Bank of America. Your line is open.
spk07: Thanks for taking the questions. I guess to follow up there, you know, the two-year Treasury is only at about 15 basis points, and the five-year has backed up, I think, is kind of what you were mentioning at the top of the call. to almost a percent or about 85 basis points. So there's a big spread between the two-year and the five-year. I guess when you kind of talk about the optimism that you had, is that just based off of the Treasury curve movement being a potential precursor to improvements in CDs, or are you actually having more positive conversations with depository institutions about where you could place rates?
spk14: Yeah, well, this is a little bit of a quiet period in terms of our conversations because, not using that term in its legal sense, but because we've done a lot of placement over the course of December and January. But I will say during that period, as we got into January, things did firm up quite a bit. And so what we're talking about now is really To some extent, we're previewing with our now, I believe it's 20 partners, what our needs are going to be for next year. So there's been a ton of interest in that. I think that interest is bounded primarily by questions on the part of different depository partners about what loan volume is going to be and in particular where and what duration that loan volume is going to come from. So I can't say there aren't questions, but I do think that the conversations certainly relative to what we were seeing when we were having the same conversations last March and April, that was tough. This is better. So obviously a ways to go this year, but The fact that we're talking about reflation and that we're seeing evidence of reflation, that we've seen about 50% of the jobs lost have come back, are all good things broadly for this company and for our opportunity on placement.
spk07: Okay, great. And then the revenue increase, about $10 million. You know, since we spoke a few weeks ago, I guess, is there any way you can break out sort of where that improvement is coming from? Is it related to COBRA, from Loom, more confidence on the reopening? Just if you could kind of bucket that for us. Thanks.
spk14: Yeah, Tyson, I don't think we're going to bucket it, but I don't think we're going to break it out too much. But, Tyson, why don't you give some color on it?
spk01: Yeah, I mean, where we started on this is we promised we'd grow top-line growth if we had the opportunity here post-COVID. And because we raised it, we thought we did, right? And I think you did mention the things that we're talking about. I mean, there's certainly still the Q4 challenges that we faced. Revenue was still down every category to Q4. So we're still in these COVID quarters. We still have that Q1. It will be sort of in a similar vein here. Um, you know, that's right. We get, well, you know, we'll work through Cobra. We're going to work, you know, over the last part of the year, we're going to get something from that. Um, certainly loom provides a little bit, like I said before, though, it's small, but I think the upside on that is there's potential. And, um, and it's not something that we necessarily, you know, have to wait for for season, like the rest of our business. So maybe again, in the latter half of the year, we, we, we get upside from that. Um, and then I think that, um, I think overall, again, it's sort of that, you know, mixing that bag up with, you know, we're thinking about, you know, things like, you know, an increase in commuter maybe in the last part of the year, a little bit, right? But not very much. We just, you know, you see some of the, I'm watching the news like everybody else and looking forward to getting vaccinated. And, you know, maybe that changes the way people move around a little bit relative to what we've been seeing, which just, you know, hasn't moved at this point. So it is those things. Got it, thank you.
spk10: There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference over to John for closing remarks.
spk14: Yeah, thanks everyone again for joining us. Please, I know things are getting better, but let's all just stay safe and sane. One more comment on Darcy. You know, Darcy is a Dodgers fan, and while I'm not sure I'm as keen on bleeding blue as purple, I would note this, which is that I believe it's the case that the highest batting percentage among any Dodger, Brooklyn or Los Angeles, is Lee Willie Keeler. And I think 352, maybe 356. So Darcy is not only an inch or two taller than Willie Keeler, but beyond that – he is leaving this role, I believe, I may be wrong about this, but I believe he's batting a thousand in terms of meeting your earnings expectations on a quarterly basis. And as I suggested in my earlier remarks, that kind of stability and ability to look around corners and to make promises that you can deliver on is something that is Darcy's unique and strong contribution to our culture. And though He will not be in this role. That part of his legacy is going – I want to assure you that that part of his legacy will be part of purple culture going forward to the extent that anyone on this call has anything to say about it. So we look forward to meeting and beating in a quarter and a quarter after that and a quarter after that. And with that, thank you guys very much.
spk16: Thank you, John.
spk14: That was very kind.
spk11: Bye-bye, everybody.
spk10: And this concludes today's conference.
spk01: Thank you, everyone.
Disclaimer

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