This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.
spk03: Welcome to the IBEX second quarter full year 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. To note, there is also an accompanying... earnings deck presentation available on the IBEX Investor Relations website at investors.ibex.co. I will now turn this conference over to your host, Ms. Brinley Johnson with the Blue Shirt Group.
spk01: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today.
spk02: Before we begin, I want to remind you that matters discussed on today's call may include forward-looking statements related to our operating performance, financial goals, and business outlook, which are based on management's current beliefs and assumptions. Please note that these forward-looking statements reflect our opinions as of the date of this call, and we undertake no obligation to revise this information as a result of new developments which may occur. Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expected and described today. For a more detailed description of our risk factors, please review our annual report on Form 20F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on October 14th, 2021. With that, I'll turn it over to Bob Decket, CEO.
spk04: Thank you, Brinley. Good afternoon, everyone. And thank you all for joining us today as we discuss our second quarter fiscal year 2022 results. Carl and I are excited to be presenting to you today. We are now 18 months since our IPO of August 2020. We have made significant progress on our strategic initiatives over this time, despite the challenges from the pandemic. We have built a business that has evolved and is accelerating meaningfully in terms of growth and new client wins. We have improved our client diversification, which was a risk at the time of the IPO and is now an advantage. At the same time, our growth continues to dominate in our high-margin regions. Importantly, we continue to transform our business into a digital-first business with so many great client brands, referred to as BPO 2.0 over the last two years. We believe FY22 will be a watershed year for IBEX with many key milestones within sight. And our forward trajectory is even more exciting. As we shared with you last quarter, we were confident that our business was positioned to accelerate growth into Q2 and beyond. and this is exactly what we delivered in the second quarter with record results. Revenues increased approximately 13 percent year-over-year, representing a combined two-year growth of 23 percent and resulting in our highest revenue quarter ever of 132.2 million. LTM for revenue and EBITDA are 458 million and 61.8 million, respectively, resulting in a 7.1 percent organic growth and 13.5 percent EBITDA margin. The confidence we have in our business is allowing us to raise revenue guidance. However, the underlying narrative is even more compelling. In my six years at the helm, the growth engine we have built here is the strongest ever. Our revenue generated from new clients won since FY16, who are hyper-growth companies primarily adopting our omni-channel capabilities integrated with Wavex technologies and analytics, grew by an impressive 57% during the quarter, up from 37% a year ago and 34% last quarter. This group of customers now make up 70% of our total company revenues. Our legacy three clients, which at the time of our IPO were 44% of revenue, have stabilized as revenues for these clients were approximately flat sequentially Importantly, these clients now represent less than 20% of revenue, and we expect to continue to reduce that percentage going forward as the rest of our business accelerates. The new logo engine continues to perform at a blistering rate. We closed three new logos for the quarter for a total of 12 year-to-date across key verticals. For added perspective, in FY20, we sold 12.5 million of in-year revenue from new clients. Last year, we won 23 new clients, which billed 30 million of in-year revenue. This year, we expect to generate 50 million of in-year revenue from our new clients, with more important opportunities slated in the back half of the year. As a reminder, our growth model is designed to deploy a land and expand approach with our clients, and this is what we are achieving. We begin our client partnerships by delivering exceptional CX results. and then showcase the additional insights and partnership solutions that WaveX and our business intelligence tools can offer. This subsequently allows us to expand into new services with these clients and increase our wallet share with them over time. On average, the revenues in year two of our client relationships are between 2.5X to 3.5X year one revenues with continued strong growth into year three. Therefore, in FY23, we expect to drive over 100 million in revenue from this new cohort of clients with continued growth into FY24. While I'm very excited about our performance and outlook, I'm particularly proud of the robust and rapid diversification of our client base. We've added exceptional high-growth brands, and today our top five clients represent just 41% of our business versus approximately 58% at the time of our IPO. And we now have nearly 50 clients with more than $1 million in annual revenue. Our largest client now represents just 12% of revenue. This level of diversification is now a true competitive advantage for IBEX and is exceptional for a BPO provider of any size. This incredible diversification extends into the strategic industry verticals we're winning with in the market. Our fintech and health tech verticals are now approximately 20% of our business combined. We started our initiative of targeting these markets in FY20, and we now project these to be more than $100 million in organic revenue this fiscal year. This will represent an increase of greater than 65% for the year. And furthering the success of the quarter, we continue to have 100% client retention, a testimony to our value proposition and our ability to deliver for our clients. The structural design of our business that includes powerful growth and accelerated demand with our digital-first clients, high win rates of our sales pipeline, well-diversified client mix Limited telco exposure and industry-leading client retention gives us great visibility and confidence in our business. As such, we expect growth to continue to accelerate in the second half of the year beyond our Q2 growth rate of 13%. Our geographical makeup is equally impressive. we added approximately 2,500 new seats in the corridor, with the majority of those in near-shore and the Philippines markets. Since our IPO, we have added over 6,500 seats in these markets. Today, 88% of our seats are in our high-margin regions, which have grown at a 22% CAGR since FY16. The majority of our footprint today is operating in a socially distanced model, complemented with work at home. As we move forward to a world where we resume to a pre-COVID operating model, we are in a great position to significantly grow with limited CapEx investments. This will have a very positive impact on our margins and free cash flow. While our revenue growth was strong, and margins improved sequentially from 10.6 percent. Adjusted EBITDA was flat on a year-over-year comparison. This was driven primarily by costs associated with ramping our new business, which includes agent training and investments in overhead. We expect our overall margins to improve significantly in the second half of the year as our ramp costs stabilize. During the quarter, we also had a broadening of our ownership structure. TRGI, our majority shareholder, has approved the transfer of a portion of its IBEX shares to some of its shareholders. This has reduced TRGI's direct stake in IBEX from 62% to 35% and will allow us to meaningfully broaden our investor base over time. We welcome the transition of the holdings in IBEX of these new shareholders from an indirect state to become indirect IBEX shareholders. Our net cash position on our balance sheet continues to offer us tremendous amount of flexibility when opportunities present themselves regarding capital allocation. This is demonstrated by our recent share repurchase announcement that we've made and the recent insider buying across members of our executive leadership team and the board, including myself. Regarding our share repurchase, our board has authorized us to repurchase up to $20 million of our common stock. We just recently began purchasing shares. And while we, of course, look forward to a re-rating of our stock price, The internal rate of return today for our shareholders is very attractive. One of the proudest moments this quarter came amidst a terrible tragedy our team endured as Typhoon Odette ripped through the island of Bohol in the Philippines, causing significant damage to our employees and their families' homes and to the community at large. Our team responded immediately. and with such incredible care. Very quickly, IBEX employees donated over 100,000 U.S. dollars, which the company matched for a total of over $200,000, to provide for essential needs like food and water and for the rebuilding of the homes of our team members. We are also using a portion of the funds for community outreach programs to go along with the many hours our employees have volunteered to help the community get back on its feet. Our business and our employees demonstrated an incredible resilience as they remained operational throughout the storm, and they continue to remain operational and perform at very high levels. While we wish we would never know of tragedies like this again, it is amazing to watch the IBEX culture at work. As we continue to provide compelling solutions for our clients, we also develop meaningful and impactful initiatives for our employees and the communities we operate in. In particular, our diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that are part of our corporate ESG strategy have helped our employees develop critical skills necessary for elevating into new roles with added responsibility and decision-making. Since our IPO, we have launched the Women in IBEX, where we have created multiple programs to support and advance women in the workplace. Keynote female speakers from our top clients have provided time and resources to this program, as well as participating in our global mentorship initiative where leaders are matched with college graduates from underserved countries all over the world. Our commitment to the development of our workforce is second to none, and we are energized, by the advancements we are enabling in the lives of our employees around the globe. We are also proud of the diversity we have built at IBEX, from our board of directors, through our leadership, and through our agent population. In closing, we are confident in the business we have built and its outlook. We are a key partner for many great brands in the industry. We continue to add many new hyper growth clients to our base in our strategic verticals. The growth we have is predominantly in our high margin geographies and services. We expect our revenue growth and EBITDA margins to accelerate. As such, we are increasing our guidance for revenue growth to 10 to 12 percent from 7 to 9 percent previously, while maintaining our previous EBITDA guidance of 69 to 71 million. I will now turn the call over to Carl. Carl?
spk07: Thank you, Bob, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining the call today. We are excited about our progress and the results we delivered in Q2. Our business is accelerating as a result of our success with clients in the digital-first marketplace, as well as in our strategic fintech and health tech verticals. Our performance highlights the level of differentiation that we have with our services, including our WaveX technologies. The momentum we are building will have a positive effect on our long-term growth and margin trajectory. In my discussions of financial results, References to revenue and net income are on an IFRS basis, while the adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted earnings per share are on a non-GAAP basis. Reconciliations of our IFRS to non-GAAP measures are included in the tables attached to our earnings press release. Second quarter revenue increased 12.8% to $132.2 million compared to $117.2 million in the prior year quarter and 21.7% sequentially. We continue to experience high growth in our clients' one since fiscal year 16. This cohort grew by 57% over the prior year quarter and now represents 70% of our total revenue. The growth in revenue this quarter was offset by significant decreases related to our legacy top three clients. While these clients are down 38% from the prior year quarter, they are flat sequentially and now represent less than 20% or approximately $26 million in quarterly revenue. We expect this group's revenue base to remain around this level going forward and that it will decrease as a percent of revenue over time. Net income in the second quarter was $8.5 million compared to $2.5 million in the same period last year. The increase in net income was primarily driven by a $6.3 million decrease in the fair value measurement related to the warrant liability offset by an increase of $1.7 million in depreciation as we continue to invest in the growth of the business. We expect our annual effective tax rate to be in the high single digits on a normalized basis, excluding the effect of the warrant fair value adjustment. This excludes a one-time deferred tax benefit of approximately $4 million, which is expected to be realized in the second half of our fiscal year, reflecting the benefits of our ongoing tax planning efforts as discussed last quarter. On a non-GAAP basis, adjusted net income was $5.2 million versus $6.1 million in the prior year quarter, and adjusted fully diluted earnings per share was $0.27 versus $0.33 in the prior year quarter. The decrease in adjusted net income and adjusted fully diluted earnings per share was primarily driven by an increase in depreciation as mentioned previously. Adjusted EBITDA. for the second quarter of fiscal year 2022 was $17.8 million, or 13.5 percent of revenue, compared to $18 million, or 15.3 percent of revenue, in the prior year quarter. The adjusted EBITDA margin decrease compared to the prior year quarter was primarily driven by the costs associated with ramping our business, along with continuing investment in overhead to accommodate our growth. Sequentially, Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 290 basis points over the first quarter. Switching to our verticals, our FinTech and HealthTech verticals continue to grow in response to our aggressive investments two years ago, increasing significantly to 19.5% in the second quarter, up from 11% in the second quarter of fiscal year 21. Travel and logistics increased to 13.2% of revenues, compared to 8.4% in the prior year quarter, driven by new economy clients. Retailing commerce now represents 23.7% of revenue, compared to 21.7% in the prior year quarter, as we continue to win in the digital-first marketplace. Our exposure to the telecommunications vertical decreased to 17.2% of revenue, compared to 29.5% a year ago. In summary, we have made great progress on our revenue diversification goals. Total capital expenditures were $11.8 million, or 8.9% of revenue in the second quarter of fiscal year 22, versus $6.4 million, or 5.4% of revenue last year. We added over 2,500 new seats, primarily in our high-margin, near-shore, and offshore locations during the quarter. Net cash generated from operations was $3.4 million for the quarter, compared to $4.3 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 21, impacted by higher working capital usage offset by lower cash taxes. ESOs were 62 days for the second quarter, an increase of 14 days from the same period last year, and decreased one day sequentially. The year-over-year increase was driven by revenue growth timing of collections, and one of our larger clients reverting to standard payment terms in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021. Non-GAAP free cash flow decreased to negative $8.4 million from negative $2.1 million in the prior year. The decrease in free cash flow was primarily driven by an increase in capital expenditures of $11.8 million as compared to $6.4 million from last year. Our balance sheet remained strong, and we ended the quarter with $51.5 million in cash, total borrowings of $37.7 million, and lease liabilities of $89.4 million, compared to cash of $57.8 million, total borrowings of $28.5 million, and lease liabilities of $84 million as of June 2021. With continued focus on our strategic verticals, winning digital-first marketplace new clients, and technology investments to expand our customized WaveX solutions, we believe we are well-positioned for continued future growth. With that, Bob and I will now take questions. Operator, please open the line.
spk03: As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Toby Sommer from Truist Securities. Your line is now open.
spk09: Thank you. I was wondering if you could give us sort of a map out over the next several quarters how the margins improve. I'm focusing it on two vectors, the growth that you've done in seats as well as kind of the added expenses associated with remote work at the same time you're adding sort of that duplicative nature and how that, could you bridge us to the more profitable profile?
spk04: Thank you. Sure, Toby, and hey, thanks for joining and appreciate the question. So when I think about our business, we, I think, have done a really, really good job of structurally building this business you know, for double-digit growth and, you know, continued trajectory on our EBITDA margin. And, you know, but based on when certain clients, which come in clusters sometimes like it did recently for us, you know, you might get some fluctuations in your margins in quarter. But when I think more longer term on this, I feel like we've built this business that, you know, top-line growth can be in that, you know, let's say upper single digits, you know, all the way up into, you know, to the mid-teens. And I also believe that, you know, as we said even a little while back, our midterm trajectory was, you know, north of 15% EBITDA. I think we're structurally pretty close to that. And, you know, so I think that trajectory really looks like that, you know, out over the next several quarters.
spk09: And... You indicated that CapEx, you have some visibility into that perhaps diminishing from this elevated level. How do you sort of get comfort in that view?
spk04: Sure. Toby, our CapEx over the last year year driven by social distancing of our centers has been at a higher rate than historically has been. And so, you know, we believe that there is, you know, at some point when we resume back to pre-pandemic operating models or close to that, we believe that we have a nice 18-month to two-year trajectory of a lot lower CapEx rates but then if we step back and think maybe just a little bit longer term, we're a growth company. And so, you know, I, I kind of feel like, um, that our CapEx will be, you know, in the overall to grow this business would be in about a, you know, all in at about, I don't know, maybe about a 5%, you know, 5% range. Um, And, you know, that will allow us to, you know, allow us to grow that. But we're also excited about that, you know, that kind of next 24 months of, you know, limited CapEx and really, you know, as our centers fill back up again in a non-social distance environment. And as said in my remarks, I think at that point we'll be generating, you know, it will be a very, you know, very good effect from a free cash flow standpoint for us.
spk09: Thanks. If I could squeeze in one more. Could we get your perspective on wages and inflation, both from a pricing perspective as you interface with customers, as well as internal costs and, you know, elevated rates of turnover as a result potentially? And I know you have multiple geographies to draw from in terms of your answer.
spk04: Sure. So very, very pertinent question today, in today's environment. And when you think about our business, you know, we are growing outside the US. And certainly in a market like the US, you know, wages are, you know, certainly under, you know, under pressure. Our, how I look at this is our agent wages, which are really, really the important element. They range between, 50 to 70% of call it like our total cost to operate. So, you know, depending upon the geo. And so we've engaged around that. We'll we've engaged with clients and have had success with clients with sharing where the wages are going and consequently getting price adjustments, you know, price increases from them. We are in a lot of our contracts. We've, negotiated COLA or, you know, cost of living adjustments into the contracts. So while we feel like maybe we're not 100% covered right now, we've done a really good job as a company, you know, kind of covering this ourselves that way or a lot of it, you know, we'll continue to have, you know, further discussions with, you know, with our current clients. And like I said, a lot of our new clients we've brought on board have, you know, have cost adjustments built into it.
spk09: Thank you very much.
spk03: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Dave Koning from Baird. Your line is now open.
spk06: Yeah. Hey, guys. Great revenue momentum.
spk04: Yeah. Thanks, Dave. Yeah, we're really excited about that. We knew we had, with all the new logos that we've been winning and just the growth inside the base, that we have a lot of good things going on here. Thanks.
spk06: Yeah, it's great to see, and I guess, yeah, my first question kind of relates to that. It looked like when we put kind of some of the numbers you gave around the top three, it looked like those were down $5 million, but that means the non-top three were actually up sequentially $28 million. I mean, that's a massive amount. Was there anything non-recurring in there, or is it all pretty steady kind of going forward, or how should we think of all that?
spk04: Sure. What we're most excited about is, you know, there's, you know, well, if we, you know, our business that we do have seasonal from the retail, you know, around the holidays. And so there is a little bit of that, but the lion's share of our growth is go forward, sustainable. It's even, you know, what I'll say growth into, you know, historical would be growth into Q3 and Q4 for us. So we're, we're excited about that trajectory and, You know, Dave, one data point I'll just share with you, our, you know, historically our Q1 to Q2 growth is, you know, kind of in that 7, 8, 9%, you know, and us being, you know, in the 20s, you know, 22% for us was really, you know, really excited, and that's all the new stuff that we brought on board that we were, you know, shared last quarter.
spk06: That's great to see. And then two just kind of quick ones, I'll just give them together. The wage inflation, is there any lag impact from the revenue, like the COLA that you can get? Like does this year have more wage inflation than next year, get kind of that pickup in revenue that you can charge? And then when do those new shares that are being distributed, when do those hit the market? And then I'm good, thank you. Okay, sure.
spk04: So, you know, there is a little bit of a lag, but we got out in front of this with some of our you know, key clients, our key embedded base clients. And so, you know, I guess I would say from 25 years of being in this industry, I really like how our partnership with our clients have allowed us to get out in front of this. So, you know, feel very, you know, very good about that. And then, you know, obviously with a lot of the new clients that we've brought on board just recently, the cost structures we built are pretty, you know, pretty current. And so, you know, I, I just liked our position as we go forward, obviously though, you know, there will be risk, uh, you know, there will be, you know, some pressure, but again, our, our U S businesses, you know, is a much smaller percentage and that's where it's, you know, immediate now. And we expect probably it'll, we'll have some pressures in some of the other markets as we look out. But, you know, I, I think we're, uh, You know, we've done a good job on that. And then, Dave, to the second part of your question, the new shares, so, you know, as customary, you know, there is a lockup period as those shares got distributed to the limited partners. That's, I believe, about a six, not about, it's a six-month lockup. So, you know, I'd look at, you know, that to occur later in the calendar year. Gotcha. Thanks, guys.
spk03: Thank you. Our next question comes in the line of Arvind Ramnani from Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.
spk05: Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. You know, the first question I had was around kind of the exposure you have to certain industries. You know, I think one company that stands out is Lyft. and I'm sure the others, but just with a lot of vaccinations and as we look into 2022, some of the COVID impact behind us, do you expect to see an uptick in transaction-based volume from a certain segment of your customers? And is it material enough to to kind of first to think about it, or is it, or you feel it's various counterbalance where it doesn't really matter?
spk04: Arvind, great, great question. I think your last part of that was probably most appropriate. I think there's some counter, you know, counterbalance as well. So, and there are some sub segments that we think the transactions will start moving up, you know, but, but, but I think those get offset. and we'll, you know, kind of get offset with some counterbalances. And I'll just share with you, in the retail and e-commerce world with the supply chain issues and things like that, you know, the number of, you know, the amount of, you know, overall transactions, I think they're, you know, are a little bit off from where they were a year ago. And I think that's directly, you know, to the supply chain. So, When I think of those issues, those are probably out there for a little while and probably even a little while past, you know, past, let's say if we get to a post-COVID world. And so, you know, I think those are counterbalances to some of the upsides.
spk05: Okay. Yeah, that's helpful. And, you know, just in terms of the kind of the share repurchases that you have as well as the share repurchases? Certainly, there's a word of confidence in going and buying stock at these levels, but do you worry about liquidity as well? Just given the market cap of the stock, $20 million is you know, almost like 10% of float, right? Like, so that's a big, big sort of repurchase. Just how do you think of think of kind of the balance on float?
spk04: Great question. So first and foremost, the compelling IRR with where we're trading is, candidly, it's too hard to pass up, just to be very clear on that, because we have so much confidence in our business. Um, but they're back to, like we talked just prior counterbalances, right? So a counterbalance is the, what I believe is what TRG has done, uh, you know, of the distribution. And so, you know, if you look out over, you know, over, you know, beyond six months, I think our float will be in a much better environment as, you know, as, uh, as some of that becomes available. And so we think it's such a great investment from our standpoint. We could not do that from a wise use of our capital. And again, we're comparing that versus, for us right now, investing into further build-out centers that we've been doing and doing that aggressively. And those have very short ROIs. the share buyback was even more compelling.
spk05: Yeah, it makes sense. And just a point of clarification, December 8th, you had announced this $20 million. Is this the same $20 or is it like $20 plus $20? I just want to clarify that.
spk04: Yeah, thank you for the clarifying. That is the same $20. you know, the same, the same 20, by the time we, you know, this got implemented at all, it just kicked off in literally in, uh, you know, in this quarter.
spk05: Okay. Perfect. Yeah. That's all the questions I had. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks.
spk03: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Rothwolf from RBC capital markets. Your line is now open.
spk08: Yes. Good evening. Uh, couple of questions around the revenue growth cadence. How should we think about differences between the third and fourth quarter with the new contracts ramping up? And as part of that, when does the sort of legacy business stop being a headwind to year-on-year revenue growth?
spk04: Great question, and I appreciate that. And so, look, you know, as we've guided, and if, you know, we've obviously, you know, have what I think is really good visibility to our business, you know, and if you do the mathematics of everything, you know, that I like the this q3 q4 will follow a different curve than what we've had in the past, which is, you know, a, you know, sequential, sequential downturn, we have a lot of confidence, you know, in in that, Matthew. And so And I apologize if you could part B of your question, if you could just touch on that again. I apologize.
spk08: When did the legacy client stop being a headwind? Do you run your revenue growth?
spk04: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we look at that business as basically sequentially flat right now. And so... you know, but it did have several quarters of sequential downturn. So, you know, when I think of full comparisons by Q1 of this FY23, that'll be flat. But literally, with it being 20% of our, less than 20% of our business, and now kind of in this flat sequential, we don't see that that really moving our, you know, really factoring into many headwinds into our business. So you will see the true growth engine of our business as we move into Q3, Q4, and then certainly as we hit the ground running in FY23. Okay.
spk08: And a final accounting question, if I can sneak one in. The revaluation on the Amazon warrants, that's solely tied to your stock price performance as opposed to any change in the relationship with Amazon, correct?
spk04: Correct. And Carl, why don't, you know, if you want, maybe you could add a little color on that.
spk07: Sure, sure. It's related to you do a mark-to-market on the liability at the end of each quarter, which is impacted by the stock price. So if the stock price goes up, which would have been consistent with Q2 of last year, you saw a positive impact. And if it goes down like Q2 of this year, fiscal year 22, it was a negative to the income statement. But it's solely on the mark-to-market. that you're doing on the liability. Nothing with the overall relationship with Amazon. Okay, thank you.
spk03: Thank you. At this time, I'm showing no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.
spk04: Gigi, thanks. So, look, I thank you all for attending. We are, as you can tell, very excited about the trajectory of our business. What we built here is we feel very proud about, and we look forward to seeing you all next quarter as we share the exciting journey here. So thank you all, and have a good night.
spk03: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer