Insight Enterprises, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Insight Enterprises third quarter 2022 operating results conference call. My name is Felicia and I'll be your operator today. Please note there will be a Q&A session at the end of the presentation today. To enter the queue, you must press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host today, James Morgado, Senior Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead.

Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining the Insight Enterprises Earnings Conference Call. Today, we will be discussing the company's operating results for the quarter ended September 30th, 2022. I'm James Morgado, Senior Vice President of Finance and CFO of Insight North America. Joining me is Joyce Mullen, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Glenis Bryan, Chief Financial Officer. If you do not have a copy of the earnings release or the company slide presentation that was posted this morning, and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 8K. You'll find it on our website at insight.com under the Investor Relations section. Today's call, including the question and answer period, is being webcast live and can be accessed via the Investor Relations page of our website at insight.com. An archived copy of this conference call will be available approximately two hours after completion of the call and will remain on our website for a limited time. This conference call and the associated webcast contain time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of today, November 3rd, 2022. This call is the property of Insight Enterprises. Any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the express written consent of Insight Enterprises is strictly prohibited. In today's conference call, we will be referring to non-GAAP financial measures as we discuss the third quarter 2022 financial results. When discussing non-GAAP measures, we will refer to them as adjusted. You'll find a reconciliation of these adjusted measures to our actual GAAP results included in either the press release or the accompanying slide presentation issued earlier today. Also, please note that unless highlighted as constant currency, all amounts and growth rates discussed are in U.S. dollar terms. As a reminder, all forward-looking statements that are made during this conference call are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. These risks are discussed in today's press release and in greater detail in our most recently filed periodic reports and subsequent filings with the SEC. All forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this call, and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement made on this call, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. With that, I will now turn the call over to Joyce. And if you're following along with the slide presentation, we'll begin on slide four. Joyce?

Thank you very much, James. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. It's my pleasure to report that we delivered another quarter of solid results, and despite the economic volatility, the year is shaping up as expected. We had another quarter of double-digit year-over-year gross profit growth, driven by 27% growth in cloud. Our gross margin expanded 90 basis points over the last year to 15.8%. and total gross profit grew 10% year-over-year and 11% on a constant currency basis. Our adjusted earnings from operations of $107 million grew 14% compared to last year and 16% on a constant currency basis. Our adjusted EFO margin expanded by 40 basis points to 4.2%, and we generated operating cash flows of $236 million in the quarter. On October 11th, we hosted an investor day at NASDAQ. and shared our bold and very intentional strategy. We stated our ambition to become the leading solutions integrator, setting the pace and defining a new category in the industry. We do this by bringing together our strength in hardware, software, and services to create solutions that drive business outcomes for our clients and increase value for our shareholders. Our execution of the strategy is focused on four pillars, captivate clients, sell solutions, deliver differentiation, and champion our culture. Let me briefly cover the key points in each pillar. First, captivate clients. This is a people and outcome-focused business. We will drive continued improvement in NPS, our measure of client satisfaction, by delivering exceptional results for them. In addition, our investments in e-commerce and automation will allow our clients to get answers and transact faster via self-service. Second, sell solutions. We are transforming our sales capabilities to improve our team's ability to represent our robust solutions portfolio. We will continue to streamline our account coverage to match skills with client needs and propensity to buy services. And we are redefining our compensation plans to focus on services and solutions. Third, deliver differentiation. This is all about providing innovative, scalable solutions through reusable IT, exceptional technical talent, and our very compelling solutions portfolio. And fourth, champion our culture. This has been a strategic advantage for us, and we will continue to leverage our values of hunger, heart, and harmony to evolve our high-performance culture. We plan to accelerate everything I just mentioned through our intentional M&A strategy focused on strengthening the breadth of our solutions capabilities and opportunistically adding scale. We also shared key performance indicators that we will use to track our performance towards our goals over the next five years, and we will report on these KPIs quarterly. We expect to grow faster than the market, growing cloud and insight core services gross profit even faster, and to drive EBITDA margin to 6.5 to 7%. We believe these ambitious goals are achievable because Insight has been building very specific capabilities in the fastest growing areas of the market and the areas where our clients need the most help. Cloud, data, AI, cyber, edge. Over the past decade, our leaders have the foresight to pull together capabilities through acquisitions and organic investments that position Insight unlike any other company. Insight has been ahead of the curve for many years, and we intend to widen that lead. So let me give you a couple of specific examples of where we've put these strategic pillars into action. When I talk about captivating clients, I mean becoming a partner clients cannot live without because we deliver exceptional value. I'll highlight one client, one of the largest grocery chains in the country. Over the last few years, their industry has gone through significant disruptions, including, of course, the supply chain. As a grocer, they had access to a wealth of data around customer buying patterns and supply chain pricing, and their management had a strategic goal to deliver 50% of their growth from digital sources. Our first task was to gather all their data in a way that, first, allowed them to optimize their decision making, and second, could also be monetized and sold to consumer goods manufacturers. The next task was to put some of that data to work within their stores to create intelligent shelving to alleviate the manually intensive process of changing prices. We created digital pricing, allowing the client to respond in near real time to changes in consumer demand as well as the supply environment. In another aspect of this project, we installed sensors that support sustainability, such as dimming the lights if customers are not in an aisle or adjusting temperatures in the freezer remotely. Our clients' digital transformation did not stop in the grocery aisles. They also have an initiative to introduce health clinics in their stores and reached out to Insight to build their mobile health application, which has transformed how they engage with their customers. As I said earlier, we want to be a partner our clients can't live without. And this is an example of just that. A long-term client we have worked with for over 10 years who turned to us to help solve some of their most critical transformation needs. Delivering differentiated solutions is another pillar of our strategy, and a great example of this pillar in action is a recent cloud migration project we did with one of the largest emergency service providers in the country. This one is all about helping the emergency services team literally save lives. Our client was operating on a legacy data system and wanted to shift to a cloud-based infrastructure. They needed a solution to manage hundreds of millions of pieces of incoming data, such as emergency calls, data from first responders, and GPS tracked equipment. The client wanted a unified view of all incoming data and emergency events with the ability to report and facilitate decision making in real time. We utilized a combination of solutions, including our own IP, a tool called Lens, as well as market-leading technologies, including Databricks and Power BI, to accelerate the project delivery from months to weeks. We developed real-time dashboards that showed the placement of vehicles and personnel using GPS trackers, allowing them to make rapid decisions on resource and equipment deployment. And the results were impressive. We improved the staging of 15,000 vehicles and assets, leading to a two-times faster emergency response time. and improve safety and services for more than 4 million people. Delivering these kinds of results to our clients who are working so hard to support their customers and citizens is why all of us at Insight come to work every day, accelerating transformation to unlock the power of people and technology. Delivering differentiation is about exceptional technical talent, and at Insight we have a global team of more than 5,500 technical experts spanning multiple disciplines. These innovators, Insight architects, developers, and engineers whose skills are defining the future of our company and the successful outcomes for our clients were part of Insight's sixth annual mastery conference. This conference gathers our technical talent and industry leaders from across the globe to discuss best practices and to accelerate digital transformation for modern businesses and organizations. Further showcasing the talent of our team, we were recently named as a visionary in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for software asset management managed services. In fact, Gartner and Forrester have also recognized our technological leadership in Azure migration and modern workplace, in addition to software asset managed services. Our teammates put their hearts and souls into delivering a great client experience. The successful execution of the solutions we offer to our clients cannot be accomplished without the expertise of our teammates. And that's why we're so proud to be recognized by Forbes as one of America's best employers, as the top 25 best workplaces in Europe, and the best place to work for disability inclusion on the Disability Inclusion Index. Before I hand the call over to Glynis, I'd like to summarize. Despite macroeconomic conditions, we continue to deliver on our expectations. We have another solid financial quarter with gross profit growth and continued strength in cloud. At our Investor Day, we outlined our strategy to become the leading solutions integrator by captivating the hearts and minds of our clients, selling solutions given the strength of our portfolio, delivering differentiation through innovative scalable solutions with exceptional talent, and building on insights, strong culture, and values. Now I'll hand the call over to Glynis to review the details of our financial performance. Glynis? Thanks, Joyce. As Joyce mentioned, we are on track to deliver 2022 results as expected. In the third quarter, we had double-digit growth in cloud gross profit, and we expanded gross margin and EFO margin as well as generated cash in the quarter. As we had discussed last quarter, hardware, and particularly devices, slowed during the quarter. With improved supply chain and more normalized demand, our backlog for devices is flushing as expected. Conversely, the supply chain for networking and infrastructure, while improving, still remains extended, and we exited the third quarter with backlog in these areas at an all-time high. Inflation continues to fuel macroeconomic concerns, and interest rates are higher than we've seen in decades. In the third quarter, we recognized interest expense that impacted our adjusted diluted earnings per share by approximately $0.05, related to our interest rates on our ABL facility over prior year. Additionally, certain currencies, particularly the Euro and the British Pound Sterling, continue to depreciate against the dollar. In the third quarter, primarily in the EMEA region, we recognized currency losses that impacted or adjusted diluted earnings per share by approximately five cents, mostly related to the British Pound Sterling. Now moving on to our consolidated results for the third quarter, which can be found in the accompanying earnings presentation starting on slide nine. Net sales in the third quarter were $2.5 billion, up 6% in constant currency, and up 4% in U.S. dollars, compared to a very strong third quarter of 2021. Growth profit of $399 million for the third quarter increased 11% in constant currency and 10% in U.S. dollars, compared to the prior year. Our Insight Corps Services growth profit for the three months ended September 30th was $59 million, up 9% from prior year. Core services, defined as services we deliver and manage on behalf of our clients. Our cloud gross profit for the three months of $82 million grew by 27%. Gross profit was 15.8%, an increase of 90 basis points compared to prior year. Credit gross profit increased 9% year-over-year, driven by growth in sales of software and improved margins on hardware net sales, which expanded with higher margin infrastructure sales and lower device sales. Services growth profit increased 10% year-over-year, driven by growth in inside core services and cloud services. SG&A for the third quarter, SG&A expenses for the third quarter were up 12% year-over-year in constant currency and up 10% in U.S. dollars. As a percentage of net sales, those adjusted SG&A and SG&E on the GAAP basis were 12% versus 11% in the prior year quarter. Adjusted earnings from operations for the third quarter were $107 million, up 16% year-over-year in constant currency, and up 14% in US dollar terms. On the GAAP basis for the third quarter, earnings from operations increased 9% to $90 million. For the third quarter, adjusted EBITDA was $112 million, an increase of 11% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 4.4% of 30 basis points over prior year. For the third quarter, adjusted earnings per share was $1.99, up 8% in constant currency and 6% in U.S. dollar terms year-over-year. As I previously mentioned, this includes the impact of foreign currency, foreign exchange losses, and higher interest rates of approximately 10 cents. On a gap basis for the quarter, diluted earnings per share was $1.58, an increase of 5%. Our consolidated results for trailing 12 months ended September 30th, 2022 are as follows. Net sales were $10.5 billion, up 15%. Gross profit was $1.6 billion, up 14%. Our core services gross profit was $246 million, up 14%. Our cloud gross profit was $312 million, up 23%, and was 19% of consolidated gross profit, up 140 basis points from prior year. Gross margin was 15.3% flat compared to prior year. SG&A expenses were up 11% year-over-year, driven primarily by higher personnel and variable compensation costs. Adjusted earnings from operations were $441 million, up 25%. On a GAAP basis, earnings from operations increased 22% to $393 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $466 million, an increase of 14%, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 4.4%, up 30 basis points. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was $8.61, up 26%. On a GAAP basis for the quarter, diluted earnings per share were $7.22, an increase of 25%. Moving on to results for each of our operating segments and starting with North America, North America had a strong third quarter, with gross profit increasing 12% year-over-year and gross margins at 15.8%, up 110 basis points, driven primarily by changes in product and services mix. Product gross profit increased 13% year-over-year, driven primarily by higher infrastructure and software sales. Services gross profit increased 12% year-over-year, primarily driven by cloud solutions and internet core services. Selling and administrative expenses increased 14% year-over-year, driven by higher personal and variable compensation costs, primarily from higher gross profit, and our investments in solutions and services teammates. Adjusted earnings from operations grew 18% year-over-year to $99 million. Gap earnings from operations grew 11% year-over-year to $82 million. Moving on to EMEA, gross profit grew 9% in constant currency primarily due to increased growth profit from software net sales, inside core services, and software assurance. Adjusted earnings from operations were $5 million, down 8% in constant currency. Gap earnings from operations declined $16 million year-to-year to $4 million. Sorry, 16% year-to-year to $4 million. On to APAC. Growth profit of $15 million increased 21% year-over-year in constant currency, primarily due to higher volume of cloud solutions. This led to adjusted earnings from operations of $4 million in the quarter, up 5% from constant currency. Gap earnings from operations declined 2% year-to-year to $4 million. Moving on to our tax rates, our effective tax rate for the third quarter of 2022 was 25.3%, relatively flat compared to 25.4% in 2021. As we discussed in our second quarter call, the slower growth in hardware in this third quarter versus prior quarters this year, we generated $236 million in cash flow from operations. This reduced the total cash flow used in operations for the first nine months to $206 million, compared to $118 million used in the same period in 2021. As we have highlighted previously, our cash conversion cycle is inverted, meaning we pay our partners on terms shorter and we receive payments from our clients. This allows us to drive more cash flow when hardware growth decelerates, while in periods of hardware growth, more cash is used in our operations. In the first nine months of 2022, the decrease in cash flow from operating activities was primarily driven by growth in hardware net sales and changes in partner mix, including volumes with distributors with early payment terms. In the third quarter of 2022, on a gap basis, our cash conversion cycle was 46 days. up nine days from the third quarter of 2021 as a result of a seven-day increase in DSOs, a 14-day increase in DIOs, partially offset by a two-day increase in DPOs. In 2022, we invested $59 million in capital expenditure related to facility and technology investments. As a reminder, we received $29 million in proceeds from the sale of real estate assets in the prior year. We also used $68 million net of cash and cash equivalent to purchase HANU. We did not have any acquisitions in the prior year. We have $300 million outstanding under our share repurchase authorization. We plan to repurchase approximately $200 million of outstanding shares beginning in the fourth quarter of 2022 under this authorization. At the end of the third quarter, we had a cash balance of $137 million net of which $103 million was resident in our foreign subsidiary. We also had $794 million of debt outstanding, including our senior convertible notes at the end of the quarter, compared to a prior year quarter-end cash balance of $107 million and total debt of $528 million. In the third quarter, our convertible notes did not exceed the market price trigger of $88.82 and were not convertible at the option of the holders. As a result, the put sum amount was reclassified to non-current liabilities. As we think about liquidity, we're exiting the quarter with a leverage position of less than 1.6 times debt to cash flows or EBITDA, well within our comfort level. Under our ABL agreement, our primary compliance covenant is a fixed charge coverage ratio, which includes trillion 12-month EBITDA coverage over capital expenditures, taxes, and cash interest. As of September 30th, we're at 3.7 times the minimum requirement of 1.0 times, and we're confident we can support our capital requirements and liquidity needs. We aggregate Q3 with approximately $1.3 billion of our $1.8 billion capacity available under our ABL facility, and we have ample capacity to fund future growth. Before we move on to guidance, in early October, we shared our 2027 KPIs at our investor day. And going forward, we will report our progress in these categories so you can measure. We will report our results in these categories so you can measure our progress. Our 2027 metrics are, EBITDA margin in the range of 6.5% to 7%, return on invested capital greater than 25%, a cloud gross profit CAGR in the high teens, core gross profit CAGR also in the high teens, adjusted diluted earnings per share CAGR approaching 20% and free cash flow as a preventive adjusted net income greater than 90%. Free cash flow being defined as cash flow from operations minus capital expenditure. As we think about our guidance for the full year of 2022, we expect to deliver low double-digit net sales growth. We're raising the lower end of our range by 10 cents and expect adjusted diluted earnings per share for the full year of 2022 to be between $8.65 and $8.75. The salary consumed, interest expense between $35 to $40 million, an effective tax rate of 25% to 26% for the full year of 2022, capital expenditures of $65 to $70 million, and an average share count for the full year of 35.1 to 35.2 million shares after an estimated partial completion of our planned repurchase under our current authorization. This outlook excludes acquisition-related intangible expenses of approximately $33 million, assumes no acquisition-related or severance restructuring and transformation expenses, and assumes no significant change in our debt instrument. I'll now transfer the call back to Joyce. Thanks, Glynis. In closing, I would like to thank our teammates for their commitment to our clients, partners, and each other. Our clients for trusting Insight to help them with their transformational journeys. Our partners for their continued collaboration and support in delivering innovative solutions to our clients. We have stated our ambition to become the leading solutions integrator, defining a new category in the industry. We have outlined our strategy and we're on our way. We are committed to achieve this ambition and deliver even more value to our clients as they modernize and transform. This concludes my comments and we will now open the line for your questions.