Black Knight, Inc.

8%. Diluted EPS was $0.35, an increase of 3% reflecting the higher depreciation amortization resulting from purchase accounting, particularly related to the acquisition of Optimal Blue. Net earnings margin was 13% compared to 17.2%. Turning to slide four, I'll now discuss our adjusted results for the first quarter. First quarter adjusted revenues were $350 million, an increase of 20% compared to the first quarter last year. Organic revenue growth was 9%. Adjusted EBITDA was $174 million, an increase of 24%. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 49.8%, an increase of 160 basis points. Adjusted net earnings were $87.5 million, an increase of 26%, and adjusted EPS was 56 cents, an increase of 19%. Turning now to slide five, I'll discuss our software solutions segment results. First quarter revenues for the software solution segment increased 21 percent to $296 million, and organic revenue growth was 9 percent. Our servicing software solutions revenues increased 4 percent. The growth was driven primarily by new clients and higher usage-based revenues on MSP, partially offset by the transitory headwind in specialty servicing resulting from the foreclosure moratorium. In origination software solutions, revenues increased 90 percent, driven primarily by the acquisition of Optimal Blue, new clients, higher consulting revenues, and higher origination volumes. First quarter EBITDA increased 23 percent to $171 million, and EBITDA margin was 57.8 percent, an increase of 80 basis points. Turning to slide six, first quarter revenues for the data and analytics segment increased 17 percent to $54 million, primarily driven by strong sales execution across nearly all business lines, higher origination volumes, and revenue from an acquired business. Organic revenue growth was 11 percent. EBITDA increased 35 percent to $20 million. EBITDA margin was 36.5 percent, an increase of 480 basis points. Adjusting EBITDA for the corporate segment in the first quarter was a loss of $17 million compared to $14 million in the prior year quarter. Turning to slide seven, I'll walk through our debt structure. At the end of March, we had cash and cash equivalents of $45 million. Total debt principal as of March 31st was $2,282,000,000. We had revolver capacity of $883 million, and our leverage ratio was 3.3 times on a net basis. On March 10th, we completed the refinancing of our senior secured credit facility. We replaced our Term Loan A and revolving credit facilities with a new $1.15 billion Term Loan A facility and an expanded $1 billion revolving credit facility. Both facilities have a five-year tenor. During the first quarter, we repurchased 621,000 shares of our common stock for $47 million, or an average of $75.19 per share. As of March 31st, we had approximately 9.4 million shares remaining under our share repurchase authorization. Before I walk through our outlook for 2021, I'll go through the details of our investment in Dun & Bradstreet shares. Turning to slide eight, We own 54.8 million D&B shares. The market value of this investment was $1,306,000,000 based on the $23.81 closing price of D&B on March 31st. Our invested capital is $493,000,000. That puts our unrealized pre-tax gain at $813,000,000 and our unrealized after-tax gain at $608,000,000. Turning now to slide nine. I'll walk through our outlook for the full year 2021, which we have raised from the guidance we gave you in February, based on a strong first quarter and robust outlook. It also reflects the effect of the next spring acquisition, which is effectively pre-revenue, but will reduce adjusted EBITDA this year due to its early stage nature. For the year, GAAP revenues and adjusted revenues are expected to be in the range of $1,407,000,000 to $1,428,000,000. which represents raising the bottom end of the range by $13 million and the top end of the range by $6 million. This represents reported growth of approximately 14 to 15 percent and organic growth of approximately 6 percent to 8 percent. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $695 million to $711 million, which represents raising the bottom end of the range by $6 million and maintaining the top of the range in light of the $3 million headwind from next spring that was not included in our original outlook. Adjusted EPS is expected to be in the range of $2.16 to $2.24, which represents raising the bottom end of the range by 5 cents and the top end of the range by 2 cents. This is considering a nearly 2 cent headwind from next spring. Additional modeling details underlying our outlook are as follows. We continue to plan for incremental foreclosure revenues to be delayed until at least the first quarter of 2022. We expect no incremental headwinds outside of the $11 million headwind we experienced in the first quarter. With the origination volume outperformance in the first quarter, we continue to expect a full year headwind of approximately $12 million compared to 2020 with a higher than planned decline in the remaining quarters of the year. In addition, We expect interest expense of approximately $82 million to $85 million, depreciation and amortization expense of $143 million to $147 million, excluding the net incremental depreciation and amortization resulting from purchase accounting. Earnings attributable to non-controlling interest are approximately $20 million to $22 million. This relates to the portion of optimal blue that we don't own. An adjusted effective tax rate of approximately 23% to 24%. and full-year weighted average shares outstanding approximately 156 million. Although we do not provide quarterly guidance, I want to provide you with some color as to how we expect to progress through the year. We expect to see sequential revenue growth over the course of the year from new client revenue partially offset by origination volume headwinds that increase sequentially as the year progresses. And we expect operating expenses in the second quarter to step up from the first quarter by a couple of percentage points, as we bring on next spring and staff our professional services teams due to strong demand we are seeing. We then expect a small sequential increase from Q2 to Q3, and then another couple of percentage points increase from the third quarter to the fourth quarter due to typical seasonality. That concludes my remarks. I'll now turn the call over to the operator for Q&A.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question comes from John with Stevens, Inc. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning, and congrats on a great start to the year.

Thanks, John. Good morning.

morning um so the the seven new empower client wins in the quarter that was great i mean you guys i think you said you picked up 10 all of last year so that's a good start um to what extent you guys can maybe just provide a little bit of color on the just maybe the types of clients you're adding and then what you think drove the more rapid kind of rate of wins well john i think you know from a

the type of client, you know, it's the mid-tier, mid-sized client, you know, maybe around 2,500 loans, you know, on an annual basis, you know, plus or minus, you know, kind of in that range. And I think that the reason is really the game plan that we've been executing on here has really been focused on on our clients and what would resonate with them. We've got great capabilities. We've been innovating very aggressively. We've been integrating very aggressively. and very focused on them. So I think those are really the reasons. When you kind of listen to, as I walk you through the use case, that longer use case, my prepared remarks, it was really showing, you know, kind of front to back how it all works, how it sticks and hangs together. And I think it drives value. Integration is always, like I said, you know, we see it in every industry that integration wins. And what's exciting here for our clients is there's no sacrifice that they have to make on any of the components of their integrated bundle. Each of them are best of breeds, right? I know we're talking about Empower right now on the origination side, but also on our servicing side, it's best in class. Our data and analytics is best in class. Our secondary marketing technology is best in class. So we're bringing best in class capability together and integrating it. And I just think that more than anything, is really what's resonating with our clients and with the market right now.

Okay, that's helpful. And then maybe one more bigger picture question for you, Anthony. As you sit here today relative to kind of the due diligence process around Optimal Blue, what are the one or two things you'd point to that are maybe positive surprises for you guys? Maybe it's around the integration, the pace of integration work, or maybe it's around the synergies, but anything you can maybe call out that would be particular?

Well, I'll tell you the thing I'm really pleased about how the teams have worked together. You know, everyone understands the mission. It's a common mission. And I'll tell you during, you know, diligence and, you know, Kirk went and visited them. I think I was on the job two months and three years ago, I just passed my three year anniversary. And, you know, I think two months in, went and visited with them prior to this being actionable. And, you know, both Kirk and I walked away really impressed, you know, with Scott and the team and, you know, what they had going on, the culture that they had. It felt very similar to what we have at Black Knight, and we commented on that. And so I'm not surprised, but I'm pleased that it's exactly what we thought it would be. And, you know, the team's obviously off to a great start. As part of Black Knight, they know they're equal members of the Black Knight family, like those who have been here, like, you know, Joe, our president, has been here over 33 years. We're all equals here. We're a family here. And we're just excited with the amount of crosshairs that we've got going on, you know, between, you know, the OB teams and, you know, the legacy Black Knight teams. And so, again, not a surprise, but just more about how pleased I am with how it's all coming together and working.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you, guys.

Thanks, John.

The next question comes from Ryan with KBW. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Just following up on Optimal Blue, I was wondering if you can give us a bit more detail or KPIs for a progress report around that integration and cross-selling momentum to date. Is the cross-selling progressing as you hoped? And maybe you could speak to that both on cross-selling between OB to Empower and vice versa. And boiling that all down, what confidence do you have in Optimal Blue's growth outlook, say, over the next three to five years relative to what I think was 25% guidance in terms of revenue growth for that business this year? Thanks.

Thanks, Brian. Yeah, I'll start, Kirk, and chime in on the longer-term views. I think from an integration perspective, it's coming well. We currently have the retail channel integrated and currently working on integrations for wholesale correspondent channels, and the teams are working well. And again, just very, very pleased with how that's working. From an integration or a cross-link perspective, I'd say, you know, we're equally satisfied on the bidirectional nature of the cross-selling. You know, certainly the actual Empower solution, it's a longer sales cycle and implementation cycle than our PPE products are. So, you know, what we're seeing – so the pipelines look good, obviously, for both, but what we're seeing really take traction is, you know, the cross-sell of PPE to Empower clients because, again, it's just – a product that we put in our integration bundle and we sell an integrated bundle and so we're doing that just a matter of course and it's working well and obviously we've got great momentum that way. Kirk, I don't know if you want to mention anything on future outlooks.

From a growth perspective, Ryan, you know, we continue to be confident in the 25% that we spoke of this year for the secondary marketing technologies business, which is the combination of Optimal Blue and Compass. They will be indistinguishable, one organization, and so we'll be combining products and going to market as one. And so I want to speak to it in the aggregate. So feel very good about the 25% for this year, did 26% in the first quarter. So off to a very good start. Sales are off to a very good start. As Anthony discussed in his prepared remarks, as we think about the next several years, entering the year, we talked about growing over the near term in that 20% area and with a little higher this year. And we expect it to be in that range for the next several years. So we feel very good about the momentum, feel very good about the cross-selling. as Anthony just described, and the performance of the business, but we still feel confident for the next several years with growth at that level. And beyond that, I think we continue to see a lot of opportunity for those solutions, but we'd rather limit the call on the growth at those levels for the next several years. Great.

And nice to see the buyback this quarter, which I think might be signaling your view of the current levels of the stock. And I think Investors, certainly ones that we speak with, are trying to pinpoint the drivers of the underperformance in Black Knight shares. And one of the questions we get the most around is around confidence in Black Knight's longer-term revenue growth outlook, say, over the next three to five, five to seven years, just considering MSPs' inevitable maturation. So I guess, you know, high-level question, considering the proliferation of innovation that we are seeing across the private markets and the mortgage-related technology space and also the residential housing space. Now, what gives you confidence that Black Knight is keeping pace with that level of innovation to remain competitive over the long term? And then to that end, do you think that there is an opportunity to use M&A in a meaningful way to bring some of this faster-growing innovation in-house similar to what you did with Optimal Blue? Thanks.

Well, I'll tell you, Ryan, You know, like I said, I just passed my three-year anniversary at Black Knight, and I'll tell you, when I joined three years ago, I had a vision for the company, you know, that we'd come together, we'd act as one Black Knight, that we'd be relentlessly focused on our clients, which is hard to do when you have lots of market share versus just a small startup. We've done great at that. We'd be relentlessly focused on innovation, a similarly hard thing to do as a very large organization. And I'm so pleased about how we have accomplished both of those. I also had a vision that each business would be performing at an exceptionally high level. And when I look back now to these three years, I couldn't be more pleased with how we're operating and the great momentum that we have here. You know, we're uncovering growth opportunities in servicing. So we're selling more servicing clients now than we've had in many years. But we're also innovating with new solutions helping us grow the business, such as servicing digital, loss mitigation, AIP, next generation customer service, you name it. So we've got great momentum there. We spoke earlier about our loan origination systems and just the great capabilities that we have there. how strongly it's winning in the market, how well it's performing and growing. Our data and analytics business, same thing. You know, we pointed to getting this business to being over a 30% margin and growing mid-single digits. It's there and it's executing very well. And lastly, you know, we're excited with the acquisition we did with Optimal Blue, right? An acquisition of scale and size and how well it's working together and it's just a perfect fit for us. But when I look at down the road in this company, I'm thrilled because we've got a family here. We care about one another. We work well together. We're having fun together. And that all leads to continued growth. And so when I look at anyone else coming, we're ready for it. We're innovating, like I said, with urgency here. And we're doing the thing that these one-off silo companies out there cannot do, which is integrate. And again, that's where you really drive the value for your clients. And at the end of the day, what's going to matter to clients is, what kind of value can we help them drive in their business, in their revenues, in their efficiencies, in their compliance? And I just don't think anyone's close to us in terms of how we can offer that to our clients. And so we're very excited about our future, and we've got tremendous momentum, and we're having fun.

Ryan, what I would add to that is look at the momentum. Look at the momentum in sales, whether you look at it from an MSP perspective, the number of new clients that we added the last two years, and going into the first quarter. You look at the number of Empower signings accelerating over the course of the last couple of years. You look at the performance in the quarter, 9% organic growth in an outlook that we raised both the bottom end and the top end for growth for the year. And that's all based upon the sales success that we're having. So I think that's all demonstrable evidence of what Anthony just talked about. And those are things that are not transitory. It's not you have one good quarter and then it's over. It's been a series of successful quarters from a sales perspective that are what drives the growth into next year. As we sell going forward, we'll be selling into deliveries in 2023. So you're talking about the next several years of a very strong performance that you can see the seeds planted for. So I think that it's important to look at what's driving the growth, is it sustainable, and we firmly believe with all of our being that it is. And so that would be my response to those questions that you're getting.

Thanks, guys. I appreciate the commentary, and congrats on a strong start to the year. Thank you, Ryan.

The next question comes from Tian Tin. With JP Morgan, please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Of course, good results here. So the 9% organic growth, that's a high watermark that we've seen in quite some time. I don't know how to come in versus your plan. What would you attribute some of the upside to? I know there's lots of puts and takes here. Just try to understand where the upside came from. And how does that impact your outlook as well?

Let's start with what drove the 9% growth, which as you picked up on, it's been a while. As Anthony said, it's the highest rate of growth since 2016. Let's start with that and say what drove that, and then I'll get into the quarter itself, the variances. I would simply summarize it as it's revenue from new clients on our platforms and revenues from cross sales that drove 10 percentage points of organic growth. So that really was a very active driven growth as opposed to things that just happened to us. So that's 10 percentage points from that. So all the other things that you could talk about, whether it be annual price escalators, loan growth, origination volumes, foreclosure volume, transitory headwinds, And the other things really all netted out to a 1% headwind. So it gets you from the 10 down to the 9. So super high quality, new client, new solution driven quarter overall. As far as how it varied from our expectations coming in, there's really three things. And I would say one was origination volumes were a little bit better than we thought coming in. And you can see how from week to week those can move around. It's frankly not something that we spend a whole lot of intellectual cycles focusing on because it is outside of our control, but rates can go up. Rates went up, rates came back down, so volumes will move, but it came in a bit better than our expectations. That said, for the full year, I think with that with the rising rates that we saw during the first quarter, it did temper our expectations a bit for the final three quarters versus our plan. So for the full year, we continue to expect the same $12 million headwind that we came into. So a little bit better in the first quarter, but there's a little bit of a reversal of that in the rest of the year. We saw elevated usage of MSP in the quarter. And I would say it relates to a few things. We have clients that are growing. We have clients that are taking on new portfolios. They use the system more. And there are some additional revenues that we see when activity is up. We think that's terrific because that means they are using the platform that is core to their operations. They're using it more. That's great. And they're finding the value in MSP. So we think that's terrific. And then I'd say the last piece that was a little bit better than we expected was professional services, particularly in origination related to Empower. So we see clients that are looking for domain expertise to help them improve processes and increase automation as they look forward to how they want to optimize operations. And so we see more demand for those professional services. So those are the three areas that I would say we're a little better than we expected coming in. But fundamentally, at the core of it is you know, very, very active sales-oriented growth was what drove the overall 9%.

No, very clear and complete. Thanks for that, Kurt. So just my quick follow-up then. Yeah, so 10 points of organic growth. You guys are real bulled up on selling, on sales, confidence, and I think I almost always ask this, forgive me, just confidence in replenishing the pipeline, more importantly, the backlog, and timeliness of closing deals. It sounds like the pipeline is strong, but do you feel like those will come to close here in the next couple of quarters at a good pace?

Yeah, I think we feel very confident on the sales pipeline. And like I said, how what we're doing, the game plan we're executing against is resonating with our clients.

Terrific. I know it's very broad-based, so well done. And I know you guys don't take it lightly, taking up guidance early in the year, so thanks for that. Thank you, Dijon.

The next question comes from Stephen with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Appreciate you taking my questions. Good morning. Really appreciate the detailed example, Anthony, for how the combined platform can help clients better recapture-ify opportunities? I know recapture rates have been low across the industry, I think below 20%. So have you seen your client base that have adopted these broad-based integrated capabilities, actually leveraging them to be able to recapture at an above-average rate? Have you seen there within your client base?

Yes, Stephen, you broke up a bit, but I think your question was have we seen our clients leveraging some of our technologies to improve the recapture rates, and we have. Obviously, I won't speak to them or to their results. I'd ask you to speak to them directly, but we have. And on a more broad-based basis, our servicing digital, I can say that early indications are it's providing a double-digit improvement in retention rates in itself. So having this digital application, it's sticky, customers are using it on an ongoing You're in touch with them more. There's more of a connection versus just a plain mortgage. When it comes up for refi, you go anywhere you want. There's more of a connection like most other financial services products. We're certainly seeing the improvements happening. We think we're at the beginning of the journey, Canada. We think there's a lot that we can do and a lot more integrating and ways that we can help our clients improve their retention rates.

Got it. That's really helpful. Hopefully you can hear me okay. Talk about some more about what the next spring acquisition has to be strategically, how that will fit in with the existing origination assets, and on the guidance, the expected adjusted EBITDA drag from it that you've included for the year. Thanks.

Yeah, I believe we shared a $3 million drag as we invest in this, and we're excited about this opportunity. So it's really focusing on the broker market. And when you look at everything that we have, for us, For a brand-new company to start up and go after it, there's so many components that they want to bring together. Because, again, even for the smaller broker market, integration matters. You're changing value propositions through the power of integration. And so for us, we have many of these capabilities. So we looked at NextSpring. Really what we were excited about was we said, well, we can integrate this into our loan sifter PPE. We can integrate it to regulatory assist, to our expedite e-close, to our exchange, to tax data, AIP. we have a lot of these capabilities. So this is really just adding, again, some more connectivity tissue between all the capabilities where we can have a much bigger impact than Nexspring could have ever had on its own. And so we're excited about what that opportunity looks like. And, you know, like I said, my prepared remarks, I mean, the opportunity and the volumes have grown significantly in that space. But, you know, we look at it as, again, another one of these relatively low-risk industries acquisitions that we make where we can get into it pretty easily and think the opportunity of it could be pretty exciting.

The next question comes from Tom with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking our call, and good to speak with you again, Anthony. Our question is around optimal blue, and You know, great color given on that. I was wondering from, you know, with regard to cross-sell, but I'm wondering about ham expansion opportunities and maybe new verticals and, you know, client groups that you're selling this into. You know, that would be helpful. And then a second question on Optimal Blue would be around the data sets. Just wondering thoughts and updates. I know it's early days here, but... you know, where your long, you know, intermediate term thoughts would be around the data sets that you have. Is this more about, you know, cross-selling and expanding the TAM there with the existing data sets, or are there some holds or, you know, in the early findings, some needs for additional data sets going forward that you would like to add to that data platform? Thank you.

Sure, Tom. So, a couple things. In terms of, you know, the TAM expansion, There's a number of possibilities and we see a lot of room for us to continue to grow as is. Ways for us to go into smaller clients. We talked about the loan sifter PPE capabilities and obviously now tied to next spring as an example. There's further expansion, mortgage insurance, and more expansion into just capital markets in general with the capability. You've asked about the data sets, and there are some really exciting data sets that have come out of that. And again, what I'm really proud of the team, this isn't me sitting in every meeting directing everyone what to do. This is everyone doing it on their own, right? Our two teams coming together, our data and analytics team coming together with our Optima Blue team looking at their data sets. There's some great information that we have there on rate lock data, et cetera, and combining it in with what we've got and creating new insights for our clients and driving more value. And I think there'll be more and more data that we'll find there and either exhaust data that's coming off of something we're currently doing, new data that we can, you know, curate and integrate. But it certainly is an area where we see there being possibilities for us in ways that we can help our clients.

Sounds like a great opportunity. Thank you so much, Anthony.

Thank you, Tom.

The next question comes from Mihir with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. The first question I wanted to ask, just going back to next spring again for a second, just want to make sure I understand, given that it's pre-revenue, when will you start selling it and monetizing that? Is it 2021? Should we think of 2021 as just building the capabilities, getting the integrations done? And then as you monetize it, will it be a different product or will it be kind of rolled into Empower?

No, we're starting to sell it right now. And as we integrate it, obviously get some momentum behind it. Yeah, it'll kick in more into 2022 than 21, but it will be a separate product. So it will be branded differently from Empower for the broker model, but it will be integrated into Empower. So for wholesale lenders who are using Empower, there'll be, again, real nice integration between the two. And again, with the integration creating efficiencies, streamlining, et cetera. So that's what our plan is for next spring.

So does that make, I guess just staying on that for a second, for existing Empower clients, I imagine there's already existing clients who use Empower who have a broker channel. Would that be a cross-sell opportunity or is there a solution they're already using and this just enhances it?

Yeah, and more I'd say enhances it, you know, for clients that are using it today. Okay.

And then switching gears for a second, I wanted to ask about the Calibre M&A. They're becoming part of NRZ, obviously with a big client, and I think it was scheduled to come on this year. Is that still going ahead, and is this like an opportunity for you to get into, expand your relationship with NRZ? I guess, how are you all thinking about what's going on with the with that and what the implications of VKI are?

Sure, sure. Yeah, we're very close to both management teams at NRZ and Calibre. They're both clients of ours in other areas. outside of MSP. But as far as Calibre's conversion to MSP, yes, it's happening with urgency. So absolutely moving forward with it. We're excited about it. Working real closely with them. And more so, I'd say excited about what's happening in M&A and how it's benefiting us as a net positive. P&C is acquiring BBVA, which is good for us. Huntington acquiring PCF Financial. who's the other one, M&T Bank, Acquiring People's United Bank. So just some great trends and consolidation that are benefiting us as well in addition to the energy and caliber acquisition.

Got it. Thank you. And then just one last question for me. I just want to go back. Look, I think most of the analysts on the call and we understand that your business is not very sensitive to origination volumes. But since you did mention it as a headwind for the rest of the remaining part of the year, potential headwind, maybe you can just size that just because it continues to be a question we get quite often. So, you know, just since you mentioned it, thank you. That would be all from me.

Yeah, let me take that. So revenues sensitive to origination volumes are 10% of our revenues. That's it, 10%. And so, you know, which is why before, as we were talking about how we grow, it's not about predicting what volumes are going to do. It's about innovating, integrating, selling, and delivering. And so, but there is that minor stub that is related to it. It's not something that we employ people to sit and forecast every day because it's not action-oriented. And so, yes, there's a little bit that it could be up a little bit, down a little bit, but it's only 10% of revenues.

The overriding feedback here, I hope you hear from us, is our incentives are lined up for us to focus on what we can control. I want everyone waking up, not hoping whatever volumes do or don't do, waking up every day, innovating, integrating, selling, delivering, servicing our clients, then rinse, wash, repeat, and go back and innovate again, integrate, sell, deliver, and service. That's what will drive our company. It's what helps our clients move to the needle for us. That's what we're focused on, and that's what's really driving this company.

Right. No, I appreciate that. Thank you. Look, I mean, you had very good execution in the first quarter, clearly, and, you know, it sounds like the outlook for the year is very strong. Anyway, I'll stop there. Thank you for taking my questions.

Thanks so much, Mayor.

The next question comes from Manav with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I apologize if I missed it, but can you just tell us what the optimal blue contribution was this quarter? I guess I'm trying to get to what the organic growth and the origination software line would be.

So the optimal blue contributed $35 million of revenue this quarter.

Okay. All right. And, you know, just the one area I think I wanted to touch on was data and analytics. I mean, the The organic growth there, 11%, I think you said. That was pretty good. I was just wondering, is there any one-time items or just what's going on there and what the outlook for the rest of the year would be?

So, Manav, there were no one-timers, frankly, across the business, across the enterprise. There were no one-timers in the first quarter. If you take the growth in data analytics and look at what the drivers were, the majority of that growth was driven by by selling and delivering, and selling and delivering innovative solutions. And so it really was across each of the businesses within data and analytics. What I'll highlight there, there was an element of volume benefit that is in that business, but still was growing six, seven percent on an underlying basis. And as we look forward for the full year on that similar underlying basis, it's right in that area for the full year. The back half is is that volume headwind that we talked about, but the underlying performance of that business is still in that mid-single digits inching up towards high single digits at mid-30s margins, which is terrific. Got it.

Thank you, guys.

Thanks, Donna. Thank you.

Once again, if you have a question, please press star then 1. The next question comes from Kevin with Zellman Associates. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. You mentioned your average repurchase price was somewhere in the range of the mid-70s per share last quarter. How do you think about ramping up repurchases if the stock stays at this level? Do you see it as more steady and systematic or opportunistic? And if the stock dips more from here, directionally at least, how much more aggressive could you get in terms of repurchases given There aren't any required payments on the term loan for now and the capacity on the revolver.

Well, Kevin, you know, look, our balance sheet's in great shape. You know, we increased our available capital through the expansion of the revolver, and we're always going to focus first on internal investment. You know, I've told the leadership team here we'll fund every project that has attractive returns, you know, innovation central to our long-term growth strategy, very focused on it, and we're going to get the highest return on invested capital that way. Go to our M&A strategy. You know, it's not changed. We're going to continue to look for acquisitions out there that are good fits for us, that help drive, you know, our game plan here with our clients. And we're obviously very focused on that. We always see opportunity there. But, you know, if we have excess capital after investing in growth, we do stand ready to buy back shares. And, you know, you saw us do it in the first quarter. Okay.

Um, and then one on more of an accounting item, the non-controlling interest, your guidance is for about 20-ish million of earnings versus 8.6 million lost in the first quarter. Can you give us a sense of the trajectory for the remainder of the year? I mean, could it be, should it be steady, uh, you know, at some point, or could it be a, could it be a bit bumpy? And I realize there are a lot of accounting pieces in there in addition to operational factors, but, um, It does really swing EPS a decent amount, so just wanted to get your sense of forward outlook there.

Kevin, that minus 8.6 in the first quarter is the gap number? the 20 to 22 million is an adjusted number, sort of looking at the underlying business the same way we measure performance for Black Knight. So it would take out the effect of purchase accounting and the like. And so I think there's, we can walk through it separately, but I believe there's a line item in our gap to non-gap reconciliation that shows what that adjustment is. But conceptually, the number should be relatively consistent, increasing sequentially from Q1 to Q4 as the profit grows in that business. And so it should be, but relatively linear. It's not going to bounce around from a loss to income over the course of the year. So if you look at page 11 of our press release, sorry to be very specific here, there's a line item called redeemable non-controlling interest adjustment that is an adjustment of $12.5 million. That's what that relates to.

Okay, yeah, no, I did understand those are different numbers. Maybe I misspoke a bit, but that is helpful. Thank you very much. And I guess one last one on the next spring acquisition. Is this more of a product where the mortgage broker is the customer paying you, or is this more of a product where it provides kind of a network like the big wholesale lenders have where they have a tech platform that they roll out to their broker networks to attract more volume? I guess who's the end client here?

No, it's the former example you gave. Okay, cool. Thank you. Let's go ahead.

Hey, Kevin, just to clarify something I said, I pointed you in the wrong direction. In our GAAP to non-GAAP, we actually start with net earnings attributable to Black Knights. That's the net number already. But the 2022 would conceivably be relatively linear across the path. So I apologize for looking on the fly there.

Okay, cool. Thank you.

This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Anthony Jabbour for any closing remarks.

Thank you. In closing, we're pleased with our strong start to the year and are confident in our higher outlook for the remainder of the year. I'd like to thank our clients for their strong partnership and my Black Knight colleagues for their exceptional efforts and dedication. Thank you for joining us on the call today, for your interest in our great company. Enjoy the rest of your day.

This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.