Black Knight, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Black Knight second quarter 2021 earnings conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Egerton in Best Relations with Black Knight. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Black Knight Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Anthony Jabbour and Chief Financial Officer Kirk Larson. Our results released this morning and the press release and supplemental slide presentation have been posted to our website. This conference call is being recorded and will later be made available on our website. This call will include statements related to the expected future results for our company and our therefore forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ materially from our projections due to a number of risks and uncertainties. The risks and uncertainties that forward-looking statements are subject to are described in our earnings release, Form 10-K, and other SEC filings. Today's remarks will also include references to non-GAAP financial measures. Additional information, including reconciliation between our non-GAAP financial information to the GAAP financial information, is provided in the press release and supplemental slide presentation. This call will be available for replay via webcast through Black Knight's Investor Relations website at investor.blackknightinc.com. I'll now turn over the call to Anthony.

Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter earnings call. Like last quarter, this was another exceptional quarter for Black Knight. as we continue to deliver very strong financial results and execute against our strategic growth initiatives. Specifically, we delivered organic revenue growth of 11%, adjusted EBITDA growth of 21%, and adjusted EPS growth of 10%. We're able to achieve these results due to the strength of our integrated end-to-end platforms and strong execution of our growth strategies. As a result of our strong performance in the second quarter, our confidence in the outlook for the remainder of the year, and our two recent acquisitions, we are raising our full year guidance again. I'll now walk you through how each of our businesses has contributed to these positive results. Starting with our servicing software business, we had another strong sales quarter, finding three new MSP clients, which brings our total to eight new clients so far this year. With these wins, we now have 90 MSP clients, including the 19 new clients that are currently implementing MSP. These implementations, along with existing clients' current loan acquisitions and second lien conversions, will add more than 2 million loans to MSP over the next 18 months. We also signed 16 new servicing digital clients in the second quarter, which means that 67 of our 90 MSP clients, or nearly three-quarters of our clients, we use servicing digital as a way to deepen their customer relationships, improve satisfaction, and ultimately increase retention. We continue to add capabilities to the servicing digital platform through integrations with our loss mitigation, automated valuation models, and product pricing and eligibility, or PPE, solutions. Regulatory compliance also remains a top priority for servicers. Together, our servicing digital and loss mitigation solutions give clients the ability to proactively work with their customers to electronically offer the most appropriate loss mitigation workout options. In fact, we signed six new loss mitigation clients during the second quarter. Moving on to our origination software business, in the mid-tier market, we signed seven new Empower deals in the second quarter, matching our strong sales in the first quarter. To put this in perspective, so far this year with our 14 signings, we have already signed more Empower contracts than we signed during all of last year and 2019, and are on track to meet our commitment of signing 20 to 30 new Empower clients by the end of the year. In addition, the enhancements in capabilities and breadth of services provided by our acquisition of Optima Blue last September has already resulted in multiple cross sales opportunities. including bundling our PPE with all seven Empower clients sold in the second quarter. This acquisition is also creating opportunities for us to upsell Empower to current OptimaBlue clients. During the second quarter, we added 42 new clients to our PPE solutions and 13 new clients to our hedging and trading platform. Year to date, we've added 95 new PPE clients and 24 hedging clients. and the sales pipeline is the strongest it has ever been. Moving on to the data and analytics business, this was another business that demonstrated continued momentum coming off of a strong first quarter and again achieved strong financial results in the second quarter. We signed three new clients to the Rapid Analytics Platform, or RAP. There are now 21 clients able to use this powerful cloud-based analytics tool to make more informed decisions and set strategies for future growth. In addition to wrap sales, the DNA team had great success selling our behavior models, property data, and AVMs. The acquisition of Collateral Analytics last year continues to result in further cross-sale success. By integrating Blackknight's property data set along with Collateral Analytics AVM, we are delivering a superior solution that provides enhanced value to our mortgage clients. Lenders and servicers continue to realize the value of leveraging our innovative end-to-end technology across the mortgage continuum. As an example, four of the eight companies that signed MSP contracts this year also signed agreements to implement Empower, and each is leveraging our data and analytic solutions. And as a result, we now have 27 enterprise clients. Our strong momentum extends beyond sales, as we continue to identify, develop, and deliver innovative solutions that create significant value for our clients and their customers. As I've mentioned previously, our next generation customer service solution enables our clients' customer service representatives to see the same screens and information as the borrowers they're assisting. They can easily access all relevant information, so they can truly help their customers quickly and efficiently. This innovative solution goes beyond improving satisfaction for the borrower. Because it is easy to use and enables customer service representatives to succeed at their job, it also helps improve employee satisfaction. We understand that retaining talent is a challenge in today's economy. As we deliver innovative solutions, our focus is twofold. To create a better borrower experience while giving our clients tools that are easy to use and that help them increase efficiency. Within our origination software business, we recently introduced two new suites as part of our actionable intelligence platform, or AIP. The first is the fair lending suite, which automates industry standard regulatory reporting and delivers analytics focused on fair lending practices related to fallout. The second is the mortgage call report suite, which automates the process of reporting loan officer status and production results. Both suites provide information to the lender when they need it, helping them make the right decisions at the right time, while decreasing the risk and increasing operational efficiency. These are just a couple of examples of the new AIP suites that we have launched recently, and we have many other suites being developed. By combining our technologies, expertise, and data and analytics in the AIP, we're helping our clients transform their operations. We also continue to enhance the work that AVA, our AI solution, is able to do. We are excited to see AVA's ability to support high accuracy levels and increase volumes from our clients. Finally, during the second quarter, we integrated our Optimal Blue PPE with Empower and added pipeline monitoring, which synchronizes the data between the two systems and continuously monitors for loan scenario data changes that could affect pricing or eligibility. Because this enhancement automates the data synchronization, which is traditionally a very labor-intensive, error-prone process, lenders benefit from greater efficiency and pricing that is always fully up to date. Next, I'm going to provide an update on how we're integrating our recent acquisitions to add further value and strength to our already powerful end-to-end solution set. We believe M&A is a great tool to supplement our internal innovations which is why we have completed six acquisitions since March of 2020. Last month, we completed the acquisition of Top of Mind Networks, which developed SureFire, a market-leading CRM and marketing automation platform that is designed specifically for the mortgage industry. The SureFire platform allows lenders and brokers to send a regular cadence of regulatory-compliant communications to homebuyers during and after the buying process to help them stay top of mind so that when customers look to refinance or purchase their next home, they'll reach out to the lender who has continually provided value since the initial interaction. With the SureFire platform, lenders can easily send company-branded educational and engaging content and videos to prospective customers at major milestones during the origination process. Here are a few examples. When a prospect completes an application, they'll receive an email with information about the mortgage process and what to expect. Or, when an appraisal is ordered, they'll receive a video about what the appraisal is and why appraisals are necessary. Each piece of content is created by mortgage marketing experts who have been building a comprehensive library of information relevant to homeowners for more than two decades. This content is useful for first-time homebuyers as well as repeat buyers to help create a positive and memorable buying experience. Because its outreach is automated, it allows the lender to focus on generating new business, while the Surefire system helps them create customers for life. In fact, lenders who use Surefire have reported closing twice as many loans as they did before implementing the platform. Top of Mind also has a mortgage-specific CRM with data fields and integrations to external data sets that are relevant for loan officers, while also providing work tasks that help lenders be more efficient. With customer retention as one of the most significant challenges lenders and brokers are facing, this was a perfect tuck-in acquisition for Black Knight. The Top of Mind platform is being integrated into both our Empower and new broker loan origination systems, as well as our point-of-sale solution and PPE. Of course, we will continue to support integrations with other technologies. We also plan to expand this innovative platform to improve growth recapture, and retention throughout the real estate and mortgage continuum. In the near future, Top of Mind's platform will be integrated into Servicing Digital to expand our clients' opportunities for retaining their clients. Then, we plan to integrate it into the Paragon MLS platform to deliver enhanced lead generation opportunities for realtors. In early May, we acquired EMBS, the leading provider of performance data and analytics on agency-backed securities. Clients use this data to get critical insights that help them make more informed investment decisions and better manage portfolios of agency-backed securities. Since the acquisition, the feedback from clients of both companies has been very positive. We have already had success cross-selling the EMBS data to Black Knight clients and have used it to enhance our monthly data reports, like the Mortgage Monitor. In summary, during the second quarter, We had very strong sales, delivered more innovative solutions, and further integrated the acquisitions we've made over the last year and a half. We remain laser focused on providing value and superior support to our clients, which has been foundational to our success. Thank you for your time today. I'll now turn the call over to Kirk.

Thanks, Anthony, and good morning, everyone. As Anthony discussed, the second quarter was another very strong quarter for Black Knight. We are encouraged by the momentum across each of our businesses. With that said, I'll take you through the details for the second quarter and our raised outlook for the year. Turning to slide three, on a GAAP basis, revenues were $361 million, an increase of 23% compared to the prior year quarter. Net earns attributable to Black Knight were $40 million, an increase of 2%. Diluted EPS was $0.25, a decrease of 4% reflecting the higher depreciation and amortization resulting from purchase accounting, particularly related to the acquisition of Optimal Blue. Net earnings margin was 9% compared to 13%. Turning to slide four, I'll now discuss our adjusted results for the second quarter. In the past, we made adjustments to our reported revenue to exclude the effect of purchase counting on deferred revenue. Those adjustments are no longer applicable, so we are not reporting an adjusted revenue metric this quarter. Organic revenue growth was 11%. Adjusted EBITDA was $177.5 million, an increase of 20.5%. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 49.1% compared to 50.2% in the prior year quarter. Adjusted net earnings were $89 million, an increase of 13%, and adjusted EPS was 57 cents, an increase of 10%. Turning now to slide five, I'll discuss our software solutions segment results. Second quarter revenues for the software solutions segment increased 25% to $305 million. Organic revenue growth was 11%. Our servicing software solutions revenues increased 13%. The growth was driven primarily by new clients and higher usage-based revenues on MSP. In origination software solutions, revenues increased 61%, including revenue from the acquisition of Optimal Blue, as well as growth from new clients, the network effect in Optimal Blue, and innovation sales. Organic revenue growth was 7%, reflecting a tough comparison to the prior year quarter. Second quarter EBITDA increased 20% to $175 million, and EBITDA margin was 57.2% compared to 59.6% in the prior year quarter. The margin contraction was driven by revenue mix and increased investments in innovation and client support. Turning to slide six, second quarter revenues for the data and analytics segment increased 16% to $56 million, primarily driven by strong sales execution across nearly all business lines and revenue from acquired business. Organic revenue growth was 14%. EBITDA increased 29% to $21 million. EBITDA margin was 37.2%, an increase of 380 basis points. Adjusted EBITDA for the corporate segment in the second quarter was a loss of $18 million compared to $15 million in the prior year quarter. Turning to slide seven, I'll walk through our balance sheet highlights. At the end of June, we had cash and cash equivalents of $89 million. Total debt principal as of June 30th was $2,257,000,000. We had revolver capacity of $902,000,000 and our leverage ratio was 3.2 times on a net basis. The market value of our investment in Dun & Bradstreet or D&B was $1,172,000,000 on a pre-tax basis and $1,000,000,000 on an after-tax basis based on the closing price of D&B on June 30th. Turning now to slide eight, a walk through our outlook for full year 2021, which we have raised from the guidance we gave you in May based on a strong second quarter and confidence in the outlook for the second half of the year. It also reflects the effect of our two recent acquisitions that will contribute approximately $16 million of revenue and $6 million of EBITDA this year. For the year, revenues are expected to be in the range of $1,447,000,000 to $1,463,000,000, which represents raising the bottom end of the range by $40 million and the top end of the range by $35 million. That translates to reported growth of approximately 17% to 18% and organic growth of approximately 8% to 9%. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be a range of $704 million to $716 million, which represents raising the bottom end of the range by $9 million and the top end of the range by $5 million. The lower revenue to EBITDA conversion is due to revenue mix and increased investment in our businesses, particularly in origination software, as we position ourselves for long-term growth. Adjusted EPS is expected to be in the range of $2.23 to $2.29, which represents raising the bottom end of the range by 7 cents and top end by 5 cents. Turning to slide 9, we continue to plan for incremental foreclosure revenues to be delayed until at least the first quarter of 2022. With the market origination volume outperforming in the first half, we now expect a full year headwind of $5 million compared to 2020. This represents a second half headwind of approximately $12 million. In addition, we expect interest expense of approximately $83 million to $84 million, adjusted depreciation and amortization expense of $144 million to $147 million, excluding the net incremental depreciation and amortization resulting from purchase accounting. Adjusted earnings attributable to non-controlling interest of $20 million to $21 million. This relates to the portion of Altima Blue that we don't own. an adjusted effective tax rate of approximately 22% to 23%, which is one percentage point lower than our prior guidance due to higher expected research and development credits, 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 remainder of the year from new client revenues partially offset by origination volume headwinds. We expect the sequential growth to be comparable from Q2 to Q3 and Q3 to Q4. And we expect operating expenses in Q3 to step up from Q2 by approximately four percentage points as we accelerate investments in AVA and staff our professional services teams due to strong demand that we are seeing. We then expect a small sequential increase from Q3 to Q4 due to typical seasonality. The net result will be modestly lower adjusted EBITDA margins in Q3 compared to Q2 with slightly higher margin in Q4 compared to Q3. That concludes my remarks. I'll turn the call over to the operator for Q&A.

Thank you. 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 2. The first question comes from John Campbell from Stevens, Inc. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Congrats on the quality results and the continued momentum and the new client wins across the board. Great work.

Thank you, John, and thank you. Thank you.

Absolutely. I want to touch on the enterprise clients. You guys are now at 27. I think back in 2015, you maybe had a handful, so you're showing some really good progress there. In the past, you guys said that the conversion to enterprise typically drives that client rev about two to three times higher. That's been several years since I think you kind of touched on that. You've added, obviously, a lot of solutions since then. So just a two-part question here. So first, is that two to three times lift still the way we should be thinking about that conversion to enterprise? And then secondly, I don't know if you guys have this on hand, but could you maybe help frame up what that remaining enterprise rev opportunity is just with the base today?

Well, I'll start with that, John. On the enterprise client side, it's really the strategy being executed. We talked about creating a lot more innovations, a lot more ways to help our clients and to integrate them into a suite of solutions. And as we demo the suite of solutions and our clients and prospects can see what it's like being on the Black Knight bus, that has dramatically increased the number of enterprise clients. And you're seeing it in the numbers reported. I'll pass it to Kirk in terms of talking about the market and the conversion rate.

Yeah, John, from a revenue perspective, the multiplier effect certainly depends on the specific client and their mix of origination versus servicing. But it is a significant opportunity, and upwards of that two times in some cases, it could be greater than that. So it is a significant opportunity as far as what's left from a white space perspective, it is significant because even there are instances of an enterprise client that may not be using Empower, for example, for all channels. And so adding channels is a significant opportunity and can increase that revenue opportunity. But I don't have the exact white space quantified here with me, but it is significant. But the important part is that the clients are seeing the value, that we see them more and more. And I think it's more today. The early stages of the transition to enterprise clients was very much an MSP client, and you'd sell Empower to that client. Now the fact that we're signing both at the same time, they're seeing the value of that, and our sales team is doing a tremendous job of demonstrating that value, that signing up to both at one time we think is a terrific proof point as to the value that can be created being an enterprise client using us from front to back.

Okay, that's helpful. And I might have missed this, but overall, just drilling down on origination, What is the overall transactional REV mix today, and then maybe what you've pegged in guidance for the back half?

Yeah, so the revenue mix today overall is it was 10% last quarter of total REV with census origination volumes. It's now 9% in Q2. And as we project forward to Q4, we think it's going to exit the year at 8%. we've talked about it not being a material driver, and it's going to just continue to get smaller and smaller as we sell these new deals that have high subscription rates and volumes moderate a little bit. So the story continues to be more about the subscription revenue growth, the selling new clients, and much, much less about the transactional side of things. And so you'll see that in the numbers.

Okay. And just to be clear, you're talking just origination or is that overall?

That is total revenue. Total revenue, yeah.

Okay. Great. Thank you, guys.

Thanks, John. Thank you.

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

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. Just with the step up in expenses in the quarter and that you're guiding to for the second half of the year, can you walk us through how you're thinking about normalized margin expansion and expense growth? on a go-forward basis, perhaps beyond the second half of the year? And, you know, maybe put a finer point on the specific areas of the business that you're investing in. Kirk, I know you touched on a few of them, and really how you're framing the ROI on that spend in terms of the revenue opportunity and growth acceleration behind certain of these products.

Sure. I'll start. It's Anthony. I'll pass it to Kirk for the second part of the questions. The areas we're investing in with our artificial intelligence, our correspondent lending, our new broker module, loan catcher, they're all things that, based on the confidence we're having in the growth rate, the momentum, you get the luxury of looking further and further out in terms of what investments can you make when you have a high confidence of a return. And so that's just where we're at right now, where we've got a lot of confidence in what we're doing. These are the areas that we see You know, we've got strong conviction that they're going to be great winners for us, but Kirk, I'll let you answer the second part.

Yeah, Ryan, I'll answer a couple parts to that. The first was the step up from Q1 to Q2 and then kind of the longer-term model. You know, from Q1 to Q2, some of it, just to get a little granular, you know, we have our merit increases for our employees that go from Q1 to Q2, so we have a step up in expenses. The hiring around the growth that Anthony just described, and then a little bit around incentive compensation expense based upon the outperformance of the business this year, or how I'd characterize the second quarter. A little bit of that carries over into the second half of the year as well. But we're viewing these investments this year as we look, we're looking to not only 2022, but 23, 24, 20. We're looking well beyond and making investments in areas that we think have long-term growth prospects. And so these are investments that I would not expect to be step-ups annual. So they're not variable costs that come with revenue. They are investments in longer-term growth. And so some of that is in sales and otherwise resources, implementations, et cetera. And so as you think about that, the long-term model hasn't changed. We still will target that 50 to 100 basis points of margin expansion each year. We would expect it to be towards the higher end if growth is at the higher end of our long-term guidance range. So model remains the same, but this is a year, as Anthony said, of higher than expected growth and a period where the conviction around the prospects is giving us the confidence that we think now is the time to invest in areas that will drive long-term sustainable growth.

Yeah, maybe just adding on to it, I'd say it was when, you know, probably 18 months ago when we saw an opportunity to invest in our sales and our data and analytics business. And again, had high conviction, and we're seeing the results from that as well. So we've got great visibility on where we can make investments and where we can get the returns that we would expect.

Great. Appreciate that thorough response from both of you. And regarding the two integration announcements you made for Optimal Blue and Empower, and secondly, for Servicing Digital with several of your other products, Is there a way to perhaps quantify the potential revenue opportunities that these open up, particularly on the Optima Blue side with Empower? For example, maybe you could touch on the hypothetical revenue opportunity from existing Empower clients cross-selling to Optima Blue, and if there's any, I guess, direct pricing uplift or however you would quantify it on the servicing digital side from those integrations.

Probably the best way to describe it, Ryan, is that the strategy we have of integration will drive results. We're seeing that. And many of the examples, given the pipeline monitoring we talked about in my prepared remarks, it's a first of its kind. We're creating, I'll say, greenfield opportunities here. And so we see an opportunity. I'll leave it to Kirk to quantify it. But, you know, we clearly bundled our PPE capabilities into all the Optimal Blue, sorry, into all the Empower sales that we've had. And one of the Empower wins that we had in the quarter was to an existing Optimal Blue PPE client. So, you know, we're seeing the benefit of integration, you know, coming through that way. Kirk, I don't know if there's anything you can quantify other than it's just a very large opportunity that we see out there to go after.

That's the way I would characterize it.

Yeah.

Great. Thanks for taking the questions.

Thank you, Ryan.

The next question comes from Qianqian Guang from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone.

It's always great to connect with you all and appreciate all the organic comments. Just wanted to ask also on the lower margin conversion. Totally understand that it's offensive investments here, but are some of the acquisitions also contributing to the margin? Any surprise there? And just trying to better understand how much of it's tied to that versus mix versus the investments that you're making.

Great question, Tinge, and good morning. It's great to hear from you. If you think about in totality, the acquisition coming into the year, the three that we've done next spring, definitely having an effect on margins. It was pre-revenue. It's an investment. It's a growth area. EMBS actually has very, very attractive margins, so not diluted to any margins that we have. And top of mind is about a 30% margin business right now. with a lot of opportunity as it scales, because it's going to be a fast grower for us. As it scales, the margins will get to be attractive relative to the enterprise over time. So that is an element of it. If you look to the second half and you think about the change versus our prior guidance, bringing that revenue on, at those margins. That's definitely a part of it. But we will do those deals that fill out the product portfolio. We'll do those all day and know that we're going to grow them, know that they're going to scale, know that the margins will be attractive over time. But that definitely is a part of it. Got it. Perfect.

And then just on the staying with the M&A subject, I think one of the themes this earnings season, right, is... Some of the digital modern players have a little bit more freedom to do dilutive or creative deals. And the traditional players have a different standard, given margins and whatnot. So I'm curious if your appetite, Anthony, to do deals or maybe to get a little more creative or to do larger things to enhance growth, has that changed in your mind? Or do you feel like you can do what you've been doing with the tuck-ins and the organic investments on the digital front?

Well, you know, we always say we're an and company and we're going to do both. You know, certainly from, you know, from a, you know, that perspective, I think, you know, you've seen the agenda right here at Black Knight and it's a heavy focused agenda around innovation and new technologies. We certainly see the opportunity of continue to do tuck-ins, roll them in. They come in small. They come out large. you know, in every case here. We've got a great, you know, capability, you know, to leverage. And we're also not managing this business quarter to quarter, right? So, in this case here, we see an opportunity to make real investments to continue to really grow this company. We're making them. And we've got conviction and, you know, we want to be on the record with that conviction, knowing that, you know, we're going to achieve the results from these investments. So, So overall, as we look, we feel very, very strong in our capabilities. We see it in the win rates. I mean, the majority of our organic growth is coming from new clients choosing to come onto our platform, from us selling our new innovations to existing clients. The strategy is working exceptionally well here. It's pedal to the metal for us.

Thank you. That's thoughtful. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Tanjay. Thank you.

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

Hi, thank you. Just first, maybe if I could just start, I apologize if I think I missed this in the script. You did give the number, but how much of the guidance increase is from the closed acquisitions?

So we, $16 million. $16 million. is related to top of mind and EMBS.

Okay. And that's revenue, right? That's revenue, yep.

Yep, yep. Okay. And then I wanted to ask about the sharp increase. You know, the servicing business did really well. There was a sharp increase in the growth, if you will, there. Was there anything worth calling out, maybe a client coming on or some large clients getting involved adding some add-on services or I don't know if there's anything worth calling out from that increase.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. The 13% growth in servicing was, um, was, was really new clients. Uh, the single largest new client that came on was bank of America. So, uh, that they, they came on in the third quarter of last year. So we had a full quarter of growth comparison compared to last year, but there were other clients that came on as well. I'd say the other drivers of growth in servicing were the things that we would expect, the things that we focused on, which are innovative sales. So servicing digital has gotten tremendous traction. Two-thirds of our clients, two-thirds of the loans on MSP are signed up to use servicing digital. And then continuing to cross-sell to the existing base, we have a team that's doing a tremendous job there as well. The one thing I would add, and it was in the prepared remarks, that was a bit better than we would expect it is what I'll call the usage-based revenues or transaction-based revenues, kind of the non-core processing piece of MSP, which has been as new clients come on, that revenue grows and it's recurring revenue. As our clients are winning in the market and they're adding portfolios, they're using us to help them bring those portfolios on, that was an increase in the quarter. So that was really part of what drove that, not only drove that growth, but frankly outpaced our expectations both in the quarter and the year-to-date period. So we couldn't be happier with, for all those that have questioned service and growth in the last year or so, I think this quarter was a great testament to the strength of that business and has a very robust outlook for the year.

I appreciate that. Thank you. And then just the last question, again, going back to margins. I just wanted to, it sounds like you're so confident in achieving the 50 to 100 basis points margin expansion longer term, but I guess maybe, you know, I understand the environment's very favorable. You're making investments now. What are your expectations currently in terms of how long that takes? And then when we snap back, will the snap back early on be much higher than the 50 to 100 basis points? Because, you know, a lot of these are not, as you pointed out, variable. and won't be increasing? So like, you know, some of these maybe just go away in 2022 or 2023?

I wouldn't anticipate they would go away because as we invest in AVA and AI, we're going to continue to invest. We just may or may not be adding the resources at the same pace that we did this year. And so I wouldn't necessarily anticipate a snapback because the cost won't necessarily go away. They are investments that we want to continue to make. And And we're going to continue to make investments as we go forward because this is not, as Anthony said, a goal to see if we can expand margins on a maximum basis for a particular quarter or year. This is investing for the long-term, for the long-term sustainable growth. And so, you know, I think we will continue to invest, but I think this year is somewhat elevated because of the initiatives we have in place.

Understood. Thank you for taking my questions. The next question comes from Manav Patnik from Barclays.

Please go ahead.

Thank you. I was hoping you could just address the competitive environment a little bit. I know you talked about a lot of new clients, win rates, and so I was just curious if you could talk about what you're seeing out there.

Sure, Manav. Thanks for the question. There's a lot of competitors, as you can imagine, but our performance has been exceptional and I'm very proud of our sales team and I'm proud of, obviously, you know, all my colleagues at Black Knight, you know, creating great products, working with our clients, listening to our clients and, you know, and how we're going to market as one Black Knight is really paying dividends. So I just think if you, where we have competitors in, you know, I'll say each of these areas, the power of the integration is significant. So we talked about some of the integrations with the PPE capabilities. With Top of Mind, we're integrating that into our origination platform. We're also going to integrate into our PPE. And so driving a level of functionality that just doesn't exist out there. And there are many examples where we can point to things that only we can do. And I'd say you know, driving innovations that ultimately are really affecting our clients' revenue, their expenses, and their compliance. And so that's why we feel it's not for a lack of competitors in the market, but it's our strategy of, you know, urgently creating innovation and urgently integrating it and selling it and delivering it that I think is really putting us in such a strong position competitively.

And, you know, Kirk, I think, you know, the way you calculate organic growth is different than our other companies. So, just to help us, I mean, can you give us the exact M&A contribution from, you know, all your acquisitions over the last 12 months to this quarter?

I don't have it. I don't have it handy. But what I would say is, you know, specifically if you were to look at the single largest acquisition, That contributed to the growth, which is optimal blue. I think without that, it was a point and a half or so lower, somewhere in that area, point and a half to two points. So without that deal, which is by far the largest, I think it's a nine and a half percent somewhere in that area.

All right. Thank you. The next question comes from Dominic Gabriel from Oppenheimer.

Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks so much for taking my questions. A lot of my questions have been asked and answered, but I guess when we think about the new sales for the expenses again, and if we think about the new sales professionals, I guess how much of the expense ramp that you're seeing is new talent versus the competition for existing talent? And when you think about where you're building out your sales team, given you've had a lot of success in client acquisition, where are you putting the new sales boots on the ground for some of your products? Thanks.

Sure, Dominic. First of all, the additional expense tied to sales is small relative to what we talked about in terms of investments in our products and investments in you know, just additional implementation resources. And we had, you know, a very large backlog from, you know, continued strong sales. And so, you know, obviously adding people to help on the implementation side is part of it. So I don't know if you thought it was a larger number or not, but it's actually a relatively small portion of the overall expense. And, you know, where we're, you know, Adding the sales expense is really, you know, I'd say more just across each of the areas. We talked about adding sales expense on selling to our non-Black Knight clients, having a separate dedicated focus team just selling our capabilities out into the open market. And, you know, that's worked well for us. We've ramped that up in the past. But that's how I explain it. Like I said, the majority of the expenses are on areas like artificial intelligence, correspondent lending, and our new broker solution that we're coming out with. And like I said, we've got confidence we'll see results from that, and you'll see those results as we continue to roll it out and have success in those areas.

Great, great. And then I really appreciate that. When you think about... You kind of answered this in different ways, but maybe I can ask this question in a different way. When you think about hopefully turning the corner on COVID and how your underlying client demands have changed from pre-COVID and post-COVID and all these acquisitions that you've made that have been enhancing your capabilities, I guess how the client conversations changed and what are their expectations of what they need from you changed? And how does that tie into basically some of the acquisitions you've made in your positioning as we look ahead? Thanks.

Sure. What I'd say is our strategy was the right strategy a number of years ago when we started off on our path of innovation. and, you know, creating and servicing digital capabilities, modernizing all of our capabilities. And so during COVID, when the world went remote and went digital, you know, we were sitting in a very strong position, you know, with the investments that we've made and the capabilities that we've had. And, you know, the impact obviously of the pandemic led to a lot of strength in our modern loss mitigation solutions, which as everyone's trying to rework, you know, their loans, you know, we've got the great capability to help them. So, That's kind of pre and during, and as I think post-COVID, like I said, we're excited with just the momentum of the conversations that we're having with our clients. I'd say early in the journey, our clients would look at us as they did from the very first time that they bought something from us, and maybe it was servicing a decade ago. They're now seeing the Black Knight, and every day there's more and more momentum about seeing the new Black Knight with all the capabilities available. all the ways that we can help. And that's what we're excited about there. Certainly, there's going to be a shift in volumes as rates rise at some point. And again, the investments we're making with our technology, AI being one of the key ones, is it's going to help our clients be more and more efficient when that time comes. They'll have less volume, less revenue, and with the work that we're doing with AI, for example, will help them lower their expenses. So we're in lockstep with them in terms of what their needs are. And we feel really good about what's to come.

Excellent. And maybe just one more. I really appreciate all the color. When you think about your new acquisitions or just any acquisitions in general, And you think about bringing some of those that are perhaps below the average margin up to the company margin. I guess, how does Black Knight typically done that? Is it because you bring scale to those businesses? Is it because you kind of assimilate that workforce into your own? Is it a combination? How long does that usually take to get the ones that are perhaps a little lower on the margin side up to that average, either within the segment or to the company average? Thanks, guys. I really appreciate everything.

Thank you, Dominic. When we look at an acquisition, we're looking at it in terms of how do we really integrate it and bring it into the company. And so obviously at times there will be synergies that we'll have with some layer, some of the maybe corporate staffing layer on their side or our side where we'll get expense out. But certainly the key part comes from the additional volume that we're going to bring that acquisition. They're going to come in small. They're going to go at large. And so the contribution margin on the majority of these businesses are very high. And so as we ramp up the revenues, we're also going to ramp up the EBITDA of those businesses. And that's how we're modeling it and looking at all these acquisitions. We're very disciplined, very thoughtful about who we acquire and what the plan looks like. short-term, but also long-term in terms of how we absorb it and bring it in. So from a timing perspective, I don't know if there's an exact number. I think it differs based on the acquisition, but Kirk, I don't see you have any thoughts.

Yeah, it really depends on where they are when we acquire them. So Optimal Blue is effectively at the company average. We focus on the company average as opposed to the segment average. We don't want to penalize the business for being in the same segment as MSP that has supremely high margins. So we would look at it relative to the total company. And so something like OptumBlue was virtually there and with significant opportunity to expand margins as Anthony just described as they grow. And some of the other businesses we've acquired were very close to our company average, and so they were there in very short order. And others, if we buy something that's pre-revenue, it's going to take a few years and pretty rapid growth, which is what we would expect from it if we were to buy it in that instance. So it really, really depends on where they are But they definitely are. The businesses we have acquired were much more about the growth prospects and capabilities they bring to our clients as opposed to about how much cost we could take out. Almost across the board, they were revenue growth plays as opposed to cost plays.

The next question comes from Kevin from Zellman and Associates. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. I want to ask about the servicers and originators that own their own proprietary technology platforms. Has the tone of any conversations you've had with them changed over the past six to 12 months or so? Obviously, there's an acquisition of an incoming MSP client, but any color you can provide on how large originators and servicers using their proprietary solutions are viewing their ability to innovate and incorporate additional capabilities as rapidly as you guys and how they view their proprietary tech versus their providers in general. If that conversation has changed.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think it continues to change and continues to build momentum for us, right? As they, you know, And I'd say there's probably two different classes as well. I think people would get there first on servicing and then second on originations. And obviously in this market, you can see with the volumes on the origination side, just being hesitant to any change as well. But we certainly feel that we've got great attention in the market with our clients and prospects as we're sharing what our capabilities are and what it could look like. And again, if I go back to the investments that we're making and where we're making them, we're doing that because we believe that there is opportunity out there for us to go after. And I'd say from a sales perspective, we're going after it very aggressively. We've got a culture here where everyone sells and every day we're focused on any client or prospect out there that's not leveraging our technology and how they could leverage it.

Okay. It sounded like because everyone's perhaps so busy and the volumes are so high that they're less likely to start kind of a big platform switch in this environment. No, no, no.

No, I didn't mean to imply that. So thank you for correcting, Kevin. You know, our sales originations are up, you know, they'll be two to three times what we did last year. You know, you've seen the numbers, Q1, Q2. I think we already signed, you know, two Empower deals in the quarter. So we've got lots of momentum there. But the point was more around if you think of what, you know, someone is going to build from a proprietary perspective, I just think that there's an, you know, there'd be servicing that they'd, you know, hand off to us. sooner than origination. But look, we've had a lot of wins in the origination space. You look at the track record we had recently, it's been significant. So I was just trying to, you know, rank them a bit for you, but we see opportunities in both. And like I said, we wouldn't be making, you know, the investments I could sit for saying and correspondent lending if we didn't believe that.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you for that clarification.

That's all I had. Yeah. Thank you again. Thank you.

Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question comes from Ryan Tomasalo from KBW. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking the follow-up, guys. Just circling back on the investments you're making, it seems like one of the hidden gems that you've acquired with Optimal Blue and that you've spoken to in the past is the loan trading platform ResiTrader. And so I was hoping you can maybe talk about what types of opportunities there are to scale that platform over time, integrate it with MSP. and ultimately create some sort of exchange-like platform for MSRs and whole loans. You know, on that front, maybe you could quantify, you know, the strength of that platform today in terms of revenues and growth rates and generally what investments you're making there or plan to make there over time. Thanks.

Sure, Ryan. We look at that and see that there is a large opportunity down the road with this. I mean, a lot of things have to change. So as we're looking at investments, we're trying to look at the things that we can control. And I think with this one, there's also market effects that we won't control. So we're being mindful of that as we work with our clients and understand what their needs are. But we certainly believe that there is an opportunity there. It's not 100% within our control. And so of the investments that we're making right now, that isn't one of them that we're making a significant investment on just for clarity or an additional investment. But it's one that we continue to believe as the market unfolds that there could be opportunities there for us. And we're really well positioned with the capabilities we have, with the trading platform, with the MSR evaluation capability, hedging capabilities. you know, client relationships, et cetera. So I hope that gives you the color you're looking for.

It does, but maybe you can just clarify, Anthony, what you mean by, you know, it being somewhat out of your control. What do you think structurally needs to change in the market for a platform like ResiTrader to really accelerate an adoption?

Well, I just think it's, you know, changing... you know, existing practices. And it's easy to change the existing practice with one client at a time, harder to change. And that's why, like I said, you know, with Optima Blue, why we never built the capability, we acquired it. there's a market effect that they had. And it's a very difficult thing to create. Technology is easier to create. The market effect is harder. And that's why, like I said, we made the decision to acquire Optima Blue. And so with the loan trading platform, I think to a lesser extent, there's still a market effect that's required. And look, we're staying close to it. Everyone jokes it's my pet project inside the company. But I do believe that there is opportunity for it. It's just not something that's flashing at us like some other areas. We see flashing opportunity, and we're doubling down to go after that opportunity immediately.

Got it. Thanks for taking the follow-up. My pleasure, Ryan.

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

Thank you. Yeah, once again, we're pleased with our strong results and we're confident in our updated outlook for the remainder of the year. I'd like to thank our clients for their trusted and strong partnership, my Black Knight colleagues for the dedicated support of our clients and our great company. Thank you for joining us for today's call and for your interest in Black Knight. 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.