TD SYNNEX Corporation

Good morning, my name is Tiffany and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the TD Cinex third quarter fiscal 2025 earnings call. Today's call is being recorded and all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. At this time, for opening remarks, I would like to pass the call over to David Jordan, America's CFO and Head of Investor Relations at TD Cenex. David, you may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. With me today is Patrick Zamet, our CEO, and Marshall Witt, our CFO. Before we continue, let me remind you that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including predictions, estimates, projections, or other statements about future events, including statements about our strategy, demand, plans and positioning, growth, cash flow, capital allocation, and stockholder return, as well as our financial expectations for future fiscal periods. Actual results may differ materially from those mentioned in these forward-looking statements as a result of risk and uncertainties discussed in today's earnings release. In the Form 8K we filed today, in the risk factors section of our Form 10-K and our other reports and filings with the SEC. We do not intend to update any forward-looking statements. Also, during this call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP results are included in our earnings press release and the related Form 8-K on our investor relations website, ir.tdsinex.com. This conference call is the property of TD Cinex and may not be recorded or rebroadcast without our permission. I will now turn the call over to Patrick. Patrick?

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm excited to report that our third quarter non-GAAP gross billings and diluted earnings per share established new records for our company. Our performance is a clear result, of our team's strong execution, a differentiated go-to-market strategy, and a global end-to-end portfolio of products and services that is unrivaled. Beginning with our financial performance for the quarter, consolidated gross billings were $22.7 billion, growing 12%, 10% in constant currency. And non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $3.58 exceeded the high end of our guidance, representing a 25% increase year-over-year. Within TDC-NEXT, excluding HIVE, gross billings increased 9% year-over-year, with gross profit and operating income each increasing by double digits. HIVE had a strong quarter. with gross billings increasing in the mid-30s year-over-year, and ODM CM gross billings increasing 57% year-over-year, fueled by continued strength in hyperscaler investments in cloud infrastructure. High total gross margins returned to historical levels, and operating profit exceeded expectations. The majority of our technology products and services in Endpoints and advanced solutions experience an increase in gross billings year over year. Highlighting a few key areas, software continues to be a standout, experiencing a 26% increase in gross billings, fueled by cybersecurity and infrastructure software. Additionally, we are still experiencing strong demand in PCs, driven by a higher mix of AI PCs and the Windows 11 refresh cycle. We experienced healthy momentum across each of our regions with exceptionally dynamic performance in Latin America and Asia Pacific and Japan, each increasing strong double digits in gross billings in the quarter and exceeding expectations. Broad-based adoption of IT products and services continues to build in these geographies, validating the strength of our go-to-market strategy and positioning us to continue to capture profitable growth. Moving to our diversified customer and markets, we're experiencing broad-based strength in SMB and MSPs, which grew substantially above the company average in most of our geographies. By developing bespoke value propositions and deploying dedicated commercial teams with deep industry knowledge, we have successfully positioned ourselves as a trusted partner for this strategic customer segment. Enterprise demand remains largely stable with balanced revenue growth throughout the majority of this customer base. Our U.S. public sector business increased its gross billings low single digits in the quarter. Strength in state and local was offset by anticipated softness in federal as our customers navigate a dynamic environment led by the revaluation of budgets and expected changes to federal funding programs. As a reminder, federal is a small portion of our total portfolio, but one we will continue to invest in growing. Next, our differentiated and highly specialized go-to-market strategy that we outlined during Investor Day strengthens our competitive position and drives our business forwards every day. A great example of this strategy in action is expanding our addressable market by introducing new vendors to the channel and leveraging our network of partners to accelerate growth. Last year, we onboarded a cybersecurity vendor in North America who was attracted by our specialist go-to-market and partner enablement capabilities. Within 18 to 24 months, we have grown that business from zero to hundreds of millions of dollars by expanding the customer base and improving their net revenue retention rates with existing clients. We have many more examples like this, and we are continuing to onboard cutting edge vendors and help accelerate the adoption of new technologies in the market. As the adoption of AI technologies evolves, we are enhancing our destination AI enablement program to include three strategic focus areas that are designed to help our partners adopt, scale, and secure AI solutions. Agentic AI, Security for AI, and AI Factory. Launching next week, these programs will deliver comprehensive solution support, such as designing modern architectures that blend multiple AI technologies, and enable hybrid deployment models that deliver flexible, intelligent threat detection, prevention, and responses. Within Hive, we are extremely proud of our performance during the quarter and remain confident in our ability to be a leading partner for data center infrastructure build-ups. We are continuing to invest in new capabilities, taking a holistic approach to data center requirements that anticipates our customers' needs, and provides an end-to-end solution for the world's leading hyperscalers and cloud service providers. As a result, our portfolio is becoming more diversified. We are participating in more compute, networking, and storage rack builds as the deployment of GPU and AI-integrated racks accelerates, and we have seen robust growth throughout the majority of our programs. Additionally, our customer mix is also shifting favorably, and we have seen substantial growth beyond our top customer. Moreover, our second largest customer grew faster than expected within the quarter, and we anticipate similar strength in Q4. At our investor day, we outlined a digital strategy including the creation of a unified experience, seamless workflows, and actionable insights to drive customers' growth. Today, we are taking the next step of that journey with the launch of TDCnext Partner First in North America, a unified portal that optimizes the partner experience by combining commerce, services, education, and community in a single digital environment. Partner First marks an important milestone in TDCnext's omnichannel strategy, using AI, automation, and advanced analytics to enhance our operations and streamline the buying journey. Part of us will be rolled out globally in the coming quarters. In summary, our team's strong execution, our differentiated and highly specialized go-to-market strategy, and our unrivaled global end-to-end portfolio of products and services are enabling us to continue to deliver a superior level of service and customer experience. Now, I will pass it to Marshall to go over the financial performance and Q4 outlook in more detail. Marshall?

Thanks, Patrick, and good morning, everyone. As Patrick highlighted, we're excited to report that we achieved 12% gross buildings growth and 25% non-gap diluted EPS growth in the third quarter, which exceeded the high end of our guidance range. Our endpoint solutions portfolio increased gross billings 10% year over year, driven by continued demand for PCs as the refresh cycle progresses, as well as a higher mix of AI PCs. Globally, PCs have increased double digits for three consecutive quarters, and we believe that we are in the mid to late innings of the refresh cycle. Advanced solutions portfolio increased gross billings by 13% year over year, and 8% year-over-year when excluding the impact of HIVE, driven by meaningful demand in cloud, security, software, and other high-growth technologies. HIVE, which is reported within the Advanced Solutions portfolio, increased in the mid-30s, primarily due to strength in programs associated with server and networking rack builds. HIVE's capabilities, capacity, and U.S. manufacturing footprint positions it to support the increased demand. In the quarter, there was an approximately 31% reduction from gross billings to net revenue, which was slightly higher than our expectations, but consistent with previous quarters. Our net treatment as a percentage of billings continues to remain elevated versus the prior year, primarily driven by an increase in high transactions where we act as an agent and a higher mix of software within distribution. As a result, net revenue was $15.7 billion, up 7% year-over-year, and above the high end of our guidance range. Gross profit increased 18% year-over-year to $1.1 billion. Gross margin as a percentage of gross billings was 5%, which increased 23 basis points year-over-year and improved sequentially. Notably, we expanded our gross margin profile in both distribution and hives. Non-GAAP SG&A expense was $655 million, or 3% of gross billings. Our cost to gross profit percentage, which we define as the ratio of non-GAAP SG&A expense to gross profit, was 58% in Q3, and an improvement from the 60% levels that we experienced in the first half of the year, demonstrating our progress towards managing cost as a percentage of gross profit down over time while still making key investments into the business. Non-GAAP operating income increased 21% year-over-year to $475 million. Non-GAAP operating margin as percentage of gross billings was 2.09%, representing a 15 basis point improvement year-over-year. Interest expense and finance charges were 91 million, an increase of 11 million year-over-year. Our non-GAAP effective tax rate was approximately 23% compared to 21% in the prior year. Total non-GAAP net income was $296 million, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $3.58, an increase of 25% year-over-year and an all-time high for TD Cinex. Pre-cash flow was $214 million, driven by strong earnings growth and a slight improvement in our cash conversion cycle. Within the quarter, we returned $210 million to stockholders, with $174 million in share repurchases and $36 million in dividend payments. bringing our total return to stockholders for the year up to $534 million. Networking capital was $4 billion, which is consistent with quarter two. We have added a gross cash days metric to the investor presentation, which we believe better reflects the fundamentals of the two-tier distribution industry and our organization. Our gross cash days were approximately 16 days, which was consistent with the prior year, and a one-day improvement from the prior quarter. We ended the quarter with 874 million in cash and cash equivalents and debt of 4.2 billion. Our gross leverage ratio was 2.3 times and our net leverage ratio was 1.8 times. For the current quarter, our board of directors has approved a cash dividend of 44 cents per common share that will be payable on October 31st, 2025 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on October 17th, 2025. Now moving on to our outlook. These numbers are all non-GAAP. For the fourth quarter, we expect gross billings in the range of 23 to 24 billion, representing an increase of approximately 11% at the midpoint. Our outlook is based on a Euro to dollar exchange rate of 1.18. Net revenue in the range of 16.5 to 17.3 billion, which translates to an anticipated gross to net adjustment of 28%. Non-GAAP net income in the range of $281 to $322 million. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share in the range of $3.45 to $3.95 per diluted share, based on weighted average shares outstanding of approximately $80.7 million. We expect a non-GAAP effective tax rate of approximately 23% and interest expense of $91 million. In closing, we remain in a strong financial position to close out what has been a great year for our business and are leveraging our strategic pillars that we outlined during our investor day to ensure we continue to be the partner of choice in IT. With that, we'll open it up for your questions. Operator?

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. We request that you limit yourself to one question to allow time for the other participants to ask their questions. If there is time remaining, you are welcome to re-queue with additional questions. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Eric Woodring with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, guys. This is Maya. I'm for Eric. Last quarter, you talked about the potential for, you know, how to potentially decline. fiscal 4q on tough compares you know given the strong results in the august quarter and the strong november quarter guide and the momentum we're seeing in cloud topic trends more broadly how should we think about you know hive dynamics in fiscal 4q and then you know any high level color on as we look to next year thank you yeah good morning and thanks a lot for the question

So indeed, we were a little bit cautious last quarter. As you know, Hive is a lumpy business. But the quarter went extremely well, as did distribution, by the way. So what explains the overperformance? First, we saw growth, significant growth, across all the programs and all the customers. So that's point number one. Point number two, we see our second customer demand come back and we are confident, by the way, for next quarter too. It's the second thing. Then also we saw more demand for supply chain services than expected. And so the combination explains the other performance of Hive. And we believe that, I mean, those are the dynamics will remain in Q4 and is reflected in our guidance.

And Maya, this is Marshall, just thinking about the growth expectations being above what we initially had thought. As we said in previous discussions, we continue to make investments in skill sets, engineering capabilities, capacity, manufacturing, et cetera, to ensure that we stay ahead of capacity requirements.

Great. Thank you. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of David Page with RBC. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Marshall, thanks for taking my question. I guess I had two questions. Just any comments around the pull forward for PCs in the quarter? I believe last quarter was anywhere from 100 to 200 million. And if I could stick one other question in on free cash flow, should we still expect 1.1 billion for 2025. Thank you.

Good morning, David. Thanks for the questions. On the first one, so again, we looked at it. As you know, it's difficult to assess, but we think it's very limited. I mean, what we see is we continue to see very good momentum on PCs across the world. All regions are contributing to it. And again, it's driven really by the refresh related to Windows 11, the refresh of the base, which was built during the pandemic. And we also see the start of some momentum on AIPC. So some customers coming to us because they want an AIPC. Again, the vast majority is related to the refresh.

And David, in regards to free cash flow expectations for the year, our expectations is that the free cash flow will be approximately 800 million for the year. And let me give you some color behind that. As we were thinking about H2 coming out of H1, we had given a single-digit growth rate to the overall portfolio with distribution being a little bit above and Hive being that flat to down. Clearly, the results for quarter three showed a 10% growth rate and expectations again for a 10% growth rate in Q4. So in essence, that has lifted the overall working capital requirements for the entire portfolio, both distribution and Hive. As you know, Hive has a little bit longer cash conversion cycle given what is required in terms of raw materials to ultimately finish racks and how that fell through and staying ahead of our customers' requirements in terms of insurance, they have a smooth supply chain. If we think about quarter four, which ultimately is where this goes, if you look at our press release, you can see that our year-to-date free cash flow was zero coming into Q4. So how do we get there? In thinking about Q4 cash flow, we think that's going to be around, free cash flow is going to be around $850 million. It's roughly divided evenly between earnings growth for the quarter and expected cash conversion improvement of two to three days. I will say with that and thinking about what we had said at Investor Day, we still believe over the medium term cycle that net income to free cash flow conversion should stay right around 95%.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Keith Howsam with North Coast Research. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I apologize if my phone's breaking up. You guys, a great quarter, obviously, in terms of better than expected. I guess the question that may be asked here is, you know, how sustainable do we see this being? Is there any pull forward that we saw from the fourth quarter into third quarter?

Yes. So good morning. Again, I mean, if you look at what is driving the overperformance, so if I think about distribution, it's PCs, it's software, it's cybersecurity, it's compute. I mean, we believe that that dynamic will continue into Q4. And then high benefits from a very favorable environment. Hyperscalers are confirming or increasing their spend. And we are positioned on programs where the demand continues to be healthy.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Ng with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thank you for the question. I just have two quick ones on Hive. First, I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about the progress in onboarding new customers beyond the two main ones that you have. And then, you know, secondly, could you just talk about whether, you know, the growth in high volumes tend to be more from the traditional server side or AI server side? Thank you.

Michael, start, and then Patrick, please chime in. So, We continue to make good progress in what we'll call programs, as Patrick mentioned earlier. Programs to us is the way we define our ability to continue to grow our presence in Hive and ODMCM and data center supply chain management. We do expect to continue to diversify our portfolio. Our pipeline remains quite healthy and strong that continues to grow. We will continue to seek out more customers in the Super 6 and beyond that. And so we feel good about where that's heading. Patrick, do you want to cover that?

So good morning. Just adding that the growth is coming from networking and compute and more traditional compute. We have some GPU projects in the pipe, but when you look at Q3 and the vast majority of Q4, again, the demand will come from networking and traditional compute. Great. Thanks, Marshall. Thanks, Patrick. Thank you.

That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Patrick Zemet for closing remarks.

So thank you everyone for joining us. I want to close by reiterating that our goal isn't simply to perform today. It is to continue building a company that can do so reliably over the long term. That means continuing to invest in our people, in innovation, and in the systems that allow us to anticipate change rather than react to it. Our approach has always been about building enduring capabilities, deep customer and vendor relationships, operational discipline, and a culture that adapts quickly to change. These are the factors that we believe will allow us to continue to deliver differentiated performance year after year, regardless of the market cycle. Of course, none of this would be possible without our coworkers around the globe, who are the driving force behind our success. We are grateful for the trust our vendors, customers, and shareholders place in us, and we remain focused on earning it every day. Thank you, and have a great day.

That concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect. Have a nice day.