WNS (Holdings) Limited

Good morning, and welcome to the WNS Holdings Fiscal 2022 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listening mode. After management's prepared remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions for how to ask a question will follow at that time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. Now, I would like to turn the call over to David Mackey, WNS's Executive Vice President of Finance and Head of Investor Relations. David? David?

Thank you, and welcome to our fiscal 2022 first quarter earnings call. With me today on the call, I have WNS's CEO, Keshav Muragesh, WNS's CFO, Sanjay Puria, and our COO, Gautam Burai. A press release detailing our financial results was issued earlier today. This release is also available on the investor relations section of our website at www.wns.com. Today's remarks will focus on the results for the fiscal first quarter ended June 30, 2021. Some of the matters that will be discussed on today's call are forward-looking. Please keep in mind these forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors set forth in the company's Form 20F. This document is also available on the company website. During today's call, management will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures which we believe provide useful information for investors. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP results can be found in the press release issued earlier today. Some of the non-GAAP financial measures management will discuss are defined as follows. Net revenue is defined as revenue less repair payments. Adjusted operating margin is defined as operating margin excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation, and goodwill impairment. Adjusted net income, or ANI, is defined as profit excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation, goodwill impairment, and all associated taxes. These terms will be used throughout the call. I would now like to turn the call over to WNS's CEO, Keshav Muragesh.

Keshav? Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Despite some renewed COVID-related challenges this past quarter, WNS continued to perform well and post solid financial results. Net revenue for fiscal Q1 came in at $236.3 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 17.3% on a reported basis and 11.4% constant currency. Sequentially, net revenue increased by $8 million or 3.5% on a reported basis and 3% constant currency. In the first quarter, the company added seven new logos and expanded 17 existing relationships. Hiring accelerated in support of both new wins and committed volume increases with existing clients, with the company adding almost 3,000 employees during this quarter. WNS also posted strong adjusted operating margins of 20.8% despite COVID-related margin pressure, and we repurchased 1.1 million shares. Sanjay will provide further details on our first quarter financial performance in his prepared remarks. Given the pandemic-related volatility in the past quarter, I wanted to provide you with a brief update on some of the associated impacts to our business. As expected, we are seeing that vaccination rates, infection levels and economic recoveries are not consistent across the globe. In early May, the country of India experienced a massive spike in COVID-19 cases. Case counts peaked at over 400,000 per day, leading to shortages in oxygen and hospital beds, government-imposed lockdowns, and increased fatalities. WLS responded to the sudden surge by dramatically reducing our in-office headcount, purchasing oxygen concentrators, increasing employee benefits, and hiring additional resources to manage productivity loss stemming from personal or family illness. These actions resulted in over-reducing $1 million of additional costs in the first quarter and a sequential decline in our global work-from-office percentage from 23% last year or last quarter to 15% with India headcount in office dropping below 5%. On a positive note, our proactive response enabled WNS to support our employees' health and safety while successfully managing a rapid transition back to work from home. Service and delivery levels in the quarter remained stable at 99% and there were no material adverse impacts to client operations or company revenue. This recent surge of cases in India Further stress tested our business continuity approach and validated the hybrid operating model as being structurally more resilient. By mid-June, case counts in India had dropped well below 100,000 per day. Hospital and infrastructure availability was largely restored and lockdown restrictions were being eased. I am also proud to announce that last month, WNS began procuring and delivering vaccinations for our employees and their families in India. So far, we have administered over 8,000 doses and we are working to expand vaccinations across our global delivery network. We are also planning to make these programs available to our clients, employees, and business affiliates of WNS. While India struggled in Q1 with the COVID surge, the U.S. economy benefited from declining case counts and the lifting of restrictions. This progress extended to the travel vertical, where we are seeing meaningful improvement in the U.S. domestic leisure market, and more specifically, the online travel sector. The magnitude and timing of the recovery, however, has caught a number of our travel clients by surprise. WLS is working closely with them to understand their changing requirements, and we are aggressively hiring and training additional resources to bring increased support levels as quickly as possible. Our revised guidance reflects increased volume commitments and associated fulfillment cycles for Q2 and beyond. There also remains further opportunity to improve revenue going forward as U.S. domestic travel continues to rebound and when the business and international travel segments begin to recover. I also wanted to spend a few minutes today speaking to you about the ongoing ESG activities at WNS. In May, we released our first-ever Corporate Sustainability Report, which highlights WNS's efforts in fiscal 2021 towards developing, measuring, and integrating sustainability goals into the company's long-term strategic plans. With the help of KPMG, we perform a comprehensive materiality assessment to better understand the ESG elements of our business that are most critical to WMS's success and those that are of primary importance to our stakeholders. In addition to expected focus areas such as ethics and compliance, talent management, diversity, data security, corporate social responsibility, and climate change, the survey also highlighted digitization and innovation as important success factors for WNS. Many of the key ESG focus areas identified in this sustainability report has in fact been vital to managing the impacts of the COVID pandemic, beginning with the company's commitment to protecting our people, clients and communities. From an employee perspective, WNS has expended significant resources to ensure the health, safety and economic stability of our global staff, efforts including protection of our employees' financial well-being by carrying excess headcount and enhancing benefit programs and prioritizing their health and safety through proactive education programs, shifting to work-from-home models, implementing in-office safety protocols, and initiating vaccination programs. For our clients, WMS was able to support their immediate requirements by rapidly innovating, co-creating and implementing new work from home solutions to maintain mission critical operations. We are also helping meet their longer term requirements by driving increased transformation and digitization in existing processes and by continuing to make the necessary strategic investments in our business despite COVID-related revenue and margin pressure. With respect to the communities in which we live and work, the company shifted our WRS care initiatives to virtual and has made contributions of over $1.5 million to COVID relief efforts across the globe since the beginning of the pandemic. In short, I believe the company has been able to strike the proper balance in supporting our employees, clients, shareholders, as well as communities. I am also pleased to see that our sustainability efforts are gaining recognition in the market. Recently, WNS received the number one ranking in COVID's 2021 ESG assessment among 19 of our business services peers. We have also been included and achieved favorable scoring in the 2021 Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and received international awards for our learning and development programs, energy conservation, and CSR initiatives. While we have made significant strides on the ESG front, these are only the first steps in what must be an ongoing journey of continuous improvement. The company leadership understands that our ability to remain competitive and drive long-term success depend in part on integrating critical ESG components into our corporate strategy and goals. Looking forward, we continue to see healthy momentum in the BPM space, driven by increased demand for digital transformation, advanced analytics, and cost reduction. The transition of our business from outsourcing to automating and transforming is not only helping our services become more mainstream, it is also expanding our addressable market. We believe WRS remains very positioned in the BPM space, having made the right investments over the past several years to capitalize on these trends and differentiate our capabilities. For this fiscal year, We currently have 95% visibility to double-digit revenue growth, industry-leading margins, strong free cash flow, and a healthy broad-based pipeline. I would now like to turn the call over to our CFO, Sanjay Puria, to discuss further our results as well as our outlook. Sanjay? Thank you, Keshav.

In the fiscal first quarter, Dubliners' net revenue came in at $236.3 million, up 17.3% from $201.4 million posted in the same quarter of last year and up 11.4% on a constant currency basis. Sequentially, net revenue increased by 3.5% on a reported basis and 3% on a constant currency basis. Sequential revenue improvement was broad-based across verticals, services and geographies and driven by both new logos and expansion of existing relationships. Existed operating margin in quarter 1 was 20.8% reported in the same quarter of fiscal 2021 and 20.8% last quarter. Year-over-year adjusted operating margin increased largely as a result of reduced COVID-related margin pressures, increased operating leverage on higher volumes, and favorable currency movements net of hedging. These benefits were partially offset by the quarter-work impact of contractual productivity commitments, employee wage increases, and the reinstatement of our corporate leave policy. Sequentially, margins declined as a result of committed productivity commitments, wage increases, costs related to the COVID spike in India, the reinstatement of our corporate leave policy, and hiring in advance of revenues. These headwinds were partially offset by operating leverage on higher volume, reduced SG&A resulting from quarter 4 bonus and incentive amounts, and favorable currency movements net of hedging. The company's net other income and expense was half a million dollars of net income in the first quarter as compared to half a million dollars of net expense reported in quarter worth of fiscal 2021 and $200,000 of net expense last quarter. Year over year, the favorable variance is attributable to $1.2 million of non-recurring interest income on a tax refund and lower interest expense resulting from scheduled debt repayments. These items were partially offset by lower interest rates on cash and investments. Sequentially, the interest in net income is driven by an incremental $0.4 million of interest income on tax refunds and higher cash balances. WMS's effective tax rate for Q1 came in at 21.5%, down from 25.1% last year, and down from 22.6% last quarter. This quarter's tax rate included a one-time $0.8 million tax benefit relating to the tax treatment of our liquid mutual funds. Other changes in the quarterly tax rate are primarily due to a mix of profits between geographies and the mix of work delivered from tax incentive facilities. The company's adjusted net income for Q1 was $39 million compared with $26.1 million in the same quarter of fiscal 2021 and $36.7 million last quarter. Existed diluted earnings were 76 cents per share in Q1 versus 50 cents in the first quarter of last year and 71 cents last quarter. As of June 30, 2021, Douglas' balances in cash and investments totaled $311.3 million and the company had $16.8 million of debt. WNS generated $15.3 million of cash from operating activities this quarter and incurred $7.7 million in capital expenditures. During this quarter, the company repurchased 1.1 million shares of stock at an average price of $77.31, which impacted quarter 1 cash by $85 million. DSO in the first quarter came in at 32 days as compared to 39 days last year and 30 days last quarter. With respect to other key operating metrics, total headcount at the end of the quarter was 46,918 and our attrition rate in the first quarter increased to 32% up from 11% reported in quarter 1 of last year and up from 30% in the previous quarter. Hiring in the quarter was for new business ramps, committed volume increases in travel, and COVID-related backup resources. Bid seat capacity at the end of the first quarter remained relatively steady at 34,738. The seat utilization metrics which the company typically provides as a measure of infrastructure productivity are not meaningful given we are currently operating at 85% work from home globally. In our press release issued earlier today, WNS provided our revised full year guidance for fiscal 2022. Based on the company's current visibility levels, we expect net revenue to be in the range of $961 million to $1.9 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 11% to 16% on a reported basis and 8% to 14% on a constant currency basis. Revenue guidance assumes an average British pound for the remainder of fiscal 2022. Consistent with our guidance approach in previous years, we currently have 95% visibility to the midpoint of the range and our projections do not include any uncommitted short-term revenue. Full year adjusted net income for fiscal 2022 is expected to be the range of $158 million to $168 million based on a 74.5 rupee to US dollar exchange rate for the remainder of fiscal 2022. This implies adjusted EPS of $3.09 to $3.28, assuming a diluted share count of approximately 51.2 million shares. With respect to capital expenditures, WNS currently expects our requirements for fiscal 2022 to be up to $35 million. We'll now open the call for questions. Operator?

Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question at this time, please press star, then 1 on your touchtone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to move yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. In the interest of time and to enable everyone on the call to participate, please limit your queries to one question and one answer. Our first question comes from the line of Maggie Nolan with William Blair. Your line is open.

Hey, this is Ted on for Maggie Nolan. Can you talk about the ability to add new clients, make the client sentiment right now on outsourcing and delivery ability just kind of with COVID going on in India?

Yes. In terms of what we are seeing, that the client demand continues to be robust and we continue to add new clients, as also alluded by Keshav in his prepared remarks earlier. what we are also able to do is effectively ramp up due to our hybrid operating model, which balances our work-from-home-to-work-from-office requirements. So we are seeing no pressure in terms of ability to deliver and execute to our committed ramp-up cycles with our clients.

And just to add a little color to that, Ted, I think what this really shows is you know, how mission critical these services and solutions are to our clients today. The reality is given the disruption, given some of the challenges that are going on out there, clients understand that this isn't going to be easy, but the reality is they understand that they can't wait a year or two years or three years until we're completely past a COVID cycle to be able to start to transform and to automate their businesses. So, You know, I think what this really is doing is helping to demonstrate just how critical and just how strategic these types of initiatives are to our clients.

Okay, I think that's helpful. And my follow-up question is, what are you seeing in terms of the current wage inflation levels and the current pricing environment? Thank you.

So, you know, the current wage is, you know, back to the pre-COVID level, which is pretty normal. You know, what we used to have, you know, approximately is an average of, you know, 8% in the organization. And, you know, we are not seeing any rising pressure. The whole discussion is all about, you know, productivity, efficiency, transformation, and that's what the discussion about the total cost of ownership.

All right, great. Thank you. Thanks, Ted. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Burgin with Cowen. Your line is open.

Hi. Thank you. Question on travel and leisure client conversations. Just curious, what you're seeing in projected spending and the budgets that they're providing for the year, and are you seeing any recent volatility based on variance?

So as Keshav alluded in his prepared remarks, our guidance assumes the confirmed ramp-up that our clients have provided to us over the next two to three quarters. What we are seeing is a current ramp-up across our OTAs, especially due to the domestic travel bookings in the U.S. and some forward leisure bookings domestically in the U.S. and certain other countries. What definitely there is a scope that we see is as the, depending on the waves of COVID, of pandemic evolving, where we see is increased bookings in hotels to transcontinental flights should they pick up. That gives us additional volumes. But at the moment, the clients are also conservative in providing confirmed forecasts.

Yeah, Brian and Saskisha will just add a little bit here. And, you know, obviously what's happening around travel is very opportunistic, very positive, you know, from our point of view. And, you know, clearly we are benefiting from some increased volumes based on what Gautam just spoke about. But at the same time, I'd like to mention that at this point in time, our revenues are still almost 25% below pre-COVID levels. So there is a huge potential for For growth from here and for that to be realized, lots more has to, you know, happen. First and foremost, we think that the whole health passport, you know, system that, you know, airlines and countries are talking about has to take off. More vaccination needs to get done. And most importantly, transatlantic traffic, as Gautam mentioned, should take off. So having said that, you know, while we are positive about it and we expect to keep benefiting along the way, we will wait with caution to see how our clients actually project these numbers over the next few months.

A couple of things I'd like to add to that too, Brian. One, the other thing that's important to remember, and Keisha touched on it in his prepared remarks a little bit, is that there is a lead time that's associated with what the travel clients want. So, for example, if they do start to see a pickup in volume and they come to us and are willing to commit to higher volumes going forward, there still is a two- to three-month cycle for us to go out and hire these resources and train these resources for the specific processes that there's demand for. So there's always going to be somewhat of a lag between what you see in a pickup externally and what we see in terms of the ability to generate revenue. The other color I'd like to give you around the travel vertical is, in addition to, as both Keshav and Gautam mentioned, the opportunity to recover the lost business, we are also seeing significant traction in the travel vertical with new logos. So we are seeing new companies coming to us looking for help in a post-pandemic environment. And these are really all centered around not just saving costs, but also trying to attract and retain customers and improving the customer experience in an environment where that's going to be extremely important to trying to rebuild loyalty, rebuild capability.

Okay. Thank you for all that, Carl. Just a follow-up here on gross margin. Can you comment on what drove the change here relative to where you've been the last several quarters? How much of this was pandemic-related costs versus some of the normal course business? And how should we expect gross margin to trend over the next couple of quarters?

Yeah, so I'll take that. Specifically for this quarter, we had less than $1.5 million of the COVID-related impact specifically for this quarter, which was around some of the additional hiring that we had to do because of the COVID absenteeism, because there was a surge and employees were not able to come to work, as well as, you know, some of the benefits program, what we, you know, what we started during this quarter, which Kesha touched upon, whether it was the insurance coverage for our people or whether it was a home care, vaccination camps, and so on. What we expect, you know, margin definitely to improve, you know, sequentially to the next quarter as we move forward because some of this cost As we are seeing as the COVID is, you know, the situation is getting relaxed, you know, so we may have that improved. But, again, if there is a second wave or a third wave, then definitely there may be some impact to protect the revenue, but, you know, some impact on the margin.

Yeah, and I think, Brian, just to reiterate, you know, Q1 is typically a seasonally low quarter for us from a margin perspective, both in terms of, the wage increases that we give to our employees, as well as the productivity commitments that we give to our clients. So certainly the reduction sequentially is something that was expected. I would actually say that if you look at where we finished the first quarter, our gross margin came in probably a little bit below expectation because of the COVID surge, but the SG&A also came in lower on a sequential basis because of some of the incentives and bonuses that Sanjay mentioned that were paid in Q4 that were not recurring in Q1. So, you know, certainly it was a good overall quarter from an operating margin perspective, but we do see upside as we move across the three quarters for the rest of this year, which is what's implied in our full-year guidance, which still has adjusted operating margins in the 21% to 22% range. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mayank Tandon with Needham. Your line is open.

Thank you. Congrats on the quarter. Keshav, maybe I would ask you sort of a high-level question to start. Are you seeing the pace of deals converting from signing to revenue accelerate here at this stage in the pandemic versus, say, pre-pandemic? I'm assuming that given the cost pressures and the focus on digital transformation, there might be more of an impetus on the part of clients to move faster. I just want to get your thoughts around that.

Yeah. Thanks, Mike, for that question. So first and foremost, I would say that three things are working in our favor. One is the investments we have made over the years in some of the core programs that I have always spoken about, which I think at this point in time are all resonating extremely well with from a client point of view. You know, when we talk about digital, when we talk about technology, when we talk about domain, when we talk about analytics, and when we talk about the fact that as a company we're able to actually deliver transformation and as well as a transition program, even in a remote manner in this fashion, it actually augurs very well for us. The second thing I must say is that anyone who has not dipped their toes in this model Actually, I see them scrambling to actually start testing this model and start getting involved with this model. And for those who are mature outsourcers or who have been part of this program for a while, I think a lot of them are looking at when is the next wave likely to hit and what decisions should I take quickly. So in terms of the overall demand environment, I actually think that the demand is very, very solid. It is across demand. all core verticals, it is across all geographies, it is across all the offering programs we have. And in terms of conversion from the sales cycle to actual revenue, it depends a lot on what the client actually wants. From our perspective, we've actually found a number of clients that have been pursuing this for the past few months have converted very quickly. And some people who are looking at larger, transformational kind of deals are still progressing their programs, but moving a little slower at this point in time. But overall, I'm really positive about the way our pipeline has shaped up and the way our clients and prospects are responding to us. And I must say, at this point in time, the number of large deals that we are interacting around is actually very, very healthy.

That's very helpful. Thank you for that. Then as a quick follow-up here, I wanted to go back to the guidance. Should we expect the trajectory on revenue and margins to be fairly linear for the next three quarters, or do you expect any seasonality or any sort of one-time drivers that might skew the growth rate or margins to one or two quarters? Just want to get a better handle on how the model shakes out now in this stage of the pandemic and some of the headwinds that you called out in some businesses around travel, but less so, obviously, than what you were seeing before.

You know, so I'll take that. You know, right now for the guidance, definitely what we expect is a sequential growth, you know, over the next three quarters. And, you know, this is based on our visibility of the guidance, what we have, which is 95% at this stage to the midpoint. of the guidance and just want to remind that this still doesn't include the short-term revenue where we don't have a visibility as well as the possibility from a travel vertical in case it picks up because right now we have only baked in what client has given the commitment based on that visibility. So we are not expecting any volatility because if you recall earlier, the volatility Specifically, quarter three used to happen from the travel vertical, which right now anyway is, you know, based on the minimum commitment what planned up you want.

Yeah. So just to add a little bit to that, Mike, I think when you look at the cadence across the last three quarters of the year, you know, good, healthy quarter-over-quarter growth across the last three quarters and kind of nothing that we see that's – unique or one-time in those numbers today. Obviously, our visibility to next quarter is better than it is to Q4 at this point in time, so hopefully things continue to firm up as we move across the year. But, you know, the seasonality as it sits today is pretty even, both from a top-line expansion as well as from a margin expansion. The one thing I do want to provide a little bit of a caveat on is relative to Q2 earnings. While we do expect revenue to grow and we expect margins to expand a little bit in Q2, we also know that there were some one-timers in terms of interest income and in terms of tax benefits that will not be recurring in Q2. So we do view Q2 at this point in time as having relatively flattish earnings. That's helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. Thank you. Our next question comes from Puneet Jain with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks for taking my question. So, Keshav, you talked about hybrid delivery model going forward last quarter, I think. Will there be opportunity to permanently reduce facility expense and operate with higher work from home under that model? And can you talk about timing and marginal implications for that?

Sure. So, Punit, I'll start and then we'll have Gautam talk a little about it. So, the first thing I must say is that, you know, I think the greatest comfort that we have given to our clients, as well as the number of prospects, is the fact that we can operate in any model. I mean, as opposed to the traditional model where everyone came to the office and operated, we were able to demonstrate how quickly and efficiently we were able to move the bulk of our teams back to homes and still deliver a great experience to all our clients. I actually think as a result of this, it will actually be very salutary to WNS in terms of the revenue line. I think a lot of processes that clients are traditionally have kept in their back pocket or kept closer to themselves at the head office, they are far more comfortable with handing over to us. Now in terms of the hybrid delivery model that you spoke about, now clearly what we are doing is working with governments across the globe to make sure that some of the relaxations that they provided during the pandemic are made permanent. Now as long as you know, the pandemic remains, and as long as these relaxations are available, we are extremely comfortable operating in a model which is predominantly driven from home. But I want to mention one thing, that first and foremost at this point in time, India has relaxed up till the pandemic. They have not made final decisions on what the model will be in terms of the OSP regime, as well as in terms of labor laws From a permanency point of view, we'll have to wait and see how that actually works out before we make final calls on this. Second thing is because we manage very mission-critical kind of work. Now, it will be different for different companies. We believe that our need to bring people back into the office as far as is possible, provided normalcy resumes, And to keep building on the culture of the company as well as the innovative culture of this company is critical. And that can be done predominantly when people are working in the office. So I will say that, you know, maybe at this point in time it is safe to assume that 20 to 30 percent, you know, will work from home. The rest over a period of time will come back to the office in terms of normalcy. But the company is prepared to work in any model and has demonstrated this very well to clients. And even as we speak, all through this pandemic, we have kept rationalizing costs. We have kept focusing on our infrastructure costs as well as tightening our belt in terms of new facilities and things like that. So that is something that will always continue.

Understood. And can you also talk about your exposure to high-tech or e-commerce clients that grew at FastGrid? Could you share, like, what percentage of revenue stems from such clients and how much they grew at for you?

Sure. Let me take that, Puneet. You know, I think we've spoken in the past about, you know, some of the progress that we've made. along the lines of acquiring these clients and growing these relationships. I think we continue to do that. We continue to see that we've got a really good reputation in the high-tech space in terms of our ability to connect with these types of clients. If you looked at last fiscal year, we were at 17% of overall company revenue that came from digital disruptors or companies that were born digital, if you will. and we continue to see that number in terms of what we had here in the fiscal first quarter. So, you know, both in terms of the names and the logos that we've been able to add and the growth and the expansion within those, we're very pleased with our overall reputation in the space, and more importantly, how our reputation in the Internet space helps us help our traditional brick-and-mortar clients compete with the digital disruptors, because that's really what they're looking for. That's what's driving transformation and digitization is the need to be more competitive with these types of clients, and we certainly believe that we have a unique perspective to offer clients.

Got you.

Also, just to add to what Dave mentioned, beyond the traditional high-tech companies, we have been working very strongly over the past two to three years with some of the largest fintechs, insurtechs, and health techs across the board, which have been extremely heavily funded.

Understood. Thanks for the clarification.

Thanks, Puneet.

Thanks, Puneet. Our next question comes from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington. Your line is open.

Yes. I'm curious, what has to happen to hit the high end of the revenue outlook for the year?

So, you know, I think in the prepared remarks, as I said, you know, one, the short-term revenue is not picked in still in the guidance. It is based on the visibility, what we have, which is 95%. Second, you know, travel, again, the client has given conservative commitment at this stage, and, you know, as the travel sector opens up, you know, so there is a good opportunity definitely to really increase the revenue for the year, as well as some of the quick sales conversion and the transformation deal, what Keshav was talking about, can definitely help us to drive the high end of the guidance.

Thanks for that. And curious, is any of the current unrest in South Africa having any impact on your operations or demand trends?

Yeah, I think I'll take that. Yeah, so I think, you know, the unrest obviously is disturbing and, you know, we are really sorry for all the people who are impacted, you know, as a result of this. At this point in time, we've not actually been impacted from an operations point of view, but we are watching the situation very, very closely.

And I'll just add, as Keshav said, you know, specifically because work from home, what we are driving, you know, across the globe, and 85% of the people are working from home, and, you know, that has really helped, you know, the operation not to get impacted, even in this, you know, untoward incident.

Thanks for answering my questions. Good quarter, guys. Thanks, Vince. Thank you, Rick.

Our next question comes from Dave Coning with Barrett. Your line is open.

Yeah. Hey, guys. Thanks. Nice job. I guess my first question – yeah, hey. The banking vertical for a long time was kind of running $9 million, $10 million a quarter, and then the last couple quarters kind of ran to $11 million and then $13 million, and now it's at like $15 million. So – I guess maybe what's happening there is that one big client that's just all of a sudden ramping, and maybe is there a lot of ramps still to come, or are we kind of at a 15 million kind of level now for a while?

What we are seeing is across the board multiple clients starting to ramp up, and this is especially because of our strategy about a couple of years ago to focus on the fintech and the regionals and the super regional players who are starting to expand quite significantly for us. So almost every client that we have won in the last two years are seeing significant growth.

I think, Dave, this is an area where, you know, the strategy to focus on the parts of the banking financial services space that were significantly underpenetrated or that were evolving in nature really has paid off for us. And, you know, obviously the very large global banks have have picked partners and have outsourced quite a bit over the years, and that's an area where we would struggle to make an impact. But to Gotham's point, when you look at regional banking, when you look at super regional banking, when you look at fintechs, these are all areas that have been underserviced or emerging and certainly a place where we think we can play a meaningful role, and we're starting to see that traction within banking and financial services vertical.

Gotcha. Okay, thank you. And then, And then on the workforce, you know, I think it's interesting the last couple quarters, you know, a lot of times you hear about it's hard to find people, there's higher attrition, you know, your attrition is back to kind of normal levels, but you've hired actually faster than revenue growth. I would imagine that's in preparation. This quarter, 7% sequential growth, it's the biggest headcount growth in years, right? And So I guess maybe that's a question, and then I guess part of it, too, is the Philippines, in particular, the Philippines is a huge place. India, normally, you know, that was good. But the rest of the regions didn't grow that much. Maybe just talk about region by region, why certain ones have grown a ton, others not quite as much.

Yes. As rightly said, in terms of this quarter, we've had to hire quite a large workforce. This is an anticipation situation. for the ramps that are happening with our travel clients, in fact, the confirmed volumes that we have received, which requires about 6 to 12 weeks in terms of hiring and training. So that's the anticipated ramp-ups that we are seeing in the Philippines. A large chunk of the Philippines' growth is centered around our OTA clients and some of our financial services and a few of our healthcare clients, and that's all expanding in that particular region. So is the case within our India headcount. where we see a growth happening from our analytic side of the business, the digital services that we need to provide to a multitude of our clients, and our financial services clients. Now, again, we have not seen any untoward pressure in terms of our hiring capabilities. There are a few selective skills that are always in demand across the board, depending on the macroeconomic conditions. So we have seen the largest growth happening in these two regions, and the other regions are kind of static at the moment where we are seeing incremental growth.

Right. And just to follow up on that, Dave, I think, you know, as Keshav mentioned in his prepared remarks, the massive hiring this past quarter was really for three reasons. Some of it was in preparation for the growth in the OTA space, which Gautam alluded to. Some of it was for the new logos and the expansions that have taken place over the last couple of quarters. But we also had hiring in India from a COVID disaster recovery business continuity perspective because that's where we saw the big impact from the spike. So, you know, we had to hire additional resources just to make sure we were able to deliver for our clients, and we carried some of that cost as well. So there were really three drivers for that massive headcount spike, and now we certainly hope to leverage that as our top line grows.

Hey, Dave, I just want to add one perspective here, and it is on the fact that you complimented us on the large-scale hiring. I mean, it once again demonstrates how talent looks at W&S as a great company to work for, as a company where they get unique experiences. and in a market which is quite hot and where there is a war for talent, the fact that they appreciate that this is a learning company for them. So actually, I really thank you for that question because it once again demonstrates that all the investments that we have made in our business, and particularly around HR and talent, is resonating extremely well with the workforce of tomorrow.

Yeah, great to see that. Thank you.

Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Dave.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Our next question comes from Ashwin Shervekar with Citi. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good day to you all, and good to speak to you all again. I think let me start with, you know, you commented a few times on the call that visibility is based on minimum commitment, which probably is not different than how you've done it before, but the question really is, has the tendency from the client side been to exceed minimum commitments coming out of the pandemic here? And maybe a related question is, with more of your growth coming outside your top 20, is there sort of a different pattern or behavior that we should expect from maybe a different client base?

So, you know, I'll take that, you know. So, right now, other than travel clients, as we mentioned, you know, as they have been a little bit conservative because they don't have seen the visibility beyond a point, you know, we are not seeing any conservative clients. commitment from the client unless and until it is contractual because, you know, in our business, if they give the commitment, then, you know, that much, you know, the volume of the billing is always done, right? So that is where they become conservative. But other than that, travel, we have not seen any particular pattern or a different behavior from a client perspective, you know, in providing the commitment. And that is the reason, if you recall, in the last call, We did say that, you know, this time the productivity and the ramp is, you know, it was higher than the usual one, and despite that, we are providing 11%, you know, at the midpoint from a constant currency growth perspective based on that possibility.

And I do think, though, Ashwin, we have seen, you know, last year we were talking about how what was happening was clients were forecasting declining volumes, and as a result, what was happening is they were beating those numbers based on the fact that they were being conservative and didn't want to get stuck with excess resource or excess cost. That's clearly moved to a situation now when you look at the hiring patterns to where not only are they forecasting flat volumes, but they're forecasting increasing volumes. And the reality is it's not a forecast for them. They need those resources today. The problem that they have is they didn't forecast it or commit to it three months ago, six months ago. So now we've got to go through the whole fulfillment cycle to make sure that they're able to get those resources. If they do continue to move in that direction, there's certainly upside going forward. The question will be how quickly can we hire and train to that accelerating volume. So, you know, some of this is what's going on with respect to the commitments, but, you know, you have to understand the backside of it, which is once a client's willing to commit to that, how quickly can W&S then go find those resources and train those resources so that they're ready to deliver for the client?

Understood, understood. And then the second question is on cash and use of cash. Was there anything one time driving the free cash flow trend in the quarter, the higher-end build-up? you know, is there something changing as it relates to contractual terms or is it more timing related? And the use of cash part of it is you repurchased $85 million. I think that's the biggest one that you've ever done in a quarter in your history. You know, again, is that very opportunistic or are you, I mean, should we expect a step up?

So specifically, first let me start with quarter one. That's typically a low-cash generation quarter because we have a bonus payout. you know, we have a wage inflation, and, you know, as well as, you know, with the expansion and the growth, our accounts receivable, you know, have gone up a little bit, including, you know, some, the contract renewals, what we had, last contract renewals, and there was just a one-time change from a billing perspective, you know, just a couple of days, which has just fallen to the next month. That's a one-time impact what we had in quarter one. And, you know, from a utilization of the cash perspective, yes, you know, share buyback program, what we have completed with $85 million in the quarter, as well as our inorganic plans are in place. We continuously, you know, keep on actively pursuing the opportunities and the prospects from a strategic area perspective. which are in the bucket acquisitions on the capability side, just about the right assets, the right time and the right price, that will be the utilization of the cash as we move forward from an organic growth plan perspective.

Got it. Thank you, guys.

Thanks, Ashwin. Thank you, Ashwin.

Thank you. At this time, we have no further questions in the queue. This will conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now.