WNS (Holdings) Limited

Good morning, and welcome to the WNS Holdings Fiscal 2023 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only 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?

Thank you, and welcome to our fiscal 2023 first quarter earnings call. With me today on the call, I have WNS's CEO, Keshav Muragesh, WNS's CFO, Sanjay Puriya, and our COO, Gautam Barai. 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 30th, 2022. Some of the matters that will be discussed on today's call are forward-looking. Please keep in mind that 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 this 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.

Hey, thank you, David, and a very good morning, everyone. WNS's financial results in the fiscal first quarter continue to demonstrate solid performance, including top line growth, margins, as well as free cash flow. Net revenue for Q1 came in at $274.8 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 16.3% on a reported basis and 20.8% on constant currency. Sequentially, net revenue reduced by 0.1% on a reported basis but increased 2% on a constant currency basis after adjusting for foreign exchange. In the first quarter, WNS added seven new logos and expanded 30 existing relationships. The company also delivered strong adjusted operating margins of 21.1% and grew adjusted EPS by 18% year over year. Sanjay will provide further details on our first quarter financial performance in his prepared remarks. For the past few years, WNS has been consistent in our message that while tuck-in M&A was a key organizational priority, we would continue to be disciplined in our approach and remain focused on finding assets that were ability-based or capability-based, good cultural fits, and had strong financial performance. On the 1st of July, we were excited to announce the acquisition of VURAM, a global leader in intelligent enterprise automation, which we believe checks all the right boxes. From a capability standpoint, Vuram brings demonstrated experience and expertise in helping companies accelerate end-to-end digital transformation by aligning, automating, and optimizing processes to enable the creation of scalable BPM solutions. Their low code approach to intelligent automation, leveraging strategic partnerships with industry leading technology platform and tool providers, enables faster speed to market and a highly flexible approach to designing and deploying customized client solutions. This complementary capability will not only allow WNS to accelerate new client transformation programs, but will also help us enhance ongoing productivity improvements for existing engagements. Vuram's services span the client's front, middle, and back office and include process automation, digital consulting, user experience, and user interface solutions, advanced analytics, quality assurance, as well as testing. The company's approach to driving process automation is horizontal in nature and therefore can be easily applied to any WNS vertical or service offering. In addition, Buram has created unique reusable components including automation accelerators specifically tailored to key verticals including banking and financial services, insurance, as well as healthcare. Today, the Vuram team is comprised of more than 900 professionals providing WNS with a new set of digital skills and an additional channel for sourcing digital talent. Culturally, we also believe Vuram is an excellent fit for WNS as well. They utilize a client-centric approach driven by customized services and solutions operate a globally distributed delivery model and have a very strong focus on employee care as well as development. In fact, Vuram has been recognized as one of the best companies to work for in India each of the past five years. Vuram also brings a proven track record of delivering growth and margins which meet or exceed WNS's financial benchmarks. This past fiscal year, Vuram grew revenue more than 35% and delivered adjusted operating margins in excess of 30%. We are very excited to welcome the Vuram team to the WNS family and we look forward to working together as we continue on our journey towards digitally led human assisted services and solutions. Later on, This call itself, Sanjay will share with you additional financial details of the acquisition, including the expected contribution to fiscal 2023 guidance. Today, I also wanted to spend a few minutes talking about the weakening global macro environment and its potential impacts to WNS. As we all are aware, most countries today are experiencing significant economic and political challenges. Now the impacts of rising inflation, slowing growth, labor supply pressures, geopolitical conflicts, supply chain issues, as well as the COVID pandemic has increased the likelihood of a global recession and are forcing companies to reassess their business plans as well as their spending levels. Fortunately for WNS, We believe that demand for our services will continue to have low macro correlation and overall will remain healthy. Today, our revenue momentum is being driven by our clients' need to digitize processes in order to be competitive in their respective markets. This is really not optional or discretionary and cannot be postponed until the economic environment is healthy. We saw this theme emerge during the pandemic as clients moved forward signing new transformational deals and expanding the scope of existing arrangements despite the volatile macro. In addition, it is important to remember that the bulk of WNS's services, while helping automate processes and improve competitive positioning, also deliver significant and rapid cost savings to clients. Since there is very often little or no upfront financial investment on the client's part, the decision to move forward with these initiatives is much easier and far less exposed to budgetary pressures. In fact, we believe there is an opportunity to see scopes of work increase and sales cycles reduce as clients look to accelerate savings in this environment. While we expect demand for new business will remain healthy in a weak macro, we are also comfortable with the overall stability of our existing book of business. Today, approximately 95% of WNS's revenue is recurring in nature, highly visible, and backed by long-term contracts. Because the functions we manage are mission critical to the client's day-to-day business, Any decision to change partners or bring back work in-house can be very risky and expensive for clients or potential prospects. Today, we are not seeing any adverse impacts to our business from a weakened macro environment. And in fact, we continue to see strength in our pipeline, deal flow, as well as business momentum. That being said, we will continue to monitor our client base for potential headwinds. In short, we believe that the stable nature of our services, coupled with resilient demand, driven by our clients' need to digitize, better compete, and save money, will enable WNS to perform well even in a weak global macro environment. We are also comfortable that our company is well positioned to capitalize on the growing digital opportunity in the BPM space. WNS will continue to focus on investing for the future executing on our strategic initiatives and delivering sustainable value for all of our key stakeholders. I would now like to turn the call over to CFO, Sanjay Puria, to further discuss our results and outlook. Sanjay.

Thank you, Keshav. In the fiscal first quarter, WNS's net revenue came in at $274.8 million, up 16.3% from $236.3 million posted in the same quarter of last year and up 20.8% on a constant currency basis. Sequentially, net revenue decreased by 0.1% on a reported basis and increased 2% on a constant currency. Sequentially, underlying revenue momentum was masked by currency depreciation a reduction in short-term revenue and the impact of contractual productivity commitments to certain clients. In the first quarter, WLS recorded $0.2 million of short-term revenue at margin above company average. Existed operating margin in quarter one was 21.1% as compared to 20.8% reported in the same quarter of fiscal 2022 and 21.1% last quarter. Year over year, adjusted operating margin increased as a result of operating leverage on higher volumes, improved productivity, and currency movements net of hedging. These benefits more than offset employee wage increases and higher facility related and travel costs associated with our return to office. Sequentially, margins decreased as a result of wage increases and higher facility related and travel costs. These headwinds were partially offset by improved productivity, lower SG&A costs driven by quarter-fold bonus and incentive amounts, and currency movements net of hedging. The company's net other income expense was $0.2 million of net income in the first quarter as compared to $0.5 million of net income reported in quarter one of fiscal 2022 and $0.9 million of net income last quarter. Year over year, the unfavorable variance is attributable to $1.2 million of interest income on a tax refund recorded in quarter one of 2022. which more than offset increased interest income on higher cash balances and lower interest expense relating to operating leases and debt repayment. Sequentially, the unfavorable variance is a result of $0.6 million of interest income on a tax refund recorded in quarter four of 2022. WNS's effective tax rate for quarter one came in at 21.1% down from 21.5% last year and up from 19.7% last quarter. Year over year, a one-time tax benefit on liquid mutual funds in quarter one of last year was more than offset by shifts in our geographical profit mix and changes to the mix of work delivered from tax incentive facilities. The sequential increase in our effective tax rate resulted from the mix of work between geographies and tax exempt facilities. Recently, the Fiscal Incentives Review Board in the Philippines has relaxed the return to office regulation, allowing firms to operate 30% from home per facility until September 12, 2022. The change was made retroactive to April 1 and as a result, WNS quarter one effective tax rate was not negatively impacted as we had expected. The company's adjusted net income for quarter one was $45.9 million compared with $39 million in the same quarter of fiscal 2022 and $48.3 million last quarter. Adjusted diluted earnings were 90 cents per share in quarter one versus 76 cents in the first quarter of last year and 95 cents last quarter. This represents year-over-year EPS growth of 18%. As of June 30, 2022, WNS balances in cash and investments totaled $373.5 million and the company had $31.7 million in short-term debt. In addition, the company has also taken an $80 million term loan for general corporate purposes on July 7, 2022. WNS generated $15.8 million of cash from operating activities this quarter and incurred $10.9 million in capital expenditures. During the quarter, the company repurchased 742,000 shares of stock at an average price of $72.48, which impacted quarter one cash by $51.2 million. DSO in the first quarter came in at 29 days as compared to 32 days reported in quarter one of last year and 30 days last quarter. With respect to other key operating metrics, total headcount at the end of the quarter was 55,146 and our attrition rate in the first quarter increased to 49% up from 32% reported in quarter one of last year and up from 44% in the previous quarter. As was the case last quarter, the elevated attrition was concentrated at the junior most levels of the organization and primarily focused on voice based CX service in the Philippines resulting from the return to office mandate. In addition, it is important to note that WNS quarter one attrition rate typically runs approximately 2 to 3% higher than other quarters due to the timing of our annual review, bonus and incremental cycle. We do not believe that this elevated level is currently impacting our ability to service clients or accelerate growth, and we expect the attrition rate will reduce over the next few quarters. Built seat capacity at the end of the first quarter was stable, coming in at 34,674 seats. The seat utilization metrics which the company typically provides as a measure of infrastructure productivity are not meaningful given this company operated at 59% work from home globally in quarter one. In our press release issued earlier today, WNS provided our revised full year guidance for fiscal 2023. Based on the company's current visibility levels, we expect net revenue to be in the range of $1 billion and $100 million to $1 billion and $152 million, representing year-over-year growth of 7% to 12% on a reported basis and 11% to 17% on a constant currency basis. The acquisition of Vuram has increased our fiscal 2023 revenue guidance by 2%, and our top line projections assumes an average British pound to US dollar exchange rate of 1.20 for the remainder of the fiscal 2023. Consistent with our guidance approach in previous years, we currently have 95% visibility to the midpoint of the range, which does not include any uncommitted short-term revenue or improvement in travel volumes beyond quarter one levels. Full year adjusted net income for fiscal 2023 is expected to be in the range of $183 million to $195 million, based on a 79 rupee to US dollar exchange rate for the remainder of fiscal 2023. This implies adjusted EPS of $3.62 to $3.86, assuming a diluted share count of approximately 50.6 million shares. The guidance include an increase of one cent per share associated with the acquisition of VORAM, which is inclusive of all acquisition and integration costs and reduction in interest income. With respect to capital expenditures, WNS currently expects our requirements for fiscal 2023 to be up to $40 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 touch-tone telephone. In the interest of time, and enable everyone on the call to participate, please limit your queries to one question and one follow-up. Our first question comes from the line of Brian Bergen with Catlin. Your line is now open.

Hi, guys. Thank you. I wanted to just start here, a high-level question, digging into client sentiment, spending appetite, maybe across different regions and industries. Can you give us a sense on maybe the U.S. base versus U.K. and Europe, really anything in that decision-making, that spending appetite, the sales cycles? And then as well, just what you're seeing in travel and your thoughts going there forward. So U.S. versus U.K. Europe, and then specifically travel.

Thanks, Brian. This is Gautam. So what we've been seeing over the last few quarters, the recovery had been led by our U.S. clients, followed by Europe and the U.K., and APAC, but what we've seen in the last quarter, in fact, is the deal flow is starting to increase in U.K. and Europe, and the decision-making cycles have also started shrinking, so clients are making decisions a lot more quickly to start the implementations. In terms of the travel vertical, what we have seen is while the current set of forecasts that we have and projected are at the Q1 level that we have seen, largely the recovery has been led through leisure travel. The corporate travel is still not picked up to the levels of pre-pandemic days, but what we see is as airlines and airports start improving their capacity through addition of flight crews or baggage handlers, et cetera, that volume could start increasing over the next few quarters, but that will not get factored in there. I hope that answers the question.

Yes, it does. Thank you. And then just a follow-up here on the workforce and the attrition outlook. Can you just give us a sense on what the company attrition would be ex-Philippines? And then just more broadly, How are you thinking about the ultimate impact here of Philippines through the business model?

So I would say if we remove the Philippines level of attrition, we would do it about 33% to 35% levels. In terms of our ability to deliver to our client commitments all the ramps that are projected, we are seeing absolutely no pressure in terms of doing that. There are certain levels of pressure that we have in our hiring and training team, but our unique models that we have especially with our training academy, our ability to hire CX agents in the Philippines and deploy them rapidly into our client accounts solves the problem quite well for us.

Yeah, and I'll just add over there, you know, that specifically for the Philippines because, you know, work from office, the mandate was given and accordingly debt raised the attrition because if you have to remember it started from April 1 and that is where we started asking people to come back to office and accordingly the quarter one was up. Having said that, you know, we saw that picking up in April And, you know, me and June, we have seen that coming down. And accordingly, you know, it's too early, but, you know, gradually we believe that we expect it to reduce over the few quarters now.

And just to add to that one other piece, you know, when you look at obviously the fact that the suppression level is putting pressure on the recruitment and the training teams, despite that, when you look at the overall company, we added more than 3,000 people on a net basis in the first quarter. including more than 700 in the Philippines. So certainly it's not ideal, but in terms of impacts to the business at this point, very low.

Okay, thank you guys.

Our next question comes from Mayank Tandon with Needham. Your line is now open. Mayank, your line is now open.

Thank you. Good morning. I didn't hear my name there. I just wanted to, Keshav, you talked about demand being very durable. I just thought maybe you could give a little bit more breakdown in terms of what areas you might see that benefit versus areas that might see some potential softness. It sounds like the net effect is still reasonably positive, but just wanted to get a little bit of feel for some of the areas that might be impacted, positive or negative, as we go through the slowdown globally that you talked about?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, Mayank, I think the first headline item I would like to mention is that people have been talking about this forthcoming recession and the downswing in companies' fortunes, in clients' fortunes, economies' fortunes, countries' fortunes for a while now. And what we're actually seeing is our experience has been that the nature of services that we actually provide has become so strategic, you know, that when there is a decline in the overall economic position, it actually accelerates the fervor for our business. Now, having said that, as we have discussed many times before, if it's a doomsday kind of situation for the whole world, nobody can predict what will happen there. But I think the significant change that the company has made, and I would say to a great extent the sector also has made over the past few years, is that we are improving companies' competitive positioning. We're helping them create disruption. We're helping companies manage volatility. And in our conversations with every client across all sectors, what we are hearing is that everyone wants to use the so-called recession or the so-called downswing in fortunes to actually future-proof their businesses. And in that journey, what they're looking to do is actually sign up with the most trusted partner like WRS. So from our perspective, if I had to look at it from an opportunity point of view, I actually think that broad-based growth across each of our areas, driven by the transformation agenda and the digitization agenda, is what will drive fortunes. If there is one area that I felt could have an impact over a period of time, if things didn't work out for the world at large, it will be travel again because then companies will come in to cut discretionary travel and things like that. So one could see some impact there. But let's agree that in our view that the opportunities from a recession far outweigh the risks at this point in time and our conversations with every one of our clients clearly demonstrates that that's how our clients are also thinking. Our pipeline continues to be the strongest it has ever been. And the other thing I want to mention is today the situation is such that many of our clients are not just looking at our core offerings, but are actually reaching out to us as a strategic partner to also help them with their staffing needs. It's a very interesting new dynamic that we're seeing, where clients are actually saying, help me with staffing in these locations. Now, wherever it is strategic and leads to more strategic revenue for us, obviously we are embarking on that journey with them. Where it is discretionary, short-term, we are not getting involved in those discussions.

That's great to hear. Let's have a quick follow-up on margins. Sanjay talked about some of the offsetting factors that helped margins this quarter relative to where I think you had set expectations. But could you talk about some of the levers and how we should think about margins for the rest of the year? Thank you.

So, you know, from the rest of the year, we believe the margin expectation is going to be at an average of 21%. So, we are not seeing any further But having said that, that factors including the WURM integration as well as the acquisition cost, what we have to do during the year, that also factors further return to office percentage going up because right now we are at 41% and we expect to end the year around 60-65% which means the more travel cost and more accommodation and the facility cost. is going to be there, and with our continued investment into the SG&E, which is around us, you know, sales, hiring, digital investments, and so on.

Yeah, and I think just to further that, you know, one of the things we talked about last quarter was, you know, the ongoing investment in sales, and that we had kind of taken a step forward in the fourth quarter. Just as an FYI, we did continue our sales hiring again in the first quarter, and we're now up to 125 quota-carrying salespeople within the organization. So, that investment continues to be critical and strategic for us, and I think reflects, as Keshav was mentioning, the overall opportunity that we're looking at.

I'm sorry, just to be clear, Dave and Sanjay, do you expect margins to basically be right around 21% for the rest of the quarters, or is it going to be more skewed towards the back half? Just want to get a better sense of the trajectory on margins for the rest of the year. Thank you.

So I think, you know, the quarter two, we expect it going to be a percent lower than quarter one at this stage because of the VORM integration as well as acquisition cost, which is going to be higher in quarter two. And, you know, then the balance amount is going to be for the balance of the year. So overall for the full year at 21%.

Yeah, what you should see, Sanjay is right, what you should see is the dip in the margins in Q2 because of the weighting on the acquisition and integration costs. and the return of some of the SG&A expense that was light in Q1. But you should see margins accelerate from those Q2 levels in both Q3 and Q4.

Great. Congrats on the quarter. Thank you.

Thanks, Mike.

Thanks, Mike.

Our next question comes from Ashwin Shervaker with Citi. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Good quarter, folks, especially given the extreme level of volatility and change. My first question is with regards to the revenue per built-up seat. It's down sequentially very modestly, but it's still at a level that's among the best it's ever been. Can you maybe break down some of the underlying dynamics here, both for the trend itself, sequentially and year-over-year, but equally important on the year-over-year, the very high increase, how much is pricing, how much is a few other factors, the nature of fork, things like that?

Yeah, I mean, there's really kind of two metrics, Ashwin, that I think you're kind of honing in on here. And from our perspective, the more important metric is revenue per employee, right? And on a constant currency basis, revenue per employee year over year is up a little over 3%. So that to us is reflective of the ongoing productivity in our business, the fact that we're selling higher value services and solutions, all the kinds of things that we want to see in the business. When you look at revenue per built-up seat, it's kind of a metric that at this point is a little bit of a challenge because at the end of the day, we haven't been building capacity for the last two years based on the pandemic and based on the fact that we've had significant portions of our population working from home. You know, that metric clearly has accelerated because, you know, even today, we're still significantly and the vast majority of our people are working from home. And as a result, we haven't been building out that infrastructure. So I would say from that metric, clearly the pandemic and the work from home environment has been the driver for the increase in the revenue per built up seat.

Got it, got it. And the second question is, can you comment on the diligence that you're doing in terms of accepting new clients and ramping new clients? And the reason I ask is because heading into the financial crisis many years ago, some of the notable clients that were signed heading in turned out to be the ones that were the most troubled. And I appreciate that this management team wasn't at WNS back then, but I just want to make sure what your process is and so on and so forth.

Yeah, in terms of diligence, Ashwin, the way we are focusing with clients is, of course, if the client falls into our strategic verticals across the company, The second one is basically the profile of the client in terms of the kind of work that they're giving. If it's basic transactional work that adds only small bits of processes and incremental processes, we tend to stay away from it. Where we try and adopt more work is end-to-end processes where we have a greater ability to transform and digitize. And that's been the trend we've also seen in the last two years is more and more clients are demanding that we transform and digitize before we start offshoring. And that's the nature of the client that we are actually taking on board, which gives us also premium pricing that gets reflected into our margins.

And Ashwin, I may just add, I think your question is very relevant. In fact, over the last decade or so at the company, I must mention that we have focused very, very strongly on the whole risk management processes of the company, particularly in terms of every time we bring in a new client. So there's a very strong process in terms of how we actually select a client. We select a client as much as they select us. And it comes from not just getting to know the client, but also understanding their balance sheet, understanding their cash position, understanding their liquidity position and things like that. We have a very strong chief worrying officer. I mean, our chief risk officer I call as our chief worrying officer because he's all the time worried about what could go wrong in the business. And I must compliment this management team's track record that in the last 12 years, 12 or 13 years, you would have realized that we rarely had a situation of surprise. essentially because of our very strong risk management processes that we have at the company, onboarding a client, and thereafter managing the client very, very proactively. So, you know, that's a process that is a given, but is also intensified as we, you know, focus on potentially a downturn globally over the next two years.

Got it.

Got it. Appreciate the detail.

Thank you. Thanks, Ashwin.

Our next question comes from the line of Maggie Nolan with William Blair. Your line is now open.

Hi, thank you. You mentioned that the client decision cycle may be already starting to shrink some. How is that impacting your hiring plans, just given that you're trying to hire quickly enough, you're already hiring at high levels, and then there's the additional attrition factor as well?

Yeah, this is Gautam. Maggie, as I mentioned earlier, One is while there is pressure on our hiring and training teams, our ability to hire has not been impacted. We are able to add people quite quickly. Second, and especially pressures, our pressure hiring has increased quite significantly. The second thing is our training academies are able to train people in the relevant skill sets quite aggressively and deploy them. So as of date, we have had zero impacts to our ability to stick to our commitments to new clients as well as prospects.

I think the other thing that's important to remember is that this is not a build it and they will come kind of a business. We don't carry significant amounts of bench. When we hire and train resource, it's typically to firm commitments or firm visibility. So for us, just because the pipeline is healthy and just because activity levels are up, those aren't going to engage hiring practices per se. It's only going to be when we've got ink on paper that we're going to start that process.

Okay, got it. Thank you. And then great to see you do an interesting acquisition here. You know, is the plan to focus on integration of this acquisition? Is there an appetite for additional M&A from here? And if so, how is that pipeline looking?

Right, Maggie. Actually, thank you for that question. So, yes, absolutely. The focus right now is to integrate this asset extremely well. And, you know, as you know, based on our track record of doing the four acquisitions three or four years ago. We have actually documented that process extremely well. So the integration is going very, very well. But at the same time, like I mentioned earlier, we believe that this is not the time to step off the gas in terms of continuing to look at the right kinds of assets, the right quality of assets, and any assets that can help us accelerate the revenue momentum and the profit momentum and more importantly provide the right solutions for our clients. So we will continue to be very opportunistic in terms of the M&A pipeline. I must mention that the pipeline continues to be very strong in all the strategic areas that we are focused on. And what is also interesting is that with the recent meltdown and noise around the economy, we are also seeing valuations become a little more sensible at this point in time. So we will not step off the gas as far as the opportunity is concerned.

Thank you. Congrats.

Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from the line of Nate Svensson with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. This is Nate on for Brian King today. I just wanted to follow up on one of the earlier questions on travel. So on the last call, you had talked about the potential for travel to add up to 2% to top line growth if travel returned to pre-pandemic levels. I'm just wondering what that upside potential looks like now. Obviously, you talked about sort of the recovery in leisure travel and still waiting on business travel to get back to pre-pandemic levels. But just wondering what that potential upside to the top line looks like for potential recovery travel.

Yeah, this is Dave, Nate. That number in terms of the ability to contribute is still about 20 million annualized, so right around 2%. if you look at the travel revenues this quarter they were relatively flat with fiscal q4 so we did not see a meaningful recovery or a bounce up in our travel volumes in fiscal q1 relative to fiscal q4 which means the opportunity remains the same for us got it very helpful and then just quickly wanted to ask on

the insurance and healthcare verticals. So how did those perform relative to expectations in the quarter and sort of what expectations do you have for the remainder of the year there? Thanks.

Yeah, look, I think when you look at the first quarter, obviously what you're going to see from a reported number perspective is the fact that FX has a meaningful effect on verticals for us like like insurance where we have a healthy amount of that revenue that comes from both the UK and Australia. The expectation is that the underlying insurance business will remain healthy. I mean, if you look at growth in that sector, it was 8% on a reported basis, but closer to 14, 15% on a constant currency basis on a year over year. So we expect insurance will continue to be strong. Health care has been a little bit mixed for us, more on the pharmaceutical side than on the health care payer side. But we do expect that health care will continue to be a good grower and a meaningful contributor for us as we move throughout the year.

Got it. Appreciate the call.

Our next question comes from Harry Shieldkraut with Wedwich. Your line is now open. Your line is now open. Please check your mute button. Our next question comes from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington Research. Your line is now open.

Yeah, good morning, gentlemen. Nice quarter. I'm curious if... you know, you're seeing any easing in wage pressures given the economic backdrop in any of your major geographies?

Not at this stage because, you know, what the clients are really focused is all about the productivity as well as the total cost of ownership, but nothing from a rate pressure because I think clients do appreciate and understand, you know,

So I think Sanjay heard it as great, but actually I think your question was on wages. Look, at this point in time we are not seeing a let up in terms of the wage inflation and we continue to manage the wage inflation with all the levers that we have. But having said that, with the kind of noise we are now starting to see around the global and also the fact that across the globe, with all the levers that we have, But having said that, with the kind of noise we are now starting to see around the global recession and also the fact that across the globe we are starting to see startups that were hiring a lot of these talent and companies that were actually attracting a lot of talent that traditional companies like us had, now starting to falter in terms of their ability to raise cash. and now starting to falter in terms of their ability to raise cash and we believe that therefore over the next few quarters employees will start behaving differently and that will actually drive a more sensible wage inflation program that will bring more predictability to the model, I would say. But having said that, in spite of all of it, we have been able to manage. You're seeing the margins, you're seeing the growth, and you're seeing the way we are delivering the productivity. And when things change for the better, I guess it will be positive for the company.

And maybe I'll just add over one point over there. Sorry, I heard rate earlier. But, you know, having said that, you know, specifically on the niche skills, still definitely there are, you know, the wage pressure from a compensation perspective because, you know, there's a gap between demand and supply at this stage. And, you know, as we, as Keshav mentioned, that, you know, startups faltering it out, so maybe over the quarters we may start seeing that pressure also coming down.

And just to add to what Keshav and Sanjay mentioned, and as I mentioned earlier, Our ability to hire freshers and train them is ensuring that our cost base doesn't get impacted at all, and we're able to maintain the heightened levels of profitability.

And a question on VRM. The low code capabilities and some of the other skill sets they add to the company, does that provide some differentiation versus your major competitors?

Yes, it does. Because as we've seen over the last two to three years, clients' demand for digital transformation is at an all-time high. So where we see with companies like Urum that we have acquired is we've added hundreds of people who drive intelligent automation through low-code, no-code capabilities. And that is going to continue to be an extremely unique differentiator for us in comparison to our other competitors.

And I suppose they have a good engine to hire more of the type of people that have that experience, which is another important advantage for you.

Is that right? Absolutely. Yes, Vince. So two or three things. I just want to expand on that because Gurum is such an exciting asset for us. So first and foremost, I think it gives us that starting layer where the quality of conversation involving Gurum changes with a number of clients around and thereafter our ability to wrap services around it is extremely high. They have a very solid engine of hiring and more importantly our ability therefore to take them to every one of the business' traditional clients now is actually very strategic. But remember, they also have a roster of clients that are independent, many of whom are not known to WNS, but they are all top quality clients. So our ability now to also penetrate and radiate across their clients, the other services that WNS brings to the table is also very high. And I think that's what makes this very, very exciting, strategic, and differentiating.

And, you know, also just, you know, beyond the new client prospect, a lot of the committed productivity, what we have with our existing clients, I think that's also this capability is very exciting to deliver that as we move forward.

Thanks for all the color. Nice quarter. Thank you.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question at this time, please press star then 1. Our next question comes from Puneet Jain with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks for taking my question and a nice quarter. I had like a similar question as one of the prior ones, but for the internet and tech clients. Those clients are about 20% of your revenue. Are you seeing any changes or any differences in client behavior among those clients? Is there any push to cut costs or maybe to push more work offshore among those clients?

Thanks, Puneet. What we're seeing absolutely is an increased demand from the internet-based clients as we progress through the year. In fact, a lot of them, existing clients are adding more work and a few of the recent wins that we have had coming from the similar space as they look to transform their business or reduce costs.

Yeah, I think honestly, Puneet, we remain excited about the opportunity. It's also important to remember that the services that we provide to to the internet-based clients are varied, right? So unlike what we see, for example, in CX, in travel, for example, you know, we're kind of spread amongst front, middle, and back office functions that we're providing to these clients. So good diversity there as well as opposed to just focusing on customer-facing types of activities within that sector.

Understood. No, that's helpful. And then with the headline inflation numbers also spiking, can you talk about COLA adjustments and if you're seeing any changes in pricing as a result of that? Maybe how much of business is under those contracts or have COLA adjustments and how often pricing levels adjust for inflation metrics?

If only majority of the contracts what we have does have a COLA clause and if it does not have a COLA clause, it is already factored as a part of the three-year pricing from that perspective. That has been always there and that is what you have seen over the years because inflation was always there and two factors which is COLA as well as some of the productivity what we are able to drive that offset some of the pressure what we see from the wage.

I also want to mention one more thing, Puneet, that while you focused on, you know, cola and productivity, which Sanjay answered, I think what is more exciting beyond all of this for us is the strength of our pipeline itself, one. And the fact that if you look at, you know, the results of the company and the number of logos added in the last three or four years, and the last few quarters actually, are so exciting and so robust. So many new, large, high potential clients being added that as they add more and more processes, our ability to have these discussions around know better pricing around adjustment on you know cola things like that actually remains much higher as opposed to being uh dependent only on the old set of clients that you know we may have focused on a few years ago so the big difference between wns of old and wns of new is the fact that a lot of the new revenue is now being generated from these new clients being added who are you know many of whom are the internet-based, you know, tech-oriented, you know, digital attackers, and we're happy to have these conversations on, you know, on these areas.

Thank you. That's helpful.

Thanks, Puneet.

Our next question comes from Moshi Khatri with Wetbush. Your line is now open.

Okay, thanks. Congrats on strong results. Just a couple of follow-up kind of questions regarding the numbers. Did you disclose the portion of non-recurring revenues that kind of contributed to revenues this quarter?

It was $200,000 for this quarter.

Okay. And I'm assuming none of that is factored in guidance for the rest of the year, right?

Yeah, we have not factored any uncommitted short-term revenue or non-recurring where we don't have visibility into the guidance.

Okay, understood. And then just to understand the guidance, right, so you upped the lower and higher end of your guidance by about 300 bps, 200 bps is M&A, so you really raised the organic piece by about 100 bps, right? That's correct.

Yes.

Okay. Okay. And then finally, can you talk a bit about some of the synergies from the Vroom acquisition that we can expect down the road? What's attractive in terms of verticals, client base, et cetera? Thanks.

Yeah, the Vroom acquisition is actually more than synergistic. It's extremely complementary to our business. And given the aggressive adoption of low-code, no-code platforms, within the banking financial services industry, the insurance industry, and the healthcare industry, which are again three of our prioritized verticals as we progress. And given a number of the new deals, the need for committing to productivity is increasing significantly. Wooram is going to actually help, A, in delivering that heightened levels of productivity, B, in terms of clients that were actually splitting processes and the hyper automation side of the business, That is now going to be a focused market for us because that will actually be integrated to what we do. And thirdly, there are a number of clients that exist within both sides of the fence that can be tapped into now.

Yeah, I would add to Gautam's comment, Moshe, that at the end of the day, there were pieces of new business that we were missing out on because we did not have this capability in-house. And there were other pieces of business that we've won where we actually had to partner for this capability. So kind of similar to what we did with Denali in the high end of procurement, this asset actually fits really nicely within our existing capabilities. It's completely complimentary, as Gotham mentioned, and we think helps us with a value proposition that is differentiated from what we were able to carry to market previously.

And it's been a while since you've you did an M&A or an acquisition. So I'm assuming you've been kind of sitting on this and kind of doing your due diligence for a while.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that the process that we follow in terms of evaluating opportunities has remained unchanged. Last time we did a deal, we did two deals within the same quarter. So I think, you know, the process remains the same. We want to be diligent. We want to be consistent in our approach and the things that we think work for us. And this clearly fits those objectives.

And then final point on the pipeline, you're talking about strong numbers, strong deal flow. Is there any way to kind of qualify what you're seeing out there? Are we up 10%, 20% in terms of deal flow? Anything on that front will be helpful. Thanks a lot.

Yeah, it's really hard to quantify or to qualify, Moshe. I think overall, we're just pleased relative to the company's growth rate in the overall growth and trajectory of the pipeline. And I think it's just safe to put it that way.

Yeah, just to add to what Dave mentioned, the bigger changes, we're seeing a lot more large deals coming into the hopper. Previously, a lot of the deals, the clients were staggering the ramps. But now what we are seeing is the clients want to ramp up aggressively.

Understood.

At this time, we have no further questions in the queue. Thank you. At this time, we have no further questions in the queue. This will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. The conference will begin shortly. To raise your hand during Q&A, you can dial star 1.