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spk00: Greetings. Welcome to Nuve Corporation's second quarter 2021 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Anthony Gerstein, Vice President, and Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
spk02: Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Philip Thayer, Chair and CEO, and David Schwartz, Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded in webcast and is copyrighted property of Nuve, and rebroadcast of this information in whole or in part without written consent of Nuve is prohibited. This morning, New Bay issued a press release announcing financial results for the three-month period ended June 30th, 2021. The release, as well as an accompanying presentation, are available in the investor relations section of the company's website, newbay.com, under events and presentations. During this call, we may make certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks Uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of the business or developments in New Bay's industry could differ materially from the anticipated results, performance, achievements, and developments expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Information about these factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results or performance can be found in New Bay's filing with the Canadian Securities Regulatory Authority and on the company's website. Our discussion today will include non-IFRS measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, and adjusted net income per share. Management believes non-IFRS results are useful in order to enhance our understanding of our ongoing performance, but they are not supplement to and should not be considered an isolation fund or as a substitute to IFRS financial measures. Reconciliation of these measures to IFRS measures are available in our earnings release and MD&A. We'll open up the call to your questions after our prepared remarks. With that, I'd like to now turn the call over to Phil.
spk05: Thanks, Anthony, and thank you everyone for joining our call today. Before we start, I want to extend a warm welcome to the entire Mizuma team who joined us last week after the closing of the transaction. We are excited to have you as part of the Nuve family. As you have seen, Nuve had an exceptional quarter, underscoring the strength and momentum in the business driven by the successful execution of our strategic initiatives. Our investments in product innovation, distribution, and talent are driving performance and laying the foundation for sustainable growth. For the quarter, total volume increased 146%, revenue increased 114%, and adjusted EBITDA increased 112%. Total volume in the quarter was $21.9 billion, and breaking it down by region, North America was 10.2 billion, up 160%. EMEA was 10.9 billion, up 135%. And APAC and LATAM were each 0.4 billion, up 110 and 105, respectively. All four regions exhibited triple-digit growth, but importantly, there's a lot of white space left in each geography and vertical for sustainable growth. Our growth is driven by a number of factors which I will highlight, including the continued geographic expansion, product innovation, growing wallet share with our existing customers, and new client wins, all of which is supported by the natural tailwinds of the industries and markets we service. Our purpose is to make the world a local marketplace, allowing our customers connect with their customers and accept payments in the methods most relevant to them regardless of country, currency, or payment medium. Within a single integration into the Nuve platform, we now connect our customers to 204 markets, providing local acquiring in 45 markets, offering 480 alternative payment methods, as well as 40 cryptocurrencies, and supporting nearly 150 different currencies. Our solutions go far beyond acquiring, allowing our clients to collapse inefficient technology stacks all the while driving state-of-the-art engagements with their customers online, in-app, or via mobile device. We support both large established markets and are expanding our presence in fast and growing emerging markets. Product innovation drives our growth. At our core, we are a technology company, a payment innovator, driving real-world solutions that make a material difference to our clients' businesses. Our extensive and market leading product roadmap is driven by our current customers, new customers, and RFP opportunities that we are competitively bidding on. Unique to our business, we build and incorporate flexible product features by region to improve authorization rates, increase productivity, and ensure better outcomes that positively impact the business performance of our clients. This past quarter had several meaningful product innovations, including the end-to-end delivery of discoverers and diners processing and acquiring, expanding our customers' acceptance offerings, an enhanced checkout SDK, giving our customers unparalleled customization to facilitate their own user checkout experiences, and the introduction of the industry's first, and so far only, instant payment through the RTP network for accelerated withdrawals. With respect to RTP and bank account-based payments and real-time payments, we believe there is a significant opportunity for growth as this is an increasingly popular and accepted payment method, allowing customers to purchase as simply as using a credit card and to receive payouts instantly into their bank accounts 24-7, 365. Our strategic partnership with Plaid provides connectivity to more than 11,000 financial institutions in the United States. With one in four Americans already familiar with the Plaid interface, UVA will help maximize conversions for customers by making it even easier and faster for their customers to pay and get paid more rapidly. We will offer this increasingly accepted and popular payment method to our customers across all verticals seamlessly through our single integrated platform. In addition to this, we are readying to expand our North American payout capabilities with both Visa Direct and MasterCard Send. allowing our customers yet another medium to accelerate the disbursements of funds to their customers. So at the checkout today, our clients enjoy the broadest form of acceptance capabilities to help them better connect with their customer. As a reminder, earlier this year, we launched our authorization processing in the United States as we continue to consolidate our global processing activity onto our own platform, helping customers reduce costs, improve efficiency, and race for activity. We're now self-processing for approximately 600 of our e-commerce customers and expect to see that number to continue to grow. Now I'd like to explain our growth algorithm in greater detail. We focus on high growth, often complex verticals with high barriers to entry, and which have three key criteria in common. They all have inherent growth, they all have longevity, and they all have the propensity to operate globally. These verticals are experiencing strong tailwinds driven by two factors. First, the accelerated change in consumer purchasing behavior, which is increasingly driven towards digital enablement. And second, is a geographic expansion as we expand our solutions into new markets. Generally speaking, customers come to us looking to solve a particular need. And the depth of our product solutions, offered a la carte, provides tremendous flexibility for our customers to what's appropriate for their unique business at a given point in time Again, our ethos is all about helping our customers connect with their customers. Our experience shows that as our customers grow, their needs grow and solution requirements change. They may be expanding country to country, growing not only in one market, but many markets around the world. Or there may be changes in the regulatory environment where our solutions and expertise are needed. For example, the province of Ontario, which recently proposed legislation for online sports betting. As this occurs, they end up requiring additional capabilities and consuming more of our overall product solutions. This allows us to expand our wallet share with our customers while helping them grow their business. We are focused on having our customers be part of our product roadmap, which we believe has contributed to our success as a company and demonstrates how deeply integrated we are with them. Evidencing the success of this approach and the kind of relationships we forge with our customers, we recently signed a long-term agreement with our largest customer who ended up requiring and enlisting for more of our product solution capabilities and functionality around the world. Turning now to new customers. At the time of IPO, we talked about having an under-distributed business model, which has been an area of investment focus and one which we are accelerating. Today, we are expanding and investing more in marketing, account management, corporate development, and direct sales in our focus verticals and in the geographies we serve. The result is that we are enhancing our brand awareness finding greater customer recognition and getting in front of large, growing enterprise customers we wouldn't have spoken to only 18 months ago. We have grown our pipeline to record levels. We're seeing an acceleration of new client wins coming through our direct sales channel. We are participating in far greater number of RFPs and winning more. And we have been making improvements in our onboarding and integrations so we can get our customers going faster. For example, using our hands checkout SDK. and the results are compelling. Total new business volume increased 114% in the six months period ending June 30th versus the prior year period. Most importantly, remember that these new customers become existing customers in the following year and follow a very similar pattern and journey that we described earlier. This establishes a very attractive and powerful self-perpetuating business cycle that drives growth. As a reminder, No vertical accounted for more than approximately 20% of our gross profit dollars and no customer representing more than approximately 4%. Given the solid results to date and the momentum we see continuing well into the second half of the year, supported by the depth of our sales pipeline, acceleration of investments and distribution, introduction of new product capabilities, and expansion to new geographies, we are raising our financial outlook for 2021 and providing medium and long-term targets to help you understand our growth profile better and see how the business is progressing. As a reminder, we are really excited about completing our pending acquisition of Simplex in the second half of the year, which will expand our capabilities, expand our reach, and where we expect to capture more of our customers' wallet share. Please note that Simplex acquisition is not included in the financial outlook we are providing today. Consistent with our growth strategy, Nuvei has filed an application with NASDAQ to list its aborted voting shares. We believe that a dual listing will help elevate Nuvei's profile and increases brand awareness among the global investor community as one of the world's leading payment technology solution providers, while also providing greater access to market liquidity and creating additional value for our shareholders. The listing application remains subject to the satisfaction of all applicable listing and regulatory requirements, as well as the approval of NASDAQ. and there's no certainty as to the timing of any listing or that the listing will take place. Nuvei will continue to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Before I turn the call over to Dave, I want to reiterate how incredibly pleased we are with our results. Driven by the execution of our strategy, we're extremely well positioned as a company for the opportunity head. We believe it's early days, and we are still very much on the ground floor. As always, I want to recognize and thank all my colleagues who contribute to our success each and every day. With that, I'll now turn it over to Dave to discuss the financials, our updated financial outlook for 2021, and our growth targets.
spk13: Thanks, Bill, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased to report another quarter of strong financial results. Our performance is a testament to our team's focus and execution of our strategy. For the second quarter, our total volume increased by 146% over the same period of last year to $21.9 billion. This is attributable to our strong organic growth as well as contribution from acquisitions. On a pro forma basis, total volume grew by 68%. During the quarter, we experienced growth across all of our focus verticals. E-commerce volume in the quarter was approximately 84%. This is a slight reduction from 87% in the first quarter due to seasonality in ACH volume, which is lower in the second quarter, thereby reducing e-commerce volume. This is coupled with strong growth from our small business customers, which grew 24% sequentially over Q1 2021 as they began to recover from the impact of the pandemic. Our strong total volume in the quarter resulted in revenue growth of 114% to $178.2 million. On a pro forma basis, revenue grew by 68% in the quarter. Total volume and revenue may grow at different rates, As we have mentioned in the past, we are focused on solving the needs of our customers. Ultimately, this drives additional volume on our platform, resulting in incremental gross profit dollars. Due to the scalability and leverage in our operating model, this provides for the potential for increased profitability. Gross margin in the second quarter was 81.4% compared to 83.7% in the second quarter of 2020. The change in gross margin is as a result of the inclusion of certain acquisitions which have a higher cost of revenue. The increase in selling, general, and administrative expenses is as a result of inorganic and organic growth. We continue to invest in the business, including in distribution and technology. We believe these investments will continue to drive our growth. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 112% in the second quarter to $79.4 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 44.6% in the quarter compared to 44.9% in the prior period. Net finance costs decreased by $20 million, mostly as a result of paying down long-term debt in September 2020 with the proceeds from our IPO. Net income for the quarter was $38.9 million or 26 cents per diluted share compared to $14 million or 15 cents per diluted share in the second quarter of 2020. Adjusted net income was $64.5 million, or $0.44 per diluted share, compared to $16.3 million, or $0.18 per diluted share, in 2020. Our cash position and cash generation remained strong. Operating cash flow for the six-month period was $139 million compared to $32.8 million for the comparable prior year period. As at June 30, 2021, we had cash of $533.7 million, while amounts outstanding under our credit facilities was $501.5 million. During the second quarter, we amended the terms of our credit facility, resulting in a reduction in our cost of borrowing as well as an increase in our financing capacity. We increased our term loans by $300 million to support our M&A activities and increased our revolving facility which was undrawn at quarter end, leaving $350 million of availability. Even after the acquisitions of Mizuma and Simplex, our leverage remains low. Considering the cash to be used to acquire Mizuma and Simplex, as well as our full year outlook, which excludes any contribution from Simplex, we expect our leverage to be approximately one time. I would now like to discuss our financial outlook for the third quarter and full year 2021 and would refer you to our forward-looking information disclosure in our press release and MD&A. For the third quarter, we expect total volume of between $21.5 and $22.5 billion, revenue of between $174 and $180 million, and adjusted EBITDA of between $71 and $75 million. And based on our performance for the three- and six-month periods ended June 30, 2021, as well as continued momentum in the business, we are raising our full year outlook and now expect total volume of between $88 and $91 billion, revenue of between $690 and $705 million, and adjusted EBITDA of between $295 and $305 million. The updated financial outlook and specifically the adjusted EBITDA reflects our strategy to continue our investments in distribution, marketing, innovation, technology, as well as the infrastructure resulting from the recent acquisition of Mizuma. We are very excited about the capabilities we acquired. The Mizuma platform and infrastructure was built to handle significantly more volume than it does today. Currently, the volume and revenue contribution from Mizuma is negligible. As the business develops, we expect Mizuma to contribute to our profitability. I would also point out that the financial outlook does not include the pending acquisition of Simplex. In addition to our financial outlook for the third quarter and full year 2021, we're also providing the following medium and long-term growth targets. Total volume in excess of 30% compound annual growth rate in the medium term. Revenue in excess of 30% compound annual growth rate in the medium term. An adjusted EBITDA margin greater than 50% over the longer term. We are very excited about the remainder of this year and what lies ahead for Nuve. We're now happy to answer your questions. Operator, please open the lines for Q&A. Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. And for participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the start keys. Our first question is from George Millos from Callen and Company. Please proceed.
spk04: Hey, guys. Congrats on another really strong set of results. Very, very impressive all around. Thanks, George. I guess the first thing I wanted to ask is just on the medium-term goals from a growth perspective. I'm just curious, guys, when you talk about sort of 30% plus, which is considerably faster than what we were talking about when you first went public, should we be thinking of sort of annualized growth of 30% plus, or will it be sort of a CAGR over a couple years? And then curious, should we expect that to be somewhat elevated near-term over the first year or so compared to, you know, sort of the whole length of the medium-term outlook?
spk05: George, you're just never happy with our growth target. That's what I've realized. But great question. I think really the genesis here is to help you understand the business profile, to help you guys appreciate, you know, the opportunity and, more importantly, the momentum within what we're seeing today. within all of our regions. You know, the 30% is our internal target. They are annual, naturally, and that is what you should be focused on. And then we did talk a little bit about long-term, but ultimately post-investment period, we believe over the long-term EBITDA margins will expand up to 50% or plus.
spk04: Okay, okay, gotcha. And then just two quick follow-ups. looking out at the M&A pipeline, I was kind of hoping maybe you could talk about how that feels to you, and then at the same time, the outperformance in 2Q, it sounds again like it's pretty broad-based, but relative to your expectations, were there any one or two things that just sort of performed a lot better than what you guys were originally forecasting and thinking about? And again, Congrats, fantastic results.
spk05: Thanks, George. On the MA pipeline, I mean, I couldn't tell you there's anything substantive at this particular point. Naturally, we have been really focused on capabilities, and we're really pleased with what we acquired with both Mizuma and the pending acquisition of Simplex from a capability standpoint. It is a very active market, so we are fairly selective of where we look at. Certainly, we have opportunities around the world But I think with the acquisition of Mizuma, that capability is truly unique for us. We're very satisfied with that. And I think for us in the second half of this year for Simplex, expanding our risk capabilities that we're able to drive not only to the current focus verticals, but the overall verticals at New Bay Services is very exciting for us. On the outperformance, you know, ultimately we build bottoms up with respect to guidance within our customers. And, you know, we're really pleased with a couple of points is the adoption of new products, the ability for us to help our customers connect better with their customers on the current portfolio base, helping them enter new markets. And then naturally the performance in new sales. You know, I highlighted in my prepared remarks, but beyond the 114% growth in the first half of the year versus last year, We have an incredibly deep pipeline, and we're really excited about the conversations that we are having, the merchants that have gone live, and more importantly, what's in the pipeline for the remaining of the year. So we're really excited about how our features set, how we're positioning, how we're coming to market, and what our solutions do to help customers better connect with their customers is driving the momentum in the business.
spk04: Great color. Appreciate it. Thanks, George.
spk00: Our next question is from Sanjay Sakarani with KBW. Please proceed.
spk09: Hi, this is Vasu Govind with KBW for Sanjay. Congrats on a great quarter, and thanks for taking my question. I guess just quickly, first following up on the medium-term revenue outlook, is that pretty much organic at this point in time, or are you baking in some contribution from M&A as well?
spk05: No, it's fully organic.
spk09: Got it. And then as we think about the EBITDA margins long-term outlook, I know you guys are heavily investing in the business at this point in time. So maybe just some color on how you're thinking about margins in the near term beyond 21. And then, you know, how should we think about the puts and takes there and when we can start baking in for the 50% margin in our models?
spk05: Yeah, I think, you know, we're initially in an investment period. So we've been very consistent on the low 40s as we've been bringing forward investments planned for 22. notably around account management, sales, marketing, and technology as we continue building out our roadmap. So for the near term, we're fully expecting the lower 40s post-investment period, and really that's more in the long term. There's certainly that inflection point for EBITDA margin to extend. And really that is the logic.
spk00: Great. Thank you very much.
spk05: Thank you.
spk00: Our next question is from Timothy. Chodo with Credit Suisse. Please proceed. Sam, your line is live. Please check and see if you have a mute on your end.
spk16: There we go. Hey, sorry about that. Good morning, guys. The medium-term targets here, I think these components that you were outlining are exactly what investors were looking for. So you talked about geographic expansion, product innovation, wallet share gains, new client wins. and also tailwinds from the underlying industry growth. You have a very nice slide, slide number eight in your current deck, and then also one that I know that was very helpful to investors was slide number 23 from your Q3 2020 deck, where you laid out all the verticals, some of your core customers, and the underlying growth. The question is, within the 30%, could you give us some sense of how much is from that last bucket, that tailwinds of industry growth? Is it sort of 10 points of that 30 from underlying industry is 15, 20, in that kind of ballpark that you have this underlying tailwind. That would be really helpful.
spk05: Yeah, I think that's a great question. You know, we did it from the bottoms up, so we didn't necessarily look at it by a vertical perspective. But, you know, we do think we are underpenetrated, even when we look at some of our larger verticals, when we look at the growth opportunity around the world in each and every one of them. So we believe there's a lot of white space in every one of the verticals. And really what's unique for us is not just the vertical that we focus in, it's also in the region that we can expand into. So there's a lot of opportunity across LATAM and APAC where we're still subscale and making investments into those distribution capabilities and onboarding capabilities and processing capabilities. And some of the verticals that are coming into, like, for example, United States, where we're under under-penetrated still today in iGaming, which we think is a wonderful platform for continued growth. So while our medium and long-term do not include considerations for U.S. gaming, as we've always kept them out until we start seeing some more traction, we really feel that naturally it's the overall components of the business, Tim. It's hard to break them off because us as Nuve, we focus on very, very specific verticals that have those three elements, and all the verticals that we service have them, right? The longevity, the tailwinds, and more importantly, the propensity to operate globally.
spk16: Okay, great. Thank you so much for that. And then on the overall headcount growing by about 200 this year, I noticed the comment in this slide. And, again, that will be emphasis really on account management, sales, and go-to-market. But you also mentioned, I believe, some technology investment. It's fair to think that most of that will be towards go-to-market investments.
spk05: About 50-50. You know, we have a lot of technology projects as we continue driving through and consolidating both platform product capabilities, investments across features and functionality that we're really excited about. So right around 50-50 from a sales perspective and then a technology standpoint.
spk16: Perfect. Great. Well, thank you so much for the questions.
spk05: Thanks, Tim.
spk00: Our next question is from Bob Napoli with William Blair. Please proceed.
spk10: Congratulations.
spk05: Really impressive results. David, maybe just a question on the sequential quarter growth. You had, like, sequentially volume grew 6%, revenue grew 20%, and EBITDA grew 20%. What is, obviously, the take rate picked up? Is there a seasonality factor, or what was the? What drove the difference between volume growth and revenue growth in the quarter?
spk13: Good morning, Bob. Good question. And good observation. So, yeah, that's right. I mean, from a volume perspective, I think the main thing to think about is that there is some seasonality in the ACH part of the business, and so their volume wasn't as high on that side of the business. But obviously from a revenue perspective and a yield perspective, the ACH is a lower yielding business. And so it didn't have the same level of impact on revenue. So we saw higher growth on the revenue side than we did on the volume side sequentially quarter over quarter.
spk05: Great. Thank you. And then I guess you touched on this, and I understand the diversity of the verticals, but which verticals are standing out? Something has to be doing better than something else, I would guess.
spk02: So where are you really killing it by verticals?
spk05: I think, Bob, that's the most beautiful part is it's really in all verticals that we've been seeing some big wins. There's nothing really to highlight versus others. You know, we are making equal investments across all of our verticals and all areas that we have appetite and capability to drive through. So there's nothing that stands out. The pipeline is well diverse, and you climb boards are also quite diverse. Thank you. And then just my last question on the geographies, LATAM and APAC, where you're currently much smaller than Europe and North America. What is the game plan to grow? Do you need to acquire in those markets? You know, your safe charge acquisition was a nice catalyst for Europe. Are there opportunities in those markets? Is that what we need to see for those markets to, you know, to kick off to a much higher level? Yeah, great question, Bob. I think there's two factors. The first one is to remember how we enter markets. You know, certainly we are not soliciting merchants that are born in LATAM, but we're looking at merchants today that are born around the world that want to enter LATAM. As we continue making investments, we'll seek merchants that are born in LATAM that are looking to not only process locally in LATAM but also globally. And then ultimately the third is once we have that foundation is certainly complement that with M&A. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Bob.
spk00: Our next question is from Mike Colonies with Bank of America. Please proceed.
spk12: Good morning, guys. Congrats on a great quarter here and great to see the medium-term outlook. Can you just talk about some of the more recent trends you're seeing across your geographies and verticals so far this quarter and how volume growth is kind of shaping out relative to the second quarter?
spk05: Yeah, great question, Mike. So, you know, in this quarter, Something that we're seeing in a vertical that we are under-penetrated is probably more leading around travel. And that is something that we are looking and working with our clients to see how much travel will impact with the pent-up demand. But overall, we're right on forecast for us. The momentum is continuing as planned. So nothing more to highlight beyond, we think, more travel consumption that we've seen in previous years. And that is a vertical which we are under-penetrated by design.
spk12: Great, thanks. And just to follow up to that, you know, how should we think about the cadence of volume growth in the back half of the year to get us to the full year outlook? Are you factoring in any incremental headwinds from the Delta variant in the revised outlook? And if you could just remind us of your total travel exposure at this point, I think it's pretty minimal for you guys, but if you could just remind us there.
spk05: Yeah, so, I mean, our verticals have been generally fairly insulated. So, you know, the Delta variant naturally has a potential impact of the small business portfolio. But we don't think that will have any form of impact to the remaining of the year for New Bay. And travel is very low single digit from the vertical perspective for New Bay today.
spk12: Got it. Thank you for taking my question.
spk10: Thanks, Mike.
spk00: Our next question is from Craig Burr with Autonomous Research. Please proceed.
spk11: Yeah, hi, thanks. I wanted to dig in a little more into the implied higher yield in the long-term guide. I mean, what's giving you confidence that that's sustainable? Is it growth in underlying verticals that you're seeing an inflection point? Is it some recovering in person, more direct acquiring? Just any help would be great. Thanks.
spk05: Thanks, Greg. Great question. I think I'll take the first part and then maybe turn it to Dave if I missed anything. But I think what you're asking is the increase of EBITDA margin over the long term to over 50%. That was your question?
spk11: Yeah. Also, the implied payment yield that we can calculate, you know, volume over revs, revs over volume, you know, on a both gross and net basis.
spk05: Oh, then I think that's, Dave, that's your favorite question. I'll leave that one with you. Yeah, sure. Hey, Craig. Good morning.
spk13: Good morning. Yeah, so from a yield and take rate perspective, what I'd say is that we obviously saw an increase in the current quarter. It's really going to be driven by mix and what the volume mix is. At the end of the day, what we're really trying to drive to is giving our merchants what they need and allowing them to serve their customers. So And when you think about it, you know, there's obviously that mix will change when you think about organic but also M&A, you know, the pending acquisition of Simplex as well as Mizuma. But ultimately, the way we think about it is how do we drive incremental dollars from a gross margin perspective? And that's about cross-selling. It's about, you know, implementing new solutions. And it's about, you know, expanding new geographies and gaining more wallet share from our existing merchants. That we feel is kind of the ultimate value creator. And when you think about the entire strategy we have about the single integration, full stack platform, all the integrated payment options that are in that platform, we think that really drives value to our customers and it really creates a nice stickiness. And so that's kind of how we see the business and kind of how we drive it forward in terms of how do we drive profitability, really profitable incremental dollars onto the platform. And of course, it's very leverageable and scalable. And that kind of, you know, results a little bit to kind of the point that Phil was making on the long-term or longer-term adjusted EBITDA margins of greater than 50%.
spk10: Thanks, David.
spk00: Our next question is from Joseph Baffey with Canaccord. Please proceed.
spk01: Hey, guys. Good morning. And, yes, terrific results. One question on technology rollout, and I know, Phil, you mentioned real-time payments, and we heard a lot about real-time payments continuing rollout from ACI with some of their bank customers. I'm wondering how you see that products that now competitively for yourself? Is it competitive advantage now? Is it driving deals? Or is it an arrow in the quiver as that technology continues to be adopted more broadly? And then I'll have a quick follow-up.
spk05: Yeah, for sure. It was really the capability that we acquired with Mizuma. We think it's critical to offer as many forms of payment as simply and frictionless as possible to help our customers connect with their customers. Underlying to that is also the verticals that we serve. If you think about iGaming and sports betting, and ultimately verticals that have a higher propensity for card usage, limited applications for card usage due to the high decline ratio, we think ACH and bank-to-bank payments is a critical capability that our merchants require. Historically, they've all been using ACH and ACH guaranteed products, which are quite expensive and have a bunch of friction. And so bringing in RTP coupled with the Plaid solution to drive a really, really slick user interface for people to be able to purchase as seamlessly as they can use a credit card, they can use Apple Pay, or they can pay with their bank account. we think is a critical capability that will truly continue driving uniqueness as we approach our customers. Naturally, we come today with not just one quiver, if you like. We provide a scope of services from acquiring both credit and debit, ACH, ACH guarantee, bank-to-bank payments, and today bank-to-bank payments with guarantee. So really simple checkout experience, beautifully presented. that is relevant to the payment medium that's most conducive to the customer to purchase from our customers. Thereafter, it's all about how do you distribute funds, meaning our payout business. And certainly we have a very strong payout business around the world, and we're expanding that into North America as well. So Visa Direct, MasterCard MoneySend, and RTP, you know, frictionless environments for our customers to create relationship with their customers to be able to distribute funds, you know, as seamlessly and as conveniently as possible so that they can build trust and relationships so that their clients could come back and want to consume again with those particular customers. And really that is the ethos. We think RTP is super important. We think it's a disruptor in the United States. And we think there's a foundation for RTP over the long run to not just drive withdrawals, but also deposits, which we think is very, very exciting for our customers.
spk01: That's great. And then, you know, on U.S. gaming, you know, obviously it's still not including anything in the guidance, and I know you're waiting for some more traction. I was wondering if you could kind of go into a little detail on how much traction you need to see there before you may be able to provide an outlook. Thanks a lot.
spk05: Yeah, great question, Joe. You know, we've refrained from that because there's been a lot of noise around gaming, size of the market and potential of the market. we definitely wanted to see performance first, and then start talking about really what the opportunities are, both from a size, from a take rate perspective, and from the appropriate product. Within all that, we've done a lot of work over the past year and a half, from licensing to becoming a registered money service bureau, to be able to enable our technology to be able to integrate with all acquirers out there, and providing the greatest scope of payment capabilities that are relevant for our particular customers, on a flexible basis, meaning that they can consume part or all with us, as is relevant to their business model. And we think that is really the foundation that's been laid. Naturally, adding Mizzou into that, we think now truly differentiates our product mix and allows us to be highly competitive because it's very fragmented today, right? There's one provider that does acquiring. There's another one that does ACH. There's another one that does payouts. And they haven't consolidated all of that, and we think consolidating them will allow to drive better economics for our customers. Certainly, from our perspective, they're all net new, and we are an at-scale business, as Dave was answering Craig's question. So for us, every incremental dollar really falls to the bottom line. So it allows us to be extremely competitive of how we come and package solutions for our customers. In addition to that, we are engaged really across discussions, across everybody that has meaningful presence, and we're really excited and motivated about the conversations that are to date and the appetite for our current and targeted customers in terms of our product and feature set. We're really happy where we sit. We're past the crawling stage. We're in the walking stage. Once we get to running, we'll start providing more color on our gaming initiatives. The real highlight for us is we're much more than just a gaming enabler. Gaming certainly is one of the verticals that we support. It is one of the most demanding, most complex, and ultimately one of the most interesting protocols as it operates in multi-regions, and each of those regions has their own nuances, like we're talking about for U.S. gaming in particular. So we're really excited about gaming as a vertical on a global basis, certainly very excited about what we have in the U.S. and the engagements that we have to date, but still refraining from including that in our outlook.
spk01: That's great, Keller. Thanks very much. Thanks, Jeff.
spk00: Our next question is from Richard C. with National Bank Financial. Please proceed.
spk14: Yes, thank you. So you guys are obviously doing a lot of hiring here to support the growth. Just curious, what's your ability to retain and recruit talent in a fairly competitive market that you're operating in today?
spk05: Great question. You know, certainly I think talent is at a premium these days, so we are successful at it. What you end up thinking about, Richard, is stimulating the mind, connecting with the heart and driving passion. When you end up looking at what Nuve is doing today from fast-growing, public, really exciting work on a global basis, not just regional, and providing products that go far beyond acquiring, we are stimulating a lot of intellectual curiosity with the folks that are looking to build a career in payments. So I think Nuve's value proposition from a career standpoint, both in product, both in sales and in development is very compelling. So we are having success onboarding. Certainly we wish we can meet more face-to-face today with a virtual world, while certainly from our perspective, we are virtual first and we are remaining with most of our offices closed to predict the health and wellness of our employees. It does create that second challenge. While it adds flexibility and it certainly provides lifestyle, I think that that is truly underappreciated as we end up looking at the flexibility of how people can work and engage within the company. But it doesn't allow people to really immerse themselves into the culture. So that is something that we are working hard on. But overall, when you end up looking at what Nuve has to offer, it is a compelling story. And we are engaged with many, many, many incredible individuals that we are fortunate that they, you know, most often elect to join Nuve.
spk14: That's super helpful. And just one sort of follow-up question. On the take rate, it trended out this quarter. I thought it would have actually declined with the volumes coming from base commerce. And just wanted to clarify, was that due to sort of the seasonality that you saw in the quarter that you mentioned earlier in this conference call?
spk05: It's David's take rate. Hey, Richard.
spk13: It's David. Yeah, no, that's right. Base commerce certainly had an impact. So lower volume in the second quarter because of seasonality, like was mentioned in the formal part of the discussion. So that drove our take rates up in the quarter. So it's really related to that is what the change was.
spk10: Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thanks.
spk00: Our next question is from Paul Streep with Scotia Capital. Please proceed.
spk07: Hey, good morning. Two quick questions. First one for Philip. Can you talk maybe a little bit about an update from transitioning the customers from Gateway to acquiring where we're at in that journey? And then one quick follow-up for David.
spk05: Sure. Hey, Paul. Great question. We've always stressed, and this is something different from some of our peers out there, You know, whichever way the merchants chooses to use Nuve from a technology standpoint, it is part of our solution stack and we're delighted to help our customers. We're not here to just say sell gateway only or to pass on it. Whatever solution stack that is right for them at any given moment is good for us. And ultimately what we mean by that is we like to show services. We like to help them as they continue growing. We like to build technology roadmaps. And we always feel over time there is an opportunity to expand that from gateway to pay-ins to pay-outs to the alternative payment methods or other. But it is not a transition, meaning it is an ultimate strategy. It is certainly a wallet share expansion over time. If a customer chooses to use this for gateway only and that is right for them, for their business, then we've provided a solution that's appropriate for them. If it is not, meaning that they start with gateway, we help them you know collapse you know me a myriad of inefficient technology stacks around the world and allows us over time to expand that relationship even better but it's certainly not a must do for us the really the really important part is our ethos to help them connect with their customers utilizing what is relevant for their business you know at the time okay and then just for david could you recap for us
spk07: thoughts around overall financial leverage? The MD&A highlights a substantial step up in credit capacity at the end of last quarter. Maybe how you're viewing that in terms of overall leverage. Thanks, guys.
spk13: Yeah, sure. Hey, Paul. So yeah, I guess some developments in the second quarter in terms of credit facility and capacity. So we did increase our term loans by $300 million in the quarter, and that was really to satisfy the the purchases of both Mizuma and Simplex, which is still pending, but that was really the logic there. What we did at the same time by amending the agreement, we also brought down our cost of borrowing, so we actually were able to renegotiate a lower cost of borrowing. In terms of leverage, like we've said in the past, our you know the max where we want to be is three times we're significantly below that today and you see the cash on the balance sheet and then even post the you know the finalization of um of simplex and kind of exiting out this year and i mentioned this in the in the earlier part of the call uh you know leverage of approximately one time um so really a lot of capacity we you know the other thing i mentioned on the capacity side uh as part of that amendment we increased our um our revolver uh to 350 million and that's uh that's currently undrawn and so there's you know capacity there as well um if we need it so feel really really good to kind of where our balance sheet is i'd also talk about the you know the cash flow generation has been very strong uh you know you can continue to see it into q2 a free cash flow conversion of around 90 which is consistent with the past but you know overall from a dollar perspective 139 million of cash generated for the first six months of the year from operating activities. So really, really driving cash flow, and we're obviously conscious of the balance sheet and being selective with how we deal with our capital.
spk10: Thank you.
spk00: Our next question is from Paul Treber with CBR Capital Markets. Please proceed.
spk03: Thanks very much, and good morning. A high-level question, strategic question on your medium-term outlook. So with the 30% organic growth outlook, you know, which is quite robust, how do you think about longer-term the strategic necessity for M&A, you know, particularly as you get larger, and I imagine as you get larger and sustain that 30% growth, your ability to invest and develop products internally and your sales footprint will get stronger. So do you see the priority on M&A declining over time as you get larger?
spk05: Yeah, great question, Paul. You know, we've always been super transparent, right? We're not trying to solve for growth issues with M&A. If you guys look back at the last three or four acquisitions we've made, I've been purely capability-based. And those capabilities always run through kind of the buy, the build, or the partner as we analyze them. Some we've elected to partner, like, for example, buy now, pay later. Some we've elected to buy, and some we've elected to build. I think that will continue just depending on time to market and opportunities that we see. For example, Mizuma, we elected to buy just from a time perspective and how the verticals are developing. There's no one-size-fits-all. It really depends on the capability. Thereafter, there's some regions that we'd like to accelerate, certainly our presence across, but as we see it today, we have a really, really good organic growth engine that we're making. We think smart investments as we execute on our strategy around the world. and it will be complemented by what we think are creative capabilities or accelerating our global distribution capabilities in the market.
spk03: I think that's helpful. Just another question on the linearity of growth over the quarter. In the perspectives, there's a couple of disclosures on the monthly volumes in 2020, and it looks like volumes really jumped up in June 2020. Now, how do we think about the linearity of growth over this past quarter and then into Q3?
spk05: Yeah, for sure. I've talked about that in the prepared remarks, but ultimately they're building blocks, right, Paul? For you to think about from our businesses, first year is gardening. As we build the pipeline, we engage with clients. We look to integrate the clients. Typically, we see the results from that in the second year. And so when you end up driving all of that, the investments that we've made both on the technology side, the client experience side, you know, the SDKs for integration, and really build beautiful engagements with customers on all forms of payment that are relevant, and then naturally helping them streamline integrations and go a lot faster. But ultimately, you look at the building blocks of current customers in terms of new features, new customers as we continue winning them in different regions to support particular needs, and really the final part is... is expanding our regional capabilities that drive us more opportunities to win both new customers and existing customers. So overall, the algorithms come together. At the time of IPO, certainly we made a lot of investments in distribution. We always felt we had class leading technology and capabilities and we needed to put more investments and put these capabilities in the eyeballs of merchants around the world. And we are doing just that successfully. So ultimately, it's all about execution of the strategy driving more wallet share, winning more customers, and making sure that we are always innovating on the product with the roadmaps that are relevant to our clients.
spk10: Thanks for taking my questions. Thanks, Paul.
spk00: Our next question is from Todd Coupland with CIBC. Please proceed.
spk06: Yes. Good morning, everyone. I had two quick questions. Firstly, With the enterprise wins that you're starting to see, how important is that to your accelerating growth? And could you highlight a couple of examples where you're starting to attract larger businesses to the platform?
spk05: Yeah, great. Great question. You know, I think at the end of the day, the way we build our growth is by opportunity, by conversion ratio, by capability that they're looking for, and more importantly, by integration timeframes. That's just kind of the different pieces that are built into it. You know, from our perspective, something that we definitely need to invest more in is more marketing and communication with respect to, you know, who are the customers, how are we winning them, what are they doing with us, and building case studies. And that is on our roadmap to build more case studies for people to appreciate, you know, how we work with clients and how we expand with them. I think in the last quarter, I'm not sure what we announced, but I think we announced several client wins, and I'd refer over to those in terms of who we've won, From a pipeline perspective, what's fascinating, Todd, is the engagements that we've had are merchants that we would have never spoken to 18 months ago. So really across all verticals that we're seeing engagements with the market leaders and folks that they themselves are on a global roadmap for expansion, and it's really, really exciting to see how new-based features can help them continue accelerating their growth.
spk06: Thanks, Phil. And then my second question is EBITDA margin goal of 50 plus, does the free cash flow margin conversion stay in the same range? Could you just give us some context around what CapEx looks like with this longer term model? Thanks a lot.
spk13: Okay, Todd. Yeah, I think from a CapEx perspective, historically we've been 3% to 5%, and that's probably of revenue. That's probably the right way to think about it. Free cash flow conversion is at 90%, so it's quite high already. I think about it that way. The platform is very much built. Of course, there's always innovation, and so I don't think CapEx will be a significant factor in terms of growth. Of course, it will grow to some degree, but I think from a relative perspective, It will be in line. It will be in line.
spk10: Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Todd.
spk00: And our final question is from John Davis with Raymond James. Please proceed.
spk15: Hey, good morning, guys. I know there's been a lot of talk on Dave's favorite question here, but adjusting for a mix, just talk about the overall pricing environment. Some of your peers have I've made some pricing tweaks. Is that an opportunity for you just on an apples-to-apples basis for the different products that you have? Is it stable? Just any comments on the overall pricing and neutralizing for mix would be helpful.
spk05: Sure. Dave, you want to take that one?
spk13: Yeah, I can take it. So, John, I think from a pricing perspective, I touched on this a little bit before, the value proposition we bring to the merchants we feel is quite compelling. And so, and I think that grows as we add more solutions to it. So I think there's, you know, from a pure pricing perspective, you know, I think that value is there that we provide. And, of course, it's a competitive environment, but we feel pretty comfortable with kind of what we're thinking in terms of the medium to longer term perspective. I don't know, Phil, if you want to add anything.
spk05: No, I think that's exactly right. You know, John, as we add more capabilities like real-time payments, for example, which was topical today, or bank-to-bank payments, these are all net new features to us where, you know, because we're an at-scale platform, you know, ultimately we have real pricing power compared to the peers and the incumbents that are sitting there today. So ultimately as we add more capabilities, you know, we think we can create differentiation and we can provide, you know, from a holistic perspective, not just acquiring, not just payouts, not just providing from a holistic perspective, the more features and the more services that our customers take with us, gives us more negotiating power around price.
spk15: Okay, that's super clear. And then, you know, Phil, as you think about the U.S. gaming opportunity today, I fully understand it's not numbers, but it seems like the market opportunity has gotten bigger than when we sat here a year ago preparing for the IPO. So just as you think about it, is it something that you're more excited about? You think it's a bigger opportunity than it was a year ago? Just any kind of commentary there would be helpful.
spk05: Yeah, you know, I think, so John, that is a great question. So, you know, we have really spent a lot of time thinking about product and what's needed, both pay in and pay out. And ultimately, you know, we think the guys that have run in and just said, hey, we're doing acquiring for, you know, ABC company really is just half of the value proposition is how do we consolidate it? How do we provide, you know, all features and all ability to connect both on the way in and way out? And I have to say, when you end up combining both multi-acquire, multi-debit sponsor, ACH, ACH guarantee, bank-to-bank payments, and then on the way in, and then on the way out with guarantee, obviously on the bank-to-bank payments, and on the way out, both car brands and RTP, utilizing the single settlement accounts, the merchants don't have to wire money around. It's a real value to the customers to help them do what's really important to them, which is connecting with their customers. So we're really, really excited. What's changed for us is not necessarily the size of the market, which is developing, right? More states that one year ago we never thought would be in legislation process are actually addressable today. So that is something that is definitely different. But I also think the scope of product that we're coming through and the ability for us to consolidate all those different vendors into one, creating pricing efficiencies for the merchant while driving an interesting take rate for us, makes us really excited. So obviously now it's all about execution, and that's what we're working on of consolidating that experience for our customers. But, you know, the engagements that we're having and the clients that we're speaking with today, you know, involves us to think that U.S. gaming, you know, can play a material role for Nuve. And actually we're not giving any form on the outlook. We want to execute first, and we haven't done that just yet. So I'd like to see some more traction before we revisit the topic.
spk15: Okay. That's very helpful. Thanks, guys.
spk05: Thanks, John.
spk00: We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to Phil for closing remarks.
spk05: Thank you, everyone, for participating today. As you guys can see, we love talking about Nuve and great questions and really appreciate the continued interest. So thank you, everybody.
spk00: Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.
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