CPI Card Group Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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May 9, 2023

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Operator

Welcome to the CPI Card Group's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. My name is Bailey and I will be your operator today. If you are viewing on the webcast, you may advance the slides forward by pressing the arrow buttons. The call will be open for questions after the company's remarks. And now, I will turn the call over to Mike Salop, CPI's Head of Investor Relations.

Speaker 1

Thanks, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the CPI Card Group Q1 2023 earnings webcast and conference call. Today's date is May 9, 2023 and on the call today from CPI Card Group are Scott Scheierman, President and Chief Executive Officer and Amitur Schenkel, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward looking statements as they are defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, please see CPI Card Group's most recent filings with the SEC. All forward looking statements made today reflect our current And we undertake no obligation to update any statements to reflect the events that occur after this call. Also, during the course of today's call, the company will be 1 or more non GAAP financial measures, including but not limited to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, Net leverage ratio and free cash flow. Reconciliations of these non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the press release And slide presentation we issued this morning. Copies of today's press release as well as the presentation that accompanies this conference call are accessible on CPI's Investor Relations website, investor.

Speaker 1

Cpicartgroup.com. In addition, CPI's Form 10 Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, Will be available on CPI's Investor Relations website. And now, I'd like to turn the call over to President and Chief Executive Officer, Scott Scheirman.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. During today's call, I will discuss CPI's Q1 performance, reiterate our outlook for the full year and review our long term strategy. Amanpour will review the financial results in more detail, and then we will open up the call for questions. We will start on Slide 4. Overall, I'm very pleased with the Q1 performance.

Speaker 2

We increased sales by 8% despite comparisons with a very strong Q1 in 2022, which benefited from large Eco Focus card orders And significant instant issuance printer upgrade sales. Growth in this year's Q1 was led by ongoing strength in sales of contact with cards And we also delivered good growth from other areas across our debit and credit portfolio. We grew adjusted EBITDA 11% to $25,000,000 And increased the adjusted EBITDA margin 50 basis points to 20.7 percent driven by operating leverage. We increased net income by 81 percent to nearly $11,000,000 aided by sales growth, operating leverage, a lower tax rate And lower interest expense as we have utilized cash flow to reduce our average borrowings. We also improved our overall financial position in the quarter, Generating nearly $4,000,000 of positive free cash flow, retiring an additional $8,000,000 of our senior notes And reducing our net leverage ratio to 2.9 times at quarter end.

Speaker 2

As we mentioned in March, This year we are focused on continuing to execute our strategies, grow the business, win share in the marketplace, increase cash flow and reduce leverage. We believe the Q1 demonstrated good progress against each of these goals. As we look to the rest of the year, Our sales efforts will remain focused on gaining market share with our differentiated portfolio of innovative products and services And end to end solution and leading quality and customer service. Turning to our outlook on Slide 5. Today, we are affirming the financial outlook we provided in March.

Speaker 2

We believe continued strong performance from contactless cards, Additional sales of end to end solutions and further penetration of instant issuance will drive sales growth for the full year. However, there is more risk and uncertainty in the market. Banking industry stress that emerged following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March Has contributed to more cautious spending environments among issuers. Although we do not have any significant direct exposure to the 3 major banks that have failed, We have recently seen softening customer demand in our debit and credit segment and consequently do not expect second quarter results To be as strong as the Q1. Near term, it's difficult to project the extent of the banking industry stress or how long it will continue to impact us.

Speaker 2

However, given the uncertainty, we have implemented various new initiatives to drive sales and manage expenses more tightly in 2023. Based on what we know today and the strong Q1 performance, we have affirmed the full year outlook we provided in March. Despite the near term challenges, we continue to believe we operate in an attractive long term growth market. Secular card trends have remained healthy as evidenced by the 11% compounded annual growth rate on Mastercard and Visa, U. S.

Speaker 2

Cards in circulation for the 3 year period ending December 31, 2022, and the ongoing movements towards eco focused cards and contactless Cards should continue to aid growth. I would also remind you that the card business is reoccurring in nature With historically approximately 90% of payment cards issuance being for reissuance and replacements, so there is strong support for the market over time. We have successfully gained share in growing markets over the past 5 years by focusing on our key strategies and we expect those Specifically turning to Slide 6, our key strategic priorities remain deep customer focus, Market leading quality products and customer service, continuous innovation and a market competitive business model. We believe the Q1 results demonstrated further advances against these priorities. Although Eco Focus card sales were down compared to some very large orders in Prior year, we still sold nearly 7,000,000 of our innovative cards made with recovered ocean bound plastic core in the quarter And continue to be a leader in the U.

Speaker 2

S. Eco focused card space. We also continue to leverage our high quality end to end solutions, Driving growth in contactless cards, personalization services and our CardOnce SaaS based instant issuance business. Prepaid was down slightly in the quarter, but we did continue to have success with new customer types. And we demonstrated a competitive business model.

Speaker 2

We generated operating leverage despite ongoing inflationary impacts on key material costs and continue to balance pricing with managing long term customer relationships. These 4 key strategic priorities will continue to guide our actions to grow and gain market share and we also plan to pursue additional opportunities in the market This shows our expansion of prepaid use cases and development of complementary digital offerings. We remain Confident in the long term growth prospects for the market and in our ability to execute against our strategies to win business and grow share. Now I will turn the call over to Amitur to review our Q1 results and our outlook in more detail. Amitur?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. I will begin my overview on Slide 8. 1st quarter net sales increased 8% to $120,900,000 compared to the prior year quarter, Led by the debit and credit segment, which increased 11%. As Scott mentioned, debit and credit sales growth was driven by strong sales of contactless cards And personalization services also contributed solid sales growth, as did CardOnce instant issuance solutions. Prepaid debit segment net sales decreased 2% compared with the prior year and we continue to expect full year prepaid sales To be similar to 2022 levels.

Speaker 3

Overall, pricing contributed a little less than half of the sales growth in the quarter, Primarily due to pricing actions implemented over the course of 2022. 1st quarter gross profit of $43,100,000 Increased 10% from the prior year, while gross profit margin increased from 35.3% to 35.7%, Driven by operating leverage from sales growth, including benefits from price increases, partially offset by the impacts of inflation Our materials costs and expenses incurred related to a production staffing model change in our prepaid segment. SG and A expenses increased by approximately $1,000,000 in the quarter compared to the prior year, primarily due to increased headcount and related compensation expenses To support our growth and strategic execution, partially offset by a reduction in professional services expenses, Primarily related to 3rd party SOX costs incurred in the prior year. Our tax rate was 20.7% in the quarter, Which compared to 38.3% in the prior year quarter due to higher interest expense deductibility and a favorable adjustment to reflect a change in state tax law. We would project a normalized rate excluding the adjustment items of between 25% 30%, But including the Q1 adjustment benefit, we currently expect the overall 2023 rate to be at the lower end of that range.

Speaker 3

Net income in the Q1 increased 81 percent to $10,900,000 and adjusted EBITDA increased 11% to $25,100,000 Adjusted EBITDA margin improved from 20.2% in the prior year to 20.7%, Driven by operating leverage from sales, including pricing benefits, while net income growth also benefited from the lower tax rate and lower interest expense. Turning now to our segments on Slide 9. I mentioned the segment sales drivers earlier, so I will just discuss segment profitability on this slide. Income from operations for the Debit and Credit segment increased 25% in the quarter to $30,000,000 driven by the higher net sales and operating leverage, Including the benefits of price increases. Prepaid debit segment income from operations decreased 38% in the 1st quarter To $3,700,000 Prepaid income was negatively impacted by approximately $1,000,000 of costs incurred related to the conversion from a temporary to a full time staffing model at our prepaid production facility And was also negatively impacted by the reduction in sales.

Speaker 3

We expect the prepaid margins to be stronger over the remainder of the year As we gain efficiencies from the labor conversion and benefit from more beneficial mix and operating leverage. Turning to the balance sheet, liquidity and cash flow on Slide 10. We made substantial progress with our financial position in the Q1. We generated $8,000,000 of cash flow from operating activities in the quarter and invested $4,100,000 on capital expenditures, Which resulted in free cash flow of $3,900,000 This compared to the free cash flow usage of $19,100,000 in the prior year period With the strong improvement driven by increased net income and reduced working capital usage. Accounts receivable balances decreased $4,000,000 from year end As we collected the receivables related to the high sales levels in the 4th quarter and inventories only increased $1,000,000 or less than 2%.

Speaker 3

On the balance sheet at March 31, we had $14,000,000 of cash and $13,000,000 of borrowings outstanding on our $75,000,000 ABL revolver. We had $277,000,000 of senior secured notes outstanding at quarter end as we repurchased $8,000,000 of notes in the open market in the Q1. Subsequent to quarter end, we repurchased an additional $7,000,000 in the 2nd quarter. Our capital structure and allocation priorities remain focused on maintaining ample liquidity, investing in the business, Including possible strategic acquisitions, deleveraging the balance sheet and potentially returning funds to stockholders. Overall, the Q1 results were strong and we have affirmed our 2023 full year outlook.

Speaker 3

Specifically for 2023, We continue to expect mid single digit net sales growth with higher growth in the debit and credit segment and prepaid sales similar to 2022 levels. Mid to high single digit adjusted EBITDA growth, free cash flow to more than double from the 2022 level as we grow earnings and optimize Capital in a more stable supply chain environment and net leverage ratio improvement to between 2.5x and 3x As we generate strong cash flow and continue to reduce our senior notes balance. Our outlook assumes the turmoil in the banking industry affects 2nd quarter results, But it does not worsen and we will return to a more normalized environment over the course of the year. I will now pass the call back to Scott for some closing remarks On Slide 11. Scott?

Speaker 2

Thanks, Amitur. Before opening the call for questions, I would like to welcome Jeff Hockstead to the CPI team. We announced today that Jeff will become our new Chief Financial Officer effective May 15, Replacing Amator, who had previously declared his plans to resign in 2023 due to family related personal reasons. Jeff is a proven strategic leader who brings a vast background of diverse business and financial experience to CPI. He most recently had his own company providing strategic and financial consulting services, which followed his career at Western Union from 2,006 Through 2021, including roles as Chief Strategy Officer and Senior Vice President and Head of Global Financial Planning.

Speaker 2

Jeff has also held various financial and strategic positions with First Data, Morgan Stanley, IBM and Pricewaterhouse among others. Amanpour will stay with CPI full time through the end of the second quarter And then we'll continue as an advisor for a period of time. I want to again thank Amintor for his many contributions to CPI To summarize today's call, we had a strong performance in the Q1, Increasing sales, adjusted EBITDA margins and free cash flow and driving further improvements in our net leverage ratio. Although we have seen some new risks arise from the banking industry turmoil of recent weeks, we are taking responsive actions and have affirmed our full year outlook. Overall, we remain focused on continuing to execute our strategy, grow the business, win share in the marketplace, Increase cash flow and reduce net leverage in 2023.

Speaker 2

Thank you for joining our call today, and we will now open up the call for any questions.

Operator

And we will now open up the call for your questions. And we will pause for just a moment to compile the Q and A roster. And your first question will come from Jaeson Schmidt. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions and congrats on a really nice start to the year. Scott, just want to dig into your Caution around Q2, is the softening demand more related to push outs? Or are you seeing cancellations as well?

Speaker 2

What I would describe it is, as we move through the month of April, just saw softening in Customer demand or customer orders coming in, some customers that might be Not placing an order, some customers might be pushing the order to say the Q3 or Q4. So it really seems to have tied back to the Silicon Valley Bank and subsequent, I'm going to use the word banking turmoil, Jason, where customers feel uncertain about the future, We believe they're probably tightening their spending just to see how things will enroll over the weeks, maybe the months to come from that standpoint. But Again, I have a lot of confidence in the long term business. There's a lot of secular trends in place for sure. Cards continue to grow, card payments are growing at the expense of cash.

Speaker 2

As we shared in the Visa, Mastercard cards in circulation have grown at 11% CAGR Over the last 3 years ending December 31, 2022, I believe contactless cards are still a really good opportunity for us. We think at the end of 2022, the market was 50% to 60% Converted to contactless, we think that will be over 80% by 25%. And then I'd also just emphasize our eco cards, right? The Broadly, banks, end user consumers, the issuers, the networks, Everybody is trying to be more sustainable and we are definitely a market leader with eco focused cards issuing over $95,000,000 So I think there are some near term challenges, but long term I'm very positive on the business and believe there's Continued opportunity to gain share and grow over the long term.

Speaker 4

Okay. That makes sense and all really helpful. And I think you probably And through to what my next question was going to be on sort of the confidence that Q2 is simply this Air pocket and you would resume to a more normalized environment. Is this really just due to kind of customers noting that these launches have simply Been delayed into the second half?

Speaker 2

Well, I would say there's some of that, right? There's things that are happening in the market where I would say the regulators and the government are continuing to try and do things to Provide more confidence to end user consumers with banks. They've done, in my view, some of the right things to Get these banks recapitalized or take them over. So hopefully this banking turmoil will subside in the coming weeks or months, if you will. But again, as we called out in the earnings release Or the script comments that we assume that the turmoil in the banking industry affects the Q2, but does not worsen.

Speaker 2

And We believe we'll return to more normalized environment over the course of the year, but we'll have to play it out from that standpoint. But So far in the month of April, customer demand has been soft.

Speaker 4

Okay. Got it. And then just the last one for me and I'll jump back in the queue. Just curious if you could expand on some of these new initiatives that you've implemented to drive sales?

Speaker 2

Sure, sure. No, it's and what you'll probably appreciate Jason for competitive reasons, I don't want to get into a lot of detail here, but Over the last week to 10 days, the teams have been meeting and they've come up with a number of ideas that I believe will be helpful to drive the top line incent some demand in the marketplace. And then also we are just closely like probably many companies are right now just closely managing our expenses and making some decisions on some expenses that maybe Can be pushed off to later in the year or into 2024. So it's a combination of those. But again, for competitive reasons, I don't want to Get into a lot of detail on how we're driving demand.

Speaker 4

Okay. Totally understand. That's it for me. Thanks a lot guys.

Speaker 2

Thanks for joining Jason.

Operator

And your next question comes from Lianne Hayden. Bien, your line is open.

Speaker 5

Yes. Hi. This is Ed Najarian and Dan Hayden at E. F. Hutton.

Speaker 5

How are you?

Speaker 2

Good. How are you guys doing this morning?

Speaker 5

We're doing great. Thank you. So, two quick questions. First on the senior secured notes, could you give us some context about just on a couple of things. Number 1, how quickly you are Kind of contemplating paying that down over the next year or 2.

Speaker 5

And I guess Secondarily on that, what kind of purchase costs you're seeing on the senior secured notes relative to par? And then the rate on it looks like the ABL revolver is sort of replacing some of that debt to some extent. Are you getting some rate arbitrage there relative to the 8.6% on the secured notes? Thanks. That's the first question.

Speaker 5

Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. Let me I'll start. Go ahead, Amitara.

Speaker 3

Go ahead, Scott, if you want to start.

Speaker 4

Okay.

Speaker 2

Thanks for joining the call. Thank you for your question. First, I would say we've been committing committed to deleveraging the balance sheet Both through growing our profitability and reducing using our cash flow to reduce our debt outstanding. As we think about 2023 without getting into real specifics, so far we've bought back $15,000,000 of our debt, I'm going to call it, it's been a tad bit below $1 or below par. So we think it's a good value, a good thing for the shareholders To do that, where we think the leverage will end up in 2023 as we've guided is somewhere Between 2.5x and 3x, we closed Q1 at 2.9x.

Speaker 2

So broadly, I would say we continue to be committed To deleverage the balance sheet. And Amitur, do you want to speak about the rate between the senior notes and the revolver?

Speaker 3

Yes. I mean there is a little bit of a differential and I'll let you guys kind of do the math by looking at our disclosures in terms of the rate that we've got On the ABL versus the senior notes, but there is a positive rate differential between the 2 if we On the ABL versus having those balances still remain outstanding on the senior notes. And as it relates to the repurchases, We have been able to do those repurchases below par. And clearly, as we kind of look forward At what we will do going forward here in the future, we've indicated that we do want our leverage ratio to be between 2.53 By the time we hit to the end of the year, and clearly, we'll look at what makes sense in terms of either repurchasing notes or utilizing cash for Other activities out there, but we continue to have one of our key mantras as it relates to our capital strategy, deleveraging our balance sheet.

Speaker 5

Okay, great. Thank you. You're at 2.9% or 2.9% on the leverage ratio now. I don't want to I guess maybe I'm trying a little bit putting words in your mouth. Would it be reasonable to think we could get to the lower end of that 2.5% to 3% range by the end of the year?

Speaker 2

Well, I would like to give you, it depends answer. We gave a range Just so that we've got flexibility, if you will, again, we're committed to deleveraging the balance sheet. But as we think about the uses of our cash or capital, we want to Make sure we've got ample liquidity, but also invest in the business, whether that's through CapEx or working capital. If there's things that will help us grow the business long term, we're actively looking at how do we deploy that cash So it has the best return to our shareholders at the end of the day. So that's why there's a bit of a range there just so that as we move through the year, if there's opportunities, We can take a hard look at those and make the best decisions for our shareholders.

Speaker 5

Right. Okay. Understood. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Speaker 5

And then just one more quick question. I don't know if you're maybe willing to go here or not, but in terms of the A bit of weakness, I guess, in the Q2 relative to the whole broader situation with regional banks. Any ability to put any context or parameters around that, from a revenue or a sales standpoint or just to give us Any kind of range of how to think about that magnitude?

Speaker 2

Yes, you're right. I don't want to go there. What I would tell you is that we've reaffirmed the full year outlook. Q1 results are But our color really has been around that we just expect 2nd quarter results did not be as strong as Q1 just due to softening demand. So Again, and part of that just depends upon how we progress through the Q2, the timing of orders and so forth.

Speaker 2

So again, I want to get our Investors or potential investors really focused on the long term opportunities here. There's a lot of great secular trends that we spoke about with contactless cards, EcoCards, clearly, cards will continue to grow in our opinion. In our instant issuance, card at once business, SaaS based business, we've got By far the best solution in the marketplace. So over the long term, I believe there's a lot of opportunities for us to grow and continue to gain market share, possibly Okay, great. Thank you very much

Speaker 5

for taking our questions. Thank you

Speaker 2

for dialing in. Appreciate the question.

Operator

And with no further questions, that concludes today's CPI Card Group's 1st quarter earnings call. Thank you for joining.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

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CPI Card Group Q1 2023
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