Altus Group Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 2, 2024

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Altus Group's Q1 2024 Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. This call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to hand the call over to Ms. Camilla Bartosiewicz. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Lisa. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the conference call and webcast discussing Altus Group's Q1 results for the period ended March 31, 2024. Our disclosure materials, notably the press release, MD and A and financial statements and the slides accompanying our prepared remarks are all available on our website and as required have been filed to SEDAR Plus after market close this afternoon. I'm joined today by our CEO, Jim Hannon and our CFO, Pavan Chhabra. Some of our remarks on this call and in our disclosure may contain forward looking information that is based on certain assumptions and therefore, subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected.

Speaker 1

Please refer to our forward looking information disclaimer in today's materials. Please be reminded that Altus Group uses certain non GAAP financial measures, ratios, total of segments measures, capital management measures and supplementary and other financial measures as defined in National Instrument 52,112. We believe that these measures may assist investors in assessing the investment in our shares as they provide additional insight into our performance. Readers and listeners are cautioned that they are not defined performance measures and do not have standardized meaning under IFRS and may differ from similar computations as reported by other entities and accordingly may not be comparable to financial measures as reported by those entities. Those measures should not be considered in isolation or as substitutes for financial measures prepared in accordance with IFRS.

Speaker 1

An explanation of these measures is detailed in today's IR materials. I would also like to point out that unless otherwise specified, all the percentage and basis point growth rates we refer to on today's call will be on a constant currency basis over the same period in 2022. Okay, over to you, Kevin.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Camilla, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Alters delivered solid results in the Q1 with improvements across our key financial metrics. Our team stayed on task growing revenue and expanding margins. Our results in both analytics and property tax came in ahead of our expectations. Recapping our consolidated metrics revenue was up 4.3%.

Speaker 2

Profit improved by 93.7% on an as reported basis. Adjusted EBITDA was up 12.9%, driving 100 basis point margin expansion on an as reported basis. And notably free cash flow was up 83.5% on an as reported basis over last year, which included the impact of our transition or a 41.4% if we compare it to Q1 of 2022. As you're likely aware, there is some seasonality to this metric, primarily relating to the benefits and compensation with our employee bonus payout, which occurs in Q1. Additionally, I'd like to highlight that our key in Q1, we recorded 5,400,000 of restructuring costs.

Speaker 2

Primarily impacting our analytics business segment as well as some of our corporate functions. This reflects our ongoing efforts to operate more efficiently and rebound investments towards future growth initiatives. Turning to our business segment performance, analytics continues to drive top line growth and margin expansion. Revenue growth is driven by our ongoing transition to the cloud subscriptions, new sales, higher number of assets on our valuation management solutions platform and contribution from the Forberry acquisition. The combination of Forberry's innovative culture and Altus global go to market reach provides us with growth opportunities with a fit for purpose software offering in the APAC and UK markets and with emerging opportunities in the U.

Speaker 2

S. Banking sector. Adjusted EBITDA benefited from higher revenues, operating efficiencies and our ongoing cost optimization efforts. Recurring revenue represents 93% of our analytics revenues in the quarter compared to 90% in the prior year. These revenues comprised of solutions embedded in our customers' most critical processes, therefore, represent resilient revenue streams with low churn.

Speaker 2

As a reminder, in Q4, CMS recurring revenue is seasonally our high point to the high volumes of annual valuations. Our Tier one recurring revenue came slightly ahead of our expectations. The market environment remains consistent to Q4 of FY2023 and expected to continue through the first half of the year. There are several encouraging signs emerging for a second half recovery. Relatively stabilized interest rates, a growing economy, increased activity resulting from distressed sellers and lenders.

Speaker 2

Many of our clients have expressed their belief that markets have bottomed and volumes will begin to recover in the second half of the year. Our margins continue to expand up 210 basis points in the quarter. We initiated our cost automation efforts midway through the Q1 and with recurring revenue growth expected to pick up in the second half of the year, we expect margins to ramp in subsequent quarters this year. We remain confident in our ability to drive 400 to 500 basis points of margin expansion for the full year. Which we expect we can do, even on the low end of our guidance revenue range.

Speaker 2

We are increasingly benefiting from higher efficiencies from our global service center in India. And as you saw through our restructuring activities in the Q1, we have taken action to further refine our operating model. We ended the quarter with 75% of our AE users contracted on the cloud. Our transition to August class continues creating more revenue growth opportunities in 2024. Now, with 75% of our AEs on the cloud, our churn from on prem maintenance represents 0.15 percent of our annual revenue.

Speaker 2

Our maintenance gross retention rate of 89 percent is no longer a relevant metric and we plan to retire that going forward. Our new bookings performance was steady and continues to be impacted by current macroeconomic conditions. Now the timing of bookings tends to fluctuate. We're encouraged by the healthy recurring new bookings performance in the quarter, which was up 14.2%. As the market stabilizes, we are well positioned to capitalize on the recovery and convert our growing backlog into revenue.

Speaker 2

Turning to property tax, the team had a very strong start to the year. Revenue was up 10.2% and adjusted EBITDA was up 24.9% with margins up 300 basis points. The growth was driven by a strong performance in the U. S, offset by a decline in Canada and the U. K.

Speaker 2

In the U. S, several of our large settlements were pulled forward from Q2 to Q1. In Canada, the cycle timelines in Western Canada and the impact of the ongoing Ontario cycle extension have impacted our growth. The U. K.

Speaker 2

Continues to be constrained with slower than anticipated VOA throughput, but the backlog of opportunities is growing. The increase in adjusted EBITDA reflects higher revenues offset by higher compensation costs as well as geographic variances of our revenue and related cost base on a year over year view. Going forward with the Ontario cycle extension and the VLA constraints, this year's geographic mix is expected to be weighted towards the U. S, which runs at a lower margin profile. Our outlook, however, for the year remains unchanged.

Speaker 2

I would also point out that the Ontario government's latest budget release, which was released in late March, indicates that the province wide reassessment will continue to be deferred until the province completes its review of the property assessment and taxation system. We continue to constructively engage with the government that's becoming unlikely that we'll have a reassessment in 2025. Finally, Appraisal and Development Advisory revenue and adjusted EBITDA were down in the quarter. The performance reflects muted market activity in the current economic environment as the business segment has some exposure to reduced transaction volumes and higher interest rates, which result in fewer appraisals and fewer new project starts. Turning to our balance sheet, we finished the quarter with a cash position of $44,300,000 and with $328,600,000 in bank debt.

Speaker 2

Defined debt to EBITDA leverage ratio is defined in our credit agreement is 2.15 times. Applying our cash, net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio was 2.06 times. Total liquidity stands at $265,700,000 We have healthy balance sheet that enables continued investment in growth and opportunistically repurchase shares. With respect to the planned REVS acquisition, the regulatory review continues, so we're limited in what we can share at this time. With that, Jim, I'll turn

Speaker 3

it over to you. Okay. Thanks, Pavan. We're pleased with the consistent execution of our long term value creation strategy, which is built upon 4 pillars: delivering innovation, driving long term profitable growth, maximizing our operating leverage and optimizing our capital allocation. And of course, none of that happens without having the best players in the right job with clarity in their objectives and that is the Altus team.

Speaker 3

We expect that the successful execution of the strategy will significantly enhance our cash generation and deliver attractive shareholder returns. Meaningful cash generation affords us flexibility and capital allocation to keep growing our business and enhancing value for our clients, colleagues and shareholders. Our first quarter results reinforce the progress against this strategy. We have new performance analytics capabilities launching this year that will help our clients drive better performance and equip our teams with faster access to information. With the technical foundation of the Altus performance platform and by connecting disparate datasets under an Altus ID, we're delivering deep asset and fund level insights.

Speaker 3

As Pubben discussed, we're making steady progress maximizing our operating leverage. At the analytics, we continue to put up healthy recurring revenue growth and plan to drive 400 to 500 basis points of margin expansion this year. We're listening to our clients and continue to anticipate an improved selling environment in the second half. The property tax team delivered a very strong Q1 in the U. S.

Speaker 3

We continue to invest in growing our team in the global service center in India, which will fuel further growth. Additionally, our U. S. Tax business is now running on ITM Link, the core product from the Rethink acquisition. As a reminder, ITMLink is a purpose built property tax management software solution enabling tax professionals to better manage their property tax liabilities and assessments across their property portfolio.

Speaker 3

Turning to appraisals and development advisory as well as corporate, we continue to deploy technologies and process improvements that will yield higher margins and corporate efficiencies. As Pavin covered, Q1 margins for appraisals were impacted by lower than expected transactions volumes across the general market in Canada. Again, here we expect an improvement in the second half. From a capital allocation perspective, our core focus is to prioritize our investments and our highest growth, highest margin opportunities. We will adapt our capital allocation strategy as required to ensure that our balance sheet is strongly positioned for the long term.

Speaker 3

In summary, at a macro level, many of our clients have expressed the belief that markets have bottomed. The industry continues to raise fresh capital in anticipation of a recovery. Interest rates, if not declining in the near future, appear to have at least stabilized. New debt funds have increased the availability of capital. These factors combined with some large portfolios beginning to transact may indicate that we're nearing the end of the price discovery phase we witnessed over the last several quarters.

Speaker 3

This bodes well for Altus and gives us confidence in our full year outlook. We enable our clients to make faster and better decisions. We've worked closely with our largest clients to build their requirements into our Altus performance platform and we've been in the market demonstrating that innovation. Our experts in tax, valuation and development advisory are excited and ready to deliver what we call intelligence as a service. In other words, we're here to help our clients grow their portfolios, optimize returns and reduce risk.

Speaker 3

And with that, let's open up the line now for questions. So back to you, Lisa.

Operator

Thank And we'll take the first question from Yuri Lynk at Canaccord Genuity.

Speaker 4

Good quarter. Just wondering if just on the guidance, can you remind me the low end there? Is that assuming that the back half pickup that you're expecting doesn't happen?

Speaker 2

Yuri, great hearing from me. I'm assuming you're referring to the analytics guidance?

Speaker 5

Yes.

Speaker 2

Yes. So if you recall, we said 8% to 12%, and we had predicated the fact that Q1 and Q2 would look very similar to what we saw in Q4 of FY2023. And then the higher end of the guidance range was tied to potentially seeing more assets being deployed on the DMS side, which would get us to the higher end of the range. But the lower end of the range assumes that the market environment continues the way we've been seeing it in Q1 and anticipate in Q2.

Speaker 4

Okay. That's helpful. I think it was 9, 10 months ago, we heard a lot about Altus Market Insights and the benefits to the clients there in terms of risk adjusted returns. Can you give us an update on your conversations with clients on that new product launch?

Speaker 3

Yes. Yuri, this is Jim. Market Insights, we showed at Connect to proved clients that the office performance platform was here. We have several of the largest investors in commercial real estate, are clients of Market Insights and Market Insights is a piece of what will be a larger offering that many of our clients have now seen and that will be generally available at the next Altus Connect in September. So it was a taste of what the capabilities of the platform were, pulling together Reonomy, StrataDEN on top of Argus Data and we were demonstrating the power of all 3.

Speaker 4

Got it. Okay. Okay. I'll get you back in the queue. Thanks guys.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Gavin Fairweather, Cormark.

Speaker 6

Hey, good evening. Just on analytics, you've talked in the past about exploring AUM based pricing with some of your larger clients. Curious if there's any update on that front and whether perhaps penetrating these clients with market insights or performance management would be perhaps a catalyst for an evolving revenue model?

Speaker 3

Hey, Gavin, absolutely. We have had many large client conversations about that as they as we're walking them through the new performance offers. We break pricing down into 2 core areas. We're always going to have the trends but you know our revenues are not transaction driven, but there are there's the Argus use case where Argus is used on a DCF basis to evaluate a transaction. And those we foresee there will be a large amount of per user requests for core Argus functionality.

Speaker 3

It's the advanced functionality where we get to a per asset, which represents an enterprise license type approach. And that is how we're engaging with all of the clients on the new offers today.

Speaker 6

Okay, great to hear. And then, also on Argus, you just ran renewals when you spoke to the maintenance renewal rate is no longer really a relevant metric. So I guess it begs the question, if you could speak to the subscription renewal rates you've been seeing with some of the early adopters and whether you've seen any kind of macro impact on KPS?

Speaker 2

Yes. As it relates to the maintenance renewal rate, it's no longer a material factor in our calculus. When you look at it from what the non renewing portion of the on prem clients, which as you know, we're majority on cloud now represents in relation to the renewing base. I believe I mentioned in the opening remarks, it's like 0.15 percent of our analytics annual revenue number. And so we didn't find it to be useful going forward, which we're deciding to retire that number.

Speaker 2

So just wanted to provide some macro context on the print that you all are seeing in the MD and A and our intentions of that metric going forward.

Speaker 3

Let me take the second half of that question. Gavin, you know that when we changed out the systems that we suggested we would be moving towards new disclosures in the future, we're still on that path. I think you're effectively asking us what does net retention look like. And for the clients who purchase the suite of products across Argus, VMS and Market Insights, which is now those offers are now you can think of them in the loose term of bundles, but our net retention on those clients' bases are both north of 100%, but we're not ready to change our full disclosures on that at this point.

Speaker 6

Great. Appreciate the sneak preview there. And then maybe just on the Appraisal and Development Services division, obviously, saw the profitability get hit in Q1 with some lower volume, but it looks like you maintained the guidance for double digit EBITDA growth. So do you have visibility on improving billings coming out of that business or perhaps are you planning to take some cost actions, maybe just help us reconcile that?

Speaker 3

Yes. So, as Pavan alluded to, he said and I said in my comments that the general market volumes are down. Our data is demonstrating to us that transaction volumes, which does impact the appraisals business rolled into that number, Canadian so our appraisals business is a Canadian business only. And our transaction volumes at this point suggest that the Canadian market is down approximately 30% year over year. That's steeper than we had anticipated at the beginning of the year, but we are we have multiple paths to our full year view of so we said low single digit growth for that business.

Speaker 3

So consistent with what our clients are telling us, second half will pick up. So we do need to pick up in transaction volumes, but we right now everything is telling us that we're going to see that.

Speaker 6

Thanks so much. I'll pass the line.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Scott Fletcher, CIBC.

Speaker 7

Hi, good evening. A question for me on the license revenue in the analytics business. We saw that sort of pace of decline be pretty volatile quarter over quarter last year. Is there any sort of and there was another downdraft this year in Q1. Is there any sort of visibility into how that might perform over the course of the year going forward?

Speaker 3

Scott, you said the license revenue is down

Speaker 7

The one time revenue, sorry, in the analytics, yes.

Speaker 3

One time revenue, okay. I was like, I thought we put out a bad disclosure there for a second because license, all of that is up. On the one time, this is where you do feel the pressure of the macro market because the one time projects, things like large system deployments, which if you recall, big part of our one time revenue is that we deploy OEM systems and we like that business because it keeps us very close with the Chief Information Officers at our largest clients. Those projects become more discretionary for them in a tough market environment. So our pipeline is actually has some very large one time opportunities in it.

Speaker 3

The clients are they're watching the same numbers we are, which is are they expecting to pick up in the second half and will their P and L support large system deployments.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thanks. And then the question probably for Pavan. On the cash flow and the working capital in particular, last year obviously a lot of noise with the ERP system implementation. Do you have a sort of line of sight into what the rest of the year looks like from a working capital perspective?

Speaker 7

Just trying to get a sense of how the cash flow should look.

Speaker 2

Yes. It's a great question. We actually have really good line of sight in regards to our overall cash flow transition. This is a function of the fact that we've got a great ERP system. Now that gives us visibility and ability to look at multiple different scenarios associated with that.

Speaker 2

As you know, we do face pressure in Q1 as a result of the compensation and bonus payouts that we have in Q1. But we've mapped out against what we're planning what we planned for Q2, Q3, Q4, and we continue to remain very optimistic in regards to achieving our own achieving risk of beliefs for the full year. Again, just a proxy for you to how to think about it is just think about it for many EBITDA and even We've given some reference points in regards to how we continue to try to drive that

Operator

We'll go next to Christian Scrogg, 8 Capital.

Speaker 7

Hi, good evening. The recurring new bookings metric at $16,000,000 up 14% year on year, I was just wondering if there is any way for Q1 you could decompose some of the strength in there? You talk about between those VMS or software where you saw some the growth, some of the drivers for this quarter?

Speaker 3

Yes. Hey, Christian, it's Jim. We don't break out that metric. I understand why you're looking for it. Each quarter, you have because it's bookings and not just our recurring ratable revenue model, it looks like the old world of software where you have bookings are timed with contract renewals.

Speaker 3

So sometimes it's the Argus the timing of large Argus renewal contracts and sometimes it's VMS. And we're now breaking it out, but quarter to quarter each quarter that mix can change significantly.

Speaker 7

Okay, understood. And then the second question a little bit more broad. Just wondering geographically, if you're seeing traction in international markets, maybe in Asia, what the market opportunity and strategy is in those geographies?

Speaker 3

Yes. So we continued Forberry is at the key part of our international strategy based on the valuation methodologies that you see in the UK and that you see in the APAC region. And Fort Barry is, as Pavan said, fit for purpose for those markets. So that's key that's a key element of our strategy. And then we are following our largest clients as they expand their portfolios.

Speaker 3

In Asia, they are pulling us in there as many of those portfolios are U. S. VMS clients and they want that same level of transparency on their APAC portfolios. That's helpful.

Speaker 7

Thanks for

Speaker 3

taking my questions. Thank you.

Operator

Next up, we'll hear from nivan Yochan, BMO Capital Markets.

Speaker 5

Thanks. Hi, guys. Hopefully we can start on the property tax where you called out some pull forward of U. S. Appeals.

Speaker 5

Are you able to talk about what led to the change in expected timing? And then what this could mean for property tax growth in Q2 and then the rest of the year?

Speaker 2

Yes. So the settlement appeals are largely dictated by the various different jurisdictions and the regulators. So it becomes difficult to ultimately understand if something is going to close in March or April, the team worked very aggressively to try to have a strong finish. And so they were able to pull in some of these large settlement appeals in the U. S.

Speaker 2

From Q2 into Q1. I guess we're being purposeful here in regards to calling it a pull forward in the sense that it will it was a pull forward from Q2 into Q1. So we will see some degree of offset in Q2 as a result of that. Again, these large these large appeals are something that we have visibility to that we track very carefully. And when it swings from 1 quarter to the next, it becomes difficult to replace those large appeals in the following quarter.

Speaker 2

With that said, we're seeing great momentum in the business. The teams are leveraging the technology and they're being able to work faster and smarter, and we're very bullish in regards to our ability to continue to maintain our full year outlook for that. So this is really just a degree of a shift between Q1 and Q2 in terms of revenue. And I also like to underscore the fact that we are seeing a lot of strength in the U. S.

Speaker 2

And as I mentioned in the opening remarks, the U. S, we continue to drive greater operating efficiencies. We're pushing more of that business to India. And so it's a growing margin profile business. But in the current year, it does represent a lower mix of of it does represent a lower mix of margin for us.

Speaker 2

And so that's just something to be cognizant of as you model the number. So we're again, the strength in Q1 is great news. We're extremely pleased about it. It gives us a lot of confidence for the full year, but we're not in a position to call up the full year.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's great to hear. And then just on the restructuring program that you guys put in this quarter, are you able to provide an estimate on what the magnitude of potential benefits might be either as a dollar amount or maybe as margin points? And then as an extension, is that all going to be in the analytics and corporate costs? Or would it fall into some of the other segments as well?

Speaker 2

Yes. So again, just when we gave guidance on the 400 to 500 basis point margin expansion, that does include the fact that we were planning on doing restructuring. Again, keep in mind, this restructuring is really moving us from one phase of the office journey to another. We spent a lot of time on the development of our APP platform. We're now focused on data science and data analytics.

Speaker 2

So it gives us an opportunity to rebalance our resources and our investments. And so as you think about the lift, it's part of the calculus in terms of how it gets us to the 400 to 500 basis points margin expansion Even in the lower end of the guidance range scenario, we feel confident in regards to the margin expansion as well too. There is a little bit of other views that it does impact, but there is some that flows into corporate as well, too. As we continue to, as we continue to design to our target operating model as we've referred and there is an expectation that we'll continue to potentially do a bit more restructuring to come that will help us get to that 400 to 500 basis point margin. But again, this is really about rebalancing investments to make sure that we're well positioned.

Speaker 2

Okay, understood. Thank you. The other point to keep in mind again as you guys are modeling this out is we plan these actions to happen in the middle of the quarter. So you're only getting a partial quarter benefit in Q1 as a result of that. So it was designed exactly as we had planned it out.

Speaker 2

But so in terms of your modeling, just think about the fact that we didn't get a full quarter's benefit of the actions that we've already taken.

Speaker 5

Okay. And so is it fair to say then that you'll be at the full run rate beginning in Q2? Like would it ramp up in Q3 and Q4 as well or sort of is Q2 the full run rate?

Speaker 2

So it would be your latter comment. As I mentioned, there are additional opportunities that we're exploring as we continue to rebalance our resources to get us more geared towards the commercialization of our offers away from the development of our platform.

Speaker 5

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

We'll go next to Richard Tsai, National Bank Financial.

Speaker 8

Yes. Thank you. Can you maybe talk about any operational investments you're currently making beyond acquisitions to open up those markets given that you've brought in the portfolio? And I guess related, how do you see the geographic mix of this business sort of changing over the next 2 to 3 years out from kind of let's say a North American versus I don't know if you want to say Europe or international, just kind of trying to understand how that's going to roll out?

Speaker 3

And so, Richard, our operations focus has been so when you're in this type of market, and we plan our cost and expense to the lower end of the guidance range, right. So and we'll release investment as we see pipeline build and conversion of of bookings to revenue. Our operating focus has been on taking many of our processes across both the analytics business as well as the tax business and taking our best in class processes from our teams and concentrating them into one team in our global service center. So not only do we get wage arbitrage, but we're getting really talented folks in that organization who are also bringing process discipline to the whole business. As we do that, it also gives us data synergies across all of our business units.

Speaker 3

So we get operating efficiencies and we expand our data sets as they all land into the common platform of the Office Performance platform. So that has been our focus. That will pay dividends in the quality of the advanced analytics and it improves the operations and the service delivery of both analytics as well as the tax business. As far as North American International, we expect our international growth to pick up again with Forberry at the center of our However, we expect that our bookings backlog in VMS is going to deploy. We think that assets are when portfolios transactions come back to speed that assets are going to accrue to our client base at a faster pace than any other buyers and that is going to drive significant growth in the U.

Speaker 3

S. So the U. S. Or North America versus international mix may not change even though we're driving growth strategies internationally predicated on Forberry.

Speaker 8

Okay, great. Thanks. That's helpful. And I guess this is maybe a development question. How do you make a decision as to when you go out and acquire this technology versus develop it internally?

Speaker 3

That's a fantastic question. Forberry is a great example of that. So as we looked at the U. K. Market and the Australian market in particular, for several years, we teed up the investment to bring the alternative valuation methodology into Argus.

Speaker 3

And each time I went through that with the team, we determined that the development investment combined with the go to market and the branding and the displacement of a really great company like Forberry didn't lend itself to organic pursuit and led us to the acquisition. So speed to market, Reonomy is another and Stratum are both great examples of that. We had our data strategy and our benchmarking indexing and scoring strategies in place and those 2 acquisitions accelerated the development in both cases. And then at the heart of it is we are we look at this from a time to cash flow breakeven and an IRR analysis. So putting all of those together is how we get to that decision.

Speaker 3

And then of course, there's the target our target leverage on the balance sheet, which is a giant factor in our decision making. Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

We'll take the next question from John Shuter, RBC Capital Markets.

Speaker 9

Hi. This is John on for Paul Treiber. Just firstly on the UK annuity billings. We're in Q2 now and wondering if you could just remind us again and set expectations regarding the additional revenue to be expected from that in Q2? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. We don't necessarily disclose the specific annuity revenue, but as you know, our progress on the 2023 list as compared to the 2017 list is pretty robust. And so just from an absolute dollar perspective, we would expect that 2023 list would generate more annuity than we did in 2017. With that said, we continue to watch the throughput from the as it relates to U. K.

Speaker 2

In general. The had a very heavy influx of 2017 list items that most of our 2017 settlements have had already been approved because there were high quality appeals. But the VOA still has a very heavy backlog of 2017 appeals that they're still processing through, which is impacting their ability to appropriately work their way through the 2023 list. And so again, that is something that we're seeing very close contact with the VOA agency to make sure in regards to just their general progress. So that is a gating factor for us as we think about the U.

Speaker 2

K. Performance in general. But I would say in general, we're seeing great pipeline bill. We're seeing great backlog building for the 2023 less. And we're going to continue to see that the work their way through the Q3, Q4 2017 settlements that they have received a heavy influx for.

Speaker 3

So the normal Q2 seasonality will push more to Q3 and Q4 as we're talking? Yes.

Speaker 9

Okay, got it. Thank you. And maybe just switching to analytics, can you speak to

Speaker 5

the And

Speaker 3

John, that will also again remember the geo margin mix that goes with that. So as the UK 23 list pushes out to Q3, Q4, that's the higher margin revenue. So we have to factor that into our planning as well. Okay. So Q2 revenue came into Q1 and then the U.

Speaker 3

K. Q2 is pushed into Q3, Q4. So the revenue moves out and the margin mix changes for Q2.

Speaker 9

Okay. And then just on analytics, can you speak to the up to opportunities for customers that have migrated to a cloud and specifically what proportion of those you're seeing deploy additional offerings?

Speaker 3

It's the new offerings are part of AE Cloud and you're going to see those offers when they go GA come even closer together. So if clients are on cloud, then their purchasing motion will be new feature functionality on top of it. But as clients are migrating, they're going to be seeing that more as one inclusive offer price. Again, if they're just if they're using Argus for transactional purposes, they will have that option to stay in kind of that basic or standard Argus license at a per user. But what the largest clients are working with us on is one price that includes Argus Marketing sites, Reonomy and or ADS data depending on which market they're in.

Speaker 3

And looking at it more on an enterprise level pricing, which typically manifest itself as asset level pricing.

Speaker 7

Okay, got it.

Speaker 9

Thanks for taking my questions.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

Everyone, at this time, there are no further questions. I'll hand the conference back to Jim Hannan for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 3

No. We thank everyone for the time. It was a good quarter for the Altus team. We continue to I think the team is very successfully navigating turbulent markets. We keep putting up the recurring revenue growth.

Speaker 3

We're putting up the margin expansion. We're comfortable with our outlook for the year. And we appreciate your time here.

Operator

And once again,

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Key Takeaways

  • Altus Group delivered solid Q1 results with revenue up 4.3%, profit up 93.7%, adjusted EBITDA up 12.9% and 100 basis points of margin expansion, while free cash flow rose 83.5% year-over-year.
  • In the Analytics segment, revenue growth was driven by cloud subscription transitions, new sales, increased assets on the VMS platform and the Forberry acquisition, driving 210 basis points of margin expansion and elevating recurring revenue to 93%, as management targets 400–500 basis points of full-year margin expansion.
  • The Property Tax business achieved 10.2% revenue growth and 24.9% adjusted EBITDA growth with 300 basis points of margin gain, led by pull-forward U.S. settlements, offset by Canadian cycle extensions and U.K. throughput constraints, and Ontario’s reassessment deferral likely delaying new work until after 2025.
  • Appraisal & Development Advisory revenues and adjusted EBITDA declined due to muted transaction volumes in a high-rate environment, but management expects a second-half market recovery and maintains its full-year guidance.
  • Altus ends the quarter with $44.3 million in cash, 2.06× net debt leverage and $265.7 million in liquidity, while continuing cost optimization efforts and awaiting regulatory approval for the REVS acquisition.
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Earnings Conference Call
Altus Group Q1 2024
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