OTCMKTS:OTCM OTC Markets Group Q1 2024 Earnings Report $47.70 -2.24 (-4.49%) As of 03:58 PM Eastern Earnings History OTC Markets Group EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.49Consensus EPS $0.57Beat/MissMissed by -$0.08One Year Ago EPSN/AOTC Markets Group Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$27.66 millionExpected Revenue$28.38 millionBeat/MissMissed by -$720.00 thousandYoY Revenue GrowthN/AOTC Markets Group Announcement DetailsQuarterQ1 2024Date5/8/2024TimeN/AConference Call DateThursday, May 9, 2024Conference Call Time8:30AM ETUpcoming EarningsOTC Markets Group's Q1 2025 earnings is scheduled for Wednesday, May 7, 2025, with a conference call scheduled on Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 8:30 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Conference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress Release (8-K)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by OTC Markets Group Q1 2024 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrMay 9, 2024 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 6 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the OTC Markets Group First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dan Zinn, General Counsel. Operator00:00:36Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:38Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to the OTC Markets Group First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. With me today are Cromwell Coulson, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Antonio Georgieva, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's call will be accompanied by a slide presentation. Our earnings press release and the presentation are each available on our Web site. Speaker 100:01:00Certain statements during this call and in our presentation may relate to future events or expectations and as such may constitute forward looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from these forward looking statements. Information concerning risks and uncertainties that may impact our actual results is contained in the Risk Factors section of our 2023 Annual Report, which is also available on our website. For more information, please refer to the Safe Harbor statement on Slide 3 of the earnings presentation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Cromwell Coulson. Speaker 200:01:34Thank you, Dan. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I will discuss our Q1 2024 results at a high level and will review our operational and strategic priorities for the year. Gross and net revenues slipped in the Q1, dropping 1% 2% lower respectively versus the Q1 of 2023. Speaker 200:02:04Increases in market data revenues were not enough to offset a 5% decrease in corporate services and a 1% decline in OTC Link revenue. In the Corporate Services business, our OTCQX annual renewal percentage dropped slightly from prior years, leading to a lower number of companies on OTCQX at the start of the year. An increase in new OTCQX sales during the quarter presents a positive short term trend. Similar to other public venture and small cap markets, OTCQB has seen a number of financially stressed smaller companies unable to maintain compliance and therefore dropped from the market. The trend towards international trading activity has continued with trading in ADRs and ordinary shares of non U. Speaker 200:02:59S. Companies comprising over 80% of dollar volume across our OTCQX, OTCQB and pink markets. Trading these global companies in U. S. Market hours is a unique value proposition with dollar volumes growing for both European and Asian listed issuers. Speaker 200:03:22Our OTCQX and OTCQB markets provide an opportunity for these companies to improve visibility and better engage with U. S. Investors. We offer a unique way to connect their local primary listings to U. S. Speaker 200:03:36Valuations and secondary liquidity. At the beginning of the year, we reorganized our corporate sales and support resources into 3 regional teams covering the Americas, EMEA and Asia. This will align outreach efforts with targeted global growth opportunities, so we can better increase issuer understanding and engagement. Our market data results now reflect year over year performance, which includes our Blue Sky Data Corp and EDGAR Online acquisitions. Adding these operations enhances our ability to serve our broker dealer subscribers, particularly with automation of their compliance and risk processes. Speaker 200:04:23The better we are at putting useful information onto investor screens and into broker dealer machines, the more benefits we can offer corporate clients and the stronger our data driven market model becomes. OTC Link saw a year over year decrease in trade volume, but an uptick over the Q4 of 2023. The number of unique broker dealer subscribers across our 3 ATSs rose slightly with strong growth in subscribers using the ECN to directly access our markets. Our operating expenses during the quarter remained relatively flat to the Q1 of last year. Our approach to expense management is intentional. Speaker 200:05:13We pursue opportunities for growth and we are at a stage where focus on longer term planning will both reduce costs and bring benefits from scale. Antonia will cover more of the details of our financial results in a few moments. Before I move on from discussing our expenses, I want to address one additional point. As is long been the case, our largest expense is our investment in people. I spoke last quarter about our long term market integrity initiatives. Speaker 200:05:47Enhancing market quality and compliance is a priority throughout our organization. The integrity effort is led by our outstanding issuer services team operating primarily out of our Washington DC office. That team led by Liz Hess includes market surveillance, issuer compliance and qualifications teams that maintain the standards of our OTCQX and OTCQB markets and oversee our risk flags. These teams work with public companies to provide adequate current information, track ongoing disclosure and regularly interact with the SEC FINRA and other state and federal regulators. Operating in highly regulated markets also requires a dedicated broker dealer compliance team within OTC Link, responsible for building and maintaining a robust compliance program. Speaker 200:06:50In particular, that team's work on our AML and suspicious activity report process has been important. Market integrity and compliance are cornerstones of the critical role we play and the teams ensuring we uphold our regulatory responsibilities are critical to our continued success. I thank all of our compliance professionals for their dedication to make us a stronger, more resilient organization. As 2024 continues, it is important to consider how our work in prior years has set the stage for our future initiatives. Providing seamless access to more electronic brokers has expanded our markets. Speaker 200:07:39Modern market makers are critical to continuous market liquidity. They provide consistent execution quality for retail orders, liquidity in less active securities and connect global prices in ADRs and ordinary shares. Our platforms also support the success of broker dealers that desire order driven matching engines. The best markets let participants choose the trading model that works best for their unique situation and provide a seamless connection across the widest possible range of participants. We recently announced our plan to introduce closing cross functionality for subscribers to our matching engine ATSs. Speaker 200:08:26Closing cross is popular in other markets and we are excited to offer this new feature to enhance choices for liquidity seekers. The liquidity of market makers already providing competitive closing prices directly to their correspondence and our new electronic closing cross process will make the overall OTC market stronger. Dynamic market structure requires multiple trading models and participants that are free to choose what best suits their needs and desires. Launching this initiative is a result of collaboration between our business and technology teams. We continue to pursue 5 strategic priorities this year. Speaker 200:09:121st, one team, one platform driving results to build the value of 1 share. Under this initiative, we continue to integrate our teams and consolidate our technology platforms to drive operational efficiencies and client value in pursuit of revenue growth. 2nd, increase the number of securities on our markets. Our near term opportunity is greater global trading, increasing the breadth and depth of ADR and foreign ordinary shares traded in U. S. Speaker 200:09:49Dollars by U. S. Broker dealers to grow the size of our markets by adding securities, new asset classes and trading functionality for our broker dealer subscribers. 3rd, transform the client connection and improve the quality of information. We constantly work to enhance the customer experience through modernized interfaces and enriched data for external and internal users. Speaker 200:10:19It's an important lever for us that the more engaged issuers are and the better quality of information they provide, the better our markets will function. 4th, mitigate operational risk and strengthen regulatory compliance. In keeping with our focus on market integrity and compliance, we invest in our core trading infrastructure, operational processes and risk management systems, as well as our regulatory processes, in each case to enhance their reliability and our compliance with securities laws and regulations. 5th, grow revenue across business lines and align resources with long term value creation. As much as we may wish, success will not be a straight line. Speaker 200:11:10We continue to focus on being good stewards of our markets and thoughtful commercial operators to align our operating costs with recurring revenue generation, where managers intelligently allocate company resources and act as fiduciaries to generate sustainable value for our shareholders. I look forward to reviewing these initiatives in our strategic direction throughout the course of the year. In closing, I'm pleased to announce that on May 7, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.18 per share payable in June. This dividend reflects our ongoing commitment to providing superior shareholder returns. With that, I will turn the call over to Antonia. Speaker 300:12:00Thank you, Gromal, and thank you all for joining our call today. I would like to start by thanking our entire OTC Markets team for continuing to execute on our strategic priorities and for their commitment to our subscribers. As I discuss our results for the quarter ended March 31, 2024, any reference made to prior periods comparatives will refer to the Q1 of 2023. Turning to Page 7 for review of our Q1 revenues. We generated $27,700,000 in gross revenues, down 1% as compared to the prior year period. Speaker 300:12:41Revenues less transaction based expenses were also down 1%. OTC Link's gross revenues declined 1%. While the notional dollar value traded on our ATSs increased by 21% versus the prior year period, the share volume executed and the number of trades declined, resulting in an 8% decline in transaction based revenues from OTC Link ECM and OTC Link NQB. As an offset, transaction based expenses decreased 16%. Additionally, OTC Link ATS saw a 6 percent decline in subscription revenue from our OTC dealer application due to subscriber cancellations. Speaker 300:13:25Partially offsetting these decreases was an increase in certain connectivity revenue due to the introduction of additional fees at the beginning of 2024 and an 8% increase in revenues from OTC Link ATS messages due to fee increases offsetting lower message volume. OTC Link finished the Q1 with 112 subscribers to OTC Link ECN and 82 subscribers on OTC Link ATS and had 135 unique subscribers across our ATSs. At the end of the prior year period, OTC Link had 102 and 88 subscribers on OTC Link ECN and OTC Link ATS respectively and 134 unique subscribers. Trading volumes remain highly unpredictable and could continue to decline in the future. Revenues from our market data licensing business increased 2% quarter over quarter. Speaker 300:14:26Pro user accounts were up 4% with the corresponding revenues increasing 8%. Revenues from internal system licenses, delayed data licenses and other data services increased 11% due to growth in subscribers and price increases for certain licenses. Additionally, revenues from our Abusca data products increased 33% as a result of additional fees that we introduced and pricing adjustments. Partially offsetting these increases was an 18% decline in revenues from non pro users, in line with an 18% reduction in period end non professional user counts and a 33% decrease in revenue from Medgar Online due to the exclusion of certain non recurring revenue that was recognized in the prior year period. Historically and in the normal course of business, we have seen significant changes in the number of non professional users as market volumes and retail participation on our markets fluctuate and we may experience a further decline in the future. Speaker 300:15:30Corporate services revenues decreased 5% in the Q1. OTCQX revenues remained relatively unchanged, while OTCQB and D and S revenues decreased 8% 6%, respectively. We saw a lower number of companies across OTCQX, OTC QB and DNS in the Q1 compared to the prior year quarter. The impact of annual incremental pricing adjustments effective January 2024 served to offset the decline in OTCQX Companies. In the Q1, we added 21 OTCQX Companies compared to 15 in the prior year quarter and finished the period with 577 OTCQX Companies, down 3%. Speaker 300:16:16For the annual OTCQX subscription period beginning January 1, 2024, we achieved a 93% retention rate compared to 95% in the prior year. On OPCQB, we added 36 new companies in the Q1 compared to 49 in the prior year period and had 11 15 OTCQB companies at the end of the quarter, down 8%. We had 1428 pink companies subscribing to D and S and other products at the end of the Q1, down 5%. Month to month variability in our corporate services subscribers is driven by new sales, offset by non renewals, corporate events and compliance downgrades. Turning now to expenses on Page 8. Speaker 300:17:06On a quarter over quarter basis, operating expenses remained largely unchanged at 18,600,000 dollars A 5% increase in compensation and benefits expenses was partially offset by a 10% decline in professional and consulting fees and a 46% decrease in general, administrative and other costs. The increase in compensation and benefits reflects higher stock based incentive compensation and related payroll taxes as a result of the cumulative impact of prior year grants, partially offset by lower commissions and cash based incentive compensation. Additionally, we incurred certain separation expenses. Compensation and benefits comprised 67% of our total operating expenses during the Q1 compared to 64% in the prior year period. Compensation and benefits expenses in the prior year period included certain non recurring accruals related to the EDGAR Online acquisition. Speaker 300:18:07Professional and consulting fees decreased during due to the elimination of certain non recurring expenses related to EDGAR Online that were incurred during the prior year period. Additionally, we saw lower regulatory costs related to our Steelink ECN and OT Steelink NQB and lower legal fees. General administrative and other costs decreased 46%, primarily due to lower bad debt. In the prior year period, we had an elevated bad debt provision related to accounts receivable acquired as part of Edgar Online, which did not recur in the current quarter. Turning to Page 9. Speaker 300:18:47In the first quarter, income from operations and net income declined 3% 5%, respectively. Operating profit margin contracted slightly to 25% compared to 25.4% in the prior year quarter. Operating profit margin in the prior year period was impacted by approximately $900,000 in one time integration expenses related to EDGAR Online. In addition to certain GAAP and other measures, management utilizes adjusted EBITDA, a non GAAP measure, which excludes non cash stock based compensation expenses. Our adjusted EBITDA was $9,200,000 in the Q1 of 2024 and our adjusted diluted earnings per share were $0.76 relatively unchanged compared to the prior year period. Speaker 300:19:37Cash used in operating activities amounted to $700,000 compared to cash used in operating activities of $400,000 in the prior year quarter. Free cash flows for the quarter were negative $1,200,000 compared to negative $1,400,000 in the prior year quarter. Turning to Page 10. During the Q1 of 2024, we returned a total of $5,100,000 to investors in the form of dividends and through our stock buyback program, compared to $5,500,000 in the prior year quarter. We remain focused on growing our business, operating as prudent stewards of shareholder capital and delivering long term value to our stockholders. Speaker 300:20:19With that, I would like to thank everyone for your time and pass it back to the operator for questions. Operator00:20:25Thank Our first question is going to come from the line of Brennan McCarthy with Sidoti. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:20:55Hey, good morning everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to start off with OTC Link looking at the ECN and MQB revenues down there over the quarter. Can you just kind of talk about the changing mix of securities traded on the platforms that drove that decline? Speaker 300:21:18Certainly, Brandon. As we've discussed previously, our pricing schedule is fairly detailed and depends on the type of security, whether it's low priced, middle priced or higher priced security and also has various volume brackets that determine prices and rebates. So in any given quarter or month, obviously depending on the activity that comes to our platforms, broker dealer driven or end client driven, the types of securities traded would shift constantly. And in certain instances, it would shift towards securities where we generate lower fees or towards securities on which we generate somewhat higher fees or we can be moving up and down those volume bands that we have on our pricing schedule. So as a net result, we may end up generating higher or lower revenue per unit of volume compared to other periods. Speaker 300:22:27Generally, that is unpredictable for us and it's an outcome of the trading activity that comes to our market. Speaker 400:22:36Got it. Thanks, Antonio. That's helpful. Speaker 200:22:38And Brandon, you have to understand just like we have 3 ATSs. There's the original network base OTC Link, which is supporting the modern market picker model. And that is really built for firms whose first goal is to internalize and keep the trade on their system. And then we have the 2 matching engine ECMs. And the magic is that we seamlessly connect them into the market and make and because together they're all more powerful for market quality and you're giving investors choices of how they want to trade. Speaker 100:23:25But Speaker 200:23:26when what you see with the market maker model and you see with other liquidity providers is when markets are not incredibly volatile, they will position more securities on their own systems and not need to trade out of the risk. And that's a good thing for our subscribers because they're able to do more business on their platforms. And it's a good part for our business of they are using us for the pricing world. But transactions in markets where there's not a lot of volatility will not be as big across competitor to competitor or intermediary to intermediary because they're willing to carry more risk on their books, if that makes sense. Speaker 400:24:17Yes, that's helpful. Thanks, Cromwell. That makes sense. And then turning to the Blue Sky data product, I saw there was a really nice revenue increase there and I believe it was driven by pricing adjustments. Just curious as to how those pricing adjustments were received by the client base? Speaker 200:24:39Well, I believe it was pretty seamless because we've added coverage of securities. Our viewpoint is our ideal product is one where we can increasingly stuff more value in for the existing subscribers to make it more useful. And we've also become much more transparent in actually how it's calculated. The previous owner kept the sauce secret and our viewpoint is be transparent and be open. So my expectation is especially with Blue Sky becoming more important to the corporate debt market and where we can drive it deeper into the electronic stack and to a wider part of regulated entities, be that broker dealers, investment advisors, there's places for us to add value. Speaker 200:25:38And Blue Sky is just one part of the mix. Whether you're an investment advisor or broker dealer, it's is this security lawful and is it lawful for the investor that you're talking about? And there's a whole wedding cake of various rules and regulations at the state level, at the FINRA level, at the SEC level. And our goal is to take all of that complexity and give a clean answer with the ability to dive deep. Speaker 400:26:17Got it. That's helpful. And then turning to the suspicious activity reports, Cremel, I know you discussed this earlier in the call, as it relates to OTC Link. But just curious if there's any update on the communication with the SEC, just regarding the previous situation mentioned on the past earnings call? Speaker 100:26:39Yes. Thanks, Brendan. I mean the disclosure that's in the quarterly report, which really mirrors what was in our annual report as well is it remains the update. It's a long process, but everything we covered both in the disclosure and in Cromwell's commentary and at the annual earnings call really remains the way we view it. And I think Cromwell's comments today regarding our market integrity initiatives generally and the work that's been done on our compliance program and in particular the staff that's grown and increased focus on these things. Speaker 100:27:13It's to the good for us as a business, but in terms of the specific update, it's as described in the report. Speaker 300:27:20And Brandon, from a financial point of view, there has been no additional accrual beyond what we disclosed in the Q4. Speaker 400:27:30Understood. Understood. Thank you. One more question for me. Speaker 200:27:33Yes, that's Fandon just I look at from an investor perspective, you look at is the accrual changing is that I think is because we also look at when we look at compliance for issuers that for companies where they've had previous regulatory troubles and new management teams and new boards of directors have come in, that's usually and new auditors have come in, that's not for us, but it's like where's the accrual stain. And I think that's probably a number that if I was an investor, I would look at. Speaker 400:28:17Right, right. And that number stay consistent right around that $1,200,000 mark? Correct. Okay. And one more question just on the corporate services business. Speaker 400:28:31Cromwell, I think you mentioned there were some positive trends seen on OTCQX subscribers, while QB obviously remains a little bit more challenged. But I'm just curious as to your thoughts on what would be a couple of catalysts that would kind of reverse the trend of lower corporate service subscribers. Obviously, imagine the interest rate environment is one of them, but just kind of curious as to what you think could reverse the trend there? Speaker 200:28:59So if I knew the answer, the trend would be reversed. There's things that we're looking at. The excuse column would be the mining and minerals space has had a tough financing world after a boom. The other excuse column would be that we that smaller companies are struggling on exchanges and we're seeing delistings across those as they run to the end of their story ramp. And I think that's a really important thing for capitalism. Speaker 200:29:39You listen to the Canadian exchanges talk about venture markets. And they'll say 95% of the companies don't make it. But it's a really important piece for the 5% that do. And it's a part of capitalism, But we get frustrated when someone has tried, a team has tried in the markets, the story is running down, but that's the capitalist system. I would say I'm much more interested in the things that we can control to drive positive change and reorganizing our corporate sales team to be a more team based approach, working on educating issuers, how they can use our platform. Speaker 200:30:41There's a lot of conversation around the world about differences of valuations and how global companies can get in front of investors and show the value of their securities versus their U. S. Competitors and comparable business models. That's a real opportunity for us. Improving the ability to trade ADRs and foreign ordinary shares. Speaker 200:31:18We think both have room for improvement and we think the world is better giving investors choices. So there's a lot of levers internally for us to grind away. Speaker 400:31:40That makes sense. Thanks, Pramod. I appreciate the insight. That's all for me. Operator00:31:45Thank you. Our next question is going to come from the line of Steve Silver with Argus Research Corporation. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Speaker 500:32:05Good morning. Thanks, operator. My first question is, I've noticed in the quarter, there was a pretty substantial increase in the dollar volume traded on particular on OTCQX and QB. And I was just curious as to whether there were any dynamics in play there. It seems a little counterintuitive given the decline in the number of companies on QX and QB as well as the continued limited retail participation in the market. Speaker 500:32:36So just curious to know if there were any dynamics at play for those pretty substantial increases in trading activity? Speaker 200:32:49Thank you for the question. I don't try to spend much time overthinking where volumes are coming from and what they're going back and forth because it's not in the lever we can control on the short term is and often what gets captured across the 2 business lines of the 2 kind of core trading support side businesses, the network based ATS and the matching engine ECMs. So there are many people much more smarter than me who make macro bets every day, whose opinions I might listen to more, even though I'd take those with a grain of salt, because usually they're talking their books. Speaker 300:33:39Steve, as I mentioned, the mix of securities traded between low priced, medium priced and high priced shifts all the time. In this particular quarter, there was a shift towards higher priced securities, which drove the overall dollar value of or dollar volume traded. But at the same time, the number of shares, which is the driver of our revenue declines. There is a small piece of our revenue that's driven off of Notional, but it's really small. It's for the low priced securities. Speaker 300:34:13And that volume actually declined during the quarter. So again, it's mostly it is counterintuitive as you mentioned, but it is a function of the mix of securities between sub penny between $0.01 and over $1. Speaker 500:34:31Okay. That makes sense. Thanks. And so the quarterly disclosure cited a multiyear integration. Just curious in terms of just very broadly, whether that subscriber number is in the range of your earlier expectations in terms of making the acquisition. Speaker 500:34:58Just in terms of placing where that subscriber number is in the early stages compared to maybe any initial thoughts you might have had in terms of building a subscriber base over time? Speaker 200:35:15So this is Kramal. Hi. The subscriber numbers the overall subscriber numbers is a mix of 2 types of subscribers, the per users of the Edgar Pro product and then the enterprise subscribers. Moving EDGAR Online technology out of their data center to the cloud, addressing operational inefficiencies and pain points has been a long process. The team of engineers we acquired have been incredibly dedicated. Speaker 200:35:55They've learned a whole new technology stack that supports their code in the cloud. The functionality changes where we can really start driving value to the clients hasn't gotten out to the client yet. And those are the places where can we make Edgar Pro not only be a great tool for searching SEC filings, comparing financials, but also include the various disclosure standards and financials of other companies on our market in a seamless integrated manner. And that's if you talk to any value investor, their whole history has always been finding interesting securities and the ability to search in a comparable manner. EDGAR Pro can become a great tool and more interesting because it has the widest range of U. Speaker 200:37:05S. Traded equities that you can search for an investor. The enterprise licenses are also how do we start adding value. And I think EDGAR online business, you really have to look at it's so integrated into our Blue Sky product to our compliance file products. That business is really one business. Speaker 200:37:33And how do we now look at optimize the different groups and find new areas to serve those enterprise clients. That's early days. And those discussions are going on and how we do it. As we said, it's really a 3 year process till we know what type of business is going to be there. And my belief is we have a very strong place in providing SEC filing and other data into broker dealer and regulatory compliance and structuring that data, of which EDGAR Technology and Services and Clients is a very important part. Speaker 200:38:38We're on the back foot for investors searching for data financials, but that we can catch up because we have a really unique data set. And so that's where we are. We're trying to make all of things work in a thoughtful pace because SEC filings is not the most dynamic spot of the world. Speaker 500:39:05Great. And one last one, if I may. I was just curious as to your thoughts about the size of overall headcount over time. The quarterly disclosure mentions the need for future investments related to the regulatory compliance obligations, but at the same time, overall headcount declined by a couple of employees year over year. So I'm just trying to get a sense as to as you staff up, I guess, to handle these obligations, how you're going to find that balance between managing the overall size of the organization in terms of keeping the cost structure of the business lean? Speaker 100:39:47Yes, Steve. On the nuts and bolts sort of numbers, the reduction that you see in the period end is largely a function of timing. When we had some employees separate and had some new hires early in the Q2, that will be reflected as we go. On the more macro level of your question, which I think is really the substantive point, we are always looking to scale. And so it's for us, it's a matter of prioritization, whether that scale is through technology or physical headcount, consultants and other experts that we can bring in. Speaker 100:40:20We've been able to over time sort of punch above our weight given the size of our staff and the size of our company and having that much greater impact. That ethos will not go away, right? We've gotten bigger over the past 18 months or so with the additions of Blue Sky and Edgar online. Beyond that, it's been very natural adds to staff. I think that will continue to be our program going forward with focus on those areas that you noted and that we've noted in our disclosure and on the call. Speaker 100:40:55I know Cromwell had some thoughts as well. Speaker 200:41:00Yes. 1 of our original investors was a very successful investor himself, Rusty Rose. And Rusty was incredibly careful with his money and thoughtful. And he was led an investor group with another slightly more famous person to buy the Texas Rangers. And when they sold the Texas Rangers, he spoke about the investments they made to have the team turn into a winning team. Speaker 200:41:40And it was his original view was when we spend $1 of our investors' money, we want to get back more than a dollar of return. And payroll for a sports team, both of the people hitting the balls and catching the balls and throwing the balls, but all of the other support people around, he invested in that. And my view is, I think it'd be fantastic to have twice as many employees, but also raise our revenue per employee. And that's hard operationally, performance management as we grow the 130, 140, 120 size is where your performance management, your senior management techniques, your next level of managers become so much more important in helping serve their success. And those are the things we're working on. Speaker 200:42:46We don't look at, oh, we need to stop at this number of employees where we are. What we want to do is support our existing operational needs and have people who have an agent of positive change, a growth mindset, who are every year becoming a little bit better at delivering results or operating the existing business with a little bit less effort and resources, so we can do some more. And that's the scale piece. And I think it's a really important challenge for us at the management level is how do we consistently build scale. So with our human capital, we're doing the same things that our technology partners are doing to give us faster processors, more performance from software. Speaker 500:43:58Okay, great. Thank you so much for the extra color. Operator00:44:02Thank you. And one moment for our next question. And we have a follow-up question from the line of Brennan McCarthy with Sidoti. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:44:21Sorry, my question was already answered. Operator00:44:24Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time, and I would like to hand the conference back over to Cromwell Coulson for closing remarks. Speaker 200:44:35Thank you, operator. I want to thank each of you for joining us today. I would encourage you to read our full 2024 Q1 report and the earnings press release for more information. Links to both are available on the Investor Relations page of our website. On behalf of the entire team at OTC Markets Group, we look forward to updating you on our key initiatives that will continue to shape the integrity and competitiveness of public markets and build value for our shareholders.Read morePowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallOTC Markets Group Q1 202400:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress Release(8-K) OTC Markets Group Earnings HeadlinesOTC Markets Group Welcomes Parks! America, Inc. to OTCQXMay 2 at 7:00 AM | globenewswire.comOTC Markets Group Welcomes Steel Partners Holdings L.P. to OTCQXMay 2 at 7:00 AM | globenewswire.comWatch This Robotics Demo Before July 23rdJeff Brown, the tech legend who picked shares of Nvidia in 2016 before they jumped by more than 22,000%... 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Its data-driven disclosure standards form the foundation of its three public markets: OTCQX Best Market, OTCQB Venture Market, and Pink Open Market. The company's OTC Link Alternative Trading Systems (ATSs) provide critical market infrastructure that broker-dealers rely on to facilitate trading. Its innovative model offers companies efficient access to the U.S. financial markets. The company through its wholly owned subsidiary, OTC Link LLC, operates OTC Link ATS, OTC Link ECN, and OTC Link NQB, which are Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulated ATS. The company operates in three business lines: OTC Link, Market Data Licensing, and Corporate Services. The OTC Link business operates three ATSs, such as OTC Link ATS, OTC Link ECN, and OTC Link NQB that provide trading services to FINRA member broker-dealer subscribers. The Market Data Licensing business provides market data and compliance data, including SEC filings for a spectrum of securities and issuers. It provides broker-dealers, investors, traders, institutions, companies, accountants, regulators, and others with a suite of enterprise and user market data licenses, offering via direct or extranet connectivity through third-party market data redistributors or order management systems. The Corporate Services business operates the OTCQX Best Market and the OTCQB Venture Market and offers companies access to a suite of services that are designed to facilitate public disclosure and communication with investors, promote transparency, and allow companies to demonstrate regulatory compliance and mitigate market risk. Its services include the OTC Disclosure and News Service, RealTime Level 2 Quote Display, Blue Sky Monitoring Service for issuers, and Virtual Investor Conferences product. OTC Markets Group Inc. was founded in 1904 and is headquartered in New York, New York.View OTC Markets Group ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Is Reddit Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold After Earnings Release?Warning or Opportunity After Super Micro Computer's EarningsAmazon Earnings: 2 Reasons to Love It, 1 Reason to Be CautiousRocket Lab Braces for Q1 Earnings Amid Soaring ExpectationsMeta Takes A Bow With Q1 Earnings - Watch For Tariff Impact in Q2Palantir Earnings: 1 Bullish Signal and 1 Area of ConcernVisa Q2 Earnings Top Forecasts, Adds $30B Buyback Plan Upcoming Earnings American Electric Power (5/6/2025)Advanced Micro Devices (5/6/2025)Marriott International (5/6/2025)Constellation Energy (5/6/2025)Arista Networks (5/6/2025)Brookfield Asset Management (5/6/2025)Duke Energy (5/6/2025)Energy Transfer (5/6/2025)Mplx (5/6/2025)Ferrari (5/6/2025) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. 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There are 6 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the OTC Markets Group First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dan Zinn, General Counsel. Operator00:00:36Please go ahead. Speaker 100:00:38Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to the OTC Markets Group First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. With me today are Cromwell Coulson, our President and Chief Executive Officer and Antonio Georgieva, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's call will be accompanied by a slide presentation. Our earnings press release and the presentation are each available on our Web site. Speaker 100:01:00Certain statements during this call and in our presentation may relate to future events or expectations and as such may constitute forward looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from these forward looking statements. Information concerning risks and uncertainties that may impact our actual results is contained in the Risk Factors section of our 2023 Annual Report, which is also available on our website. For more information, please refer to the Safe Harbor statement on Slide 3 of the earnings presentation. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Cromwell Coulson. Speaker 200:01:34Thank you, Dan. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I will discuss our Q1 2024 results at a high level and will review our operational and strategic priorities for the year. Gross and net revenues slipped in the Q1, dropping 1% 2% lower respectively versus the Q1 of 2023. Speaker 200:02:04Increases in market data revenues were not enough to offset a 5% decrease in corporate services and a 1% decline in OTC Link revenue. In the Corporate Services business, our OTCQX annual renewal percentage dropped slightly from prior years, leading to a lower number of companies on OTCQX at the start of the year. An increase in new OTCQX sales during the quarter presents a positive short term trend. Similar to other public venture and small cap markets, OTCQB has seen a number of financially stressed smaller companies unable to maintain compliance and therefore dropped from the market. The trend towards international trading activity has continued with trading in ADRs and ordinary shares of non U. Speaker 200:02:59S. Companies comprising over 80% of dollar volume across our OTCQX, OTCQB and pink markets. Trading these global companies in U. S. Market hours is a unique value proposition with dollar volumes growing for both European and Asian listed issuers. Speaker 200:03:22Our OTCQX and OTCQB markets provide an opportunity for these companies to improve visibility and better engage with U. S. Investors. We offer a unique way to connect their local primary listings to U. S. Speaker 200:03:36Valuations and secondary liquidity. At the beginning of the year, we reorganized our corporate sales and support resources into 3 regional teams covering the Americas, EMEA and Asia. This will align outreach efforts with targeted global growth opportunities, so we can better increase issuer understanding and engagement. Our market data results now reflect year over year performance, which includes our Blue Sky Data Corp and EDGAR Online acquisitions. Adding these operations enhances our ability to serve our broker dealer subscribers, particularly with automation of their compliance and risk processes. Speaker 200:04:23The better we are at putting useful information onto investor screens and into broker dealer machines, the more benefits we can offer corporate clients and the stronger our data driven market model becomes. OTC Link saw a year over year decrease in trade volume, but an uptick over the Q4 of 2023. The number of unique broker dealer subscribers across our 3 ATSs rose slightly with strong growth in subscribers using the ECN to directly access our markets. Our operating expenses during the quarter remained relatively flat to the Q1 of last year. Our approach to expense management is intentional. Speaker 200:05:13We pursue opportunities for growth and we are at a stage where focus on longer term planning will both reduce costs and bring benefits from scale. Antonia will cover more of the details of our financial results in a few moments. Before I move on from discussing our expenses, I want to address one additional point. As is long been the case, our largest expense is our investment in people. I spoke last quarter about our long term market integrity initiatives. Speaker 200:05:47Enhancing market quality and compliance is a priority throughout our organization. The integrity effort is led by our outstanding issuer services team operating primarily out of our Washington DC office. That team led by Liz Hess includes market surveillance, issuer compliance and qualifications teams that maintain the standards of our OTCQX and OTCQB markets and oversee our risk flags. These teams work with public companies to provide adequate current information, track ongoing disclosure and regularly interact with the SEC FINRA and other state and federal regulators. Operating in highly regulated markets also requires a dedicated broker dealer compliance team within OTC Link, responsible for building and maintaining a robust compliance program. Speaker 200:06:50In particular, that team's work on our AML and suspicious activity report process has been important. Market integrity and compliance are cornerstones of the critical role we play and the teams ensuring we uphold our regulatory responsibilities are critical to our continued success. I thank all of our compliance professionals for their dedication to make us a stronger, more resilient organization. As 2024 continues, it is important to consider how our work in prior years has set the stage for our future initiatives. Providing seamless access to more electronic brokers has expanded our markets. Speaker 200:07:39Modern market makers are critical to continuous market liquidity. They provide consistent execution quality for retail orders, liquidity in less active securities and connect global prices in ADRs and ordinary shares. Our platforms also support the success of broker dealers that desire order driven matching engines. The best markets let participants choose the trading model that works best for their unique situation and provide a seamless connection across the widest possible range of participants. We recently announced our plan to introduce closing cross functionality for subscribers to our matching engine ATSs. Speaker 200:08:26Closing cross is popular in other markets and we are excited to offer this new feature to enhance choices for liquidity seekers. The liquidity of market makers already providing competitive closing prices directly to their correspondence and our new electronic closing cross process will make the overall OTC market stronger. Dynamic market structure requires multiple trading models and participants that are free to choose what best suits their needs and desires. Launching this initiative is a result of collaboration between our business and technology teams. We continue to pursue 5 strategic priorities this year. Speaker 200:09:121st, one team, one platform driving results to build the value of 1 share. Under this initiative, we continue to integrate our teams and consolidate our technology platforms to drive operational efficiencies and client value in pursuit of revenue growth. 2nd, increase the number of securities on our markets. Our near term opportunity is greater global trading, increasing the breadth and depth of ADR and foreign ordinary shares traded in U. S. Speaker 200:09:49Dollars by U. S. Broker dealers to grow the size of our markets by adding securities, new asset classes and trading functionality for our broker dealer subscribers. 3rd, transform the client connection and improve the quality of information. We constantly work to enhance the customer experience through modernized interfaces and enriched data for external and internal users. Speaker 200:10:19It's an important lever for us that the more engaged issuers are and the better quality of information they provide, the better our markets will function. 4th, mitigate operational risk and strengthen regulatory compliance. In keeping with our focus on market integrity and compliance, we invest in our core trading infrastructure, operational processes and risk management systems, as well as our regulatory processes, in each case to enhance their reliability and our compliance with securities laws and regulations. 5th, grow revenue across business lines and align resources with long term value creation. As much as we may wish, success will not be a straight line. Speaker 200:11:10We continue to focus on being good stewards of our markets and thoughtful commercial operators to align our operating costs with recurring revenue generation, where managers intelligently allocate company resources and act as fiduciaries to generate sustainable value for our shareholders. I look forward to reviewing these initiatives in our strategic direction throughout the course of the year. In closing, I'm pleased to announce that on May 7, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.18 per share payable in June. This dividend reflects our ongoing commitment to providing superior shareholder returns. With that, I will turn the call over to Antonia. Speaker 300:12:00Thank you, Gromal, and thank you all for joining our call today. I would like to start by thanking our entire OTC Markets team for continuing to execute on our strategic priorities and for their commitment to our subscribers. As I discuss our results for the quarter ended March 31, 2024, any reference made to prior periods comparatives will refer to the Q1 of 2023. Turning to Page 7 for review of our Q1 revenues. We generated $27,700,000 in gross revenues, down 1% as compared to the prior year period. Speaker 300:12:41Revenues less transaction based expenses were also down 1%. OTC Link's gross revenues declined 1%. While the notional dollar value traded on our ATSs increased by 21% versus the prior year period, the share volume executed and the number of trades declined, resulting in an 8% decline in transaction based revenues from OTC Link ECM and OTC Link NQB. As an offset, transaction based expenses decreased 16%. Additionally, OTC Link ATS saw a 6 percent decline in subscription revenue from our OTC dealer application due to subscriber cancellations. Speaker 300:13:25Partially offsetting these decreases was an increase in certain connectivity revenue due to the introduction of additional fees at the beginning of 2024 and an 8% increase in revenues from OTC Link ATS messages due to fee increases offsetting lower message volume. OTC Link finished the Q1 with 112 subscribers to OTC Link ECN and 82 subscribers on OTC Link ATS and had 135 unique subscribers across our ATSs. At the end of the prior year period, OTC Link had 102 and 88 subscribers on OTC Link ECN and OTC Link ATS respectively and 134 unique subscribers. Trading volumes remain highly unpredictable and could continue to decline in the future. Revenues from our market data licensing business increased 2% quarter over quarter. Speaker 300:14:26Pro user accounts were up 4% with the corresponding revenues increasing 8%. Revenues from internal system licenses, delayed data licenses and other data services increased 11% due to growth in subscribers and price increases for certain licenses. Additionally, revenues from our Abusca data products increased 33% as a result of additional fees that we introduced and pricing adjustments. Partially offsetting these increases was an 18% decline in revenues from non pro users, in line with an 18% reduction in period end non professional user counts and a 33% decrease in revenue from Medgar Online due to the exclusion of certain non recurring revenue that was recognized in the prior year period. Historically and in the normal course of business, we have seen significant changes in the number of non professional users as market volumes and retail participation on our markets fluctuate and we may experience a further decline in the future. Speaker 300:15:30Corporate services revenues decreased 5% in the Q1. OTCQX revenues remained relatively unchanged, while OTCQB and D and S revenues decreased 8% 6%, respectively. We saw a lower number of companies across OTCQX, OTC QB and DNS in the Q1 compared to the prior year quarter. The impact of annual incremental pricing adjustments effective January 2024 served to offset the decline in OTCQX Companies. In the Q1, we added 21 OTCQX Companies compared to 15 in the prior year quarter and finished the period with 577 OTCQX Companies, down 3%. Speaker 300:16:16For the annual OTCQX subscription period beginning January 1, 2024, we achieved a 93% retention rate compared to 95% in the prior year. On OPCQB, we added 36 new companies in the Q1 compared to 49 in the prior year period and had 11 15 OTCQB companies at the end of the quarter, down 8%. We had 1428 pink companies subscribing to D and S and other products at the end of the Q1, down 5%. Month to month variability in our corporate services subscribers is driven by new sales, offset by non renewals, corporate events and compliance downgrades. Turning now to expenses on Page 8. Speaker 300:17:06On a quarter over quarter basis, operating expenses remained largely unchanged at 18,600,000 dollars A 5% increase in compensation and benefits expenses was partially offset by a 10% decline in professional and consulting fees and a 46% decrease in general, administrative and other costs. The increase in compensation and benefits reflects higher stock based incentive compensation and related payroll taxes as a result of the cumulative impact of prior year grants, partially offset by lower commissions and cash based incentive compensation. Additionally, we incurred certain separation expenses. Compensation and benefits comprised 67% of our total operating expenses during the Q1 compared to 64% in the prior year period. Compensation and benefits expenses in the prior year period included certain non recurring accruals related to the EDGAR Online acquisition. Speaker 300:18:07Professional and consulting fees decreased during due to the elimination of certain non recurring expenses related to EDGAR Online that were incurred during the prior year period. Additionally, we saw lower regulatory costs related to our Steelink ECN and OT Steelink NQB and lower legal fees. General administrative and other costs decreased 46%, primarily due to lower bad debt. In the prior year period, we had an elevated bad debt provision related to accounts receivable acquired as part of Edgar Online, which did not recur in the current quarter. Turning to Page 9. Speaker 300:18:47In the first quarter, income from operations and net income declined 3% 5%, respectively. Operating profit margin contracted slightly to 25% compared to 25.4% in the prior year quarter. Operating profit margin in the prior year period was impacted by approximately $900,000 in one time integration expenses related to EDGAR Online. In addition to certain GAAP and other measures, management utilizes adjusted EBITDA, a non GAAP measure, which excludes non cash stock based compensation expenses. Our adjusted EBITDA was $9,200,000 in the Q1 of 2024 and our adjusted diluted earnings per share were $0.76 relatively unchanged compared to the prior year period. Speaker 300:19:37Cash used in operating activities amounted to $700,000 compared to cash used in operating activities of $400,000 in the prior year quarter. Free cash flows for the quarter were negative $1,200,000 compared to negative $1,400,000 in the prior year quarter. Turning to Page 10. During the Q1 of 2024, we returned a total of $5,100,000 to investors in the form of dividends and through our stock buyback program, compared to $5,500,000 in the prior year quarter. We remain focused on growing our business, operating as prudent stewards of shareholder capital and delivering long term value to our stockholders. Speaker 300:20:19With that, I would like to thank everyone for your time and pass it back to the operator for questions. Operator00:20:25Thank Our first question is going to come from the line of Brennan McCarthy with Sidoti. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:20:55Hey, good morning everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to start off with OTC Link looking at the ECN and MQB revenues down there over the quarter. Can you just kind of talk about the changing mix of securities traded on the platforms that drove that decline? Speaker 300:21:18Certainly, Brandon. As we've discussed previously, our pricing schedule is fairly detailed and depends on the type of security, whether it's low priced, middle priced or higher priced security and also has various volume brackets that determine prices and rebates. So in any given quarter or month, obviously depending on the activity that comes to our platforms, broker dealer driven or end client driven, the types of securities traded would shift constantly. And in certain instances, it would shift towards securities where we generate lower fees or towards securities on which we generate somewhat higher fees or we can be moving up and down those volume bands that we have on our pricing schedule. So as a net result, we may end up generating higher or lower revenue per unit of volume compared to other periods. Speaker 300:22:27Generally, that is unpredictable for us and it's an outcome of the trading activity that comes to our market. Speaker 400:22:36Got it. Thanks, Antonio. That's helpful. Speaker 200:22:38And Brandon, you have to understand just like we have 3 ATSs. There's the original network base OTC Link, which is supporting the modern market picker model. And that is really built for firms whose first goal is to internalize and keep the trade on their system. And then we have the 2 matching engine ECMs. And the magic is that we seamlessly connect them into the market and make and because together they're all more powerful for market quality and you're giving investors choices of how they want to trade. Speaker 100:23:25But Speaker 200:23:26when what you see with the market maker model and you see with other liquidity providers is when markets are not incredibly volatile, they will position more securities on their own systems and not need to trade out of the risk. And that's a good thing for our subscribers because they're able to do more business on their platforms. And it's a good part for our business of they are using us for the pricing world. But transactions in markets where there's not a lot of volatility will not be as big across competitor to competitor or intermediary to intermediary because they're willing to carry more risk on their books, if that makes sense. Speaker 400:24:17Yes, that's helpful. Thanks, Cromwell. That makes sense. And then turning to the Blue Sky data product, I saw there was a really nice revenue increase there and I believe it was driven by pricing adjustments. Just curious as to how those pricing adjustments were received by the client base? Speaker 200:24:39Well, I believe it was pretty seamless because we've added coverage of securities. Our viewpoint is our ideal product is one where we can increasingly stuff more value in for the existing subscribers to make it more useful. And we've also become much more transparent in actually how it's calculated. The previous owner kept the sauce secret and our viewpoint is be transparent and be open. So my expectation is especially with Blue Sky becoming more important to the corporate debt market and where we can drive it deeper into the electronic stack and to a wider part of regulated entities, be that broker dealers, investment advisors, there's places for us to add value. Speaker 200:25:38And Blue Sky is just one part of the mix. Whether you're an investment advisor or broker dealer, it's is this security lawful and is it lawful for the investor that you're talking about? And there's a whole wedding cake of various rules and regulations at the state level, at the FINRA level, at the SEC level. And our goal is to take all of that complexity and give a clean answer with the ability to dive deep. Speaker 400:26:17Got it. That's helpful. And then turning to the suspicious activity reports, Cremel, I know you discussed this earlier in the call, as it relates to OTC Link. But just curious if there's any update on the communication with the SEC, just regarding the previous situation mentioned on the past earnings call? Speaker 100:26:39Yes. Thanks, Brendan. I mean the disclosure that's in the quarterly report, which really mirrors what was in our annual report as well is it remains the update. It's a long process, but everything we covered both in the disclosure and in Cromwell's commentary and at the annual earnings call really remains the way we view it. And I think Cromwell's comments today regarding our market integrity initiatives generally and the work that's been done on our compliance program and in particular the staff that's grown and increased focus on these things. Speaker 100:27:13It's to the good for us as a business, but in terms of the specific update, it's as described in the report. Speaker 300:27:20And Brandon, from a financial point of view, there has been no additional accrual beyond what we disclosed in the Q4. Speaker 400:27:30Understood. Understood. Thank you. One more question for me. Speaker 200:27:33Yes, that's Fandon just I look at from an investor perspective, you look at is the accrual changing is that I think is because we also look at when we look at compliance for issuers that for companies where they've had previous regulatory troubles and new management teams and new boards of directors have come in, that's usually and new auditors have come in, that's not for us, but it's like where's the accrual stain. And I think that's probably a number that if I was an investor, I would look at. Speaker 400:28:17Right, right. And that number stay consistent right around that $1,200,000 mark? Correct. Okay. And one more question just on the corporate services business. Speaker 400:28:31Cromwell, I think you mentioned there were some positive trends seen on OTCQX subscribers, while QB obviously remains a little bit more challenged. But I'm just curious as to your thoughts on what would be a couple of catalysts that would kind of reverse the trend of lower corporate service subscribers. Obviously, imagine the interest rate environment is one of them, but just kind of curious as to what you think could reverse the trend there? Speaker 200:28:59So if I knew the answer, the trend would be reversed. There's things that we're looking at. The excuse column would be the mining and minerals space has had a tough financing world after a boom. The other excuse column would be that we that smaller companies are struggling on exchanges and we're seeing delistings across those as they run to the end of their story ramp. And I think that's a really important thing for capitalism. Speaker 200:29:39You listen to the Canadian exchanges talk about venture markets. And they'll say 95% of the companies don't make it. But it's a really important piece for the 5% that do. And it's a part of capitalism, But we get frustrated when someone has tried, a team has tried in the markets, the story is running down, but that's the capitalist system. I would say I'm much more interested in the things that we can control to drive positive change and reorganizing our corporate sales team to be a more team based approach, working on educating issuers, how they can use our platform. Speaker 200:30:41There's a lot of conversation around the world about differences of valuations and how global companies can get in front of investors and show the value of their securities versus their U. S. Competitors and comparable business models. That's a real opportunity for us. Improving the ability to trade ADRs and foreign ordinary shares. Speaker 200:31:18We think both have room for improvement and we think the world is better giving investors choices. So there's a lot of levers internally for us to grind away. Speaker 400:31:40That makes sense. Thanks, Pramod. I appreciate the insight. That's all for me. Operator00:31:45Thank you. Our next question is going to come from the line of Steve Silver with Argus Research Corporation. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Speaker 500:32:05Good morning. Thanks, operator. My first question is, I've noticed in the quarter, there was a pretty substantial increase in the dollar volume traded on particular on OTCQX and QB. And I was just curious as to whether there were any dynamics in play there. It seems a little counterintuitive given the decline in the number of companies on QX and QB as well as the continued limited retail participation in the market. Speaker 500:32:36So just curious to know if there were any dynamics at play for those pretty substantial increases in trading activity? Speaker 200:32:49Thank you for the question. I don't try to spend much time overthinking where volumes are coming from and what they're going back and forth because it's not in the lever we can control on the short term is and often what gets captured across the 2 business lines of the 2 kind of core trading support side businesses, the network based ATS and the matching engine ECMs. So there are many people much more smarter than me who make macro bets every day, whose opinions I might listen to more, even though I'd take those with a grain of salt, because usually they're talking their books. Speaker 300:33:39Steve, as I mentioned, the mix of securities traded between low priced, medium priced and high priced shifts all the time. In this particular quarter, there was a shift towards higher priced securities, which drove the overall dollar value of or dollar volume traded. But at the same time, the number of shares, which is the driver of our revenue declines. There is a small piece of our revenue that's driven off of Notional, but it's really small. It's for the low priced securities. Speaker 300:34:13And that volume actually declined during the quarter. So again, it's mostly it is counterintuitive as you mentioned, but it is a function of the mix of securities between sub penny between $0.01 and over $1. Speaker 500:34:31Okay. That makes sense. Thanks. And so the quarterly disclosure cited a multiyear integration. Just curious in terms of just very broadly, whether that subscriber number is in the range of your earlier expectations in terms of making the acquisition. Speaker 500:34:58Just in terms of placing where that subscriber number is in the early stages compared to maybe any initial thoughts you might have had in terms of building a subscriber base over time? Speaker 200:35:15So this is Kramal. Hi. The subscriber numbers the overall subscriber numbers is a mix of 2 types of subscribers, the per users of the Edgar Pro product and then the enterprise subscribers. Moving EDGAR Online technology out of their data center to the cloud, addressing operational inefficiencies and pain points has been a long process. The team of engineers we acquired have been incredibly dedicated. Speaker 200:35:55They've learned a whole new technology stack that supports their code in the cloud. The functionality changes where we can really start driving value to the clients hasn't gotten out to the client yet. And those are the places where can we make Edgar Pro not only be a great tool for searching SEC filings, comparing financials, but also include the various disclosure standards and financials of other companies on our market in a seamless integrated manner. And that's if you talk to any value investor, their whole history has always been finding interesting securities and the ability to search in a comparable manner. EDGAR Pro can become a great tool and more interesting because it has the widest range of U. Speaker 200:37:05S. Traded equities that you can search for an investor. The enterprise licenses are also how do we start adding value. And I think EDGAR online business, you really have to look at it's so integrated into our Blue Sky product to our compliance file products. That business is really one business. Speaker 200:37:33And how do we now look at optimize the different groups and find new areas to serve those enterprise clients. That's early days. And those discussions are going on and how we do it. As we said, it's really a 3 year process till we know what type of business is going to be there. And my belief is we have a very strong place in providing SEC filing and other data into broker dealer and regulatory compliance and structuring that data, of which EDGAR Technology and Services and Clients is a very important part. Speaker 200:38:38We're on the back foot for investors searching for data financials, but that we can catch up because we have a really unique data set. And so that's where we are. We're trying to make all of things work in a thoughtful pace because SEC filings is not the most dynamic spot of the world. Speaker 500:39:05Great. And one last one, if I may. I was just curious as to your thoughts about the size of overall headcount over time. The quarterly disclosure mentions the need for future investments related to the regulatory compliance obligations, but at the same time, overall headcount declined by a couple of employees year over year. So I'm just trying to get a sense as to as you staff up, I guess, to handle these obligations, how you're going to find that balance between managing the overall size of the organization in terms of keeping the cost structure of the business lean? Speaker 100:39:47Yes, Steve. On the nuts and bolts sort of numbers, the reduction that you see in the period end is largely a function of timing. When we had some employees separate and had some new hires early in the Q2, that will be reflected as we go. On the more macro level of your question, which I think is really the substantive point, we are always looking to scale. And so it's for us, it's a matter of prioritization, whether that scale is through technology or physical headcount, consultants and other experts that we can bring in. Speaker 100:40:20We've been able to over time sort of punch above our weight given the size of our staff and the size of our company and having that much greater impact. That ethos will not go away, right? We've gotten bigger over the past 18 months or so with the additions of Blue Sky and Edgar online. Beyond that, it's been very natural adds to staff. I think that will continue to be our program going forward with focus on those areas that you noted and that we've noted in our disclosure and on the call. Speaker 100:40:55I know Cromwell had some thoughts as well. Speaker 200:41:00Yes. 1 of our original investors was a very successful investor himself, Rusty Rose. And Rusty was incredibly careful with his money and thoughtful. And he was led an investor group with another slightly more famous person to buy the Texas Rangers. And when they sold the Texas Rangers, he spoke about the investments they made to have the team turn into a winning team. Speaker 200:41:40And it was his original view was when we spend $1 of our investors' money, we want to get back more than a dollar of return. And payroll for a sports team, both of the people hitting the balls and catching the balls and throwing the balls, but all of the other support people around, he invested in that. And my view is, I think it'd be fantastic to have twice as many employees, but also raise our revenue per employee. And that's hard operationally, performance management as we grow the 130, 140, 120 size is where your performance management, your senior management techniques, your next level of managers become so much more important in helping serve their success. And those are the things we're working on. Speaker 200:42:46We don't look at, oh, we need to stop at this number of employees where we are. What we want to do is support our existing operational needs and have people who have an agent of positive change, a growth mindset, who are every year becoming a little bit better at delivering results or operating the existing business with a little bit less effort and resources, so we can do some more. And that's the scale piece. And I think it's a really important challenge for us at the management level is how do we consistently build scale. So with our human capital, we're doing the same things that our technology partners are doing to give us faster processors, more performance from software. Speaker 500:43:58Okay, great. Thank you so much for the extra color. Operator00:44:02Thank you. And one moment for our next question. And we have a follow-up question from the line of Brennan McCarthy with Sidoti. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Speaker 400:44:21Sorry, my question was already answered. Operator00:44:24Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time, and I would like to hand the conference back over to Cromwell Coulson for closing remarks. Speaker 200:44:35Thank you, operator. I want to thank each of you for joining us today. I would encourage you to read our full 2024 Q1 report and the earnings press release for more information. Links to both are available on the Investor Relations page of our website. On behalf of the entire team at OTC Markets Group, we look forward to updating you on our key initiatives that will continue to shape the integrity and competitiveness of public markets and build value for our shareholders.Read morePowered by