ONESPAN Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 1, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • The board appointed Victor Lamongillie as permanent President and CEO after seven months as interim, signaling leadership continuity and confidence in operational improvements.
  • Q2 results showed 9% year-over-year revenue growth, 15% ARR growth and $16.1 million adjusted EBITDA (27% of revenue), with cash from operations turning positive $2 million versus a $20 million use last year.
  • The transition to higher-margin software continued, with software and services now ~75% of total revenue versus 64% three years ago, driving improved gross margins.
  • Digital Agreements revenue jumped 30% and became profitable excluding one-time costs, while Security Solutions grew 4% and delivered a 46% operating margin, demonstrating both units are on track for profitable growth.
  • Full-year guidance was updated to reaffirm $238–246 million in revenue, increase end-of-year ARR to $166–170 million, and raise adjusted EBITDA guidance to $55–59 million, reflecting operational leverage and cost savings progress.
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Earnings Conference Call
ONESPAN Q2 2024
00:00 / 00:00

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good day

Speaker 1

and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 2024 OneSpan Earnings Conference Call. 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 first speaker today, Joe Maxa, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Speaker 1

Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the OneSpan Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being webcast and can be accessed on the Investor Relations section of OneSpan's website at investors. Onespan.com. This afternoon, after market close, OneSpan issued a press release and filed a Form 8 ks with the SEC announcing results for our Q2 2024.

Speaker 2

In addition, the company plans to file a separate Form 8 ks this afternoon announcing the appointment of Victor Lamongile as President and CEO. Victor has been the company's Interim CEO since January 4, 2024. To access a copy of the press release, Form 8ks and other investor information, please visit our website. Victor Lamongillie and our CFO, Jorge Martel, will join me on today's call. Following prepared comments, we will open the call for questions.

Speaker 2

Please note that statements made during this conference call that relate to future plans, events or performance, including the outlook for full year 2024 and other long term financial targets are forward looking statements. These statements involve risks and uncertainties and are based on current assumptions. Consequently, actual results could differ materially from the expectations expressed in these forward looking statements. I direct your attention to today's press release and the company's filings with the U. S.

Speaker 2

Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of such risks and uncertainties. Also note that certain financial measures that may be discussed on this call are expressed on a non GAAP basis and have been adjusted from a related GAAP financial measure. We have provided an explanation for and reconciliations of these non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in the earnings press release and in the investor presentation available on our website. In addition, please note that all growth rates discussed on this call refer to a year over year basis unless otherwise indicated. The date of this conference call is August 1, 2024.

Speaker 2

Any forward looking statements and related assumptions are made as of this date. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events or for any other reason. I will now turn the call over to Victor.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Joe, and thanks everyone for joining the call today. Over the last 7 months, I've gotten to know the OneSpan team and it's been a real pleasure to work side by side with them as we've improved OneSpan's operational performance. I'm looking forward to further improvements. I'm excited to keep the momentum going and I'm honored that the Board felt the same way in making my role permanent. As you know, we've made significant progress this year underscored by a strong second quarter, which included 9% revenue growth, 15% ARR growth and adjusted EBITDA of $16,000,000 or 27% of revenue.

Speaker 3

We also generated $2,000,000 in cash from operations in the 2nd quarter, a tremendous improvement as compared to the prior year period when we used $20,000,000 in cash. And we ended the quarter with $64,000,000 in cash on hand. Our focus on operational excellence and accountability throughout the company is driving profitable growth. Over the past few years, we've continued to grow our software business. And in the first half of twenty twenty four, we've reached a point where software and services is approximately 3 quarters of total revenue and hardware is about 1 quarter of revenue.

Speaker 3

In comparison, if you look at our business 3 years ago, the split was approximately 64% software, 36% hardware. Our sales team has done a great job in transitioning the company to more higher margin software revenue. In particular, our sales team executed very well during the Q2 with bookings coming in ahead of our internal plan. The sales team has been working hard to stay close to customers so that we can continue to improve our performance in response to customer feedback. As you might imagine, I'm very pleased with the team's performance.

Speaker 4

In addition to

Speaker 3

the strong performance by the sales team, our renewals team has made strides in closing maintenance renewals in a timely fashion. Year to date, our on time renewal rate has improved compared to 2023 and the rate of renewals closed within 30 days of the due date also improved year over year. That is good progress and a testament to the good work of our renewals team. Our R and D team has continued to make improvements to our SaaS offerings and we expect to see improved operational efficiency reflected in increased gross margins as we move through the remainder of the year. Looking ahead, our R and D team in security is, I think it's fair to say, reenergized and is working on enhancements and new products such as FIO hardware tokens.

Speaker 3

Turning to our 2 business units. I'm thrilled with the 2nd quarter delivered by our team in the Digital Agreements business. Digital Agreements grew strongly and became profitable, excluding one time costs, which Jorge will discuss in more detail. In Digital Agreements, we have substantially completed our transition to a SaaS model. Our strong second quarter revenue and ARR growth rates were driven primarily by expansion contracts and to a lesser extent new logos.

Speaker 3

In our Security business unit, we saw strong subscription revenue growth and overall revenue growth was on par with our low to mid single digit growth rate expectation for 2024. It also continued to be a strongly profitable business. Our goal is to have both business units deliver growth and profitability and we are well on our way to achieving that goal. I am of course thrilled with the strong ARR growth and our improved profitability and cash flow as well as the strong sales quarter the team delivered. It would be too much to say the team closed every opportunity, but there were certainly deals that closed in Q2 that might have been expected to occur in Q3.

Speaker 3

That is great, of course, and that we'd rather have the deals closed earlier, but it does make Q3 more challenging. In addition, the Q3 in terms of seasonality is typically not a particularly strong bookings quarter for us. Given that context, coupled with a strong first half performance, for the balance of the year, we expect our subscription revenue to be up double digits over the prior year, while we expect maintenance revenue to decline somewhat largely due to the end of life of the deal flow product as well as perpetual to term conversions. In addition, given our current visibility into our hardware pipeline and anticipated customer hardware delivery schedules, we anticipate a decline in hardware revenues in the second half as compared to the prior year. That said, we expect both business units to be profitable in both the 3rd and 4th quarters.

Speaker 3

So we now expect our full year adjusted EBITDA to be higher than previously forecast. Finally, I'd like to note that the Board plans to undertake by year end a review of our cash generation and capital needs, balancing those factors with a desire to return capital to shareholders. Overall, we remain committed to operational excellence and to driving efficient revenue growth to help ensure we achieve our annual profitability and cash flow commitments. With that, I will turn the call over to Jorge. Jorge?

Speaker 5

Thank you, Victor, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll start by providing a brief update on our cost reduction activities. We realized $8,500,000 in annualized cost savings from our restructuring efforts in the Q2 of 2024. Cumulative annualized savings totaled $73,500,000 We believe we are on track to achieve our goal of $75,000,000 in cumulative annualized cost savings by the end of this year. Now turning to our 2nd quarter results.

Speaker 5

ARR grew 15% to $165,000,000 and our net retention rate was 112%, up from 107% last quarter. During the quarter, we saw a strong increase in digital agreements in new ACV and strong increases in contract expansions from existing customers in both business units. 2nd quarter 2024 revenue grew 9% to $60,900,000 as compared to the same period last year, driven by 4% growth in security solutions and 30% growth in digital agreements. Subscription revenue grew 29% to $29,600,000 including 19% growth from security solutions and 41% growth from digital agreements. The strong growth in subscription revenue was partially offset by a modest decline in maintenance revenue, which is by design as we transition to a SaaS and subscription license model.

Speaker 5

Hardware revenue was flat year over year. 2nd quarter gross margin was 66.2% compared to 61.5 percent in the prior year quarter. Gross margins were impacted by 2.4 percentage points in Q2 2024 and by 2.8 percentage points in Q2 2023 due to one time costs. Excluding these one time costs, the increase in gross margin was primarily driven by favorable product mix due to growth in subscription revenue, partially offset by an increase in depreciation of capitalized software costs. 2nd quarter GAAP operating income was $7,600,000 compared to an operating loss of $17,800,000 dollars in the Q2 of last year.

Speaker 5

Increases in revenue and gross profit margin combined with a decrease in operating expenses, primarily from lower headcount related costs and lower restructuring costs led to the improved performance. GAAP net income per share was $0.17 in the Q2 of 2024 compared to a GAAP net loss per share of $0.44 in the same period last year. Non GAAP earnings per share was $0.31 in the Q2 of 2024. This compares to a non GAAP loss per share of $0.18 in the Q2 of 2023. 2nd quarter adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin was $16,100,000 26.5 percent compared to negative $3,800,000 and negative 7% in the same period of last year respectively.

Speaker 5

Turning to our Security Solutions business unit, ARR grew 9% in the Q2 to $105,000,000 ARR growth was negatively impacted by approximately 1.5 percentage points due to the relocation of identity verification products to our digital agreements business unit at the beginning of this year. 2nd quarter revenue increased 4% to $45,500,000 Subscription revenue increased 19 percent to $14,900,000 driven primarily by expansion of licenses from existing customers for authentication solutions. Maintenance and support revenue declined by less than $1,000,000 year over year to $9,700,000 with growth from on premise subscriptions, offset by the expected decline from legacy perpetual contracts. Digipass hardware token revenue was basically flat with the prior year at $19,700,000 Q2 twenty twenty four gross profit margin was 67 percent as compared to 59% in the Q2 of 2023. The increase in margin is primarily attributable to favorable product and customer mix.

Speaker 5

In addition, Q2 2023 gross margin was impacted by approximately 3.5 percentage points related to an inventory write off charge. Operating income was $20,700,000 and operating margin was 46% compared to $8,500,000 19% in last year's Q2. Increases in revenue and gross profit margin combined with reduced operating expenses primarily attributed to restructuring and other cost reduction activities throughout the majority of the improved performance. Turning to our financial results for our digital agreements business. ARR grew 25 percent to $61,000,000 ARR growth benefited by approximately 3 percentage points due to the relocation of identity verification products to digital agreements at the beginning of this year.

Speaker 5

2nd quarter revenue grew 30% to $15,500,000 driven primarily by both new contracts and expansion of renewal contracts and to a much lesser extent a relocation of identity verification products. Subscription revenue consisted of 100% cloud based solutions in both Q2 2024 and in the prior year quarter grew 41% to $14,800,000 2nd quarter gross profit margin was 63% as compared to 72% in the prior year quarter. During the quarter, we made the decision to discontinue R and D investments in our TrustVault blockchain product. Excluding one time costs related to this decision, digital agreements Q2 2024 gross margin would have been 10 percentage points higher. Operating loss was $200,000 as compared to an operating loss of $7,100,000 in Q2 last year.

Speaker 5

The improved performance was driven by an increase in revenue and a decrease in operating expenses, primarily attributed to restructuring and other cost reduction activities and was partially offset by an increase in cost of revenues. Excluding one time costs of approximately $1,800,000 Digital Agreement 2nd quarter 2024 operating income would have been positive. Now turning to our balance sheet. We ended the Q2 of 20 24 with $64,300,000 in cash and cash equivalents, compared to $42,500,000 at the end of 2023. We generated $2,000,000 in cash from operations during the quarter and used $2,000,000 in capital expenditures, primarily capitalized software costs.

Speaker 5

We have no long term debt. Geographically, our revenue mix by region in the Q2 of 2024 was 41% from EMEA, 35% from the Americas and 24% from Asia Pacific. This compares to 48%, 33% and 19% from the same regions in the Q2 of last year respectively. I will now provide our financial outlook. For the full year 2024, we are reaffirming our previously issued revenue guidance.

Speaker 5

We are increasing our ARR guidance to reflect its year to date strength, partially offset by some second half contraction related to previously sunset products. And we are increasing our adjusted EBITDA guidance to reflect an increase in operating leverage. More specifically, we expect revenue to be in the range of $238,000,000 to 2.40 $6,000,000 ARR to end the year in the range of $166,000,000 to $170,000,000 as compared to a previous guidance range of $160,000,000 to $168,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $55,000,000 to $59,000,000 as compared to our previous guidance range of $51,000,000 to 55 $1,000,000 Absent share repurchases, we continue to expect to end the year with more than $70,000,000 of cash. That concludes my remarks. Victor?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Jorge. We had an excellent second quarter and first half of twenty twenty four. Looking at the second half of the year, we know that we have more work to do in order to deliver an excellent year. I'm excited and proud to be leading the OneSpan team and we're going to continue to focus our efforts on delivering value to our customers and thereby creating value for our shareholders. Jorge and I will now be happy to take your questions.

Speaker 1

Thank you. At this time, we'll conduct the question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Gray Powell with BTIG. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Okay. Thank you very much and congratulations on the good set of results.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 6

Yes, absolutely. So maybe Victor to start off, I mean you've been at OneSpan as CEO for 7 months now. You posted 2 good reports. Do you see anything major that needs to be changed? Or are there any areas where you want to maybe increase your focus and level of investments?

Speaker 3

Yes. Let me talk about those results. I'm really happy with our ARR growth and the overall strength in our software business. My background, my history, 20 plus years has been on the software side. So I didn't know hardware and that's a newer business for me.

Speaker 3

But I have to say, I like that business as well. It's a very good margin business and we have these long relationships with customers over many years. And we are it's not a smooth, gradual business like SaaS is, but overall it's a good business. And we are doing some investment there. I've said before that the goal is to have both business units growing and profitable.

Speaker 3

We've made tremendous strides on that. The security business, I do think needs could benefit from some additional investment on product refreshes and we're starting to do that and we'll continue to do that as we set up our 20.5 plan.

Speaker 6

Understood. Okay. That's helpful. And then, just in general across software, it's been a fairly rough Q2 so far. And you kind of alluded to this on the call or the prepared remarks, but I mean you just added more net new ARR this quarter than the prior 3 quarters combined.

Speaker 6

So I mean like what surprised you the most? What drove the upside? And has anything changed within the business?

Speaker 3

Well, I think if you look at the results, and we mentioned it, but we had a lot of good results as you commented. But one thing that really stands out to me is the NRR, right? If you're at a 112, 110, 112, those types of ranges, it's really beneficial for the business and of course much, much easier to grow ARR. And the strength there was on both sides of the business. We had strong NRR results on security as well.

Speaker 3

So that was great. It was a really tremendous job by the team.

Speaker 6

Understood. Okay, great. I will leave it there.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rudy Kessinger with D. A. Davidson. Your line is now open.

Speaker 4

Hey, great. Thanks for taking my questions guys. And Victor, congrats on the permanent title.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Thanks, Rudy.

Speaker 4

Yes. I want to just kind of dig in more on kind of Greg's question on $10,300,000 of net new ARR that's more new ARR than well, about equal to this ARR that you added over the last 3 quarters combined. And your NRR, it's a TTM figure for a TTM NRR to jump 5 percentage points in one quarter suggests you probably had either a price increase or some pretty massive customer expansion. So could you just unpack the $10,000,000 of net new ARR and the jump in ARR and just talk to any maybe concentration you had and maybe some large expansions or pull forwards or what, because the numbers are pretty significant relative to the past several quarters and relative to kind of what's implied in the second half guide?

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks, Rhee. I alluded to this in the prepared remarks a little bit. We closed a ton of business, including some large deals and it was really a great performance by the sales team. I'll let Jorge dive into any numbers that he wants to address, but the bookings performance was really strong by the team in the second quarter.

Speaker 5

Yes. Just to add to that, Vik and Rudy, so we did see great expansion. In particular, we saw one deal that's a low 7 figure deal that it was more cross sell. And so that's part of the NRR on the we saw on the DA side of the house. We also saw great expansion in authentication products or backend software this quarter.

Speaker 5

We saw similar traction last quarter. This quarter was stronger. But the other thing to consider also, Rudy, is that we did see lower churn and contraction this quarter that we have seen in the past. Partly end of life was not really a material number, it was about $500,000 this quarter, last quarter was a little more meaningful. So I think we benefited on both sides.

Speaker 5

We had really great expansion. That process that I alluded to in the DA side of the house, but also we saw lower churning control. So we benefited all around.

Speaker 4

Okay. And just a quick follow-up on that and then I've got another question. A low 7 figure cross sell, so that was low 7 figures of net new ARR from a single cross sell on the DHL?

Speaker 5

Correct.

Speaker 4

Okay. Okay, that's helpful. That's helpful. Okay. And then I guess the guide, the EBITDA guide, I understand like in Q1 you had some massive multi year term licenses.

Speaker 4

2nd half it sounds like your hardware is going to be a bit lower than as it would typically be seasonality wise. But still the EBITDA guide in the second half, I think it implies roughly $20,000,000 in second half versus $36,000,000 in the first half. You're saying gross margins are going to be stronger. Obviously, you've got the cost cuts coming in. Seems to imply OpEx actually steps up in the second half.

Speaker 4

So could you just unpack that a bit as well?

Speaker 5

Yes, I can chime in here. So I think it's going to be a little more than the number you sent to us. We still have adjusted EBITDA, but we have, Rudy. But obviously, EBITDA is heavily depending on revenue. As Victor said, we expect year over year declines in the hardware business based on visibility we have today.

Speaker 5

And that's primarily related to the scheduled customer deliveries, right? So we obviously recognize revenue when we do the deliveries. So as we mentioned, it's a lumpy business of that. You have lead times for production and then lead times for deliveries and then coordinated those with our customer base, right? So it's a whole it takes a lot of effort to do that in a consistent basis.

Speaker 5

So because of the revenue, so like a little uncertainty on the hardware side is what we've been cautious about our EBITDA guide. We raised it according to our numbers and our forecast. We hope to be more on the high end of that range, and we'll continue to update you guys as we continue to make progress.

Speaker 4

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of Anja Soderstrom with Sidoti. Your line is now open.

Operator

Hi, and thank you for taking my questions. Congratulations on the great quarter and the nomination, Victor.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Operator

For this quarter, you're undertaking a lot of changes within the sales organization and whatnot. So how much of this tailwind is driven by demand versus your changes in execution you think?

Speaker 3

Well, it's hard to pull that apart. I think the team has executed better. We did see good performance across the board. It was both in security and in the DA business. So it's hard to say how much of that is due to underlying demand.

Speaker 3

I don't know if I can give you a precise number on that. I'm really happy with how we're engaging with customers and making sure that we're spending time meeting with them face to face and seeing what problems we can solve for them. But I can't give you a precise number on demand versus execution.

Operator

Okay, understood. And let me ask you in a better way maybe. How is the macro environment for you? Like do you still see that as challenging? And once you know you're getting the execution up and running and the macro environment

Speaker 3

customers? It's a good question. And for us, Europe is a huge market and the European economy has been that great, but it's not like it's in a deep, deep recession either. So I don't like to talk about macro unless it's on the extremes, right? If the economies are booming, great, that might provide some lift or if it's there if there's a severe recession, obviously, that hurts.

Speaker 3

I don't think a macro environment is fantastic, but it's also I mean, we have to be able to execute through economies like this. This isn't, I mean, far from the worst economy I've had experience with having run a public software company through the Great Recession. So I view it as okay, I guess. Does that make sense?

Operator

Yes. Thank you for that color. And in terms of the cost savings, it sounds like you almost reached your target here for the year. Are you still looking for potential further ways or you've been kind of pushing it already?

Speaker 3

Jorge, do you want to cover that one?

Speaker 5

Yes, yes. So we're almost there, Andrea, from a cost savings perspective. A lot of the as we mentioned before, a lot of this incremental ten that we announced last couple of earnings call impacted DA and that was related to again the mandate that BIG has, which is having both business units be growing profitably. And so now we're there. Now obviously there will be incremental in terms of fine tuning, right, could be 1 or 2 business units, I think overall corporate as well.

Speaker 5

So, but I don't think we will sort of like put neon lights on it. It's just part of running the business, right. We just got to be conscious about and try to improve that and expand operating margins. So I think we're to your point, we're almost there. It will continue to be, but I expect more fine tuning rather than another sort of like huge number coming out.

Operator

Okay. And then on the cost side, Victor, you mentioned you will invest in some products to enhance them. Will there be any significant cost increases because of that or?

Speaker 3

We are trying as Jorge alluded to in his comments, we're trying to keep a close eye on expenses. We haven't done our 2025 planning yet. There may be a small incremental investment in that area. But for the most part, we're trying to direct our team. We have a strong team.

Speaker 3

We're trying to direct them in the areas that can have the biggest benefit for our customers rather than just throwing dollars at it. I don't think that's the right approach.

Operator

Okay, great. Thank you. That was all for me.

Speaker 5

Thank you, Audra.

Speaker 1

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Joe Maxwell for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, everyone. We appreciate your time and look forward to sharing our progress with you again next quarter. Thanks again and have a nice day.

Speaker 1

Thank you. This does conclude the program and you may now disconnect.

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