Hudson Global Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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August 8, 2024

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Hudson Global Conference Call for the Q2 of 2024. Our call today will be led by Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Eberwein Chief Financial Officer, Matt Diamond and Global CEO of Hudson RPO, Jake Zepkowitz. Please be advised that the statements made during the presentation include forward looking statements under applicable securities laws. Such forward looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward looking statements. These risks are discussed in our Form 8 ks to be filed today and in our other filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10 ks.

Operator

The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward looking statements. During the course of this conference call, references will be made to non GAAP terms such as constant currency, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per diluted share. Reconciliations for these measures are included in our earnings release and quarterly slides, both posted on our website, hudsonrpo.com. I encourage you to access our earnings materials at this time as they will serve as a helpful reference guide during our call. All participants will be in listen only mode.

Operator

Please note this event is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Jeff Eberwein.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone. We thank you for your interest in Hudson Global and for joining us today. I'll start by reviewing the Q2 2024 results, then Matt Diamond, our CFO, will provide some additional details on our financials. Lastly, Jake Zekwitz, Global CEO of our Hudson RPO business, will provide us with an update on our RPO business, including recent developments and milestones. Our Q2 2024 results were impacted by the continuation of lower than normal hiring volumes at many of our clients in the markets we serve.

Speaker 1

For the Q2 of 2024, we reported revenue of $35,700,000 down 20% year over year in constant currency, while our adjusted net revenue was $17,600,000 down 22% year over year in constant currency. Our adjusted EBITDA for the Q2 was $700,000 versus adjusted EBITDA of $2,600,000 a year ago. In addition, we reported a net loss of $400,000 or $0.15 per diluted share versus net income of $600,000 or $0.18 per diluted share in the same period of last year. Q2 twenty twenty four adjusted net income per diluted share was $0.04 compared to net income per diluted share of $0.36 in the Q2 of 2023. Now I'll turn the call over to Matt Diamond to review our financial results by region as well as some additional financial details from the Q2.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. Revenue for our Americas business decreased 19% and adjusted net revenue decreased 24% year over year in constant currency. We reported adjusted EBITDA of $600,000 for the quarter versus last year's breakeven adjusted EBITDA. Revenue and adjusted net revenue for our Asia Pacific business both decreased 19% year over year in constant currency. In Q2 of 2024, we reported adjusted EBITDA of $800,000 compared to adjusted EBITDA of $2,500,000 a year ago.

Speaker 2

Revenue for our EMEA business decreased 24% versus the prior year quarter in constant currency and adjusted net revenue decreased 23%. Our Q2 2024 adjusted EBITDA was $300,000 compared to adjusted EBITDA of $1,100,000 in the Q2 of 2023. Turning to some additional financial details in the Q2. We ended the 2nd quarter with $15,300,000 in cash, including $600,000 of restricted cash. The company used $4,300,000 in cash flow from operations during the Q2 of 2024 compared to $2,600,000 of cash generated from operations in the Q2 of 2023.

Speaker 2

Days sales outstanding was 59 days at June 30, 2024 compared to 52 days at March 31, 2024. In connection with our acquisition activity in recent years, our balance sheet as of March 31, 2024, reflects $5,600,000 of goodwill and $3,000,000 of net amortizable intangible assets. The company's working capital, excluding cash, was $14,600,000 compared to $12,000,000 at December 31, 2023. I'll now turn the call over to Jake to discuss our RPO business.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Matt, and good morning. The Q2 of 2024, we further expanded our geographical footprint and service offerings with the acquisition of STRIVR, a UAE based talent acquisition firm. This acquisition, in addition to our acquisition of Executive Solutions in the Q1 and our continued enhancements of internal talent enable Hudson RPO to continue providing best in class service on a global scale. On the organic growth front, we have prioritized our land and expand strategy within our existing client base and made notable progress on this initiative in the Q2 where we added significant scope to a couple of our key existing client relationships. While the scope and scale of new business opportunities coming to market have been smaller than what we're used to seeing, we've been nimble and aggressive in pursuing all opportunities with the goal of expanding and deepening these relationships over time as hiring conditions improve.

Speaker 3

In general, we are seeing client executives taking longer to make decisions than what we've seen historically, which is why the growth in our sales pipeline of potential opportunities have outpaced our opportunities converted to wins. Lastly, we've made difficult but necessary decisions regarding reductions in our global workforce in response to the market conditions as Jeff alluded to earlier. In addition to protecting our profitability, these cost saving measures help us reorganize and optimize accounts within our organization, so we're better positioned respond to future upturn and activity levels. I'll now turn the call back over to Jeff for some closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Jake. Before opening the line to questions, I'd like to reinforce Jake's message that despite today's talent environment, we're encouraged by the feedback we're receiving from our clients and are excited by our new business wins and robust sales pipeline. Furthermore, the results of the internal changes and cost saving initiatives we've implemented across our entire organization should help our bottom line results in the coming quarters. We're confident in our ability to deliver value to stockholders while serving the needs of existing and new clients going forward. We continue to believe our stock is undervalued and thus continue to view share repurchases as an attractive use of capital.

Speaker 1

Under our $5,000,000 common share $5,000,000 common share repurchase program initiated last year, we've repurchased to date over 150,000 shares for $2,500,000 dollars including 87,000 shares for $1,500,000 in the Q2 of 2024. These repurchases were executed in both the open market as well as privately negotiated transactions and we continue to look for cost effective opportunities to shrink our share count over time. Operator, could you please open the line for questions?

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. The first question comes from Marc Riddick with Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, good morning.

Speaker 1

Good morning.

Speaker 4

So I was wondering if we could start with understandable with sort of client behavior lately. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about

Speaker 2

the when talking about the I think the commentary

Speaker 4

is around the smaller scope and scale. Can you talk about maybe some of the things that folks are kind of willing to be active with currently and maybe some of the things you feel like they're sort of pushing off?

Speaker 1

Sure. Jake, why don't you handle that?

Speaker 3

Jim, good morning, sir. How are you?

Speaker 4

Good morning. Good. Yourself?

Speaker 3

Really good. Thank you. Great question. So what we're seeing in the market right now is a little bit of a hesitation. And some have coined it the great hesitation where the scope and scale of new business is out there, but when it really comes to the finalization of what's being offered or what's being needed, that scope has significantly shrunk, where we have seen the level of smaller deals, say, between 500 to 1500 hires increase and a little bit of a slowdown or hesitation on those larger deals of, say, 5,000 plus hires.

Speaker 3

We do still see those opportunities in the market, but those are taking a little bit longer than what we normally see in our sales cycle. And that's impacting obviously our new logo revenue growth at this point in time. But we do expect that to pick up in Q3 and Q4.

Speaker 1

And Mark, when Jake was talking about hires, he's talking about annual hiring level. So 5,000 would be like a 3 year contract where we're pricing it and budgeting it on 5,000 hires per year going forward.

Speaker 4

Okay. And then are you getting any sense as far as feedback as to clients' receptivity to engage with RPO? Or are you getting a sense of those who are considering shifting to maybe folks who have not been in the space before as a measure of efficiency going forward?

Speaker 3

Mark, I would say yes, Mark, I'd say from a standpoint of that, we're seeing really no changes from the behaviors of 1st New Year clients that have decided to go up RPO versus existing clients and either expanding or contrasting. So it's not a notable change. What I would share with you is that RPO still is an avenue of cost savings and scalability to many of our partners and clients. We're seeing that in a lot of our base where we're actually expanding into other geographies, as I mentioned earlier, other remote geographies that they do not have the scale or flexibility to expand into those regions. So as far as the 1st year and or clients taking their business back in house, we're not seeing a major trend or shift than what we've seen in the past.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Speaker 4

And then I wanted to I wasn't bear with me. I was double checking on thinking about and maybe you could talk a little bit about tax rate. I guess, in 2Q, I think that was maybe a little higher than what or maybe there was something in there that maybe we're missing.

Speaker 1

Yes, Mark. Our tax rate is notoriously hard to predict because of our

Speaker 2

mix of business. And the best guidance

Speaker 1

I can give you is just to use a blend of statutory rates across the countries. We do business in the U. S. Is lower than Australia and we don't pay any tax in the U. S.

Speaker 1

So our tax rate in the U. S. Is 0. So it really ties into business mix. That's probably the best advice I can give you.

Speaker 1

And then our 10 Q is going to come out after the close today and there'll be some more disclosure in the Q. And if that doesn't answer any questions you have, I'd say give Matt Diamond, our CFO call. Okay. I'm sure it will.

Speaker 4

And then I guess one other thing. So I was sort of thinking about maybe thoughts around the share repurchase activity and thoughts there for the remainder of the year? I guess we're about what now halfway through the authorization somewhere in that ballpark? Yes,

Speaker 1

that's right, Mark. So we I think the biggest thing I would leave you with is that we think we're at the bottom and we're starting to recover. For example, this is the Q1 in a long time where we had quarter over quarter net revenue growth and we think that's going to continue. So we've thought our stock is cheap for some time and the window was finally open in Q2 and we found some willing sellers And so we're able to be a little more active in Q2 than we were in the past. And I would just say we have a soft goal of repurchasing 10% of our shares this year versus what it was on January 1.

Speaker 1

And it will depend on the window being open. It will depend on our ability to find some willing sellers where we can do a privately negotiated transaction. Those are the most efficient by the way, because buying in open market is we're subject to 10b18 rules and it's there's volume limitations and so how much the stock is trading has a big impact on how much we're able to buy back.

Speaker 4

Okay, excellent. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Good questions. Thanks, Mark.

Operator

That concludes today's question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to Jeff Eberwein for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Operator, should we hold it open for another minute in case somebody has a question?

Operator

Certainly.

Speaker 1

Just in case someone wants to get in the queue.

Operator

Sure.

Speaker 1

All right. Well, hearing none, I just want to say, thanks for joining us today. Thank you for your interest in Hudson Global. Feel free to contact us anytime using the contact information found in our press release or on our Investor Relations website. We look forward to next quarter's update call.

Speaker 1

Have a good day everybody.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

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Key Takeaways

  • During Q2 2024, Hudson Global reported $35.7 million in revenue (down 20% YoY) and an adjusted net loss of $0.4 million ($0.15 per share), compared to a $0.6 million profit ($0.18) in Q2 2023, with adjusted EPS of $0.04 versus $0.36 last year.
  • By region, Americas revenue fell 19% with $0.6 million adjusted EBITDA, Asia Pacific revenue dropped 19% delivering $0.8 million EBITDA, and EMEA saw a 24% revenue decline with $0.3 million adjusted EBITDA.
  • The company ended Q2 with $15.3 million in cash and used $4.3 million in operating cash flow, while days sales outstanding rose to 59 days as of June 30, 2024.
  • Hudson RPO expanded its global footprint through the acquisitions of STRIVR (UAE) and Executive Solutions, prioritized a land-and-expand strategy amid smaller deal sizes and longer sales cycles, and implemented workforce reductions to align with current market conditions.
  • Under its $5 million share repurchase program, Hudson repurchased over 150,000 shares for $2.5 million and aims to buy back 10% of its shares in 2024, viewing the stock as undervalued.
A.I. generated. May contain errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Hudson Global Q2 2024
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