Enghouse Systems Q2 2026 Earnings Report

Enghouse Systems EPS Results

• Actual EPS: C$0.30
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Enghouse Systems Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $114.28 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Enghouse Systems Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2026
• Date: 6/9/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 8:45AM ET

Enghouse Systems (TSE:ENGH) is a Canadian publicly traded company (TSX: ENGH) that provides mission-critical vertically focused enterprise software solutions. Our core technologies are used for contact centers, video communications, virtual healthcare, education, telecommunications, networks, IPTV, public safety and transit. The Company's two-pronged strategy to grow earnings focuses on both organic growth and acquisitions, which, to date, have been funded through net cash provided by operating activities as the Company has no external debt financing. The Company is organized around two business segments, the Interactive Management Group ("IMG") and the Asset Management Group ("AMG") due to their unique customer segments and technology offerings.

Enghouse Systems Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Negative Sentiment: Enghouse reported Q2 revenue of CAD 114.3 million, down about 8% year over year, as recurring revenue churn, lower software licenses, and softer professional services weighed on results.
• Neutral Sentiment: Recurring revenue was about CAD 79 million and represented roughly 69% of total revenue, which management said remains an important stabilizing component of the business despite some pressure.
• Positive Sentiment: Profitability remained solid, with adjusted EBITDA of CAD 26.5 million at a 23.2% margin, and net income rose to CAD 16.3 million from CAD 13.5 million a year ago.
• Positive Sentiment: Enghouse highlighted strong cash generation and balance sheet strength, ending the quarter with CAD 269.7 million in cash and short-term investments and no external debt.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management said AI is still difficult to monetize in its markets, so the focus is on internal productivity gains and practical customer use cases rather than a major near-term revenue driver. The company also remained cautious on M&A, preferring share repurchases as a better use of capital in the current environment.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Enghouse Q2 2026 Quarterly Results Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Stephen Sadler. Sadler, please go ahead.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Good morning, everybody. I'm here today with Rob Medved, Chief Financial Officer, and Todd May, VP Legal Counsel. Before we begin, I'll have Todd read our forward disclaimer.

[Todd May, VP and Legal Counsel at Enghouse]

Disclosure filings, such as its AIF, which could cause the company's actual results and experience to differ materially from anticipated results or other expectations. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking information, and the company has no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Thanks, Todd. Rob will now give an overview of the financial and business results.

[Rob Medved, CFO at Enghouse]

Thank you, Stephen. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I will begin with a high-level overview of our second quarter results fiscal 2026. Overall, the quarter reflected continued market caution and the variability that we have been managing across our business. Customer decision-making remains measured in some areas, with certain larger or discretionary projects delayed rather than lost. Despite these headwinds, our results demonstrate ongoing profitability, disciplined cost management, and strong cash generation. Revenue for the second quarter was CAD 114.3 million, compared to CAD 124.8 million in the same period last year. The year-over-year decline of about 8% was primarily driven by continued churn in parts of our recurring revenue base, particularly within the Interactive Management Group, including some expected runoff from prior acquisitions, along with lower software license and professional services revenue as customers paced purchases and projects started cautiously.

[Rob Medved, CFO at Enghouse]

The Asset Management Group delivered relatively stable performance, with acquisitions contributing incremental revenue that helped offset softness in certain areas and the timing of one-time product transactions. Sequentially, revenue was down around 4.8% from Q1, which was CAD 120.1 million, reflecting reduced software sales and continued pressure in recurring revenue streams. This sequential change also reflects the timing of deals and the inherent variability in customer purchasing patterns, as well as ongoing transitions in our business model. Recurring revenue, which includes our SaaS and maintenance streams, was approximately CAD 79 million in Q2, representing about 69% of total revenue. This is roughly in line with the prior year's level. Although slightly lower year-over-year, our recurring revenue remains a significant and stable part of our business, helping to underpin the predictability of our results.

[Rob Medved, CFO at Enghouse]

Maintaining and supporting the pace of recurring revenue continues to be a core focus as we navigate the current environment. From a profitability perspective, our bottom line remains solid despite lower revenues. Adjusted EBITDA was CAD 26.5 million, representing a 23.2% margin, marginally higher than the same period last year. Operating income was CAD 23.6 million and net income was CAD 16.3 million, or CAD 0.30 per diluted share, up from the CAD 13.5 million or CAD 0.24 per share in Q2 of last year. These profit results reflect our continued emphasis on cost discipline and operational efficiency across the organization. We have proactively aligned our cost structure with the current revenue trajectory, taking further cost actions, including targeted restructuring expenses in the quarter to manage expenses. Operating expenses were reduced by about 13.5% year-over-year, highlighting the progress of these efforts.

[Rob Medved, CFO at Enghouse]

Importantly, these cost alignment initiatives help mitigate the impact of the revenue decline on margins, and we expect to benefit further as they fully annualize over the coming quarters. We remain focused on maintaining healthy margins while preserving flexibility to support key investments in our products and customers. Cash generation remains a core strength for Enghouse. Net cash provided by operating activities, excluding working capital changes and income taxes paid, was CAD 28.7 million in Q2, an increase from CAD 25.5 million in the same period last year. We closed the quarter with a robust CAD 269.7 million in cash equivalents, and short-term investments, and we carry no external debt. During the quarter, we returned capital to shareholders by paying CAD 16.4 million in dividends and repurchasing CAD 2 million of our shares, reflecting our ongoing commitment to shareholder returns while balancing investments in growth.

[Rob Medved, CFO at Enghouse]

Our strong balance sheet and consistent cash flow continue to provide ample flexibility to support internal initiatives, consider acquisitions with our disciplined approach, and maintain our dividend and share buyback programs. Yesterday, the board of directors approved an eligible quarterly dividend of CAD 0.31 per common share, payable on August 28th, 2026, to shareholders of record on August 14th, 2026. Looking at our performance by business segment, results were mixed but continued to demonstrate the value of our diversified portfolio. In the Asset Management Group, revenue was CAD 51.4 million, a slight increase over the same quarter last year. This reflects steady core performance with acquisitions contributing to growth. Some variability in AMG results was due to the timing of a few larger one-time transactions, which underscores the inherent seasonality in elements of this segment.

[Rob Medved, CFO at Enghouse]

In the Interactive Management Group, revenue was CAD 62.8 million, lower than the same quarter last year and down from Q1, primarily due to declines in recurring revenue as we experienced churn in portions of the portfolio. Part of this was expected attrition from certain prior acquisitions we made in recent years, coupled with what we believe is a continued transition of customers towards cloud and SaaS models. Additionally, software license and professional services activity in the IMG segment were softer this quarter, reflecting ongoing customer caution in the evolving mix of our business. Importantly, we have adjusted costs in both segments to align with these revenue trends, and each group remains profitable and focused on serving its customer base. Turning briefly to technology and operations, we continue to see growing customer interest in AI-powered capabilities, particularly around solutions that can enhance efficiency, automation, and analytics in our products.

[Rob Medved, CFO at Enghouse]

In practice, many of the industries we serve tend to adopt new technologies in a measured use case-driven way. Our approach remains disciplined and focused on practical AI innovations that provide clear value within our software offerings rather than pursuing AI as an isolated initiative. Internally, we are also leveraging AI selectively to improve productivity and reduce costs in functions like development and operations, further supporting our efficiency initiatives. In summary, the second quarter demonstrated Enghouse's ability to deliver solid financial results in a dynamic market environment. Revenue declined as expected, given market conditions and known churn factors, but profitability remains strong, supported by proactive cost management. Our high recurring revenue base continues to be a stabilizing factor for our performance, and our balance sheet and cash flow provide a foundation for resilience and strategic flexibility.

[Rob Medved, CFO at Enghouse]

We are operating with discipline in cost and capital allocation, focusing on margins, cash generation, and delivering value to our customers and shareholders. The fundamentals of our business remain sound, and we are well-positioned to navigate the current environment while pursuing opportunities for long-term growth in a prudent manner. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Stephen for his remarks.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Thanks, Rob. As noted on our last call, the markets in which we operate continue to be challenging. With respect to AI, although there's a lot of interest and promotion by major AI players, it continues to be difficult to monetize enterprise AI investment in our markets. We continue to explore and use AI's leading models for internal productivity and building practical solutions which provide a return on our investment. Monetizing AI with customers, like the many items and solutions noted on our last quarterly call, we continue to improve to benefit ourselves internally and our customers. With respect to capital deployment, we continue to see a lot of opportunities in the private and public markets in our business sectors. It's a little unusual as we are finding private market valuations are higher than the public market valuations.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

We did not complete any acquisitions in the quarter other than to continue to purchase Enghouse shares using our internally generated funds under the TSX-defined normal course issuer bid. We continue to believe the purchase of our own shares is a good use of our funds and better value than many of our acquisition opportunities that we're seeing, especially in the private markets. I would now like to open the call for questions.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw a question, please press star then the number two. Again, that will be star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll just pause for a moment to compile the Q&A roster. First question comes from Erin Kyle from CIBC. Please go ahead.

[Erin Kyle, Analyst at CIBC]

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to just dig into the hosted and maintenance revenue in the quarter. It's down 8% year-over-year this quarter. The decline is larger than what we've been expecting, and it's an acceleration from Q1. Maybe can you dig into what's driving that? Is the pace of churn accelerating here? Is there anything one-time in the Q2 numbers that we should be aware of? Just how do we think about the pace of revenue decline in the recurring revenue base at this point?

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Yeah, the decline's a little larger than what we would have thought, but we're still hitting decline for some of the acquisitions. It takes time for people to move off. We've a pretty sticky solution, and we keep mentioning the Lifesize, which we said before. There's still some decline there. There's also decline generally in the marketplace. We're not in the large language model or the big accounts. We're generally in that medium-sized accounts or small business accounts, and they're struggling more in this market. I don't think it's well promoted in the marketplace. We talked about is Canada or the world even in a recession? A lot of people are holding back a little bit because there's a lot of uncertainties in many areas, including with the wars going on, et cetera.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

It's not affecting us in the sense of us as a company, but it does affect our customers. Yeah, it's down a little more than we thought. That's something we have to work on to improve.

[Erin Kyle, Analyst at CIBC]

Okay. Maybe just a follow-up for that, Steve. What do you think needs to happen then for that organic growth to re-accelerate for your customer base here? Do you expect the pace of decline to continue at this rate at this point in the current environment? What do you need to see to see that come back?

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

It's a little baffling to me that we aren't doing better, because a lot of our major competitors are having financial difficulties. In the market, that means they can't afford to lose any revenue, so they're cutting their pricing, trying to keep their revenue up. When I mean financial difficulty, I'm talking went into receivership, And I'm talking CAD 1 billion, especially in the IMG area. We do have that dynamic in the marketplace where all the deals we do are tougher to do because they're trying to survive. We're not in that position, again, it will only go so far in looking at that. Some of the maintenance revenue we talked about is some of our customers are having financial difficulties as well in that small business market. Everyone talks about the large businesses. They all talk.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

The ETFs example, a lot of people are investing there. They're all generally large companies. In that medium and small business area, it's much tougher right now, and we're seeing some of that, especially in Europe, but also in the United States.

[Erin Kyle, Analyst at CIBC]

Okay, that's helpful. Maybe last one from me, just on the profitability side. The gross margins contracted year-over-year. We're also below what we had been expecting in the quarter. I expect that's due to the churn in hosted maintenance and some of the factors you called out on professional services as well. How should we think about gross margins going forward? Is 61% a new run rate here? Can you get back to the 63% from last quarter? How should we think about that?

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

It's another area that we'd like to get back to where we were, which might even be higher than 63%. The market is such, remember what I just said about our competitors. All the big ones are facing pretty serious financial problems right now. I would say it's a general market problem. It's not because of AI, although we could say it is, but it isn't. It's generally because the market's a little bit more in a recession. It's sort of hidden by the Big Magnificent Six +1, the one being Nvidia, who supply chips to the Magnificent Six, who are, again, raising prices and making it more difficult, especially in a cloud or SaaS model, to make money. There's good news and bad news. The good news is that it makes the environment should be better for acquisitions.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

The bad news is it seems investors don't think contact centers are going to be around, for example, in five years. We disagree, but it makes it difficult to deploy money in that area when investors won't give any credit for doing so. Again, that impacts some of the acquisitions, which are generally at all-time lows right now. What do you do? Especially when it's in the public markets and they're bigger. Do you bet the farm on that when your investors, shareholders, that's why we do this for all our stakeholders, one of which is shareholders? Do we do something in that area when they're really telling you don't? We're watching it closely. We have the cash to do things. Our cash is accumulating, so it's a little easier to do larger deals without getting any financing, including bank financing.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

It is a tricky market right now, and we're just trying to sort through it and make sure that we stay resilient. I would just say to everyone, even when you're looking at the platforms, I've watched more the cash flow than the EBITDA. Be careful, because as you capitalize things, it doesn't go into EBITDA. We're very much into cash flow. It's a little tougher right now, but it's okay. We're one of the best in our industry, which is good, in a bad industry, which is bad.

[Erin Kyle, Analyst at CIBC]

Thanks, Stephen. I'll pass the line.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Kevin McVeigh from UBS Financial. Please go ahead.

[Kevin McVeigh, Managing Director at UBS Financial]

Thank you so much. I wonder, one of your comments was that you think some of the revenue's been delayed as opposed to lost. Can you help understand what gives you that level of confidence?

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Kevin, I'm not sure I said it's delayed or lost. I think Rob mentioned that. I'm not sure that is the case. We don't know if that's true. What we're basically looking at is it's a tough market. What will change that is some of those larger players. I'm talking billion-dollar. If you go to contact center customers that are having financial difficulty, that only lasts so long until they get even worse serious financial difficulty, which would help us. We're one of the few that have good cash flow. Make money and have money and no debt. From that side, I think that's an advantage, but it's relatively new. I would say 2026. Again, it's something we have to sort through. We don't have all the answers.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

We just watch everything very carefully and can react very carefully or quickly when we see what's happening in the market. Right now, it's a tough market with, again, competition many times our size, especially in IMT, are having difficulty. In AMG, which is our network side, it's pretty steady. It's okay, but even that's a little slower because 4G-5G, the uptake hasn't been as good by network companies. You can look at Telus in Canada or you can look at BCE, you can see their stocks are down. They slowed a little bit their purchasing as well because everyone's trying to get through these uncertain times and aren't sure where it's heading.

[Kevin McVeigh, Managing Director at UBS Financial]

It's helpful.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

That's our view.

[Kevin McVeigh, Managing Director at UBS Financial]

Yeah. No, understood. That was actually my next question. With some of the difficulty of the larger players, do you need to see the bankruptcy before you start to see share shift, or do clients, are they more proactive to the extent some of the competition is, there's real solvency fears? I guess, I wonder why you're not picking up more share already.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

That's what I ask my team every day. Why aren't we picking up more share in some of these areas? I think it takes time to move to a new area. I also think some of the problem is not just our competitors having financial difficulties. In the small business market, customers and our clients are having financial difficulty, i.e., some of them are going out of business. I know the markets look great and they're all up, it isn't the market we're in. We're in that middle and lower-end market. They're struggling and trying to survive through this period right now. The high-end, especially the platform guys, who are doing very well, they're doing very well charging more to the middle guys and the big guys.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

If you look at the industry, and I'm sure the analysts do that, there's a lot of larger companies, and especially ones who are doing AI, where they haven't monetized it's a cost with no revenue. There's a lot of things going on right now in the marketplace, we're trying to manage all that. Right now it's more let's see where it goes before we start taking a position one way or another. It takes some time, but we've done that in the past. We did in 2008. We've done it in the past. We think that's the right thing to do. Again, if you go with some of our competitors in the contact center space, even in the network space or the AMG space, as we call it's tougher out there than the public markets are telling you.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

The public markets, in some ways, are down. The privates are much higher because they don't have to sell today. Investors are moving to the big platform. They're all spending on maybe saving their money for the big IPOs that are coming up. The funds aren't really going into that mid-market sector, and they're all basically looking at where is it going from here. I think the investors are trying to sort it out as well right now.

[Kevin McVeigh, Managing Director at UBS Financial]

A lot of sense. My last question, I'll get back in the queue. Are you seeing clients' behavior change at all as they start to get their bills, if you would, right, in terms of as token costs are really starting to rise? Are they starting to recalibrate thoughts as to what AI is really going to mean from an adoption perspective internally, or is it still too early?

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

I think it's probably too early. What we see generally is the tokens, they're buying a lot of them. A lot are spending money, the executive who read the press are saying, "Hey, we got to get more in this area." The staff doing the work are saying, "There's no payback." They're having a difficulty getting a payback on it right now. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing it because you've got to be in the area. The platform guys are doing well because they make their money, whether there's a payback or not, because they're just processing on their servers, etc. They're all spending a lot of money. We watch cash flow. It would be a little scary if some of the cash that's going out from some of those, it better work or they could have problems.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

I don't know how much more they're going to get from the mid-markets, maybe the big guys will. All those ETFs that I'm talking about in the public markets, maybe they'll spend enough that will make all this work. The concern I would have going forward is AI going to be more expensive for everybody when it all ends up because somehow they got to get a return on all the data centers that they're spending money on today. I don't know the reaction to that, but I know the Magnificent Six, and I'll say plus Nvidia, I know they're doing pretty well because they're charging more on the captive audience like us for some part of our business where we use their services. It is an interesting dynamic right now. We got to make sure we keep our cash flow. I would say watch cash flow.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

It's more important now than ever. Accounting can fool you sometimes. Remember EBITDA, you don't count the DA. Okay? You don't count the capital. You got to subtract it off. I'm sure you all know that. We're very careful. We don't know where all this is heading. We've seen it before. At least I've seen it before, because I'm old. That's a reason why I can do that. In 2008, It can blow up, you have to be in the game, because it could also be very good. We set up two small groups to do AI, and a lot of our people are trained on it, we're pretty well-positioned on that.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Right now, the monetization isn't really coming from selling solutions, but there is some for cost reduction, making people more efficient in using that technology. Like happens with every technology over the last 50 years, you get some efficiencies by using it. We certainly are using it, we're certainly out there looking to see if we see that application that can be a real winner for us. We haven't seen it yet, and that's especially true as some of our contact centers, the bigger ones, they laid off staff because of AI. They're hiring them back because there's also a people aspect of, do you want to talk to a machine? We're trying to figure out where all that goes, but you've got to stay in all the games, because we're not at the bleeding edge, but we like to be in the game.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

We're waiting, we've got the resources to handle it. A lot of our competition, especially in contact center, are struggling, and no one's giving them money. That's the good and bad news. Okay? They're not getting money, so if they don't start making money, and they'll have an issue, and the only way they're going to make money is raise prices because their costs aren't changing that much, especially if they're using one of the major hyperscaler platforms.

[Kevin McVeigh, Managing Director at UBS Financial]

It's helpful.

[Operator]

Next question comes from David Kwan from TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

[David Kwan, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Hi, good morning. I was wondering, just trying to dig into the churn and the source of that. How much of that is coming from customers renewing for lower ACV for whatever reason? I know you've talked about financial challenges of the SMB customers. How that compares versus potentially no competitive losses or maybe the customers developing their solutions in-house using gen AI tools like Claude, Codex, Perplexity.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

We don't see many in our space. Remember, smaller customers. We don't have the big contact centers. We have that middle to smaller end. We don't see many of them developing in-house solutions that would compete with what we do or what our competitors do. You know the competitors. Saw Mitel. They were doing well. They hit trouble. There's a lot of that in the industry, especially in that smaller area. The big guys tend to do okay. Although we have some large customers, it's really not our market. We do have large ones like BT Group, for example, that they use our contact center system to sell to their customer base. That helps. Their customers aren't necessarily big. They're people that use their, the telco, which might be smaller. They are using it generally for their customers, whether that works.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Right now, it's a confusing, unsettled market. That's making it tough for M&A and also the capital market activity in general. Again, we have good cash. We have good cash flow. We like it that way, and we got to make sure we deploy it effectively for our shareholders.

[David Kwan, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Are you seeing when customer contracts come up for renewal, are they renewing whether it's less for seat-based pricing or just lower ACVs because maybe they see lower cost to develop these solutions. They expect that value to be passed along to them?

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

I think customers are always looking for the best deal. We have what they call upsells and downsells. We think generally the upsells beat the downsells. That's not the problem. It's the ones that hit trouble and can't pay. Okay? That's in the industry in general. I think the general economy is not quite as good as it's made out to be. The larger big players, which dominate the index, et cetera, are doing fine. In the market we're in, the mid-market, it's tougher. I'll give you an example. One of our competitors, and I'll let the analysts go through and tell you which ones. One of our competitors won't sell any contact centers below 250 anymore. They're saying, "Nope, I'm not doing the small end." Some of our competitors are saying, "We aren't going to do anything on-prem.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

It's got to be in the cloud." In particular, a supplier doing that, they're doing that because they think investors, you guys on the phone probably, will pay more for in the cloud. You have been doing that, but now that's coming up as a bit of a challenge with AI as well. What they're doing is saying, "We're not doing on-prem." We have a prem base. We will do both, and we will sell on-prem, or we will sell in the cloud if it makes sense. We're giving our customers some options that might be good, but it might cause confusion to some degree as well. We're trying to get through that whole dynamic in this marketplace.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

I'm talking a lot about contact center because it's the majority of our revenue. But it's not as big as it used to be because a lot of the decline is there, and our other business, our Transportation business and our Networks business are doing fine. They're not seeing the same issues because they're bigger customers. If you're a network, you're doing the telcos. It's 4G-5G is sort of the issue there, where they spend their money because they spent a lot going to 4G-5G, and it may not have worked out like they thought. Transportation, which was a problem a year ago, 18 months ago, it's profitable now and growing. We had two large contracts that are being rolled out, especially in the Nordics. That part's okay. I emphasize the two areas that are tough.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Video, still an issue as people are mandated back to the office, which actually does take down video revenue. Not as much for us anymore because ours is pretty steady, and we're in the healthcare and a little more stickier video than some of the others. The contact center, which I'm just going to give my view, which, let's say three, four months ago, contact centers are going to be eliminated. Maybe a lot of people think that's still the case. If you'll notice, there's been a pivot because it hasn't been happening. What the pivot is to is that all software is going to be eliminated. That you won't need to have programmers anywhere and lots of layoffs in that area. I'm not sure the layoffs are because of AI or for what I just said.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

I think they just had to get lower staff because they hired too many during the pandemic, and they're now rightsizing what they have to do. There's a term they call AI washing. I think you see some of that in the marketplace. I'll say what I said last time. If you're in one of those situations and a customer or a software person is saying, "We're eliminating because we're using more AI," ask them, "What AI? What AI system did you put in place that allows you to reduce that many staff?" You might get an interesting answer. We keep asking people. We don't get a good answer. They're saying, "Well, it's coming." You're letting people go now. If it isn't here now, it isn't because of AI. It might be because of the hope of AI. That could be true.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

You've got to keep on top of it. It does help software programmers program faster. You still got to look around to how do you keep it up? How do you change it? In the future, if someone changes their platform, you've got to rewrite it again. A lot of that is a little easier if you know how it was written in the first place. With AI, you really don't. You put it in and a machine writes it for you, but you still have to keep that software up. We're seeing a lot of that. We're seeing, especially for new companies doing new software, it helps. We're certainly using it. We're certainly trained our staff and know how to do it.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

There's a lot of other, I would call small issues for investors, big issues for companies that still haven't been resolved, including what about cyber? If cyber gets into that system somehow, what are you going to do? How are you going to solve that problem as you put it through all your systems? There's a lot of things going on. We certainly keep up on them. We're certainly aware of them. We don't have a strong direction right now in that regard. We're just trying to wait and see what happens, and we're happy to be slightly behind the leading or bleeding edge. You can catch up pretty quickly once you know what you're trying to do. Because the one thing that is true, things can be developed faster. That's what we're trying to do. It might be a different strategy.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Does it impact our revenue to some degree? A little bit, but there's a lot of factors that go in that. I can't blame AI for our revenue decline. It's a bit on execution on our part. We're just not executing well enough in some areas. By the way, I'm not sure you know this, we've hired a new head business leader for our IMG side, which is our contact center side. We've also just hired a new person to run our transportation side where we didn't have someone before because it's in with our networks group, but I wanted to spend a little more time now that we've got it back to profitability. We think we can grow a little bit in that area as well. Time will tell. I always say that, and I get disappointed. We'll have to see how it goes.

[David Kwan, Analyst at TD Cowen]

I appreciate the comments. Thanks, Steve. Just a couple more questions. On M&A, just given, I guess, the negative investor sentiment, particularly as it relates to the contact center market, are you predominantly focused on AMG opportunities?

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Right now, we're focused on everything, okay? IMG and AMG. When it comes to closing IMG, then we get really more focused. The opportunities come. A lot of them think they're still worth more than they are, especially in the private marketplace. The publics, they're pretty attractive, but they're big. Now you're betting the shop that AI won't disrupt it totally in 5-10 years. I'm not there yet. I worry about the risk if because if AI works, then I shouldn't be doing a big deal in that area. We're watching it. We don't see others really doing it.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

We have seen a couple of larger companies in that sector in the U.S., and they basically hit trouble and going out of business, and the people who buy them have They call it, there's a name for it, but they've got very high revenue multiples, and they're using stock to put them together. That could end up being a big problem, but it might work. Again, we're just watching everything. We're a little bit staying the course right now, but watching everything. It doesn't mean staying the course that we're not watching what's happening out there, because we do have to improve what we're doing.

[David Kwan, Analyst at TD Cowen]

How big of a deal would you be willing to take on at this point?

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

In terms of size?

[David Kwan, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Yeah, in terms of size.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

I would say, we can do a fairly large deal, and are looking at doing such, but I don't want the risk. I'm not going to bet 20 years of hard work and making what we have, good cash flow and good cash, and betting it on something that shareholders do not appreciate today. They might in the future, but right now they don't. We've got to make sure we pick the right ones. Generally, if you pick bigger, like you're asking, you're taking on that big risk. I think that's too tough to do. I do, and I've had recent conversations with our shareholders, both at CIBC and some at TD. Generally, they're very nervous. If I ask them, "Should I do something in contact center? I got a good deal at a good price." They would say no, and they're our shareholders.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

You've got to listen to your shareholders. We're not saying we won't do one, but we're very cautious, and I don't want to do a big one. Therefore, how big a one we can do, the banks want to lend us money. Money's not a problem. We got over a nearly CAD 270 million cash and no debt. We have the capability of doing something bigger. The key is, it isn't a matter of being cheap, or it's where's all this going, and we need a little more time to see that, I think, before we take It's the risk's the problem, not the value.

[David Kwan, Analyst at TD Cowen]

That's great. I just have one last question on cap allocation. Just given where the balance sheet is, free cash flow generation, and where the shares are trading, why not be more aggressive with the buyback, including maybe doing your SIB?

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

We are. We're doing what they call normal course issuer bid. I'm sure you know what that is, where you're limited to a certain number of shares, but we're also have blackout periods. For example, while we're going through the whole quarter, we could not buy any shares. As of tomorrow, we can and we probably will. We are still buying what they allow under the normal course issuer bid. We don't find it's necessary. Why? Not because of any other reason than it's a better buy than some of the opportunities we're seeing out there. I.e., when I say better buy, it's value and risk. We know where we're at. We've already gotten punished because our revenue hasn't grown. They get that. We're working on how to fix that, but our risk is out of the thing. Look at our cash as part of our value.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

We're in pretty good shape in a market that really likes cash. A lot of people talk to us because do they love our systems? No, they love our cash, and they love our cash flow. We've been talking about that. They've been talking about spending billions on data centers and all these things instead. I think that concern could come up if one of those blow up. Right now, we've always been a look at cash, and we're trying to match our cost to revenue and continue to be resilient and generate cash so that when the right time comes, we can deploy that cash in a prudent manner. It takes time.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

I would hope that we could have done more things, especially in the network side, because that one's pretty stable and the customers are all big, so they'll be good. Okay? They're not little. Network telcos aren't little. They're all big. In the IMG side, there's more middle and small size for us, so I got to be more careful there. If things get worse and blow up and you hit a big recession, some of those guys won't make it. Okay? We've got to make sure that we stand strong. A lot of our competitors, again, you can do the analysis. You can find out who they are. They're having difficulty right now and have had, maybe it started earlier, but certainly you see it now. Difficulty to the point where they've hit receivership in some cases.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Some of them are smaller ones we bought that way. The big ones are having some issues that way, too. They're changing around. One of the biggest ones is saying, "We want to do all cloud, not on-prem." Well, that's good for us. The questions earlier, I'm baffled by why am I not selling more than on-prem? They're going out. I'm almost the last man standing. I can do on-prem or in the cloud, so I can do both. Why am I not doing better if people are going out of that business? They have some good customers, and some of the regulated industries won't go in the public cloud for sure. They might do a private cloud, but they also understand that being on-prem and having your own system is actually less expensive over time. The Magnificent Seven aren't magnificent.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

The Magnificent Seven don't have that capability because they're giving away their services at a low price. They have you pretty captive, you got to be careful when they come up with increases, what they want to do, tie you into longer contracts. Again, we've got to watch that. That's the rule of the game, and we want to do what our customers want and need. Both on-prem or in the cloud, be it a local contact center that they do, or be it using one of the public suppliers. They do well.

[David Kwan, Analyst at TD Cowen]

They do well.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Yeah, they do well because they are in a good spot. They got people tied in. What's not so good is in our marketplace we're in, a lot of customers that use that are struggling, and that hurts us. We don't want to be in that category. We want to make sure we do okay. We're trying our best to do that.

[David Kwan, Analyst at TD Cowen]

Appreciate the color. Thanks, Steve.

[Operator]

There are no further questions. Presenters, please continue.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

Well, thank you everybody for attending the call and your continued support. Enghouse has a good positive cash flow and overall a strong debt-free financial position. We're careful in how we're deploying our money. We want to make sure we have a long, good future in a business that's changing, or people believe it will change over the next 5-10 years. We'll just have to see. It never actually works out quite. The hype generally exceeds the results. I have a phrase I use, I'll throw it out. AI, sometimes RI is better, which is real intelligence. We've got to watch it because it isn't just finding things that everyone puts out there and adding them up, saying, "That's what you should do for the future." Sometimes the future's a little different than the past. We're strong. We want to keep strong for our shareholders.

[Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse]

We do have to improve, and we're looking at ways to do that, because what we're doing now isn't good enough, but we don't want to end up making it worse. We want to make sure we take things in the right direction.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participation. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Analysts

• David Kwan, Analyst at TD Cowen
• Erin Kyle, Analyst at CIBC
• Kevin McVeigh, Managing Director at UBS Financial
• Rob Medved, CFO at Enghouse
• Stephen Sadler, Chairman and CEO at Enghouse
• Todd May, VP and Legal Counsel at Enghouse