Absolute Software Corp (ABST) 2014 Q4 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen thank you for standing by. Welcome to Absolute Software Corporation's fourth-quarter and fiscal 2014 yearend conference call.

  • (Operator Instructions).

  • Before beginning its formal remarks, Absolute would like to remind listeners that certain portions of today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements that reflect current views with respect to future events. Any such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements. For more information on the Company's risks and uncertainties relating to these forward-looking statements please refer to the section of its annual and quarterly MDNA.

  • (Operator Instructions).

  • I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded today, Monday, August 18 at 5 PM Eastern time. I would like to turn the call over now to Mr. Geoff Haydon, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, Sir.

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • Thank you, operator, and good afternoon everyone. Welcome to our Q4 and fiscal 2014 yearend conference call. Joining me on the call today is Errol Olsen, our Chief Financial Officer.

  • I'll begin today's call with a high-level recap of the quarter as well as some of the key findings and highlights from my first month and a half on the job. After that I will pass the mic over to Errol who will take a more detailed look out our financials. We will conclude with Q&A.

  • In summary, our financial performance for the fourth quarter was strong with $30.7 million in headline sales contract results. These are up 18% from Q4 of last year.

  • These overall record results are being driven by above-average growth in several key areas of strategic focus. This includes our core commercial business both in North America and internationally. This also includes vertical markets like corporate and healthcare where there is a high-level of interest in our data security capabilities.

  • I believe this cycle of strong growth will continue for Absolute as we continue to deliver market relevant solutions that address some of the most important challenges faced by corporate IT today, securing information and enabling mobility. I am pleased to announce that in recognition of our strong current financial position and as a reflection of their confidence in Absolute's ability to continue to generate strong cash flow, the Board of Directors has resolved to increase our quarterly dividend going forward from $0.06 to $0.07 per common share. I'd like to conclude my comments on Q4 by saying thank you to the Absolute employees and our valued partners around the world for their professionalism, their hard work, the results and for the total dedication to the success of our customers.

  • I would like to shift gears now. I'm going to talk about my decision to join Absolute, the opportunity I see and my strategic priorities for this new fiscal year.

  • My decision to join Absolute was largely informed by almost 20 years of leadership experience at EMC and RSA. During this time I observed fundamental shifts occurring around the way that enterprises and individuals are thinking about, investing in, deploying and interacting with information technology.

  • These shifts are secular, not cyclical. They are being driven largely by a transition from the client/server computing era to a world defined by mobility. This is creating a proliferation of mobile endpoints that are always connected and storing a growing volume of increasingly valuable information.

  • It is in this nexus of mobility and security that some of the most innovative, interesting and lucrative market opportunities are developing. It is also in this nexus that Absolute has the greatest strength both from a technology and a go-to-market perspective. This was very compelling to me.

  • I was also impressed with what I discovered about Absolute's current business. Revenues are growing and the Company is profitable. The business is also driving strong free cash flow results resulting in a large and growing overall cash position.

  • I also discovered a company characterized by unique innovative technology, talented and passionate employees, strategic partnerships with some of the strongest brands in information technology, a diverse portfolio of very loyal customers and a Board with an ambitious vision for the future. It represented, in my view, an outstanding platform for growth.

  • As impressive as anything I discovered about Absolute was its patented persistence technology. This technology is embedded into the firmware of hundreds of millions of devices by the largest computing platform manufacturers. This is enabling Absolute to deliver security and management functionality that no other company in the world can offer.

  • It was equally interesting to discover that out of these hundreds of millions of devices a very small percentage have been activated and monetized. The opportunity to expand the activation base for Computrace stands on its own as a compelling growth opportunity.

  • This installed base will also provide a strong platform for the cross-selling of increasingly integrated adjacent technologies. I believe Absolute is well-positioned to play a very important role in not just participating but enabling the next generation of information technology growth. I couldn't be more optimistic about our prospects.

  • I'm now going to talk about some of my strategic priorities for 2015. I'll start with our products.

  • In 2015 we are going to focus on monetizing our current product portfolio. Our first order of business will be to strengthen the market position for Computrace. This will involve expanding the number of mobile devices and platforms the Absolute persistence technology is embedded in and increasing the activation rates within this device population.

  • Another primary growth priority will be to leverage Computrace technology and our customer base as a platform for up-selling and cross-selling other adjacent solutions including Absolute Manage and Absolute Service. This will necessitate a continued focus on technology integration and a common user interface.

  • One of the use cases for Absolute technology that featured very prominently in 2014 was the need to protect information on endpoint devices. This was reflected in the performance of both the healthcare and corporate segments and the sales of Computrace data protection in these segments.

  • Mobile device deployments represent a substantial attack surface for the broad community. These devices, as mentioned earlier, contain increasing volumes of valuable information.

  • They also contain credential content such as passwords, certificates and encryption keys that make them an attractive vector in a broader attack on enterprise applications. Given the substantial reputational, revenue and regulatory consequences of a data breach we expect this use case to continue to grow both in terms of revenue and strategic importance.

  • Product market focus represents another primary 2015 strategic priority. One of my early observations is that Absolute has a tremendously diverse product market presence relative to its revenue base.

  • This reflects a substantial variety of technology and service offerings being sold into a broad portfolio of geographic, vertical and horizontal markets. Outside of Computrace adoption in the US education market critical mass hasn't been realized in any of these.

  • In 2015 we will concentrate our investments in a more targeted set of product markets prioritized by return on investment. This exercise will involve some geographic rationalization.

  • This will also involve a more intensive focus on enterprise accounts within vertical market such as healthcare, financial services and aerospace and defense. These segments are highly regulated and require mobility and information security to coexist. Finally, we will continue to build on our tremendous strength within the education sector where significant growth opportunities continue to exist both within North America and internationally.

  • Another focus area this year will be brand awareness. The Absolute brand's name is very well respected. It is not particularly well known, however.

  • This is a consequence of our marketing spend being spread across a broad variety of technology assets, product brand names and market segments. The result of this is that we have been unable to achieve strong brand recognition in any key markets outside of US education.

  • As we narrow our market segment focus we will concentrate our marketing investment accordingly. This will allow us to elevate awareness and recognition within our target segments. The objective here is to enable our sales organization and channel partners to spend less time on educating the markets and more time on identifying, developing and closing opportunities.

  • Elevating sales productivity will be another 2015 priority. We will not be making any substantial additions to our field sales organization this year.

  • We will focus instead on executing more effectively around three critical sales activities, optimizing our substantial new will base, maximizing the annual contract value per existing customers through expanded deployments and acquiring new customers. This new customer acquisition activity will centralize on, once again, our targeted customer segments.

  • Leveraging our go-to-market partnerships will also feature prominently in the growth of our business. We will continue to work closely with current and prospective OEM partners to increase the number of devices that embed Absolute persistence.

  • We will also look to more productively leverage OEM sales channels and programs to impact new business development. Finally, we will continue to develop and grow VAR partnerships in the device and information security sectors as important and incremental roads to market.

  • It has been an eventful first seven weeks. The more I learn about Absolute the more excited I am about the opportunity it represents. I am looking forward to making significant progress in 2015 on Absolute's journey to becoming a global IT security leader.

  • With that I like to turn the call over to Errol to discuss our financial results in more detail. Errol?

  • Errol Olsen - CFO

  • Thanks, Geoff. Good afternoon, everyone.

  • As Geoff mentioned, we finished the year with a very strong Q4. Total sales contracts were $30.7 million, up 18% from Q4 of last year. For the full fiscal year total sales contracts were $97.3 million, up 10% from the prior year.

  • Commercial sales contracts in Q4 were up 20% over Q4 of last year and were up 12% in fiscal 2014 compared to fiscal 2013. The strength in Q4 was driven by exceptionally strong growth in the combined corporate and healthcare segment which was up 36% year-over-year in the quarter while the education and government combined segments were up 11% year-over-year.

  • Much of this growth came from North America where our commercial sales in the quarter were up 21% year-over-year while international commercial sales contracts were up 8%. For the full fiscal year North American commercial sales contracts were up 10% year-over-year while international commercial sales contracts were up 23%. International sales represented 10% of total sales contracts for the quarter and 14% for the fiscal year. While the growth rate of our international business slowed in the back half of fiscal 2014, our pipeline remains strong and we remain excited by the opportunities in this business.

  • Existing customer sales in Q4 were higher than average at just over 80% of our commercial sales compared to an average for the year of 75% to 80%. The higher proportion of existing customer sales in the quarter reflected increased expansion, cross-sell and up-sell activity during the quarter as well as seasonally strong buyings from our existing education customers.

  • In particular we are seeing increased cross-selling of our Absolute Manage product line. And in fact approximately 40% of our current Absolute Manage customers are also Computrace customers.

  • From a product perspective our device management and data security product category saw a 35% year-over-year increase in the fourth quarter and a 15% increase for the year. The increase in the quarter was driven by exceptionally strong sales of our Computrace data protection product as well as the previously mentioned increased cross-selling of our Absolute Manage and Service product.

  • Our Computrace theft management offering also continued to generate growth with a 13% year-over-year increase in Q4 and 11% for the full year. It's important to note that close to 50% of the sales of this product are to non-education verticals, as the investigative capabilities from our flagship product are increasingly valued by corporate, healthcare and government customers. Having said this, and as Geoff pointed out, the education market still represents significant growth potential for Absolute both within North America as well as internationally.

  • Now let's take a quick look at our cash from operations. Cash from operating activities was $1.9 million in Q4 compared to $3.2 million in Q4 of last year.

  • For the full year cash from operating activities was $15.5 million compared to $17.5 million in fiscal 2013. However, after excluding the payment of post-retirement benefits, cash from operating activities for Q4 was $2.4 million and flat with the prior year at $17.3 million for the year.

  • Adjusted operating expenses, which include cost of sales and operating expenses but exclude non-cash charges for depreciation, amortization, stock-based compensation as well as post-retirement benefits, represented 62% of sales contracts in Q4 down from 72% in Q4 of last year. And for the full year they represented 77% of sales contracts down from 81% in fiscal 2013. This reflects our ongoing efforts to unlock productivity within the business. Going forward we expect to make modest investments in our operating structure while continuing to focus on productivity improvements.

  • Our Q4 adjusted EBITDA increased 34% to $4.3 million compared to $3.2 million in Q4 of last year. For the full year adjusted EBITDA increased 39% to $16.3 million compared to $11.7 million in the prior year.

  • We ended fiscal 2014 with cash and investments of $73.6 million compared to $62.9 million at June 30, 2013. Our cash and investment position improved largely due to cash generated from the operations of the business.

  • The primary non-operational use of cash during the quarter was for our dividends. For fiscal 2014 in total we paid $9.3 million in dividends.

  • As Geoff mentioned, our Board of Directors has resolved to increase our quarterly dividend from $0.06 to $0.07 per share commencing with our next dividend in the second quarter of fiscal 2015. We also recently renewed all normal course issuer bid, which gives us the option to acquire up to 10% of our public float over the period of a year.

  • In closing, we remain confident in our strategy, excited by the market opportunity and energized with Geoff now a part of the team. Our abilities to expand into the corporate and healthcare verticals, internationally and through cross-selling our Manage and Service products have all been proven and the market opportunity continues to grow. We are confident that we have the right strategy, product portfolio and team for success.

  • This concludes our prepared remarks for today. Operator, please open up the call for questions.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions). Thanos Moschopoulos, BMO Capital Markets.

  • Thanos Moschopoulos - Analyst

  • Hi. Good afternoon and Geoff, congratulations on your role in joining the Company.

  • I realize that you are still early in the process of formulating your strategy but maybe you can provide some clarity in terms of how we should think about OpEx in the near term. I guess from Errol's commentary, should our takeaway be that there shouldn't be any significant changes in that regard?

  • Errol Olsen - CFO

  • I'll take the first crack at that one. So we are not expecting significant investments during the year. From a headcount perspective we are expecting headcount will go up over the course of the year by about 10%.

  • And I think that overall are OpEx will likely go up in course with that, parallel to that headcount increase. But the areas where we are investing, as Geoff said, we are not expecting significant investments in our sales force, per se. Where we are expecting to invest is really in three areas.

  • One is in product management, the second is in product branding and the third is just bolstering our resources to support our channel sales effort. So it's really just in those three areas of the business.

  • Thanos Moschopoulos - Analyst

  • Great. And Geoff, I think you sort of alluded to this in your prepared remarks but as you look across the opportunity sets for Absolute, any specific areas of low-hanging fruit you would call out?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • Well, we are identifying a number of them. We are early on in this process of really understanding where the concentration of opportunity exists by market segment. But there are some great opportunities geographically that we need to concentrate the effort and investment in here in North America and internationally.

  • In terms of vertical markets I highlighted some of the verticals that at this early stage, once again in this analysis have emerged, as we believe high return on investment targets, education being the most obvious as an existing business strength. But in terms of verticals healthcare, obviously, financial services, aerospace and defense, oil and gas.

  • And in horizontals, we believe there is a concentration of opportunity at the enterprise end of the spectrum as opposed to the F&B end of the spectrum. So those are some of the market segments that we are really starting to synthesize, Thanos.

  • Thanos Moschopoulos - Analyst

  • Great. Maybe one more for Errol. Any large deals of note in the quarter, or nothing below -- nothing above seven figures?

  • Errol Olsen - CFO

  • Right. Nothing above seven figures, Thanos, although we did have a couple of deals which came pretty close to that.

  • What is interesting when we analyze the deal composition for the quarter, certainly one trend that we have seen and it has been over the last couple of quarters is an increase in the proportion of our sales that come from deals over $100,000, so sort of between that $100,000 and the $1 million mark. And I think really what's driving that is just a lot of the process that we put in place with the salesforce, a lot of emphasis on pipeline and deal tracking, the training that we are doing, all of those things are starting to come together and drive on average a larger deal size.

  • Thanos Moschopoulos - Analyst

  • Great. Maybe one last one for me.

  • You highlighted the cross-selling in terms of Computrace being sold to Manage customers. Is it working the other way as well?

  • Errol Olsen - CFO

  • It is working the other way as well. Certainly it is. I would say on average certainly most of we see more a case of Computrace being a lead product and then pulling Manage in, but it certainly does happen the opposite way as well.

  • Thanos Moschopoulos - Analyst

  • Great, great quarter, guys. I will pass the line. Thank you.

  • Operator

  • Pardeep Sangha, PI Financial.

  • Pardeep Sangha - Analyst

  • Hi. Thank you, and welcome, Geoff.

  • You're sort of halfway into Q1 now and just wanted to get a sense of pipeline and how things are going so far in Q1. And I'm guessing you really haven't had time to implement some of the stuff that you are talking about yet?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • We are in the early stages of it. The comments I will make about pipeline based on the analysis that we have done is it is certainly richer in terms of quantity and quality than it was a year ago, or a quarter ago as you would expect. Directionally this quarter we are seeing similar trends that we did in Q4.

  • There is a concentration of opportunity in education but is well above average growth in pipeline in some of the key corporate and healthcare sectors. And we are continuing to see a concentration of opportunity being driven by the sensitivity around the need to protect information. But as we continue to proceed with this much more focused approach around product market segments, we expect that our pipeline growth will align with the characteristics of the markets that we are really concentrating effort on.

  • Pardeep Sangha - Analyst

  • Okay. And in terms of guidance for fiscal 2015, I get at this point all you guys are saying is that sale contracts and cash flow will be higher than fiscal 2014. Is that it, or is there anything else that you will be providing?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • That is a safe statement.

  • Pardeep Sangha - Analyst

  • Okay. Just with regards to international. This past quarter it seemed international seemed a little bit weaker than normal. Is it just lumpiness or is there something else we should be looking at?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • No. And I'm not discouraged by that because the reality is is that our opportunity is highly concentrated here in North America relative to the size of our business. North America and the US in particular continues to represent a very high return on investment targets and a lot of our effort and investment is concentrated there for that reason.

  • But we certainly recognize the international growth opportunities. You will see some expansion this year but it will be very selective. It's not a generic international expansion strategy.

  • We are picking very specific countries and very specific vertical and horizontal markets, in some cases accounts within those countries that we are going to focus on. And through that effort we expect that we will begin to see growth in the international business.

  • Pardeep Sangha - Analyst

  • Okay. Thanks. I will pass the line.

  • Operator

  • Doug Taylor, TD Securities.

  • Doug Taylor - Analyst

  • Thanks. Good evening, guys. Errol, perhaps you could remind us what you are expecting in fiscal year 2015 in terms of the number of renewals relative to fiscal-year 2014?

  • Errol Olsen - CFO

  • That's actually not a metric that we publish anymore. The reason for that is just the way that our business has changed, there is so much cross-selling and expansion selling that goes on, that we don't think that metric in itself is a very good predictor for the business. So I apologize that we can't offer that.

  • Doug Taylor - Analyst

  • Understood, but perhaps directionally is it higher?

  • Errol Olsen - CFO

  • Yes, directionally it is higher. With our average contract term being about 2.5 years I think that if you just look at the increase going back 2.5 years compared to 3.5 years ago it is probably directionally the best indicator there.

  • Doug Taylor - Analyst

  • Okay. And on an apples-to-apples basis as you move through these renewals are you seeing any pricing pressure?

  • Errol Olsen - CFO

  • No. On average we are not seeing pricing pressure. If anything certainly we see net expansion above the renewals and on average ASP we actually see it ticking it up more because we are also using renewals as an opportunity to get back into the customer and push for cross-selling opportunities as well.

  • Doug Taylor - Analyst

  • Okay. Shifting gears here, Geoff. Has there been any change in the pace of integration of your existing product portfolio from where you were last quarter, or due to the changing priorities that you are bringing in here?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • I can't comment in the seven weeks that I have been here, Doug, on a shift in integration priorities other than it continues to be a priority. I will acknowledge that we are disappointed that some of the integration functionality that we has expected to come this fiscal year hasn't materialized. We do view integration as an opportunity to elevate our value proposition around the cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

  • But having said that, despite the lack of tight integration between Computrace and Manage, for example, we are seeing a high level of cross-selling performance that Errol referenced. So we don't view the lack of a common user interface as an obstacle to growth but we certainly view the integrated platform as a means of accelerating growth. And for that reason it will continue to be a top priority for us from a development perspective this year.

  • Doug Taylor - Analyst

  • Okay. That's helpful. And maybe the last question for me, Geoff, maybe you mentioned the VAR strategy a bit and how it's one of your focus areas, I wonder if you could expand upon that and where specifically you will be investing?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • Yes, well we have invested, as you probably know. We have built a VAR team that has identified a community of VARs that are tightly aligned with what has been our product market focus to date that we continue to cover and invest in. It's a journey, as you know, not an immediate return gain.

  • So this year we do have a VAR community that is active around our revenue portfolio. In fact, last year almost half of our business was touched by a number of that VAR community.

  • And what we are looking to shift towards this year, Doug, is a situation where that VAR community is more self-sufficient in terms of finding net new incremental opportunities and doing more of the heavy lifting around their development, which will be accretive to our sales productivity.

  • Doug Taylor - Analyst

  • I appreciate the color. Thanks, guys.

  • Operator

  • Paul Steep, Scotia.

  • Paul Steep - Analyst

  • Great, thanks. Geoff, maybe you could talk a little bit about what the salesforce, it sounds like there could be some realignment there, maybe the timing of the changes and then when the geographies, talked about some geo-rationalization, when that would be complete?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • Sure. Listen, this exercise of understanding the distribution of our opportunity is something that we are still in the middle of. But having said that, we are not waiting until it is completed before making moves.

  • There are some very obvious climate opportunities that exist just based on the data that we've got. For example, here in North America there is not surprisingly a concentration of opportunity in markets like New York City and Chicago and San Francisco and Texas that we are not sufficiently covering, in my view, relative to our total coverage capacity here in North America.

  • In Europe there is an opportunity for us to concentrate our EMEA coverage capacity to focus on what we consider to be high return on investment targets like the UK, or the Nordics which has traditionally been a very strong market for us, or Germany where there is a high concentration of opportunity. In APJ/Australia because of its maturity, its size, the lack of localization requirements has also emerged as an area that we feel that we need to cover more intensively.

  • So it's going to be an iterative process. But as we move through the course of the year and better understand where our next generation of opportunity exists, we will continue with that alignment process.

  • Paul Steep - Analyst

  • Is it fair to think about it being the second half of fiscal 2015 before you get everything sort of lined up, or at least in the initial stage of where you want it to be? And then as you iterate through learning and entering these markets, is that are fair way to think about it?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • I would expect that moving into the second half we will be aligned in our view with our 2015 certainly. But I want to emphasize we have made moves and will continue to make moves as we come up with the right information and conclusion.

  • So it will be a dynamic process. It's really just a function, as they say, of better understanding our distribution of opportunity and making investment decisions accordingly. And I talked about geography, but we are also taking a look at other considerations like the vertical markets that I referenced earlier and some horizontal segments where we believe a concentration of opportunity exists but it will be iterative.

  • We are not going to wait to make a large volume of decisions. As we come up with opportunities to increase productivity through tighter alignment of sales investment we will do so.

  • Paul Steep - Analyst

  • Great, that makes sense. I guess clearly given the nice quarter you have put up today, this is a company that is executing fairly well. But maybe some thoughts around pipeline execution on the salesforce side in terms of what you can do, or what you would see as maybe extra process or new process you can bring in and implement from your background that can help the Company in the back half of the year?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • So a couple of comments. First of all, I think we have got an outstanding team on the ground. We are making, have made and will continue to make some investments in terms of their development around being able to sell solutions as opposed to single products.

  • This is a company with a heritage of a largely single product offering. And so being able to consult with customers and connect the dots within a broader portfolio of technology solutions is something that we are helping the sales organization with.

  • Some of the go-to-market initiatives that I described earlier are designed to improve sales productivity. The brand awareness, for example, we are spending a lot of time educating the marketplace on persistent technology in Computrace and other Absolute offerings.

  • So what we are looking to do is some of that education through our brand awareness efforts and shifting sales resources more directly to specific opportunities. The investments that were making in OEM programs and the VAR partnerships, once again are designed to provide the field sales organization with other levers they can pull to accelerate growth and productivity.

  • One of the other things that we are doing is we are taking a look at how we are covering part of our renewals base. We have a very substantial sales organization that is covering a fairly diverse portfolio of opportunity that's characterized by a accommodation of renewals, expansion opportunity and new business development.

  • What we are doing this year is we have taken the 20% of our customers with the on average the lowest annual contract value and we are covering that customer community with a dedicated organization that is focused on renewal and expansion. And so what we are looking to do is through that intensified focus on renewal and expansion is to elevate our renewal percentages to expand deployments within those customers. But the other benefit is that we are liberating our outside field organization from some of these smaller accounts and lower return-on-investment opportunities and we expect that will be accretive to productivity as well this year.

  • Paul Steep - Analyst

  • Sounds great. The last one for me and then I will pass the line.

  • Historically we have spent lots of time on these calls talking about the strength in education and health and a little bit about financial. But maybe it's worth talking about those other two verticals you called out and whether you see the firm having the critical mass and the tools to go after those verticals, or if there's anything else needed that you are going to need to bring to the table product wise, or if you are already there and it is a matter of, to your point, correctly applying all the resources.

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • What's interesting is that in some ways I feel like we are being pulled into some of these sectors. Customers are buying from us in those sectors and they are interpreting our technology in a way that is relevant to their requirements, which is much more focused on information protection than device protection or device recovery.

  • So we have technology that is relevant to those segments. We've got customers, very prominent customers, in those segments.

  • Do I think we are probably going to have to educate our sales organization on some of the vertical domain vernacular and drivers that exist within some of those vertical markets? Certainly. But I think we are very well prepared from a go-to-market perspective.

  • I'd also take a look at some of the VAR channels and OEM partners that we've got, all of whom have experience in and presence in the verticals that I described earlier. So I think we are well-positioned. I think it really is just a matter of shifting focus and concentrating investment on some of those under-realized market segments.

  • Paul Steep - Analyst

  • Fantastic. Good quarter. Thanks, guys.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions). Michael Kim, Imperial Capital.

  • Michael Kim - Analyst

  • Hi, guys. Again, I want to congratulate Geoff on joining the Company and welcome you to Absolute.

  • So just to expand on your commentary on expanding the -- embedding Computrace in additional platforms. You've added Samsung and Microsoft in the last year. Where do you see Absolute focusing on and how do you expect to broaden the reach and behind that how do you expect to drive activation rates?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • So our primary focus this year will be on fortifying the partnerships that exist today and ensuring that every new relevant device that they release has our persistence technology embedded on it. We will look at newer partnerships like the Samsung and Microsoft partnerships, once again as opportunities to expand our presence within their offering sets.

  • And then obviously there are other targets that are very prominent in the market. Those names I think would be easy for you to identify that we are engaged with, will continue to be engaged with in the spirit of looking for new opportunities to expand our persistence community.

  • Michael Kim - Analyst

  • Great, and then just switching gears to, you talked a little bit about increasing the brand awareness. Should we expect maybe a little bit of an acceleration in marketing spend, or is this where you can shift some of the current spending around? Any thoughts how you see building out your brand awareness?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • I'll take that and then I will ask Errol to provide details. The first step there is really taking inventory of our marketing spend today and retracting or rationalizing some of that spend in brands or products or market segments that are not aligned tightly with where we believe our next generation of growth and opportunity exists. But having said that we are planning to make some incremental investments as well that I will ask Errol to elaborate on.

  • Errol Olsen - CFO

  • Sure. First of all, when we look at our expense structure we really focus on our adjusted OpEx, which excludes the intangibles and depreciation; also excludes some restructuring charges that we incurred in fiscal 2014.

  • So off of that base we are expecting an overall increase of somewhere between 5% and 10% and that will incorporate the branding exercise as well. So that will be a little bit of additional investment in branding and then for the most part what we are doing is reallocating a little bit of spend within the various envelopes.

  • Michael Kim - Analyst

  • Got it. And then just lastly on capital allocation, obviously dividend remains an important priority but as you look at the technology portfolio, do you see an opportunity to expand your focus on acquisitions and adding more IP to that portfolio and where you might see that happening?

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • Certainly over time the breadth of our technology portfolio will emerge as an obstacle to growth. But I just don't see that at all moving into 2015. I think we've got a tremendously robust, compelling competitive set of offerings that are substantially under realized in terms of their growth potential. And the primary focus this year is on executing against the opportunity that they represent.

  • Michael Kim - Analyst

  • Got it. Great. Well, thank you very much.

  • Operator

  • There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to the presenters.

  • Geoff Haydon - CEO

  • All right. Well, listen, in closing I just I want to thank everyone for your interest in and support of Absolute.

  • We are looking forward to another strong quarter working with you. Thank you.

  • Operator

  • This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.