Evertec Inc (EVTC) 2014 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Evertec Incorporated third quarter 2014 earnings conference call. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. And at this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Peter Harrington, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone for joining us on today's call. Before we begin, I wanted to take a moment to formally introduce Alan Cohen. Alan joined us in October as Executive Vice President and Head of Investor Relations. In addition to managing our IR department, he'll also be leading our enterprise risk management and strategy functions.

Alan has nearly a decade of senior management experience in publicly traded companies. He was previously with Triple S Management and First Bancorp serving in roles which included investor relations, communications, marketing and planning functions. We believe he will be a great addition to the Evertec team. With that, I'll turn the call over to Alan who will walk you through today's agenda and our Safe Harbor. Alan?

Thank you, Peter, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm very excited to be at Evertec, and I look forward getting to know each and every one of you in the very near future. Also with us on today's call is Juan Jose Roman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In terms of the agenda for today, Peter will begin by providing a summary review of our financial results and market opportunity, as well as an update on our operations. Juan will then discuss additional details regarding our third quarter results as well as our guidance for 2014. We will end, as always, by taking your questions.

A replay of this call will be available until Wednesday, November 12, 2014. Access information for the replay is listed in today's financial press release which is available on our website under the Investor Relations tab. As a reminder, this call may not be taped or otherwise reproduced without Evertec's prior consent. I would like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements as they are defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These forward looking statements about our expectations for future performance are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Evertec cautions that these statements are not guarantees of future performance. All forward-looking statements made today reflect our current expectations only, and we undertake no obligation to update any statement to reflect the events that occur after this call. Please refer to the Company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC for factors that could cause our actual results to defer materially from any forward looking statements.

During today's call, management will provide certain information that will constitute non-GAAP financial measures under SEC rules such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and adjusted net income per share. Reconciliations to GAAP measures and certain additional information are also included in today's earnings press release. With that, I will turn the call back over to Peter Harrington, our President and CEO. Peter?

Thanks, Alan. We saw another quarter of further growth in our merchant acquiring and payment processing segments while the business solutions segment continued to be affected by lower hardware and software sales. In the third quarter, total consolidated revenue grew 1% and adjusted net income per share grew 11% to $0.40 per share. Excluding hardware and software sales, our consolidated revenue growth was 4% year over year in the third quarter.

Looking deeper into the segment starting with payments, merchant acquiring net revenue grew 6% year over year and payment processing grew 4%. During the quarter, we witnessed an unexpected and what we believe to be a temporary period of softer consumer spending in Puerto Rico, potentially driven by a weakening in consumer confidence. This may have been driven by concerns over uncertainties caused by the government actions such as new taxes to individuals and corporations, as well as the public discussion of a possible default by the electric power authority PREPA, and the resulting impact on consumers

Concerns about PREPA have waned somewhat after the bondholder agreement was reached and a restructuring company was put into place. We believe these factors had an adverse impact on transactions and payment volume, particularly in August and September, which affected our revenue growth in the quarter. Within Puerto Rico, our POS processing transactions were up approximately 5% year over year in the third quarter compared to the 7% to 8% range we have seen in the first half of the year.

As recently as October, however, we are seeing some positive signs that consumer spending trends have started to improve. In the month, we've seen that a number of transactions are moving back towards where we saw them again in the first half. As a reminder, we process over 70% of all the card transactions on the island. So, we believe our own transaction growth is a strong proxy for the Puerto Rican payments market as a whole. And while it is still very early, we are encouraged that transaction growth in October is back to its normal historical rate.

Outside of Puerto Rico, we generated 9% year over year revenue growth in our payments business in the third quarter. As our results indicate, demand for our card product and POS processing solutions remain solid throughout these markets. While at the same time we continue to benefit from high levels of transaction growth driven by the ongoing cash to card tailwind and strong economic growth. Looking forward, we continue to see significant opportunities for growth in our payment systems. Our pipeline for new business remains strong, and we continue to win new customers and further expand our relationship with our existing customers. And we are making substantial progress on our initiative to expand into newer markets such as Columbia.

Let me provide you on an update on our progress we're making in Columbia. I am pleased to announce that in late October we successfully brought our first Columbian processing customer onto the platform. This is a significant milestone in our Columbian expansion plan. The starting up of the processing business, along with the Visa principal member license, will allow us to grow over the coming years in an attractive and expanding Colombian market in both the payment processing and merchant acquiring businesses. As we have said consistently, our aim is to expand in Columbia as well as other Latin America countries, both organically and through acquisitions, joint ventures and alliances.

Moving to the business solutions segment, our business solutions revenue decreased 2% year over year in the third quarter. Similar to the first half of the year, business solutions growth was affected by lower levels of hardware and software sales versus last year. Excluding hardware and software sales, business solutions revenue grew 3%, consistent with our earlier 2014 results and our expectation for the business in general. Overall, we continue to see good demand for our recurring business solutions products and services such as IT consulting and core bank.

Turning to our full year 2014 outlook, we continue to expect adjusted net income per diluted share to be in the range of $1.65 to $1.71. However, based on the continued low levels of hardware and software sales in the third quarter and the number of hardware and software related projects we expect to deliver in the fourth quarter, we now forecast consolidated revenue for 2014 to increase approximately 1% to 2% versus last year. Evertec continues to benefit in the market from our comprehensive set of end-to-end processing solutions, leading brand in solid execution. We continue to develop strong multiyear relationships with new customers and broaden the relationship with our existing customers throughout our Latin American footprint.

We feel good about the long-term outlook for our business, demonstrating our confidence in our long-term growth prospects in our commitment to enhancing total shareholder value. In September, we announced a new $75 million stock repurchase program which Juan will discuss with you in more detail shortly. In summary, we face some challenges in the third quarter, but our results continue to reflect the strength of our diversified business model. We made solid progress on our growth strategy in Columbia and will continue to position Evertec for accelerating growth in that market.

Moving forward, we will remain focused on leveraging our competitive advantages to capitalize on the strong secular growth in our payments markets and win share. In addition, we will accompany our organic growth with investments that add to our current business and expand our geographic footprint. With that, I will turn the call over to Juan.

Thank you, Peter, and good afternoon, everyone. I will begin by providing a detailed review of our third quarter financial and operating results and then conclude with an update of our 2014 guidance. Total consolidated revenue was $88.6 million in the third quarter, an increase of 1% compared with $87.4 million in the prior year period. Merchant acquiring net revenue increased 6% to $19.2 million from $18.2 million in the prior year period, driven mainly by an increase in transaction volume. Payment processing revenue increased 4% to $25.6 million, up from $24.7 million in the prior year period. Growth was driven mainly by an increase in our card product business resulting from new customer's additions and more accounts on file in our Latin American operations and an increase in POS network and processing transactions.

Our payment related businesses outside of Puerto Rico continued to grow at a solid pace in Q3, up 9% compared with the prior year period, driven mainly by card product processing. Our business solutions segment revenue decreased 2% to $43.8 million in the third quarter compared with $44.5 million in the prior year period. This decrease was due mostly to a declining hardware and software product sales in the quarter, partly offset by increased revenue in core banking solutions and IT consulting services. In the third quarter, revenue from hardware and software sales decreased by $1.9 million compared with the prior year period. Excluding the hardware and software sales, business solution revenue grew 3% year over year.

Moving to expenses, on a GAAP basis, our third quarter total operating expenses were down approximately 5% compared with the prior year period. Cost of revenue, excluding depreciation and amortization, was $38.6 million, essentially flat with the corresponding 2013 period. Selling general and [administrative] expenses for the quarter were $7.1 million, down $1.9 million, or 21% from the corresponding 2013 period. This decrease was due mainly to a nonrecurring $2.5 million expense taken in the third quarter of 2013 in connection with our September 2013 secondary offering. Depreciation and amortization expense decreased $1.2 million, or 7% year over year to $16.5 million. The decrease is related primarily to lower depreciation and amortization of assets that have become fully depreciated.

Income from operations for the third quarter was $26.5 million, an increase of 21% compared with $21.9 million in the corresponding 2013 period. Total non-operating expenses were $6.3 million, an increase of $0.6 million, or 10% from the corresponding 2013 period. The increase was mainly due to a non-cash expense of $450,000 related to the purchase accounting attributable to certain customer service and software-related arrangement whereby Evertec received reinvestments from Popular. GAAP income tax expense in the third quarter was approximately $1.1 million versus $1.4 million in the prior year period. Cash income tax expense was approximately $0.3 million, down slightly from $0.37 million in the prior year period. We expect cash income taxes to remain at similar levels for the fourth quarter. As of September 30, 2014, we had approximately $47 million of NOLs available to offset future tax payments related to our operations in Puerto Rico.

Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter was $44.5 million, an increase of 3% from $43.4 million in the corresponding 2013 period. The increasing adjusted EBITDA was due primarily to revenue growth and operating leverage in our merchant acquiring and payment processing businesses. We continue to deliver superior adjusted EBITDA margins, reflecting the strength of our business model and ongoing focus on managing costs. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 50.2% in the third quarter compared with 49.7% in the prior year. Finally, adjusted net income in the third quarter was $31.4 million, up 6% from $29.5 million in the prior year and adjusted net income per share was $0.40, up 11% from the prior year, reflecting higher net income and lower average diluted share count.

Moving to our balance sheet, as of September 30, we reported $29.2 million of unrestricted cash and $679.1 million of total short-term borrowings on long-term debt. During the quarter, we made a mandatory [z] payment of approximately $4.5 million on borrowings outstanding under our term A and term B senior secured credit facilities, paid $15 million on our revolver line of credit and paid dividends of $7.9 million. As of September 30, total liquidity, which includes unrestricted cash and available borrowing capacity on our revolver, was approximately $121.2 million. We continue to generate strong quarterly free cash flow. For the third quarter, our free cash flow defined as adjusted EBITDA minus CapEx, cash interest expense and cash income taxes was $31.9 million compared with $32.8 million in the prior year. The slight decrease in free cash flow was mostly due to timing of CapEx.

Moving to our recently announced share repurchase plan. In late September, we initiated a $75 million stock repurchase plan to be executed over 12 month period. Through October 31, we have already bought back $25 million of our common stock for approximately 1 million shares supported by our strong free cash flow generation and significant balance sheet flexibility. Finally, we remain committed to the proven return of capital to shareholders. This afternoon, we announced that our Board of Directors declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.10 per common share.

Now, onto our guidance. As Peter mentioned, we now expect total revenue growth in 2014 to be between 1% and 2% compared with our prior outlook of 3% to 4% growth. Our updated revenue guidance reflect greater risk to the hardware and software portion of our business solutions segment. We continue to expect adjusted EBITDA growth of at least 100 basis points higher than our revenue growth rate and fully diluted earnings per share of between $1.65 and $1.71. We expect full year 2014 operating the [position] and amortization expense of approximately $30 million, cash interest expense of approximately $23 million and fully diluted shares of approximately $79 million. Finally, we expect 2014 cash income tax expense of $1 million and our 2014 effective tax rate [ah will] on a GAAP basis remains between 10% and 12%. With that, operator, we will now open up the call for questions.

(Operator Instructions)

We would take the first question from Bryan Keane with Deutsche Bank.

This is Ashish Sabadra calling on behalf of Bryan Keane. Just want to grab horns on the consumer weakness -- or consumer spending weakness you saw in August and September. Can you just let us know how much the POS cost? The transaction, how much did a drop off in August and September? And then just going forward, what -- can you just comment on your comfort around consumer spending sustaining adoptable levels? Thanks.

We had a normal July, okay? So, July was in line with how we had been performing for the first six months of the year. We saw a slowdown in consumer spending in August, the beginning part of September, and then we started to see it turn back in the direction it has been. And as I said on the call, early look at the numbers for October puts it back in line with what we've been seeing for the last couple of years. We verified, you can look at some of the other numbers that are out there, and it looks like it was across-the-board in Puerto Rico. And again, there's been a lot of noise, there was a lot of noise in that timeframe, which we think shook consumer confidence for little bit. Most of that has now waned and is being dealt with, and we see it going back to where it was. I'm very, very comfortable now that we will finish the year in line with where we've been operating for the long-term.

Okay, that makes sense. Just so that we can model the fourth quarter appropriately, should we expect, given the fact that transactions have ramped up, should we expect acquiring and payment processing business to develop more normalized revenue growth? Or are there any other puts and takes going into that quarter?

No, we see more on a normalized basis. There is nothing else -- there is no other puts and takes.

Okay, that's helpful. My final question is on international. International has been slightly weak in second and third quarter, 10% compared to 15%. But should we see an actualization in international going forward as you ramp up the Colombian customer?

That's correct.

Okay, thanks. That's it.

Will take our next question from Bob Napoli with William Blair.

Hi, good afternoon. Alan, welcome to the team.

Thank you.

A question on your strategy, Peter, in Columbia. Is this a -- this obviously is a very big focus for you, it's a market that has the potential to be large. What is the operating strategy there, and how many years is it going to take to make that a meaningful contributor to the business?

I think today what we announced is really a major milestone for us, Bob, right? To grow the Company organically, we needed to have the platform operating in the market, and now we have the platform operating, we have a customer up on the platform. We can now go through the normal process that we have in all of our other markets, which is aggressively sell new customers in the market. We are in a better position today with the Visa license to go after the acquiring, as we've talked about before. And we will continue to look for partners to exploit that to be able to get to the acquiring business. We should see revenue obviously in 2015 where we saw a really no revenue in 2014, So, yes, it should start to have a bigger impact beginning next year, not just in the future and obviously continue to grow over time.

Is that like $2 million potentially of revenue next year? Or can you put any kind of --

As you know, Bob, we try to stay away from giving revenue per country.

Then as -- maybe following up on the last question, the non-Puerto Rico revenue growth slowed from 10% to 9% and I think you're certainly you are targeting at least mid teens I think in that. Do you see a pick -- was there some -- did you see the same kind of slowdown in spending non-Puerto Rico that you did in Puerto Rico in August and September? Is there any color --

No, we did not. No, we did not see the same slowdown in the markets outside of Puerto Rico. Some of it is just, as I have said before, it is the timing of when customers come on. I will give you some insight, because I'll probably get asked the question, but the sales of new customers, okay, is right in line with where we expect. And to give you some specifics, we signed three new customers in the third quarter, and we've already signed two new customers since the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Okay. In what markets? Is it --

In multiple markets.

Okay, all right, last question, besides, is the strategy going to be here to really put a lot of focus on Columbia? Or should we expect you to enter another new market in 2015?

As I've always said, once we got into a position where we had momentum in Columbia, we would look to the next market. I think you can take away from that that we are getting closer everyday to that point, especially now that we have the platform operationally in Columbia. We will probably in 2015 seriously start looking at what the next market is.

Thank you.

And we will take our next question from Tien-tsin Huang with JPMorgan.

Thanks, hope you can hear me okay. I'm at the airport. I just wanted to ask about the hardware and the software slippage. Similar (technical difficulty) is that business you expect to pick back up again in 2015? Is it just a push out, or are these projects getting canceled or shelved?

I think it -- I think in the environment we are in, I think the reality is we are not going to see all pushed to 2015, that's not the case. I think we'll probably have a better year in 2015 than we did in 2014 from hardware and software, but it's not going to be a dramatic change in the number tension. We're going to -- as we've said, we don't focus on selling hardware and software. I think we're going to continue not to focus on selling hardware and software. We are more interested in the recurring revenue. And I think the results show that the recurring nature of the business is operating exactly as we thought it would, growing 3% on the business solutions business this quarter minus hardware and software.

Right. This leads to my next question, is it safe to say that IP standing, I heard the comments about consumer, that makes sense. Just about bank spending, Bank of Popular spending, government spending, things like that, how is that (inaudible) versus plan?

I would say there is certainly lower government-related spending than we had planned on. And I think under the -- where they are today, we don't foresee that that's going to pick up dramatically in the near-term.

Okay, so basically what we're seeing now is probably a good level going forward. Last thing on the buyback, thanks for the details there, does the guidance assume incremental buybacks?

No, Tien-tsin, right now is what we did already, $75 million, we might do right. It will depend on market conditions. But our assumption is basically the purchase that we did in October. The program is in place, and we will keep looking to when to access the market and do more buybacks.

Okay, so no incremental buybacks, that's good. So, is there a 10B5 in place, or is it purely opportunistic?

It's opportunistic.

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks, guys. That's all I had.

We will go next to Sara Gubins with Bank of America.

Thanks, good afternoon. In the merchant acquiring segment, I know that you start to anniversary the gains from adding BBVA branches in the fourth quarter, but what's the likely impact on revenue growth in that segment?

It'll certainly be less than you saw in the first two quarters. As we've said, it's adding maybe 1 -- give or take 1% to what we are running at in the first two quarters. So, probably somewhere, as we've always said, somewhere in the 6% to 7% range. Somewhere in there.

Okay. And then as you think about free cash flow dynamics for next year, just to check, are there any items that are worth knowing about that might have an impact on 2015 free cash flow?

Not really, Sara. Besides the buyback program, obviously, that we have in place, nothing else. As we've said before, cash for focus is any expansion or acquisition. And after that, as we said, or paying down debt or a buyback. And right now, we have the program in place. So, that's what you think about is we will continue to use our free cash flow for an expansion or to continue our buyback program.

Okay, and then just last question, what's the cash balance on hand after the recent share purchase? And is any of that located outside the US and therefore might be taxable, if you need to repatriate it?

We do have cash outside Puerto Rico, yes, in our operations in Costa Rica. And if we move it, it will be taxed if we pay a dividend from those subsidiaries. We have not paid any dividend because we keep that cash in those subsidiaries for our expansion in Latin America. Just to continue doing operating our business, but also for any possible acquisition most probably will be done out of the cash in Costa Rica.

Great, and then just the overall cash balance at the end of October after the cash repurchase?

We're -- I don't have the number with me really, but probably somewhere around $20 million.

Great, thank you.

We'll go next to Georgios Mihalos with Credit Suisse.

Good afternoon, this is Alison Jordan in for George. I had a question on what the revenue growth in Puerto Rico was for the quarter, and how does that compare to the growth rate in the first half of the year?

For Puerto Rico, you have to exclude, again, hardware and software sales. But our payment businesses are growing around 5%, give and take. And as we said, in the business solution, around 3% when you exclude hardware and software sales.

And for that 5% of the payment business in the quarter, how does that compare to the first half to the year?

It was faster at the first half. As we mentioned, mostly we saw an increase in merchant acquiring because we have division of the merchant for BBVA. We saw that in the first have also higher POS transactions, as Peter mentioned before. Adding all the (inaudible) really is probably in the 6%,7%. Our payment businesses.

Great, thank you.

We will take our next question from Smitti Srethapramote with Morgan Stanley.

This is [Danny Hussein] calling in for Smitti. Just a couple high level questions. I guess Visa is going to be raising prices for acquirers in the second quarter next year, so could you share with us your thoughts on the potential they raise prices to merchants above and beyond Visa's increase?

First, to have got to remember that in Puerto Rico, for example, which is where you're talking about the acquiring business, the majority of transactions are ATH. And so Visa has absolutely no impact on ATH, so the impact is going to be very minimal to us. We pass on most of that as it is, but it's not -- today, I think we -- about 11% or 12% of the transactions are Visa.

They do this often. It's not new news, they often --

Okay, thank you. And then maybe if you just touch on the alliance front in Panama and Costa Rica and if there are any updates there?

No, there's nothing we can talk about at this point. We are still actively searching for partners.

Understood, thanks.

We will go next to James Schneider with Goldman Sachs.

Good afternoon, thanks for taking my question. Just a follow up on the consumer trends within Puerto Rico for a moment. Is there anything you saw in terms of the mix of transactions, whether there was ATM, debit or credit mix, that would suggest to you what might be going on back in August and September aside from just consumer confidence and the tax impact? And related to that, can you see anything on the horizon in terms of tax actions in 2015 from the government that would cause a potential dislocation like the one you saw for about a month and a half?

To your first question, no, there wasn't any -- it was across the board. We looked at the numbers and nothing jumped out that one stayed the same and something else really moved dramatically. They all -- we saw it in slowdown in ATM, we saw it in debit, we saw it in credit. At this point, there's nothing that I'd seen from the government related to new taxes that would have any impact. But their fiscal year ends in June 30 of 2015, and so it would be more likely that it would be closer to that date that any new taxes, if there were any, would be announced. But right now, we don't see any.

That's helpful. Then just a follow-up, it sounds like you didn't see much change in terms of the transaction growth rates outside of Puerto Rico, but are there any areas, whether that's Costa Rica or Dominican Republic or anyplace else, that saw a notable strengthening or weakening outside of Puerto Rico?

No, I think -- it always changes based on the customers, right? So, where I'd bring a customer on, if I bring two customers on in Mexico, for the sake of argument, this year over last year, I'm going to see higher growth in Mexico this year. If next year I bring on more customers in Costa Rica than in Mexico, it moves on an ongoing basis. Overall, we are seeing sales growth in multiple markets within our footprint, and we are seeing the kind of fundamental secular cash to card transaction growth in all of those markets.

Okay, so no difference in same-store sales metrics, okay. I guess the last one would be on SG&A levels. Do you have the potential to, if we hit another rough patch, to ratchet those down even further to help give add or give you some margin on the EPS line? Or are you pretty much running at levels that you think are close to the minimum level at this point today?

In the past three years, right, we have been making significant progress, as you've seen, our cost space. Obviously, we made a hard left of those opportunities that we found when we got here. There have been some areas that we continue to look at. Especially when it has to do with software negotiations or purchases, especially when we're looking to how to consolidate certain software so you can achieve some efficiencies. We continue to look into that impact mostly because of revenue right? More than SG&A. But that is where we are today, looking for other opportunities to consolidate or reduce costs in those areas that, as you can imagine, are a significant part of our cost.

Thank you.

(Operator Instructions)

We will go next to Chris Bendler with Stifel.

Hi, thanks, good afternoon, how you doing?

Good, how are you doing, Chris?

Good, thanks. So, a question on the international front, Peter I think last quarter you chalked up the deceleration from mid teens down to 10% or so. A little bit of lumpiness, timing, in and outs to that number (inaudible) Is there any -- were there contract wins that you anniversaried in the second quarter or third quarter that caused the international to slow down? Is there any current impact that's weighing on the international growth?

No, there is no currency issue, Chris. It's just more of the timing of lapping last year's implementations to this year's implementations. I don't see anything -- we don't see any kind of slow down there, it's just timing. This has gone on for the last 8 or 10 quarters. It changes on a quarter by quarter basis, but we are not seeing anything. If anything, as I said earlier, we feel very comfortable because we've signed five new clients in the last four months, which is a very good pace for us.

Right, so it doesn't sound like -- I'm trying to get a little bit of reticence to quantify the impact of the Columbian processing or any other deals. Is it reasonable to expect that 9%, 10% growth outside the internet, outside of PR is going to increase in the next couple of quarters?

You should see it in the fourth quarter higher than 10%.

Okay, great. And then just longer term give you question that's the same one I asked last quarter. If the goal here was to get a much higher mix of revenues outside of PR, I think you had a five-year plan of 30%, is that still reasonable? It is definitely taking longer, but the next time we met it sounded like the longer term, the medium to long-term is still optimistic here, it's just taking a little longer? Is that still the case?

It is. And again, as we've said before, it will be dependent upon transactions, joint ventures, partnerships that we do because those are all outside of Puerto Rico. That is going to be what is going to help drive that additional growth.

Right, okay, great, looking forward to increasing the ability there, thanks so much.

Thanks.

That does conclude the question and answer portion of today's conference. I would now like to turn the call back over to Peter Harrington for comments and closing remarks.

Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you very much for your support, and I look forward too speaking with you again on our year end earning call. Operator, you can now conclude the call.

This does conclude today's conference. We thank you all for your participation.