Ituran Location and Control Ltd (ITRN) 2021 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ituran Third Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. You should have all received by now the company's press release. If you have not received it, please contact Ituran's Investor Relations team at GK Investor & Public Relations at 1-212-378-8040 or view it in the News section of the company's website, www.ituran.com.

I will now hand over the call to Mr. Ehud Helft of GK Investor Relations. Mr. Helft, would you like to begin please?

Thank you, operator. Good day to all of you, and welcome to Ituran's conference call to discuss the third quarter 2021 results. I would like to thank Ituran management for hosting this conference call. With me today on the call are Mr. Eyal Sheratzky, the CEO; Mr. Udi Mizrahi, Deputy CEO and VP Finance; and Mr. Eli Kamer, the CFO of Ituran. Eyal will begin with a summary of the quarter results, followed by Eli with a summary of the financials. We will then open the call for the questions-and-answer session. I'd like to remind everyone that the safe harbor in the press release also covers the content of this conference call.

And now Eyal, would you like to begin please?

Thank you, Ehud. I'd like to welcome all of you, and thank you for joining us today. We are very pleased with the results of the third quarter, which were again ahead of our expectations. We grow our subscriber base at the highest rate we have seen for 2 years with 25,000 net adds. The OEM segment is showing a recovery with 4,000 net adds, and our aftermarket segment saw above-average growth of 21,000 net adds. This is ahead of our typically expected range of between 15,000 and 20,000. The growth we experienced in subscribers is, is a positive indication with regard to revenue growth in the quarter ahead. We continue to see strong aftermarket subscriber growth in many of the geographies in which we operate, even in a quarter which is seasonally weaker due to the holiday season in Israel.

In particular, we see increasing contribution from one of our growth engine, Usage Based Insurance or UBI. The consumer market is now becoming increasingly educated to the value that they gained by using a Usage Based Insurance plan rather than fixed. This has led to increased traction, and we are now working with all the 7 major insurance companies in Israel. The corona slowdown created plenty of new markets and opportunities, and over that time, new car sales around the world went down. We identified a very strong secondhand car market in many of our geographies in Latin America and new fintech start-ups, as well as the large banks have come in to provide the financing in this specific market.

However, they all need a location-based and connected car technology service provider such as Ituran to monitor the cars and driver behavior and by this reduce the risk of loans against the car. We therefore initiated an approach to these financing companies and offered our solution. Following on from these efforts, we are now working with a number of partners in this area, and we see great potential in which to expand this business. While currently, we are only in the initial stage, we see the interest, and we therefore believe this has the potential to be a significant growth engine for Ituran starting from the second half of 2022 and beyond.

I would like to discuss the electronic component shortage and increasing prices, that has been widely reported and has increasingly become an issue for everyone. To-date, we have successfully been managing through the shortages. It's important to note that as primarily a subscriber service business, the impact on Ituran to-date has been low, primarily on the product revenue side, which has a smaller effect on our bottom line. There is also a potential indirect impact due to the potential slowing of new car sales simply because of the inability of car manufacturers to produce cars at the required quantity. However, Ituran has a number of growth engines which will increasingly benefit us in the quarters ahead, which will compensate for loans in global sales of new cars.

In summary, we are performing well, but most importantly, we are seeding new growth engines, which will accelerate our growth in the years ahead. I'm more excited now than ever is our long-term potential over the coming years.

I will now hand the call over to Eli for a financial summary. Eli?

Thanks, Eyal. Revenue for the third quarter 2021 were $65.7 million, a 9% increase compared with revenue of $60.3 million in the third quarter of 2020. Revenue from subscription fees were $48.3 million, up 9% year-over-year. The subscriber base amounted to 1,837,000 as of September 30, 2021, an increase of 25,000 net over that of the end of the prior quarter and an increase of 85,000 since the end of the third quarter of last year. During the quarter, there was both an increase of 21,000 in the aftermarket subscriber base and an increase of 4,000 in the OEM subscriber base.

Product revenues were $17.4 million, up 10% year-over-year. The geographic breakdown of revenues in the third quarter was as follows: Israel 52%; Brazil 24%; Rest of World 24%. Operating income for the quarter was $13.9 million or 21.1% of revenues, an increase of 32% compared with an operating income of $10.5 million or 17.5% of revenues in the third quarter of last year. EBITDA for the quarter was $18.5 million or 28.1% of revenues, an increase of 23% compared with an EBITDA of $15 million or 24.9% of revenues in the third quarter of last year. Financial expenses for the quarter was $2.7 million compared with a financial income of $2.8 million in the third quarter of last year.

The difference between -- the difference being primarily due to the change in the SaverOne market capitalization during each quarter. Adjusted net income for the third quarter of 2021, which exclude the non-cash financial impact related to SaverOne was $9.6 million or 14.6% of revenues or diluted earnings per share of $0.46 compared with $6 million or 10% of revenues or diluted earnings per share of $0.29. Cash flow from operations for the third quarter of 2021 was $11.5 million. As of September 30, 2021, the company had cash, including marketable securities of $67 million and debt of $34.6 million, amounting to a net cash of $32.4 million. This is compared with cash, including marketable securities of $78.8 million and a debt of $54.5 million, amounting to a net cash of $24.3 million as of December 31, 2020.

For the third quarter of 2021, a dividend of $3 million was declared. During the quarter, Ituran purchased 71,000 shares for a total of $1.9 million until the end of September 30, 2021. Share repurchases were funded by available cash and repurchases of Ituran's ordinary shares were made based on SEC Rule 10b-18.

And with that, I'd like to open the call for the question-and-answer session. Operator?

(Operator Instructions) Tavy Rosner of Barclays.

I have 3 questions, please. First one is just maintenance on my end, but with regards to SaverOne, what's the accounting treatment here? Are you mark-to-market your stake on a quarterly basis or you had it recorded at a certain value and given the fluctuation you had to record an adjustment?

Tavy, actually, it's a mark-to-market. It's like a financial asset.

Okay, understood. The -- okay. With that out of the way, I wanted to talk about the OEM dynamics a little bit, if I remember correctly, I think nearly 1,000 increase, last quarter, 4,000. Is it fair to assume it's coming from Latin America? And I guess, can you remind us, again, in the accounting of those OEM you add, if any of this includes free trial period that like you give to OEM, I think at some point you used to give us 3 months. That went down to 1 month. Clearly, what [was need for this]?

First of all, it's include -- most of it is free trial. The only country, which the free trial is for 1 month, and it's a very few thousands of customers compared to the rest of the market is Brazil and a few hundreds in Argentina because this is kind of the end of a fade-out of the business -- those markets. But the rest, which is the major -- high majority of these OEM subscribers are at least for 12 months, some of them are even more, and I'm talking mainly about Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador. And the free trial as I said is for 12 months as the minimum.

Okay, understood. And then lastly, talk about the new growth engines that you mentioned and you talked about financial players that might be interested into your solution. So would you believe that it would work in a similar way to the agreements you have for UBI and the insurance companies, whereby they will purchase it from you and then pass on the cost to the end user?

Okay. So basically, as we found a new segment when we realized then that we don't want to be depend only on SVR, and we developed our state-of-the-art UBI solution, which today by the way, I would say it's close to market share of 100% in Israel, by the way, most of the insurance companies are running multi-million dollars campaigns in the TV and in the digital. Most of it is white labeled by Ituran, almost all of it. So we are talking today without getting to a specific number of thousands -- thousands of new subscribers per month growing exponentially. This is regard to UBI.

When the corona time came, and we were -- we've been in a situation that the car plants were closed, specifically in Latin America, again, we had to think about how we can expand the markets, what segments we can offer, when we realized that there is, I think a market which wasn't very clear before the corona is the secondhand market and the subprime board -- the subprime customers. This is something that we do in the U.S. almost for 15 years, which make people know it as a buy here, pay here. And in some dealers or many dealers in the space when they finance the car, they use systems such as Ituran in order to recover the car in order to get data on the payments and on the location and sometimes in order to notify the people that take the loans that they missed or having missed some payments.

So we decide to enter some banks in Brazil and in Mexico beginning -- at the beginning and offered this solution in order for them to expand giving money or financing cars for people that the credit clients are low. When we convinced them that with our solution, they can have a better control on those payments and on those customers, they agreed to start working with us. At the same time, if you know the entire fintech wall is now very growing. Many digital companies now offering our cars with finance, finance to cars, et cetera, on a digital ways, we also approached them and we get really open mind from those big players, I must say.

And today, we are having about 3 large customers. It's still at the beginning, as I said, because we are educating them, they are educating the market. And it's worked in the same way as the UBI, meaning they are our customers, it's a B2B market. Those are -- again, those are big players with high equity and there is no risk, it's like insurance companies. They install -- once they finance specific cars, they ask us to install this unit. We install it, they pay for the unit, and they paid for 3 years of the finance contract for us kind of monthly fees.

The ARPU today is on the same average ARPU as we have for the aftermarket sales in Brazil and Argentina, which is quite impressive, quite with high margins, but this is only in the beginning. It's growing exponentially. So I must say that if it will continue, this is really going to be very important toward 2023, 2024, it can be a very strong leg because it's a new market. Up until now, when we compete for those customers, we won the customer and we are the only supplier. And this is important for me to mention because, again, the corona, sometimes bad things create people looking out of the box and that's what we did. And this market was 0 players in Mexico and Brazil, and today, we are growing it, we are educating the market, and we're talking about the potential of millions of cars a year in each market. I'm not saying that this is going to be our market share, but this is the potential of the market every year in these 2 markets, Brazil and Mexico.

David Kelley of Jefferies.

Maybe to start, I was hoping you could elaborate on the aftermarket net sub strength in the quarter and specifically the regional dynamics. We're just curious of the momentum in Israel, and then in Brazil, I think there were some signs of stabilization last quarter. So I was hoping you could provide color on what you're seeing there as well.

Okay. So the main aftermarket growth comes from our traditional business through the aftermarket, which is Israel and Brazil. Of course, we have some contribution from the rest of the -- from the other geographies, but the majority aftermarket subscribers are, comes from Israel and Brazil. So I will divide it -- I'll talk about these 2 geographies. In Israel, we have 3 main segments, the stolen vehicle recovery, the fleet management and the UBI. The stolen vehicle recovery and the fleet management continue to grow very correlating to the new car sales in Israel since its many years of operation in this segment. We still have the churn because we have customers of 10 years, 8 years and more. So the growth -- the net growth at this segment, it's not significant, but it's continued to grow. There was years that we were in stable in 0.

So this year, I must say that even in these segments we succeed to grow, but the most growth edging in 2021 for subscribers in Israel was the UBI, because we get more and more customers, we get more and more insurance companies integrating our system and it grows exponentially. So this is the 3 segments that continue to grow, but the UBI now is the main growth. Don't forget that since the UBI is quite new, the churn of customers is still very low. So the contribution to the net adds in Israel of the UBI is substantial, it's important. This is in Israel.

Now looking ahead, we have to understand that the cars importers in Israel are forecasting for the coming quarters declining in selling cars. By the way, the important thing is that the request for cars in Israel, the demand is highest ever. I spoke with some car importers in Israel, and, for example, if in Israel, there was 280,000 or 300,000, the highest year, which is this year. They say that if they could bring half a million of cars a year, they would sell it now. People waiting a year for car and they're willing to pay and wait. So it's important because in 1 day, the request is more important -- the demand is more important because it show the potential then, for example, a situation where is no demand.

Now the problem is the offering the cars industry. We know the problem. So this is one of the reasons that can a little bit slowing down our growth in subscribers in Israel. I must say this the nice thing in Ituran and we mentioned it at the beginning of this discussion is that -- and we saw it in the corona, most of the churn in the customers of the aftermarket in Israel and also in Brazil, by the way, is when a person want to buy a new car. So we sell his car, his car is old, and the new buyer sometimes has no motivation to renewal to come and be our subscribers. This is the main reason for churn.

So once car -- people cannot buy a new car, they still stay with their old car and their churn is not high. So that's what happened in the corona. If you look back what you've seen, we didn't lose many subscribers in the corona, and this is the situation in Israel. And this is the situation that we forecast for the future. So in selling hardware in Israel, probably there will be a decline, but the profit margins at this point is very low. Sometimes we even lose some money to sell the hardware. Regards subscriber, this is because of the operative -- operation leverage, I think that the problem of selling cars in Israel probably will hurt very little for our growth in the subscribers, if at all, but it will affect some.

Brazil, the market is different. We are selling mainly B2C, which is ICS, Ituran Com Seguro, we are now -- this contributes the highest in the last 2 years for our subscriber base that we show in the quarter, because during the corona, we saw a negative churn, then we get to a point which it was about even. And now we have back after more than 2 years to a positive net few thousands of subscribers per month in Brazil. We are less affected by the new car sales in Brazil. Most of the segment that we are, I would say, the segment that we are very dominant in the Brazilian market is the secondhand cars, old cars. Most of the people in Brazil they insured only brand-new cars for 1 or 2 years, then they decide to quit, and sometimes they don't insure their cars, sometimes they look for solution such as we offer.

So I believe that in Brazil, we will continue to grow our subscribers. And add to this, something that is still in a very low contribution is fleet management or the B2B market, which in Brazil, I wouldn't say it was neglected, but we were very focused only on the B2C, but again, during the corona, we had enough time and we have the situation that we add some resources to approach the segments of the B2B, and we add more fleets, and we are adding more, as I said, more financial, let's call it, financial partners or financial banks that needs our services to generate more lenders for people that will use their financial services.

So this is another segment which is now contribute a little bit, but as I see it now, for the coming years, this can provide a very high push to the net new subscribers of the aftermarket in Brazil. So overall, I'm expecting although there is a problem with the car sales, the new car sales, I'm expecting that we will continue to grow our net subscribers, specifically in the aftermarket.

Okay. Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe last one for me, operating expenses. So we started to see general and administrative costs pick up again in the quarter. So how are you thinking about the OpEx trajectory, yes, this assuming that the post-COVID normalization continues here?

Okay. So there are 2 things I think that's relevant to this. First of all, this specific quarter, I think it will be a represent number for OpEx. Before there, there were some items that still were in -- were not executed, I would say. We still have some salaries cut, cut-down because of the corona and its add on the Q2 and almost full of -- and full of it came to Q3 since we grow, so we had some budget or advertisement in Brazil, et cetera. But I think that this is a representative quarter of OpEx.

Second, we have to understand that in some divisions around the world, the main segment, it's the R&D people, which we found that it's more difficult, specifically in Israel, but also in other countries to recruit people because the world probably feel that everything is now high price and it's very difficult to recruit people. So I'm expecting some additional costs in some salaries, but I think that it will not be material, and we can continue to look on the OpEx of this quarter as, I would say, as the right number.

Sasha Karim of IPI.

Eyal, in your statement, you mentioned the potential for buy here, pay here in LATAM to generate a significant acceleration in subscriber growth in second half of 2022. And then just now, you also mentioned that the ARPU on those subs is similar to your LATAM aftermarket business. So that sounds like it should accelerate service revenue growth as well over that period. But it does sound different in the U.S., where buy here, pay here subs are low ARPU and low margin. So could you tell us, is there a reason for that difference to persist between the LATAM and the U.S. or do you expect the ARPU buy here, pay here in LATAM to also decline significantly over time?

No, the U.S. market is totally different than I would say, I don't know to say, emerging market or Latin America, it's totally different business in the U.S., first of all, the competitive landscape. Second is the way that the dealers are many time are financing their customers, and they have other offers such as extended warranties and things like this, and it's a different market. The way we sell it in the U.S. for 15 years, it's totally different, which, of course, is influenced on our ARPU in the states specifically.

In Latin America, it's a different model. The model is more, I would say, more similar to, as I said, with the UBI to the B2B business, where we are actually leasing the hardware. By the way, in the states, we sell the hardware to the dealers, and they have some margins. Here, it's different. We sell it, we call it a [Comodato]. The hardware is -- stay on our balance sheet, so it's different. And we get the monthly returns together with the monthly services along 2 or 3 or 5 years, and this allow us by this model and to show higher -- first higher ARPU. And second, it's a different mentality of the business model. I not expect it, it will drop.

Of course, if we get to many -- to a large volume for specific customers, no doubt that we will have some different grades of price per customer. If, for example, a bank will commit for 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000, he will get different prices, but this is a regular commercial life. But currently, when we talk about numbers with no specific commitment, this is the ARPU. But I prefer to have commitment for a large number and reducing the ARPU because in the end, large numbers because it's an operating leverage model, large numbers is very important to increase the profits even if we hate -- even if we hit a little bit the ARPU.

Yes, I think that's a good problem to have. Can I also just ask about this industry in general, and this applies to the U.S. as well, how sustainable is the growth, the recent growth in buy here, pay here? Do you think that the industry, the growth may unwind somewhat once the pandemic truly ends, perhaps because people were buying cars this way to avoid using public transport and they had no other way of getting the car?

First of all, I don't know to tell you about the U.S. The U.S., we do it 15 years, we are now increased, because we increased our market share, I'm not sure if the market grows. This is regard to the U.S. Again, I must be honest, in the U.S., our market share is quite low. We are not dominant in the market. In Latin America, what was started recently, I think that we will dominate the market. Currently, we are the main player. I assume that the competition always people see success and they will join like FM in Brazil with the ICS, but today, we are still dominating the market. And the second player, I think is a way behind us. I hope that we will succeed to do it also in the finance segment in Brazil and Mexico.

Now I don't think it's something that happened because of the corona. I think that we had to think what we do when new car sales is declining. And we identified it, but it was there always. What we realized, for example, without giving names, one of the largest commercial bank in Latin America, which provide loans to buy cars for tens of millions of cars, when we approached him, he made a survey, and we get to results that there are few millions of cars that he gave up only because of this reason.

Now we allow him to come back and get those few millions loans, its interest, he lives from interest, we can increase the interest, he reduces risk, so we can extend the potential customer base for those banks. It's not happened because of the corona. We -- unfortunately, we didn't do it before the corona because we were very, very busy with this stolen vehicle recovery and with the fleet management, et cetera. But when we had to look for a solution, sometimes when you feel pressure, that's what actually happened. But I think that the pay here, buy here in Latin America, specifically because it's emerging markets, because people salaries are low, because people securities are low, I think that we identified through the corona, but this market is existing, this market will continue.

The question what will be our market share, this is a question mark. I don't want to be arrogant, but I really believe in our state-of-the-art technology, I believe that we have the best services. I believe that we -- as we have trust from all insurance companies, we will have trust from all financial institutions, and we will lead this market. And if we lead this market in a year or 2, it will be a very substantial number that will contribute to our results that we showed now. I'm saying, again, it's taking time. We increased now the subscriber base of this segment. Once we have a substantial number, it will be dramatically influenced on our profits.

That sounds very encouraging. My last one, if I could. Could you just give an update on 2 segments, I don't think we've touched upon, Ituran Com Seguro in Mexico, how that's going, any improvement there? And then fleet management, which you said last quarter was going to experience very strong growth, just like to check here if that's still coming through?

Okay. Regarding ICS in Mexico, as I said, there was a delay at the beginning because of the corona because we had to find the right timing to launch it, so we launched it. The numbers today are growing even exponentially. But again, when we have 1.8 million subscriber, still hundreds per month, it's not material, so we're not provide too much data and information about it. It's now under kind of a soft launch, I would say yet. I don't know. We see a very good attraction, an interest, and people are getting to buy through the website. But again, I can't and I don't know yet to say whether this going to be a material number.

The time that it's operated is quite low. We started only beginning of this year. And for a new segment, educating market, it's a B2C. Don't forget, it's a B2C. B2B, you have to convince 3, 4, 5 big players. B2C, you have to convince and educating millions of people in order to attract a few thousand per month. It will take more time, but it looks good and it looks promising. This is regard -- regards fleet management. So fleet management, I think that I touch it when I talk before, fleet management, mainly in Brazil, is now growing together with the finance customer, we'll put it on the same, by the way, it's under the same, let's say, the same brand, I call it fleet management because it's a B2B. It's divided to 2, it's divided to the finance, which is still low number, and second is B2B to sell it to commercial corporates that use it for control, manage and get data from their fleets. And this is growing, and this is now I think one of the main growth engines in Brazil in its 2022. And now I think it's very promising and it will contribute, as I say, to the 2022 numbers, it will be important contribution.

Abba Horovitz of OSP.

I was wondering if you mentioned it all Bringg, and if you didn't, could you speak about it?

Yes. Bringg is a company that we have 17%, and we have the largest market share, and we have the higher board representative. Bringg is a company that develop a solution for the last mile for the deliveries. And the last round was done in the quarter -- in the last quarter, and we had -- and we discussed it in our last conference call, but I will repeat the round was on valuation, we -- the company raised $100 million on valuation of $1 billion. The company is a typical SaaS company, which growing, which has a very unique offer to enterprise groups and also to small and mid businesses. Most of their customers are in the U.S., recently, thanks to the round, the open accounts in Europe and in Latin America, which allowed the company to expand its growth.

And I believe that the money that the company has and the growth that it show will allow the company to, first of all, not to go for another round soon, and at least expect hope and believe that the next time, it will be for an IPO or an M&A, but again, this is something that nobody can forecast, but this is the goal of the company. The value is actually hidden in Ituran balance sheet because it's different than SaverOne, here it's because we have, I would say, major portion of the accounting regulation looks on this investment as a kind of an equity investment. So it's 0 on our balance sheet because we already had to take part of the losses during the last 5 years, which actually balance the investment to 0. So once we will realize value by liquidating our shares, so it will be a full 100% to our profit, of course, without the taxes. So the value of our holdings now, the total value is about based on the last round is about $170 million.

Okay. So first of all, that's an off-balance sheet asset that my understanding is it's a very good asset.

Yes.

Do you have any sense what the time frame means for them to IPO? I've heard that they want an IPO. You know better than me. I'm just telling you what I've heard or you said M&A potentially. Is there a sense when this could happen, is this a 2022 event, is it later than that, do you believe whatever will happen will happen in '22?

Any -- first of all, if there will be actual things, I wouldn't be able to disclose it. But being more honest, there is no plan today, any actual things taking place to make an IPO. So with my experience, if it's not taking place now, it will not happen in 6 to 8 months, because this is the time always needed and no start-up is even maybe need more. So I'm not expecting it will happen in 2022. I can't forecast whether it happen in 2023 or 2024 because all of us know that IPO sometimes depends on the market conditions and not always on the company condition.

And M&A, it's something that I mentioned, not as a goal, but I think that always a company that touch in a market where there are large enterprise companies that need solution for deliveries, for last mile, et cetera, I'm not saying that it's something impossible that one of those giants will need this solution. No, I don't think that without any reason, Salesforce and Siemens are 1 of the main investors in Bringg. So I said it only because of my stocks in the list, but nothing is based on any actual things. I believe that if it's a good company, it will continue to grow. It has a unique technology, we know what happens in the world, I hope that this will be the next stage, whether it will be 1 or 2 years from now, I have no really any something specific that I can count on.

Just final question on that is, I mean, when we look at this, it's about $8 to $8.5 of real value, asset value-based on the valuation that it's given right now, and it is all an off-balance sheet asset, meaning that it's 0 on your books and that's substantial, that's not often, companies have $1 or $2. This is $8 to $8.5 of real value that's not being recognized in the stock at all. And I'm wondering, a, is there a way to do that or that really just requires some sort of event such as an IPO or an M&A? And if I may add, I remember when your asset was worth under $50 million.

We can do 2 things. One, to talk about it, because it's real, and second, buy shares, the rest not depend on us. People knows about it. And this is actually exactly how you described it, but until the moment that we will realize this value to money or to public shares, it's something that on the accounting regulation will not appear in our, I would say, our direct financial statements. But you're right, this is a value, everybody can know about it and can decide whether they include it in their valuations or not, but you're right.

All right. This should be our biggest problem, right. So, okay.

Yes.

(Operator Instructions) There are no further questions at this time. Before I ask Mr. Sheratzky to go ahead with his closing statement, I would like to remind participants that a replay of this call will be available tomorrow on Ituran's website, www.ituran.com. Mr. Sheratzky, would you like to make your concluding statement?

On behalf of the management of Ituran, I would like to thank you our shareholders for your continued interest and long-term support of our business. I do look forward to speaking with you next quarter and hope that we will all see better times by then. Have a good day.

Thank you. This concludes the Ituran's third quarter 2021 results conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may go ahead and disconnect.