Bentley Systems, Incorporated (NASDAQ:BSY) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Werner Andre: Thank you, Nicolas. We are pleased with another strong quarter. Total revenues for the third quarter were $307 million, up 14% year-over-year or 11% in constant currency. Year-to-date, total revenues grew 13% on a reported and constant currency basis. Subscription revenues for the quarter grew 15% year-over-year or 12% in constant currency and represented 88% of our total revenues. Year-to-date subscription revenues grew 14% on a reported and constant currency basis. The onboarding of Power Line Systems at the end of January 2022 accounts for approximately 0.5 percentage point of this year-to-date improvement. Our E365 and SMB initiatives continue to be solid contributors to our subscription revenue growth. Perpetual license revenues for the third quarter grew 26% or 23% in constant currency.

Year-to-date, perpetual license revenues grew 6% on a reported and constant currency basis. Even though perpetual license sales make up only 4% of total revenues, and will certainly remain small relative to our recurring revenues, they are likely to become more significant to us as they did in ’23 Q3. This is particularly true for SMB and that it served as a competitive differentiator, helping us to attract new logos and in China due to local preferences. Our professional services revenues remained essentially flat for the quarter. Year-to-date, services revenues grew 6% or 8% in constant currency and benefited from the acquisition of Vetasi, which we acquired within our Cohesive Digital Integrator Group in 22 Q4. Moving on to our recurring revenue performance.

Our last 12 months recurring revenues increased by 13% year-over-year or by 14% in constant currency. The acquisition of Power Line Systems contributed about 1 percentage point. Our last 12 months constant currency account retention rate rounded down to 97% from 98% as a result of exiting Russia mid-2022. Our constant currency recurring revenues, net retention rate remained at 110%, led by continued accretion and within our E365 consumption-based commercial model. We ended Q3 with ARR of $1.125 million at quarter end spot rates. As discussed by Nicolas, our ARR growth trends by infrastructure sectors remained broadly in line with the previous quarter, led by public works and utilities, resources performed just above the Company overall. Industrial growth softened somewhat and commercial and facilities remain flat.

Our E365 and SMB growth initiatives remain the key growth contributors. On a constant currency basis, our trailing 12-month ARPU rate was 12.5% year-over-year and 2.6% on a sequential quarterly basis. When compared to the third quarter last year and when compared to historic seasonality, ’23 Q3 was impacted by one less week day. This negatively impacted the annualization of our consumption-based E365 revenues, which is based on the current quarter’s consumption times four. As the fourth quarter and the full year 2022 and 2023 have the same number of week days, there will be no impact from this on our full year ARR growth. But this calendar anomaly has caused ‘23 Q3 ARR growth to be slightly lower in proportion to the full year when compared to our historic seasonality.

The quarter was also impacted by continued headwinds in China and a greater preference there, but also in SMB elsewhere for perpetual licenses. As a reminder, Q4 remains for us the biggest contract renewal quarter of the year and thereby represents the quarter with our biggest ARR growth opportunity. Our GAAP operating income was $74 million for the third quarter and $193 million year-to-date. We have previously explained the impact on our GAAP operating results from amortization of purchased intangibles, deferred compensation plan liability revaluations and acquisition expenses. Moving on to adjusted operating income with stock-based compensation expense our primary profitability and margin performance measures starting this year. Adjusted operating income with stock-based compensation expense was $86 million for Q3, up $19 million or 29% year-over-year with a margin of 28.2%, up 330 basis points.

Year-to-date, our adjusted operating income with stock-based compensation expense was $250 million, up $41 million or 19%, with a margin of 27.2%, up 140 basis points. Q3 was a strong margin quarter for us. In Q4, we expect to see relatively higher OpEx compared to Q3, mainly caused by incremental promotional activities and IT system implementation costs associated with our ERP system. We remain on track to deliver on our full year margin outlook of approximately 26%. With respect to liquidity, our operating cash flow was $73 million for the quarter, and $330 million year-to-date, up $92 million or 38%. The year-to-date operating cash flows benefited from an increased focus on working capital management, as well as timing. Due to these factors, we expect this year’s cash flow from operations to convert from adjusted EBITDA at the rate of 85% to 90%, up from our previous estimate of approximately 80%.