Bentley Systems, Incorporated (NASDAQ:BSY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Greg Bentley: And as you think about how to seasonalize that if you would like to do it for 2023, recall that the numbers €“ business performance basis in Q1 of 2022 and Q2 of 2022 included Russia, and China impacts that we’ve already quantified that you might want to further adjust because those numbers are net of those impacts. But we have wanted to come back and answer the questions we got during the year last year to be organized about being able to do sequential constant currency ARR growth.

Jason Celino: Okay. Perfect. We can take that off-line. And then really quickly, I know we’re moving to the OI guidance with SBC, but if you’ll €“ let me ask about EBITDA one last time. Would this have also translated into 100 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion or would have been more than 100 basis points given the decrease in SBC? Thanks.

Greg Bentley: Well, so for 2023, we €“ what we can say about SBC, it seems to me is it’s going to gravitate in the range of 6% plus or minus. The reason that SBC can jump around is, as I mentioned, elections on our executive’s part of whether to take cash or stock in their compensation. That depends in turn on whether they’re going to get their equity distributions gross or net and who has to pay the taxes. And that in turn depends on our repurchase program and consideration of the stock price and so forth. So it’s just €“ it’s not nearly as visible how EBITDA €“ excuse me, SBC might go up or might go down. So which is why we’re saying it’s going to gravitate out, we think to be 6% or so for the long-term, but hard to say for 2023.

And I wouldn’t want our executives to be focused on or measured by something, which has that bit of arbitrariness in the SBC. Arbitrariness meaning elections that executives could make based on things that are not within the company’s control. So I know that gets a little bit complicated, but we think normally, it will be the case that there will be an approximate correlation between adjusted EBITDA and adjusted operating income with SBC. But adjusted operating income with SBC is the one we can control, we think is economically and conceptually better and for everyone to converge around as many investors have asked us to focus on that in fact.

Jason Celino: Perfect. I think that’s it. Thanks, guys.

Eric Boyer: Great. Before concluding, we just wanted to announce that Bentley Systems will be ringing the opening bell at the NASDAQ on March 28. With that, we have now concluded today’s presentation. Thank you for your interest and time in Bentley Systems.