Conduent Incorporated (NASDAQ:CNDT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

We believe our government and transportation businesses have strong defensive characteristics against some of the broader macro trends we’re seeing impacting our commercial segment in the short term. And as a reminder, as Cliff said earlier, our overall ACV pipeline stands at approximately $4.2 billion which is its highest level for some time with strong representation in some of our key strategic growth areas like government healthcare. Very briefly on slide 6, as a reminder, you can see the impact of the Australian deal in transit and what that had on our second quarter sales results. It represented around $1 billion of TCV, $65 million of ACV and we expect to recognize approximately $200 million to $250 million in implementation revenues over a period of up to four years with most of that benefiting 2024 through 2027.

Let’s now look at the financial results for the quarter. Turning to slide 7, adjusted revenue for Q3, 2023 was $932 million as compared to $977 million in Q3, 2022, down 4.6% year-over-year, or 5.3% in constant currency. This was slightly better than how I laid it out for you in last quarter’s earnings due to a stronger performance in the government segment. As always, our quarters have discrete items that impact the individual segments, and I’ll cover those when we double-click into the segment results individually. In total, there’s about $30 million of headwinds from these items compare to this quarter. Putting those aside, overall wins and revenue ramped from new clients and expanded client relationships outpaced lost business. But consistent with the last couple of quarters, this was offset primarily by lower CX volumes from some larger clients where we continue to see softness in specific verticals like travel, logistics, and telecom.

We continue to believe these are predominantly macro related and as such should reverse over time. Thinking about our revenue holistically, we’re in the period now where we’re transitioning from a long downward trajectory through a period that will take us into the early part of next year where we expect wins and ramped revenue to generally outpace lost business. And we’re seeing these losses begin to normalize into the ranges we outlined in our March investor briefing. Meanwhile, we expect volumes from installed clients to be a headwind in the short term while there’s the macro related pressures that we and others are seeing, but over time they should dissipate. Adjusted EBITDA was $92 million for the quarter as compared to $105 million in Q3, 2022, and the adjusted EBITDA margin of 9.9% was down 80 basis points year-over-year as compared to Q3, 2022.

This was in line within our expectations and how I laid it out at our last earnings call. Most of the year-over-year impact was driven by the discrete items I’ll cover when we go through the segments. Before I move on to discuss the segments, there are a couple of other comments on the GAAP results for the quarter. First, on September 26th, we announced that we’d entered into a definitive agreement for the transfer of our BenefitWallet HSA portfolio for an approximate purchase price of $425 million. The transaction, which is treated as an asset sale, is expected to close during the first half of 2024 in several tranches. Consequently, this was identified as a triggering event that required us to evaluate the commercial segment goodwill for impairment and resulted in an impairment charge of $287 million, primarily due to this deal.

When the deal closes in 2024, we will record an approximate pretax gain of $425 million. Secondly, as we continue to evaluate and refine our capital portfolio strategy, we took a non-cash impairment charge of $25 million related to two software projects. Both items are consistent with our strategic priorities to rationalize the portfolio and narrow our investment focus. Let’s turn to slide 8 and go over the segment results. For Q3, 2023, Commercial segment adjusted revenues were $465 million, down 7.7% as compared to Q3, 2022. BenefitWallet drove a $12 million increase year-over-year, and non-repeating items were a combined headwind of $28 million. New business ramp and add-on sales outpaced losses for a combined $21 million benefit to revenue.