Guidewire Software, Inc. (NYSE:GWRE) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Aaron Kimson: Great. Thank you, guys for the questions. Mike, you talked about the four Tier 1 deals in the quarter. So stepping back, when you think about the pace of cloud transitions over the coming years, specifically at Tier 1, do you see a potential tipping point where the largest players start to move to the cloud at an increased pace or see this as more of alongside that might take 10 plus years?

Mike Rosenbaum: Well, I think it’s going to be — it’s hard to say. I don’t imagine that there’s going to be any magic thing that causes it all to shift suddenly just because the decision for an individual carrier has a lot of other factors that weigh into the decision on the timing. And in many circumstances, at least verbally, we have alignment about the overall intention to get to cloud. I probably haven’t said it in a number of quarters, but very often the conversation is this is just a matter of when, not if. But we have to solve that equation for each and every one of those companies. Like I said a second ago, this is just adding up a whole bunch of factors, continue to add — that continue to add incentive and increase the likeliness of those companies making the decision in any particular quarter to begin that transition.

And it’s our readiness. It’s the number of customers and the amount of experience that we have. It’s the amount of value that we’re able to put into the product and what they can do with it now relative to when they first evaluated it, that just improving release over release over release. I think all those things just add up. And then those things are compared to the internal objectives of that company and what they have on their docket in any particular quarter or year, and then they make that decision. And you got to understand like we’re having that conversation with each and every one of our customers. Maybe not continuously, but probably at least once a quarter, maybe twice a year, just checking in and making sure that we’re — that they’re up-to-date on what we can do, and we’re up to date on what their objectives are.

So yes, hopefully, that gives you a perspective of why I say that this is going to sort of be a slow steady wins the race, and there isn’t going to be some magical thing that causes it all to tip in a particular quarter.

Aaron Kimson: That’s really helpful. Thank you. And then, Jeff, maybe quickly on capital allocation. So you still have about $138 million on your share repurchase program. haven’t bought back any stock in the prior two quarters. At Analyst Day, you talked about potentially keeping more than $400 million of strategic cash, at least $400 million if run the business cash, you have to convert big our stock price at the close today, that will be settled in stock. So how do you think about a scenario where you could utilize the remainder of your recourse program, if there is one?

Jeffrey Cooper: Yeah. Look, I think you laid it out nicely. We’re in a mode where, we think that there is an interesting time for us to potentially be a little bit more strategic around M&A. It’s obviously a lot of thought goes into those types of processes. And we will be very disciplined, but that is becoming a bit more interesting for us on the convert side. We do have that maturity out there. You’re right, we might settle in shares. We might settle that in cash to a net share settlement as well. And so those are a number of things that we’re thinking about. We do still have some capacity on our share repurchase program. But I think right now, we felt like it’s a good time for us to reserve a little bit more dry powder on the balance sheet.

Aaron Kimson: Understood. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Tyler Radke with Citibank. Please proceed with your question.

Unidentified Participant: Hey. This is Peter on the line for Tyler Radke. Thanks for taking the question. I just had one question here on the macro, more on the topic of inflation and the impact that’s had on gains expenses. I was just interested on customer scrutiny on making investment decisions have gotten better over the past 90 days. And then if things haven’t gone better, what’s really contributed to the recent success in migration wins? Thanks.

Mike Rosenbaum: Yeah. Thanks for the question. Yeah. So definitely, we’ve seen this. It’s on the minds and on the fiscal financial outcomes of almost every insurance company in the world. But it’s been nice to see that everybody has, for the most part, taken a very long-term perspective about the approach to adjusting for inflation and claims expense and passing these changes through to premium adjustments. And for the most part, I would say that hasn’t dramatically changed our perspective on the IT investments associated with core system migrations and core system modernizations. Like I said a few months ago, these are 10-year, at least, decisions for these companies. They’re picking a partner and executing a project that’s going to — they expect to last them over a decade, and so they can make long-term decisions about the point in time in which they’re going to begin that transformation and partner with something like Guidewire to do that.

So for sure, like slowdown in inflation and stabilization of the claims expense creates more confidence in the year-to-year business model at an insurance company. And that definitely doesn’t hurt their ability to greenlight modernization project. But generally, we were able — we saw — we saw them push straight through in a lot of cases, this adjustment and still greenlight projects to modernize with Guidewire, and that was really great to see. But it will be nice, I think that everyone will be very happy to see a more stable inflationary environment over the next couple of years. And I suppose knock on wood that, that actually comes true. But it certainly will help the industry, and I think will, therefore, help Guidewire.