Samuel Jonas: I don’t know. I mean, again, we’re opportunistic, and we don’t have any plans one way or the other as of yet. But €“ so no change in stance, just no buybacks this past quarter.
Adam Wilk: Okay. I might just push back on that €“ or not push back, but just add to that question a bit just by asking, was there something you saw the last two quarters that kind of spurred you to action?
Samuel Jonas: No. I mean, again, like I think the business as well, as you saw, we threw off $20 million plus or minus this past quarter, which is did not decide to invest it in buying back stock this quarter.
Adam Wilk: Sure. I understand. Well, the buybacks at this price remain incredibly accretive. So that’s my $0.02 anyway. But I appreciate you taking my questions and congrats on a great quarter. Thank you.
Samuel Jonas: Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Alexander Rory. Please announce your affiliation then pose your question.
Unidentified Analyst: Hi, guys. Congrats on the numbers. So this is the third consecutive quarter with NRS advertising kind of dramatically higher level. So, it’s been for three straight quarters, roughly a 2x increase in ad revenue per terminal, roughly. I think there is some skepticism out there that these are kind of one-time gains or you guys might revert back to per terminal levels you were seeing a year ago when the total business was doing $4 million ish per quarter in ad revenue. So, maybe just speak to like the sustainability of the new run rate in ad revenue.
Samuel Jonas: I mean again, we are definitely facing some headwinds in advertising. There is no question about it. I do think that, again, we are doing better in €“ we don’t give guidance. We are doing better in March than we were in January by a large amount. So €“ but again, there definitely is headwinds in advertising. There is no question about it. That being said, we think that we are going to do well on it.
Marcelo Fischer: I mean obviously, we don’t conclude the macro environment. From a macro perspective, I think we are very well positioned, right. I mean we are competing in the view of age segment of advertising, which continues to grow and will be one of the fastest growing segments in advertising growth, and we participate in that segment. And as I mentioned earlier, I think that our digital screens in that segment is very, very attractive way for advertisers who want to place ads digitally to choose us as a solution. So, we are trying to continue to grow the number of programmatic relationships that we do business with. And I think that we, to a large extent, always from now on, be a function more of the macro situation. But as long as advertising dollars are out there, I think we will be capturing more and more of the share of it. That then goes by and that our network continues to increase.
Unidentified Analyst: Got it. And then last quarter, the NRS store base on a same-store sales basis really outperformed the peer set. I am just eyeballing the statistics and the NRS insights released in February. And it looks like for the whole quarter, on a cumulative basis, the NRS stores were doing about 4 percentage points better year-on-year than convenience stores in general nationally. So, what do you attribute that to, or do you expect €“ and do you expect that to be a sustainable trend?
Samuel Jonas: I don’t really know the answer. That’s the truth. I mean I think that that the main thing that I would attribute to is independent business people are really the drivers of the economy, and they are innovative. And when inflation is high, they put things on sale in the front of their stores that make things not seem like they are out of reach for consumers. And they talk to their consumers, and they tell them what’s a good deal. And I think that it’s really that independent businessmen mentality that’s keeping them strong. I really don’t have any other explanation. It’s not because they have better access to products or financing or rental rates or etcetera, etcetera. They have a lot of challenges in my opinion still, but we are trying to help them overcome. But yes, they definitely are resilient.
Unidentified Analyst: Got it. And last question for me. Any update on the €“ Samuel, you talked about this last quarter that the group purchasing effort to try and help some of your NRS customers get scale with distributors. And how is the early progress there?
Samuel Jonas: Unfortunately, this is not a great quarter for that. We don’t lose many good people, but we lost the head of that division this past quarter to a different startup. So, that was a little bit of a setback, but we have high hopes for it going forward.
Unidentified Analyst: Great. Thanks very much.
Operator: The next question comes from Sean Berger. Please announce your affiliation and post your question.
Sean Berger: Hi. This is Sean Berger from Adirondack Retirement Specialists, and I want to first, congratulations on a very good quarter. With regard to €“ and first, also if anybody ever wants to contact me on live, BOSS Money is the best as a consumer, I can give you a lot about it because I use it all the time. One of the things that when I use BOSS Money is they gave me a little discount for downloading mobile wallet. And I was really impressed with the mobile wallet. I was just wondering anything with that in the future as far as the potential I don’t know if that’s a potential revenue source or just more Glu.
Samuel Jonas: I mean I believe you are referring to our neobanking solution.
Sean Berger: Because on my phone, the app, so maybe…
Samuel Jonas: Wallet by BOSS.
Sean Berger: Yes, wallet by BOSS. So, I call it mobile wallet. Alright. So that’s the neobank.
Samuel Jonas: So, that is the neobanking. So, that’s what I was referring to earlier that you get $2 when you use it to pay for a money transfer. So yes, I mean it’s more than Glu. I mean Glu is definitely part of it. But we make money on it the same way that lots of neobank still, which is the more money and balances you have, the more money we are making in interest. And the more money you spend on your card, the more money we are making on interchange. And we €“ like all of our products, we are giving customers great value. There is no fees in having a card with us. You get paid early if you have direct deposit. You get the discounts when you use it for bus money. You get some really cool information on how you are spending money and things that will help you budget more appropriately.
And we think that we are €“ we think that we are giving to consumers a really great product and again, at a great value. And we hope that it becomes a much bigger part of our business. And as I said…
Sean Berger: I was also very impressed with the technology like it linked up my photo with my wallet or with my driver’s license and boom, like merged the two, so like it identified me well, and I think it’s very good for the unbanked like people that are unbanked like Latin American people that are here and would need to be banked. I think that there is a very underserved community. So, I think that’s great. One of the €“ the only other question I had was also with regard to €“ I know that you can’t comment much on lawsuit, but I did know about the judge sustained an injury. I am just wondering if there is any expected delays or if you have been informed in any delays as a result of that with the Straight Path litigation, or that just seems to be progressing along that was it.
Samuel Jonas: Well, I mean first off, I hope he has a full recovery. From afar, he looks like a very, very nice man, and we wish him the best. And yes, I mean there is probably going to be a slight delay. We don’t know exactly by how much, but we were informed by the court of a delay.
Sean Berger: Okay. Thank you.
Marcelo Fischer: I mean just to clarify, okay. At this point, I think that post trial oral arguments scheduled to sometime in May, tentatively, the judge’s condition may affect that, but that’s always at this point.
Sean Berger: Okay. Alright. Thank you.
Operator: The next question comes from Neigal Alonzo . Please announce your affiliation and post your question.
Unidentified Analyst: Hello. Can you guys hear me?
Samuel Jonas: Yes.
Unidentified Analyst: Yes. The first question is about NRS. You had the announcement of the Canadian market recently. And if I am not mistaken, this was announced already about a year ago that you were selling in Canada. So, I am wondering, is it that Canada is a bigger part of your strategy right now, or what’s behind it? And have you already tapped into all the U.S. markets. So, the BOSS retail network that you have, I had estimated at 35,000. So, is that market close to being tapped into, or what’s the reason behind the announcement? Thank you.
Samuel Jonas: No. I mean first of all, I mean definitely not. I mean we are selling more stores today than we have ever sold before. So, the market is not tapped at all in the U.S. Listen, we think we have a great product. As I have said, we give great values to our retailers. And again, I don’t want to take any credit for the fact that their numbers are better than convenience stores are doing overall. But it’s sure not hurting them. And we want to bring that same technology and to Canada. And it’s the easiest market for us to go into all of our merchant processing solutions, etcetera, work there. We already have a distribution channel there, and it was a natural next step for NRS. But no, it has nothing to do with us believing that that we are in any way saturated in the U.S. market.
Unidentified Analyst: Okay. And then regarding net2phone, you postponed the spinoff a couple of quarters ago. So, I would like to hear where you are at with the potential spin-off in the future. And also, we have seen your unprofitable peer set a lot. So, I was wondering if you are looking to acquire any technology, expand in a geography or new clients through the acquisition of any competition of net2phone?
Samuel Jonas: I mean listen, we are always looking for good acquisitions that we can help be more successful than they were on their own. That being said, we are not looking at anything actively right now for net2phone, but that doesn’t mean that we will not in the future. As far as our plans on for net2phone, again, we definitely do not believe that current market conditions are appropriate for a spinoff. That being said, we have our heads down as you can see, and we are making sure that we are not only a very good growth company, but a profitable company and one that doesn’t need to rely on markets to support it, but we will rely on its actual cash flow to continue to support and grow its business.
Unidentified Analyst: Got it. And lastly on BOSS Money Transfer, so I would like to hear about the vision of the company, you completed them in a very €“ there is a lot of competitors in your industry. And I would like to know why you are going to succeed in this competitive environment? And what’s the end point? When are we going to see consistent positive EBITDA for BOSS Money Transfer?
