KORE Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:KORE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Scott Searle: Thank you.

Romil Bahl: Thank you.

Paul Holtz: Thanks Scott.

Operator: Our next question comes from Lance Vitanza with Cowen. Please state your question.

Lance Vitanza: Hey, thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the Twilio transaction. Look, Romil, I think you mentioned that when you were putting together the guidance for 2023, did you say earlier on the call that that before you layer in the Twilio component, that you were sort of looking at mid to high single digit organic normalized growth rates, obviously normalized meaning despite the fact that you had the pair of $12 million revenue headwinds for 2023. Did I hear that right?

Romil Bahl: Yeah. No, that’s correct. Despite the 12 of our largest customer LTE transition project and the $12 million from our 2G/3G, we thought we could sort of fill that hole and more, and I actually went a step further on the last call, Lance and I said, when we don’t have that $24 million hole in 2024, right, we could likely near double that organic growth rate without massively improving our sales performance, right? The same top line dollars that we’re putting on the company in the year when I’m not subtracting 24, if it was 5, 6, 7, 8, whatever percent it was this year should be able to get you 10, 12, 14 the next year, right? So that was kind of — yeah, what we talked about on the Q3 call.

Lance Vitanza: Yeah. And I mean that sort of implies that the normalized growth rates even through fourth quarter have been quite healthy. So, I guess my question is this. How do you feel about the — just in general, the overall trajectory in the pace of IoT deployment? And maybe the way to ask the question more specifically is this, so the growth rates that you’re seeing on a normalized basis, are you — does that sort of anticipate you taking share, or is that really just more of a barometer of what’s going on in the broader market and the pace of deployments and so forth?

Romil Bahl: Yeah. No, I mean, look, I think, our goal, right, Lance, as you’ve sort of heard from me since we first met, is to get to that sort of rule of 40, 20% top line growth, right, company. Right? And hey, if we can do better than the rule of 40, we will. But we certainly have been sort of chomping on the bit to invest into growth and to add the sales capabilities and so forth that we were not able to do as a private company with a ton of debt and so on. And so, one way to view the Twilio acquisition is to view it as the Board supporting us to the hilt on getting to 20% EBITDA in one shot, so to speak. And I would actually argue one step further, which is it’s the best investment you can make because again, hiring 30, 40, 50 salespeople, hoping half of them work out and they’re fit with our culture and — right, if you can find the talent in the first place, which isn’t easy, because we certainly won’t lower our standards on that, right, is a long road to temporary, right?

I mean, here we get a proven group of a dozen odd sales, pre-sales folks, group of individuals that are a team, already have good customers already. So, it’s fabulous and we want to get to that 20% growth. I will tell you now, to connect it back to your question, that when we hit 20% top line growth, that will include taking share, that will include growing kind of our win rates on the opportunities that we’re seeing, and probably growing faster than the market. Now, it — the market may surprise me and growth rates may hit 20% across the various services that we count in our TAM, right? But today, those markets are growing at half that or less than that depending on the connectivity pieces, the managed service pieces, depending on which piece you’re talking about.

So, we certainly contemplate over time getting more in our fair share.

Lance Vitanza: Great. Thanks very much for taking the questions. Congrats. Bye.

Romil Bahl: Thank you, Lance.

Operator: Our next question comes from Matt Niknam with Deutsche Bank. Please state your question.

Matthew Niknam: Hey, guys. Thank you for taking the question. Congrats on the deal announcement. Just two, if I could. One on the 2023 revenue guide, maybe I’ll ask the question a little bit differently, and I’m not going to ask about Twilio’s contribution. But any color you can provide in terms of what you’re expecting for the CaaS and IoT solutions businesses, maybe within that $300 million to $310 million outlook. And then maybe secondarily also if I can ask about free cash flow, just given the bump up in interest expense. I’m just wondering if there’s any expectation for any meaningful cash flow generation next year. Thanks.

Romil Bahl: Yeah. I’ll set Paul up on a question, he should really answer, certainly on the IoT connectivity, IoT solutions breakout and projections within the $300 million to $310 million type guidance. On the cash flow front, look, I mean, the nature of our senior debt as such as you’re aware, floating over what used to be LIBOR, I guess, once we go address it and at minimum amendment and then extend it, if not reduce it in the process, it’ll be SOFR plus or whatever. But the fact is that that’s expensive debt right now. And so between that and our convertible equity, which is at a much more reasonable interest rate, we’re spending in the neighborhood of $40 million just servicing debt in 2023. It is just a ridiculous number.

And when you then add in a little bit of extra expense on the audit revisions here on the extra CapEx and sort of cash spend that, we’ll get once we close the Twilio IoT unit. Yeah. It’s certainly not going to be a good free cash flow year, right, is what I’ll say. And then I’ll turn it over to Paul to add color.