Nutanix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTNX) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 7 of 12

Rajiv Ramaswami: Yes. So first of all, I’ll just say, in the U.S. — by the way, we only have two verticals. One is public sector and the other is healthcare. So public sector is clearly very important for us. We are well penetrated into public sector across both civilian, defense, government agencies across the board as well as state, local education. So it’s a very important market. That’s why we have a vertical presence in it targeted at that market. And I would say, it continues to be a very solid source of business for us. We continue to drive their modernization efforts. We are fairly broadly deployed, but we see continued opportunities there as well. So it’s a good and very important sector for us with continued spending.

Now of course, they have their budget cycles, as you know, every year, right? I mean depending on certain quarters where for the year-end, we tend to see a bump in the public sector sales during that quarter. But that’s — again, it’s all as usual, I would say.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Aaron Rakers with Wells Fargo.

Aaron Rakers: I have got two as well, if I can. I just wanted to maybe first ask about the ACV piece of the guidance. I know that you talked about the macro dynamics, but looking at the high end of the guidance range, it’s still down about 15% or 16% sequential. I know you also talked about possibly a slight decline in duration. So I’m curious, that’s definitely below what seasonalities look like over the last couple of years. Is that all just macro? Is there something else that you’re factoring in or maybe quantify kind of that slight possible decline in duration? Just trying to unpack that guidance for ACV this quarter.

Rukmini Sivaraman: Sure. Thank you, Aaron. So yes, we were happy to be able to raise both revenue and ACV billings guidance. And you’re right, Aaron, that sort of half over half, I guess, it does imply a decline in ACV billings like second half over first half. And I would say, one is what you’ve already pointed out and which we talked about, which is this modest elongation in sales cycles that we — there was anecdotal in Q1. We saw it. We saw a modest elongation in Q2. And so we have factored in, as I mentioned in my remarks, to write some conservatism as it relates specifically to the new and expansion portion about the ACV, but ACV billings portion, right, of the overall guide. So there’s definitely that. And if you look at a year-over-year growth rate, I think there’s still a meaningful growth rate year-over-year for the second half. So that’s kind of how we are thinking about the ACV guidance for the full year and implied second half.

Aaron Rakers: Yes, very, very helpful. And then on the free cash flow — and I apologize for going back to this, but if you look at the first half of the year, you did about $109 million of free cash flow. If I take the adjustments that you’ve quantified factoring into, let’s just call it, the midpoint of that $100 million to $125 million, factor back in the $33 million and the $12 million that you talked about is still a particularly large decline relative to the first half. So I understand that there’s an unquantified element to this investigation dynamic. So I guess the question is, is there anything changing within the free cash flow dynamics, be it working capital that’s changed in the back half of your guidance relative to what you saw in the first half? I’m just trying to understand why free cash flow second half versus first half down aside from just those factors that you outlined.

Page 7 of 12