Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ:OTEX) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Madhu Ranganathan: Yes. Thank you, Dan. So what I would say is that, as I’ve shared before, the OpenText cash conversion has remained very steady and strong. If you think about the elevation that we made with OpenText, we set out to do that with Micro Focus. What I would say is that in Q2, we saw Micro Focus also respond very positively, and the cash conversion that you’re seeing is sort of right in there. Keep in mind they had different year ends and different quarters, and we’re actually very delighted how we were able to converge their operating performance to our quarters, et cetera. Do we expect it to continue? Yes, we absolutely expect it to continue.

Daniel Chan: Thanks, Madhu. And then on the EBITDA margin guidance for the full-year, tightened it up. But next quarter, I think it looks like it’s going to take us down to 32% to 33%. Just wondering what’s driving that?

Madhu Ranganathan: Yes, so if you recall, Q3 for us is usually a seasonally lower EBITDA quarter. There are big factors, I’d say, for the remainder of the year, as Mark and I both called out, that includes investment in AI and cloud, just given the strong bookings we see, and we do have some AMC divestiture experience, I mean, expenses, and also some micro-profit integration expense. But Q3, if I could just highlight, from an employee perspective, it’s in January 1, a new year, we have higher benefits expense, we have higher sort of vacation expense, et cetera. So that is more seasonal to Q2, and that also weighs down a bit, the EBITDA margin. But for the year that 36% to 37% Q4 will remain a seasonally strong quarter.

Mark Barrenechea: And Dan, I think it’s fair to say, as Madhu noted, that Q3 is a seasonally low quarter and Q4 is a seasonally stronger quarter.

Daniel Chan: Okay, I appreciate that. The investments that you’re making into cloud AI, where are the areas of focus for this added investment? Thank you.

Mark Barrenechea: Yes, thank you, Dan. Well, you noted some of them. The — we continue to build out our private cloud infrastructure, particularly around industry of compliance, data security, trust, privacy. It’s an investment in our SaaS offerings. As we talk about how to unlock our future value, we have established our private cloud platform as a standard globally. The next step is more public cloud staff consumption across our products. And of course, aviator, our AI. So those areas where we’re applying that investment. And doing that within the range we talked at the beginning of the year, even though we tightened it a little bit, we’re still within the range we presented.

Daniel Chan: Sounds good, thank you.

Madhu Ranganathan: Thank you.

Operator: The next question is from Steve Enders with Citi. Please go ahead.

Steve Enders: Sure. Thanks for taking the question here. Maybe to start on the cloud booking experience in the core, I mean, pretty impressive results there. I guess what in particular kind of drove the upside there? Was it customers converting over, new use cases, how big of a contributor was this AI? And then I guess secondarily, do you think about the growth outlook and cloud bookings for the year, what kind of AI contribution that you’re kind of embedding in that?

Mark Barrenechea: Steve, thanks for that question. As I said in my prepared remarks on the cloud side, clearly a very strong quarter, 63% year-over-year growth. And with our forward visibility, we see continued strength. And we raised our outlook from 15% cloud bookings growth to 25% to 30% cloud bookings growth for the year. What’s driving that? First is we see a lot of customers continuing to move to our cloud and consolidating away from competitors, who can’t get to the cloud, can’t provide the data security and trust, don’t have a credible AI vision, let alone first products in the market. So just continuous strength of our private cloud, customers consolidating, compliance, data security, trust, privacy remain top of the list for the global 10,000, that’s the driver for us.

And AI, we’ve won AI business. And it’s showing up in our bookings. We’re not breaking out AI or security and trust or content or BN of bookings at this point. We don’t get down to that level. But AI was a clear contributor in that 63% cloud bookings growth and a factor in us raising our growth outlook for the year.

Steve Enders: Okay, that’s helpful. Maybe taking some of the puts and takes of the growth outlook, you know, like it’s good to see customer support step up and maybe just a little more I guess color on the license stepping down a little bit in the per services stepping down a little bit from the expectations from last quarter?

Madhu Ranganathan: Yes, so Steve, I’ll take that. License in the quarter actually was significantly higher from a year-over-year basis. And the contribution there really is bringing Micro Focus into the play. As you recall, Micro Focus cloud momentum is strong, but they’re still smaller from a cloud perspective in terms of bookings and revenue relative to, of course, OpenText. And PS revenues also grew in the quarter comparatively. I want to make sure I heard your question right. Both license and PS did grow in the quarter.

Steve Enders: Yes, I guess I want to, yes, just clarify just on the outlook, because I think you said that both of those were down from the prior expectations from last quarter. So, just trying to understand for the annual outlook, why those two lows came down a little bit?