Paymentus Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PAY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Paymentus Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PAY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript February 26, 2023

Operator: Good day. And welcome to Paymentus Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. This call is being recorded. All participants are currently in a listen-only mode. There will be opportunity for questions following management’s prepared remarks. At this time, I’d like to hand the call over to Paul Seamon, Interim Chief Financial Officer for some introductory comments. Please go ahead.

Paul Seamon: Thank you. Good afternoon. And welcome to Paymentus fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. Joining me on the call today is Dushyant Sharma, our Founder and CEO. Following our prepared remarks, we will take questions. Our press release is issued after the close of market today and is posted on our website where this call is being simultaneously webcast. The webcast replay of this call and the supplemental slides accompanying this presentation will be available on our company’s website under the Investor Relations link at ir.paymentus.com. Statements made on this webcast include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements use words such as will, believe, expect, anticipate and similar phrases that denote future expectation or intent regarding our financial results and guidance, the impact of and our ability to address continued economic uncertainty and inflation, our market opportunities, business strategies, implementation timing, product enhancements, impact from acquisitions and other matters.

These forward-looking statements speak as of today and we undertake no obligation to update them. These statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in such statements, including the risks and uncertainties set forth under the captions, special note regarding forward-looking statements and risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, which we filed with the SEC on March 3, 2022 and our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, which we expect to file with the SEC shortly and elsewhere in our other filings with the SEC. We encourage you to review these detailed Safe Harbor and risk factor disclosures.

In addition, during today’s call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, specifically contribution profit, adjusted gross profit, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin are non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are useful in measuring our performance and liquidity should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from GAAP results. We encourage you to review additional disclosures regarding these non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations of the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our earnings press release issued today and the supplemental slides for this webcast, each available on the Investor Relations page of our website. With that, I’d like to turn the call over to Dushyant Sharma, our Founder and CEO.

Dushyant Sharma: Thank you, Paul. We had a strong quarter that was successful, both financially and strategically. On the financial front, we exited the year ahead of our initial annual topline expectations that we set at the beginning of 2022. On the strategic front, among other milestones in the quarter, we recently launched a product for small- and medium-sized businesses, commonly referred to as SMBs over our IP and ecosystem that we expect to expand our TAM and enhance our ability to change a portion of our model from interchange being a cost center to a revenue center. Let me discuss the financial highlights first. As you can see on slide three, we finished 2022 with a stronger than anticipated results in the fourth quarter.

Our revenue for the quarter was $132.2 million, up 22.2% year-over-year and contribution profit was $54.1 million, up 19.4% year-over-year. We also expanded margins sequentially. Our adjusted EBITDA was $10.2 million for the quarter, with a corresponding margin of almost 19%. On slide four, we show our performance for full year 2022, our first full year of being public. We finished with revenues of $497 million, which represented growth of almost 26% and was higher than our expectations that we shared with you at the beginning of 2022. Contribution profit was $201.3 million, representing 27% growth, which was within our updated range of expectations. Adjusted EBITDA finished at $28.6 million with a 14.2% margin, which was within our initial range of expectations.

On a full year basis, our dollar volume increased over 70%, which reflects our continued move to serve larger and larger clients, and increased scale in payment ecosystem. In the quarter, we achieved several milestones as outlined on slide five. First, we signed a large bank, Citizens Financial Group for consumable payment with our Bill Center product. We believe this is a very good sign of things to come for bill payment sales to financial institutions as we have larger and larger institutions evaluating our modern product to replace their legacy solutions. Second, in the quarter, we expanded the reach of the instant payment network through a partnership with Green Dot to accept cash payments at over 90,000 retail locations across the U.S. We continue to support consumer choice of payment channels and methods, and are working to add more and more partners to the network to capture additional payment volume over IPN.

Third, we partner with a large real estate platform to be one of its payments offering for rent payments. Additionally, we completed the implementation of a loan payment client that was a cross-sell of our Biller Direct platform into our bank bill payment customer base. We expect to see continued penetration in the banking and credit union markets forward loan payment offering. In addition, we also launched a large mortgage services company towards the end of Q4. As I mentioned a minute ago, we are also pleased to announce the launch of our SMB platform that combines the features of our current platform with a new product offering and team that we acquired in the quarter. Our SMB product is a full-service financial offering to SMBs and offers complete self-onboarding with no implementation involved.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

It starts with automating business banking and attaches to it a full-service SMB operating system that automates payables, receivables and expense management using the Paymentus platform. As I shared last quarter, we sent out millions of payments to over 1 million payees, many of whom are SMBs. All of these are outside of our direct biller network, yet they participate in our ecosystem and receive payments. We believe this presents a very efficient distribution channel for us, which we plan to leverage to attract such customers. As you know, there are 6 — over 6 million SMBs and millions more small office and home offices in the U.S. alone. In addition to the expansion of our TAM with this offering, we seek to change the economic model by generating interchange revenues.

In other words, in contrast to Biller Direct in this offering, interchange is no longer a cost center, instead is a revenue center for us. With that background, let me turn to our 2023 guidance on slide seven. In 2023, we expect our revenues to be in the range of $575 million to $600 million, which is 16% to 21% growth. We expect contribution profit from $224 million to $237 million or 11% to 18% growth. We expect adjusted EBITDA of $32 million to $38 million, an adjusted EBITDA margin range of 14% to 16%. As you can see, we have initially provided a broad range for contribution profit guidance, which somewhat diminishes its utility. In an inflationary environment and given its related dependence on factors outside of our control, we believe initial contribution profit guidance requires more flexibility.

However, we have a high degree of confidence regarding our ability to deliver on the guidance measures we are most focused on in 2023. The top and the bottomline much like how we executed in 2022. Let me now talk briefly about our expectations for the first quarter of 2023 on slide eight. For the first quarter of 2023, we expect revenues to be between $136 million and $140 million, contribution profit to be between $51 million and $53 million, and EBITDA to be between $7 million and $8 million. But before I turn the call over to Paul, let me address the guidance itself. If I am you, I would be wondering is the business slowing down? Why isn’t the growth higher? And the short answer is no. I don’t believe the business is slowing down. The best way I can describe the business from my vantage point is that to hit the top end of each of our guidance range provided in 2023, believe — I believe that we do not need to sign a single additional client in 2023 and only implement the existing backlog of currently signed clients.

The reason for our broad ranges is the macroeconomic environment we are operating in. Our growth in bookings continues to accelerate. But the timing of implementation on onboarding is primarily controlled by the clients, which is impacted by the macro. I believe our platform itself is capable of launching engaged clients swiftly. I would also add that my team and I are excited about the future of our business and where we are strategically taking it. I believe that great businesses achieved great things during challenging times and use it as an opportunity to innovate and set that stage for future disruptive models as we are doing here at Paymentus. With that, Paul, will provide more color on our 2022 results and each of the guidance numbers.

Paul Seamon: Thanks, Dushyant. As a reminder, today’s discussion includes GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the tables in our press release and supplemental slides for reconciliation of the non-GAAP items to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure. I am pleased with our fourth quarter results. The strong performance was highlighted by re-pricing actions and improved expense management leading to an adjusted EBITDA nearing 20%. In the fourth quarter, we processed 97.2 million transactions, a 16.7% increase over the same period last year. Transaction growth in the quarter faced a difficult compare relative to Q4 2021, where we experienced over 50% growth due to the implementation of a large high volume client and the continued rollout of our large logistics client.

For the full year 2022, we processed 366.9 million transactions, an increase of 30.8% compared to 2021. Our fourth quarter revenue was $132.2 million, an increase of 22.2% compared to the same period last year. Revenue grew faster than the growth in transaction count for the quarter, largely driven by the launch of several clients primarily in the telecommunications, insurance and government payment verticals, where the earned revenue per transaction is typically higher than average. The revenue for the full year was $497.0 million, an increase of 25.7% compared to 2021. Contribution profit increased 19.4% over the fourth quarter of 2021 to $54.1 million. Contribution profit for 2022 increased to $201.3 million, an increase of 27.0% over 2021.

Contribution profit per transaction for the quarter was $0.56 and for the full year of $0.55, which was consistent with our expectations. As we have continued to highlight in prior quarters and as mentioned in the past, fluctuations outside of our control, such as increases in the average payment amount or unfavorable swings in the payment mix can influence contribution profit quarter-by-quarter. Throughout the year, we operated in a highly inflationary environment, particularly in the utility sector, which at times experienced inflation north of 20% in 2022. In the back half of 2022, we worked diligently to manage expenses and took on several pricing actions to offset some inflationary headwinds we experienced throughout the year. Some leisure pricing actions were successfully executed in the fourth quarter of 2022.

For other clients, we are currently actively engaged in re-pricing conversations. Adjusted gross profit increased $8.5 million to 23.5%, compared to the fourth quarter of 2021 to $44.6 million. For the full year, adjusted gross profit increased $34.4 million or 27.0% to $161.8 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $10.2 million for the fourth quarter, which represented an 18.9% adjusted EBITDA margin. While still not in the high 20s margin level we were at before going public, this is a new high-water mark as a public company and shows our ability to expand margin. Adjusted EBITDA for 2022 was $28.6 million, representing a 14.2% adjusted EBITDA margin. Operating expense of $6.2 million to $39.6 million for the fourth quarter of 2022 from the same period last year and $41.6 million increased to $152.7 million for the full year compared to 2021.

Specifically, the largest increases were noted in sales and marketing, which increased $5.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 to $20.2 million compared to the same period in 2021. For the full year, sales and marketing expenses were up $29.4 million in 2022 and $73.3 million compared to 2021. On a year-over-year basis, the increase was driven by the Payveris acquisition, continued expansion of the sales team, adding partnerships to capture our sizable market opportunity and an increase in stock-based compensation. We continue to invest in sales and marketing in 2023 to drive topline revenue growth, as we target existing and new biller segments, including IPN and now SMB opportunities. Our GAAP net income for the fourth quarter 2022 was $1.0 million and for the full year 2022 was a loss of $0.05 million.

GAAP EPS was a $0.01 and zero cents for the fourth quarter 2022 and full year 2022, respectively. Non-GAAP net income was $3.0 million for the quarter and $8.1 million for the year. Non-GAAP EPS was $0.02 and $0.07 for the quarter and year, respectively. As of December 31, 2022, we had $147.3 million of cash and cash equivalents on our balance sheet. Cash decreased primarily due to using cash for the small pre-revenue SMB product acquisition in the quarter. At year end, we had approximately 123 million shares of common stock outstanding. Now turning to our 2023 full year outlook, as Dushyant said, we expect revenue for the full year 2023 to be between $575 million and $600 million or 16% to 21% growth year-over-year. Contribution profit is anticipated to be between $224 million and $237 million or 11% and 18% growth year-over-year.

We continue to anticipate high inflation, higher than historical norms, which creates a headwind for growth, especially contribution profit growth. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $32 million and $38 million, resulting in an expected EBITDA — adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 14% to 16%. This range anticipates margin expansion over 2022, while still allowing us to invest in small business and other growth initiatives. To provide some additional color on the phasing throughout the year, we anticipate that both growth metrics and the adjusted EBITDA margin will be at their lowest level of the year in the first quarter of 2023. This was partially due to a difficult compare in Q1 of 2022 when we had a 35% contribution profit growth and partially due to the timing of implementations with no large billers going live in the first quarter of 2023.

Revenue growth should accelerate throughout the year, while growth in contribution profit will partially depend on inflationary pressures and other factors. As such, we expect revenue growth in Q1 to be between $136 million and $140 million or 17% to 20% growth and contribution profit to be between $51 million and $53 million in the range of 8% to 12% growth. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to between $7 million and $8 million in the first quarter, a margin of 13% to 15%, which would be a minimum of a 2% increase over the 11% margin we had in Q1 of 2021. We expect this margin to expand each quarter throughout the year on a year-over-year basis, following a similar cycle as we had last year, is magnified somewhat this year by a change we made in our employee review and compensation cycle for 2023.

In previous years, raises and bonuses were given on an employee’s anniversary more or less evenly distributed throughout the year. This year all raises were effective January 1st. So we expect a step-up in employee costs earlier than normal, suppressing margin earlier in 2023 and helping it in the fourth quarter. We believe the company is well positioned for the future. We have built a strong, profitable company with financial flexibility in the balance sheet. We have passed several key milestones and believe we continue to be positioned well to grow for a long time. I will now turn the call over to Dushyant for closing comments.

Dushyant Sharma: Thanks, Paul. I am proud that our team came together and delivered on most of our original expectations in 2022. I believe that this illustrates the resilience of our business despite the difficult macro environment. We are very confident about the long-term growth prospects of the business, especially given the expanding IP ecosystem we are building, which we believe allows us to reach a broader TAM and leverages the entire spectrum of interchange from a cost center in our biller business to interchange neutral in IPN business to interchange being a revenue source in our SMB offering and beyond. We remain excited about the demand for our products in all of the industry verticals we are operating in. So, as Paul mentioned, we are leaning in and making continued investments in the sales and marketing, while also seeking expanded margins in 2023. With that, I will open the line for questions.

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Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. The first question is from the line of Ashwin Shirvaikar with Citi. Your line is now open.

Ashwin Shirvaikar: Thank you.

Dushyant Sharma: Hi, Ashwin.

Ashwin Shirvaikar: Yeah. Hi, Dushyant. Hi, Paul. Hey. I have a couple of questions. I guess the first one is with regards to Citizens. But if you could — the question is a bit more stepped back than that if you can talk broadly about sort of the Biller Direct versus the Bank Aggregator models and whether this sort of indicates you are kind of leaning into both models now as opposed to primarily one of them before, is that the right way to think of it? And then the financial part of the question is whether something like Citizens, which can obviously be a very large client, is in your 2023 expectations, is it rolled in there?

Dushyant Sharma: Good question. Thank you, Ashwin. So Aggregator versus Biller Direct, and so, as you recall, our strategy has been right from the beginning, from Horizon 1 and 2 being centered on mid-market and enterprise billing companies, respectively. And Horizon 3 is about trying to bring basically remove the chasm that has existed between any one of the Aggregator models historically using the paper based paradigm the banks currently employ to a more modern paradigm, which IPN offers. What that means is, you are basically taking any bank customer payment and bringing it in real time to the billing companies participating in IPN directly. So that model is actually extremely well received by the banks and what we are really trying to do is, we are looking at it from both sides of the house or the spectrum of usage.

One is the billing companies. Billing companies want more and more payments, more directly, more in real-time and from all channels, and banks being one of them. And banks want — banks customers want a totally different experience than what they have been receiving from the systems that were designed in the 1980s. So, with that, we see a great opportunity on both sides and that’s exactly what we are pursuing, and we — today we have hundreds of banks and credit unions who are already on our platform and we are extremely proud to welcome Citizens Bank as well. And in terms of the financial part of it, I think, a very small modest number is in our 2023. So most of the growth will come in outer years.

Ashwin Shirvaikar: Understood. And if I can shift gears to Paymentus for SMBs, quite a notable expansion there, I just — one question I had was how much of this is ready currently, I mean, I would say, the payments engine clearly you have, I believe, but if I look at page six of your presentation, there’s expense management, there’s business cards, it’s kind of a fairly broad offering. Are there partnerships already set up and ready to go or is this aspirational at this stage?

Dushyant Sharma: This is actually live right now. Most of this is live and operating. And what we don’t have a lot in our model is the financial numbers from it. But in terms of the product capability, it is live, is operational, is in production and we are, frankly, trying to grow this segment. And as I shared in my prepared remarks, if you think about it, we are sending out payments to — we are sending out millions of payments right now and to a million plus payees and many of them are SMBs and we have been working on it for quite some time. And now we are saying, well, if they are already part of the IPN ecosystem, why aren’t inviting them and offering them a thing of value so that we can actually bring more of their — first of all, bring them into our ecosystem more directly, participate in our IPN, and therefore, be reachable to any of the financial institution who participates in the IPN network as well.