Earnings Labs

Innodata Inc. (INOD)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 29, 2015

$42.15

+0.77%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+0.00%

1 Week

-6.47%

1 Month

-1.08%

vs S&P

-1.55%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Innodata First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Raj Jain. Please go ahead.

Raj Jain

Management

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Our speakers today are Jack Abuhoff, Chairman and CEO of Innodata; and O’Neil Nalavadi, our CFO. We’ll hear from O’Neil first, who will provide a detailed review our results for the first quarter and then Jack will follow with additional perspective about the business. We’ll then take your questions. First, let me qualify the forward-looking statements that are made during the call. These statements are based largely on our current expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, that contracts may be terminated by clients; project or committed volumes of work may not materialize; our Innodata Advanced Data Solutions segment, IADS, it’s a venture with minimal revenues that has incurred losses since inception and has recorded impairment charges for all of its fixed assets; we currently intend to continue to invest in IADS; the primary at-will nature of contracts with our Content Services clients and the ability of these clients to reduce, delay or cancel projects; continuing Content Services segment revenue concentration in a limited number of clients; continuing Content Services segment reliance on project-based work; inability to replace projects that are completed, canceled or reduced; depressed market conditions; changes in external market factors; the ability and willingness of our clients and prospective clients to execute business plans, which give rise to requirements for our services; difficulty in integrating and deriving synergies from acquisitions, joint venture and strategic investments; potential undiscovered liabilities of companies that we may acquire; changes in our business or growth strategy; the emergence of new or growing competitors; various other competitive and technological factors; and other risks and uncertainties indicated from time-to-time in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to update forward-looking information, and actual results could differ materially. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to O’Neil.

ONeil Nalavadi

Management

Thank you, Raj. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to review our financial results for the first quarter 2015. As in the past, I will review our performance on a sequential quarter-over-quarter basis. Total revenue in the first quarter was $13.8 million compared to $15.9 million in the previous quarter. The $2.1 million decline was primarily a result of lower revenues of $2.4 million in Content Services business. Partially offset by $150,000 increase in IADS revenues and $200,000 increase in Media Intelligence revenues. Revenues from our top three clients was 42% of total revenues in both quarters. On a segment basis Content Services reported $12.2 million in revenues this quarter, compared to $14.6 million in the previous quarter. This was an anticipated decrease which we had discussed in last quarter’s earnings call. Approximately 50% of the decrease was attributable to lower eBook volumes from a key customer and the balance was due to lower volumes in other projects including project completions. IADS revenues increased to $400,000 this quarter compared to $250,000 in Q4. Our first large life insurance client November 2014 fully scaled up this quarter to a steady state. Jack will talk later about the new starts and wins in the current quarter. Our Media Intelligence business reported $1.2 million in revenues this quarter, compared to $1 million in Q4. This growth was driven by new customers acquired across all products namely MediaMiser flagship, media monitoring and analysis product and Bulldogs, journalist database and information products. MediaMiser added six net new customers this quarter and Bulldog added 65 customers. We ended the quarter with 110 subscriber customers in MediaMiser compared to 104 at the end of Q4 with a retention rate exceeding 90%. I would like to clarify that we are restating last quarter’s customers total…

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

Thank you, O’Neil. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. O’Neil has just provided a detailed financial review of the quarter and our revenue outlook for Q2. I will now provide the quarter’s highlights for each of our reporting segments and along the way I will provide some context and where we are now and what we are working on. I’ll start with the Synodex division of IADS. The first quarter of 2015 prove to be a milestone quarter for us as we secured contracts with five clients and made a strong progress with others. In our last call, I mentioned that we were in contract negotiations with a leading life insurance company that was looking to license our proprietary technology for incorporation within their underwriting environment. I am pleased to report that on Monday of this week John Hancock Insurance issued a press release announcing the strategic relationship with Synodex under which it would be licensing a customized version of Synodex's proprietary software which we will host and deploy. In addition, John Hancock announced that it will be using our services to streamline its internal business processes. John Hancock is one of the largest and most highly regarded life insurers in the United States. In its press release John Hancock expressed few that Synodex is cutting edge technology will enhance its ability to deliver timely and competitive underwriting offers to its customers, enable it to review medical records more quickly and at the same time enhance the quality of its review process and hope to keep pace with rapid advancements and technology. Our deal with Hancock signed on March 20 as five-year term. We expected this contract will have a total revenue value of approximately $2.7 million over its five-year term. The services are expected to be…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from Vincent Colicchio with Noble Financial.

Vincent A. Colicchio

Analyst

Yes, Good morning, Jack. Question on Content Services side, it looks like you got some improvement there you expect to grow sequentially and added some new contracts. You mentioned in the press release that you look to add end-to-end outsourcing and technology platforms to expand your recurring revenue. [indiscernible] new contracts in those areas and in general when should we see meaningful progress in those two areas and another question for Content Services in general can we expect to see sequential growth continue beyond this quarter/

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

Hi, Vince good morning thanks for the question. Let me start with the first one we’ve been working for sometime on our E2E offering our end-to-end outsourcing as well as designing or conceptualizing designing new content platforms that we would be selling to licensing model. The first clear win that we had in E2E outsourcing was with the two LOIs that we have spoken about now in the last two calls with the large European publisher. So that large engagement is in fact an example of E2E or end-to-end content production outsourcing we are looking to add to that, we are looking to continue to market that capability and build upon that. In terms of subscription products I mentioned in my prepared remarks today that we’re working within the context of our Pearson partnership bringing a new content distribution and eReader platform to associations and enterprises, if something that call Xenon we’ve been working on developing that kind of under the radar behind the scenes over the last several quarters and we are very pleased with what that looks like, it’s getting a good reception among the client prospects that we are showing it to. So we look forward to boarding over the next few quarters and lot of successes there as well. In terms of your follow-up question you will receive sequential revenue growth in Content Services, well I certainly hope so I think as I said the booking levels that would be ahead of last few quarters I am not satisfied with, we need to do better than that and I know that we can whether it would sequential growth I think that that will always depend upon the mix of opportunities that we are bringing in. We go after as you know, both recurring revenue engagements as well as project engagements and we will take our large projects when we find them because of the enhancement balance sheet then they diverse strength and capabilities. When we have large projects sequential, predictable, foreseeable always that growth is very difficult to achieve, but again that’s where we are investing in some new things within Content Services and that’s why we are investing in the things that we are doing and IADS and MediaMiser where we get that kind of visible recurring revenue.

Vincent A. Colicchio

Analyst

Thanks for that and then at Synodex you had mentioned that once fully ramp the full clients will represent $2.8 million in revenue Jack you already mentioned this, but when do you anticipate that happening?

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

So that’s going to take will be working that over the next several months, one of the clients I mentioned was at fourth quarter start, the John Hancock we are talking about bringing that on line at mid-September the work with the reinsure, we are bringing on five clients that were starting there and that should take place over the next couple of months and of course we already have our first large engagement well underway. So good news there is you ended up and that’s over $5 million of ACV and represents over close to $12 million of contract values. So what we are especially pleased about is that we are getting the traction that we always been confidence, we would be able to get the Hancock announcement especially was received very well this week at AHOU and we are bringing value to the clients that we are serving and we are very excited about that.

Vincent A. Colicchio

Analyst

Yes, congratulations on the Hancock announcement. I’ll get back into the queue. Thanks, Jack.

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

Thanks Vince.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we’ll go ahead and take our next question from Tim Clarkson with Van Clemens Capital.

Timothy Clarkson

Analyst · Van Clemens Capital.

Okay, thanks. I got a couple of questions, the first one kind of simple one to ONeil - made any progress in terms of getting a banker for Innodata or are we getting close to that?

ONeil Nalavadi

Management

Hi, Tim good morning. Tim, we are in discussion with both our existing bankers and in new bankers approaching us and we hope to put something in place within the next couple of quarters.

Timothy Clarkson

Analyst · Van Clemens Capital.

Okay, is that a big deal would that change your operations much or is that just more something that’s nice to have?

ONeil Nalavadi

Management

We have obviously very strong balance sheet and we feel comfortable about funding our existing business and the trajectory that it is in, obviously anything that we negotiate we want to be careful in terms of the covenants that we can comfortably live with and we don’t want to do something that is not good for the business.

Timothy Clarkson

Analyst · Van Clemens Capital.

All right, make sure you negotiate a buyback under [indiscernible].

ONeil Nalavadi

Management

We will indeed do our best, active. Thank you.

Timothy Clarkson

Analyst · Van Clemens Capital.

Yes, and then a question to Jack, when you came in here with your original scenario about ramping this business from I think we’re at $14 million, $15 million up to about $18 million by fourth quarter. I think you’re projecting that IADS would be at about a $4 million annual phase. I think that was the number that I remember, so it sounds like based on the progress we made that we’re on pace to do that.

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

I think, right now we’re very busy with prospects and pipeline and we are closing deals and we feel good about where we are - I think the critical thing for us is going to be to stay very focused on bringing those deals in, of course stay focused on the operations side to ensure that as we scale we continue provide the great value that is gaining us a great reputation in that industry right now and kind of keep the pedal to the metal on both trends.

Timothy Clarkson

Analyst · Van Clemens Capital.

One last question you mentioned a $4.8 million contract in your regular business. What’s the status of that when will that start to kick in.

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

We are looking to start assuming that it get signed, which we’re hoping could be over the next week or two we would probably get started producing sometime this summer.

Timothy Clarkson

Analyst · Van Clemens Capital.

Okay that would be relatively short-term type of stuff would that ramp up fairly quickly or is that be a slow ramp?

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

No, I think that would ramp fairly quickly and we are looking at it two year 23 month, 24 month performance period on that.

Timothy Clarkson

Analyst · Van Clemens Capital.

Okay. All right good I am done, thanks.

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

Thanks Tim.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] we will move to our next question come Charlie Pine with Van Clemens.

Charlie Pine

Analyst

Hi, good morning.

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

Good morning, Charlie.

Charlie Pine

Analyst

I have three questions first of all just to circle back on one of the earlier questioners queries. Do you answer, did I hear you say that in Synodex now that you got current annual contract value of what you signed it for roughly $5 million a year did I hear that right?

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

Yes, that’s correct.

Charlie Pine

Analyst

Okay. The other thing I wanted to ask about reflecting on this new partnership with Pearson can you stake that out a little bit as far as what it might potentially mean as far as dollars in your Content Services division and when you will start to recognize any revenue with Pearson.

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

Right now Charlie you know we are in the marketing phase where - late stage with one particular client there and medium stage within another several. I think we’re successful there will be some element of project work, on the conversion side but then there is also the opportunity to deploy a hosted licenses services platform there to drive recurring revenue. In terms of putting it dollar number on the market I think that would be mistake at this point I think what we need to do is get a couple of deals closed and see what kind of acceleration we can get off that, but I think clearly partnering with a company like Pearson is a great thing to do. We get distribution value from that, they are bringing us into relationships they have got, so we’ll stay close to it and keep informed on how that progresses.

Charlie Pine

Analyst

Well, let’s just hypothesize for a moment, a typical deal that you would get out of this relationship I mean what would you approximately anticipate with one of these customers through Pearson, what would be a typical deal size for something like this.

ONeil Nalavadi

Management

I don’t know what typical is yet, because I haven’t even won single deal yet. So it’s early to put a stake in that, the one that we are actively proposing on that I could tell you is about $300,000 and that’s there is an ACV component, excuse me recurring component and a non-recurring component within that.

Charlie Pine

Analyst

All right. And then finally I like to have you - can you expand a little bit more on exactly what –lot of stuff is kind of going rather quickly can you expand this a little bit and exactly what this - what you are calling Xenon and what..

ONeil Nalavadi

Management

Okay, so Xenon is a, you could figure that as in - it’s a content distribution platform, it’s like an eBook store, where someone that book content and other kinds of digital content can distribute that content both in a subscription model and or in a paying model, the ecommerce model to its constituencies, to its customer sources, subscribers or members, and it’s an app. And then there is also an eReader app that goes along with it enabling people to consume that content in a lot of advanced features built-in in terms of social media, sharing things like that. So that’s the easiest way to think about it. That said it also has other features and functionality that enable social platforms to link in very intimately with the content and create a very rich experience in terms of consuming content.

Charlie Pine

Analyst

How do you make money of it?

ONeil Nalavadi

Management

We would be licensing the platform to associations or enterprises it would be like the White Label those as their portals as their ecommerce sites and selling their content.

Charlie Pine

Analyst

And what do you anticipate that we saw in licenses for?

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

I think we are kind of playing with marbles right now, it’s little early to say that and I am not sure from a competitive perspective that we’d be putting it out there like this anyway, but like I answered I think it was Tim’s last question, no I’m sorry that was your question, the first proposal that we are going after would be combined in terms of licensing fees and services fees probably here $200,000.

Charlie Pine

Analyst

Okay, all right thanks. I am done.

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And it seems that we all the time we have for today’s question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the call back over to Jack Abuhoff for any closing or additional remarks.

Jack S. Abuhoff

Management

Thanks, operator. So I guess really we couldn’t be more pleased to Monday’s announcement by John Hancock. It’s clearly grade endorsement from the great company, we are enjoying the buzz that it’s generating for us at this week’s AHOU industry conference and it provides new products say SaaS based technology licensing opportunity that we having to originally thought. On top of that we closed as I mentioned before Synodex contract this quarter and beyond that we are not pursued of three opportunities that we think should be Q2 closures and we are also working through sales process with many others including two large companies with significant opportunity value. One of these companies send it auditors to our offshore production site last month. It’s good to be here in Orlando this week Pearson, we are excited about the prospect of partnering with Pearson combining our strengths to help associations and enterprises monetize their content assets and giving the benefits to scale through Pearson distribution. And then last but not least we are excited to see the traction that we are getting from our new marketing efforts with MediaMiser and Bulldog Reporter both being our digital media intelligence assets. So get to wrap things up thanks everyone for joining us on today’s call and for your continued support and interest.

Operator

Operator

Today’s conference is available for replay by dialing 719-457-0820 or 888-203-1112 and pass code 1257527, again those numbers are 719-457-0820 or 888-203-1112 referring pass code 1257527. That concludes today’s conference. You may now disconnect.