Herman Kotze
Analyst · Baird & Co
Thank you, Dhruv. Good morning to all of our shareholders. It is my privilege to address you as Net1's CEO for the first time. A lot has happened with Net1 since our last earnings call, and I would thus like to focus my discussion today addressing the various key developments articulating our group strategy and expressing my commitment to honor Net1's strong legacy and foundation and how we intend to build on that to create a larger, more diversified and sustainable growth company. But first I would like to thank Serge Belamant, the founder of Net1 and our CEO until this past May, for his contributions over many years of service. We wish him all the best with our gratitude and the peaceful retirement. Back to our results. For Q4 2017, we reported revenue of $155 million which was up 3% in dollars but down 10% in South African rand, while we had positive contributions from our South African transaction processing business including EasyPay and ATMs as well as financial services. These gains were more than offset by lower ad hoc software sales, fewer prepaid airtime sales and regulatory changes in Korea. We also reported $0.41 in fundamental earnings per share, which was adversely impacted by a higher share count, a provision for receivables and a higher tax rate. Together with the board, I am actively reviewing and refining our group strategy, putting the appropriate structures in place, prioritizing the Group's key initiatives and businesses, rationalizing redundant activities or those that do not have the potential to scale into meaningful businesses in their own right or as part of the consolidated offering. The strategic review of the business will also closely incorporate the need to optimize long-term shareholder value. We are currently in the advanced stages of actively recruiting a new CFO for the Group and expect to be able to announce the appointment shortly. I would also like to welcome to Mr. Alfred Mockett as an independent non-executive director to our board. Net1's mission continues to remain being a leading emerging markets payment company focusing on underserved individuals and small businesses. We intend to be an active participant and in some instances, the leader in the global shift towards mobile payments by leveraging our technology and infrastructure to add new products, solutions and markets in turn driving sustained top and bottom line growth. Before delve in further into the strategic discussions, I would like to spend a few minutes on SASSA. As you are aware, with no shortage of publicity, the constitutional court extended our contract with SASSA for 12 months to March 31, 2018 on terms and conditions that are substantially the same as our 2012 agreement with a few non-financial amendments. As required by the Court, on June the 19th, SASSA submitted its first progress report to the Court presenting a plan to prepare government to become Paymaster starting in April 2018. In its report, SASSA indicated a preference to use the South American Post Office to distribute grants where applicable and issue fresh tenders where required. In addition, an expert panel comprising well-regarded industry veterans, regulators and legal experts was appointed in early June. While Net1 has offered its unwavering support to SASSA, South African citizen and government, we are also available to the expert panel to whom we have provided information at its request. The next update by SASSA and the expert panel is expected to be filed with the Court in mid-September. We will continue to monitor the progress and provide updates to our shareholders. Next, I want to discuss the developments in our existing South African businesses. First, our ability and the whole industry's for that matter to perform debit orders was challenged by SASSA and certain NGOs. As a result, we filed for a declaratory order with the High Court in May. The High Court ruled in our favor and denied SASSA and the NGO subsequent appeal. They have subsequently approached the appeals court in an effort to set aside the High Court's decision. We do not have any visibility on whether the appeals court will entertain the approach or if the matter will proceed any further. We do however firmly believe that we are fully compliant with the rules and regulations in effect. Second, we are pleased to have received financial service provider or FSP licenses for Moneyline and Net1 mobile solutions in their own right, which means we are no longer dependent on any third-party institutions. And lastly, despite very challenging economic conditions and limited growth in South Africa, our Moneyline EasyPay Everywhere, SmartLife and EasyPay businesses continue to perform in line with our expectations while our ATM rollout continues to exceed expectations. Our South African businesses, infrastructure, technology, products and distribution now fixed directly into our recent investments in Cell C and DNI. I will discuss both of the companies including deal terms before them outlining how and why they tie into Net1, and why we believe, they are strategically importance to the Group. Cell C is the third largest mobile operator in South Africa with over 15 million active subscribers. Over 90% of the country's mobile subscriber base is prepared, which also coincides with our key customer focus. Net1 also has the right to nominate two directors to the Board of Cell C. The transaction which also included Blue Label Telecoms, facilitated a major recapitalization of Cell C, which brought their debt down from ZAR23 billion to less than ZAR6 billion. What this transaction does is allow all of us make one Cell C and DNI to leverage common denominators of our businesses, namely similar customer characteristics as well as the pervasive adoption of mobile telephony to offer bespoke and disruptive products to the market. Let me provide some examples of how we intend to capitalize on this opportunity. First, we can competitively manufacture and supply all or some of Cell C's SIM card requirements, which number in the tens of millions annually. Second, we can leverage our and DNI's distribution to cross-sell Cell C's starter packs, creating a new annuity-based revenue stream. Third, we can leverage our EasyPay platform and Net1 financial services branches to provide convenient recharge and other value-added services to Cell C's customers. Fourth, we can provide a number of financial and other services to Cell C's customers, further reducing our dependency on any single or government dependent contracts. And fifth, we can develop cutting-edge mobile banking and payment products that in turn can be deployed in other markets. Let me address some of the financial metrics and implications of the Cell C transaction. We have acquired a 15% interest in Cell C for ZAR2 billion. For the year ended 31, 2016, Cell C reported revenue of ZAR14.6 billion or $1.1 billion, an increase of 11% in constant currency. For the same period, it reported EBITDA of ZAR3.1 billion or $234 million, an increase of 59%. Cell C's results in 2017 are currently tracking above 2016. We intend to account for Cell C at the purchase consideration paid on our balance sheet for the first year. Thereafter, we will record at fair value which may or may not result in a non-cash gain at the time. We do not anticipate earning any equity or other income directly from Cell C for the foreseeable future. However, any new revenue stream that I just discussed will flow through our income statements. Viewed simply, absent any revenue synergies, we expect the impact of interest expense on the debt and forgone interest earned on our cash to be dilutive to fiscal 2018. Including synergies, we expect Cell C to start being accretive by the first half of fiscal 2019. Let me now discuss our DNI transaction. We have acquired a 45% stake in DNI for ZAR945 million. We are obliged to pay DNI an additional amount, not exceeding ZAR360 million, subject to DNI achieving certain performance targets. We also have a two-year option to acquire a further 10% in DNI and have appointed two directors to the Board. DNI is the leading distributor of mobile subscriber starter packs for Cell C while also distributing prepaid airtime through its extensive network of over 2,000 field operators and sales agents. DNI's extensive urban footprint is highly complementary to our unparallel to rural footprint. For the uninitiated a starter pack is the origination of a customer for a mobile operator as it facilitates the first time sale of a SIM card to a user. The originator of a starter pack then earns the portion of any recharges done on that SIM card for as long as it is in use. DNI therefore is a highly cash generative annuity business and pays out a substantial portion of its earnings as a dividend. Here are some examples of the potential synergies between us and DNI. First, we can cross-sell Cell C and DNI starter pack to our distribution network and also sell our products through DNI's 2,000 agents and 5,000 points of presence. Second, we can provide handset finance through our combined distribution network. Third, DNI has developed a micro-jobbing platform that could be utilized by our customer base. And fourth, we and DNI can facilitate the establishment of mobile data infrastructure in rural areas. Similar to Cell C, I will now provide some financial and other metrics for DNI. For the 12 months period ending June 2018, DNI expects to generate revenue of ZAR1.6 billion to ZAR1.8 billion, which is $121 million to $136 million. For the same period, it also expects to generate net income after tax of at least ZAR220 million or $17 million. DNI is currently tracking ahead of its prior year results, its current year budgets and the level of earnings needed to achieve its performance based August. We intend to equity accounts for our investment in DNI and therefore will benefit from dividends distributed by DNI. Any new revenue streams will flow through our income statement. Excluding revenue synergies, we expect the DNI transaction to be accretive to fundamental earnings interest for 2018 itself. For clarity, starting in first fiscal 2019, we expect the new revenue and profit stream flowing through our income statement to contribute between $0.25 and $0.50 incremental fundamental earnings per share per annum at current exchange rates as a result of these transactions. To be clear, this excludes any benefit we would receive from our ownership stakes including any equity income or dividends from other organization. I will now shift focus to our international business and strategy. KSNET remains our largest and most valuable international assets. It is one of the three leading value-added networks in South Korea, serving more than 235,000 merchants and processing in excess of 1.7 billion transactions this year. In fiscal 2017, KSNET’s cash generation was more than double than fiscal 2012, which was the first year of our ownership. We are still working through the ramifications of the legislative changes, reducing interchange and eliminating certain authentication requirements for low-value transactions. As it is an industry-wide phenomenon that is still looking its way through negotiations between all parties and the value chain, we believe the impacts of these changes will be felt through fiscal 2018 though at a diminishing rate as we move through the year. KSNET has also implemented various initiatives and increased focus on certain areas not specifically impacted by the regulatory changes and these efforts are beginning to show favorable trends to the point where we believe overall revenue should return to positive growth later in fiscal 2018. One other key point to note is that even though our revenue has been adversely impacted as a result of the negative pricing adjustments, we have continued to sustain positive volume growth throughout this period. Outside Korea, while our aspirations are still very much to be a global payment solution company in the emerging markets, focused on delivering financial inclusion, the reality is that we need to prioritize our efforts, consolidate our operations where possible and ensure that the selective opportunities we do want to pursue in the short-term received unequivocal and unwavering support to ensure their success. We currently just do not have the scale to do everything everywhere. Make no mistake, international expansion remains an integral part of our strategy and the long-term vision of the Company, but we need to address our core opportunities to generate the highest potential return on investments. ZAZOO South African mobile initiatives have been consolidated into the Group’s South African infrastructure and certain international opportunities will be pursued by regional executives with centralized support from South Africa and our other regional delivery support centers. To that effect, we will consolidate all our international e-money acquiring and issuing businesses, most notably T24 and Masterpayment to enable us to provide end-to-end solutions and address the issuing acquiring, banking and financial needs of SMEs. This will allow us to eliminate any duplication of efforts, coordinate our businesses and take advantage of our global capacities and capabilities. As an example, we will soon be able to leverage our businesses and merchant relationships internationally to start accepting Chinese payment instruments such as UnionPay, Alipay and WeChat Pay. Our eminent investment in Bank Frick will provide us with access to funding lines, simplify our membership of the major card organizations and currently conversion operations. In India, we invested a further $11 million as part of our regional $40 million investment announced last year. To date, we have invested approximately $26 million in MobiKwik which gave us a 13.5% stake in the Company as of June 15. Earlier this month, MobiKwik raised the further $55 million from a new strategic Indian investor at a 90% premium to our investment. And post this transaction, we currently own 12% of MobiKwik. As we have stated previously, our decision to invest in MobiKwik was strategic allowing us to introduce our products in a large new market through their captive and growing customer and merchant base. We are currently in the final stages of testing in order to launch our virtual card across the entire base, potentially making it the largest virtual card deployment worldwide. Equally important is that we now have an exclusive agreement with them to provide our banking platform which will give us critical mass in India to address the opportunity provided by government strong emphasis on financial inclusions and to leapfrog to a digital ecosystem. It also affords us the opportunity to launch additional products such as working capital finance and remittances. This thus forms a prime example of how we intend to focus our resources and efforts on specific international opportunities to ensure success and build large long-term sustainable businesses. Our investments in Finbond and One Finance Nigeria continue to track well and provide multiple opportunities for the sharing of infrastructure and technology. As examples, Finbond has expanded its branch network in North America to over 200 branches to provides us with an opportunity to provide T24 services including ACH, while One Finance has developed a mobile-based microfinance applications that utilizes a number of innovative algorithms and machine learning to calculate credit worthiness and reduces the need for brick-and-mortar branches in developing economies. Before I conclude, I want to also highlight the few other points I believe are worth noting. I am particularly proud of the active role that Net1 plays in community developments and our corporate social responsibility projects. It is a little known fact that we actively reinvesting our communities, and in fiscal 2017 alone, we spent ZAR54 million on our corporate social responsibility and community projects. In addition to our search for our new CFO, we are also in the process of expanding our executive team to include a Chief Communications Officer and investing in growing our business development teams. I am excited to lead the next chapter in the evolution of Net1 or Net1 2.0 when in which we capitalize on our existing activities, consolidate and coordinate our international efforts, focus on great engagements with our shareholders and create long-term value for all our stakeholders. Dhruv will now go over the financial performance and metrics in more detail, and then I will circle back to provide guidance and closing remarks before opening it up for Q&A, Dhruv?