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Manhattan Associates, Inc. (MANH)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Tue, Oct 21, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Chris, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Manhattan Associates Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this call is being recorded on today, October 21, 2014. I would now like to introduce Dennis Story, CFO of Manhattan Associates. Mr. Story, you may begin your conference.

Dennis Story

Management

Thank you, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. I hope all of you including our Manhattan Associates that are listening in are having a super fantastic day. Welcome to Manhattan Associates’ 2014 third quarter earnings call. I will review our cautionary language and then turn the call over to Eddie Capel, our CEO. During this call, including the question-and-answer session, we may make forward-looking statements regarding future events or future financial performance of Manhattan Associates. You are cautioned that these forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, are not guarantees of future performance and that actual results may differ materially from projections contained in our forward-looking statements. I refer you to the reports Manhattan Associates files with the SEC for important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in our projections, particularly our Annual Report on Form 10-K for fiscal 2013 and the risk factor discussion in that report. We are under no obligation to update these statements. In addition, our comments include certain non-GAAP financial measures in an effort to provide additional information to investors. All non-GAAP measures have been reconciled to the related GAAP measures in accordance with SEC rules. You will find reconciliation schedules in our Form 8-K we submitted to the SEC earlier today and on our website at manh.com. Now, I’ll turn the call over to Eddie.

Eddie Capel

Management

Good afternoon, everybody. We’re quite pleased with our third quarter and year-to-date financial results. We posted record results across essentially all financial metrics. Our competitive position continues to improve and customer satisfaction continues to increase across the globe. So heading into Q4 and 2015, we continue to be encouraged by our near-term and long-term growth prospects. For the quarter, we set new all-time revenue and earnings per share records. Q3 total revenue of 125.6 million increased 17% and adjusted earnings per share of $0.32 increased 23% over Q3 2013. The combination of strong organic revenue growth and sensible expense discipline led to the best quarter in our company’s history. With these strong results, we’re raising our revenue and earnings per share guidance for the year, and Dennis will take you through those details in just a moment. License revenue for quarter was $16.9 million, up 15% over Q3 last year led by a strong Americas performance bolstering our somewhat but expected sluggish EMEA and APAC license revenue performance. We closed four 1 million plus license deals in the quarter, two with new customers and two with existing customers. Three of the large deals were in the U.S. and one was in Canada. Two of the four deals were led by omni-channel initiatives and the other two included our platform-based warehouse management and transportation management solutions. In all of these four deals, we were successful head-to-head against very strong competition. Our sales teams continue to execute well and year-to-date competitive win rates in head-to-head sales cycles against major competitors remain very strong by 75%. License revenue from net new customers was about 30%. And while the ratio of net new customers can fluctuate somewhat from quarter-to-quarter, we continue to be quite pleased with our new customer acquisition performance. Our consulting services business posted record revenues with Q3 revenue up 20%. Demand and visibility continues to be quite strong and we added 35 associates to our global team in Q3 and we continue to search for about 100 more professional services people to meet the needs of our customers. Overall, with our strong quarter and year-to-date performance, we’re certainly optimistic but can’t help to remain a little bit cautious as the global economy continues to exhibit some sluggish growth. But our outlook is positive, our pipeline is solid, services business demand is strong, customer satisfaction is good and the implementations of our solutions continue to go very well. Our focus remains on being the leading pure-play technology innovator in the supply chain commerce market, leveraging our platform strategy in investments and research and development to deliver solutions to help our customers get commerce ready in the new digital world. I’ll provide more color in my business update following Dennis’ review of our financial results.

Dennis Story

Management

Thanks, Eddie. I will review our financial performance, our 2014 full year guidance and finish with some initial comments on 2015. Well, we continued our solid 2014 performance firing on all eight cylinders posting total revenue of $125.6 million, an increase of 17% over Q3 2013. By region, Americas grew 18%; EMEA grew 12% and APAC grew 11% compared to Q3 last year. Demand for our solutions continues to be solid in our target markets. Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter was a record $0.32 increasing 23% over prior year on solid revenue growth, continued expense management and our buyback program. Manhattan continues to deliver strong organic top line growth and quality earnings leverage. Our GAAP diluted earnings per share was a record $0.30 increasing 20% over Q3 2013. A detailed reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP adjustments is included in our earnings release today. The remainder of my P&L discussion represents our adjusted results. License revenue for the quarter totaled $16.9 million, up 15% over prior year. From a regional perspective, Americas posted license revenue of $15.6 million, EMEA $589,000 and APAC $705,000. EMEA and APAC license performance was impacted by usual Q3 summer holiday seasonality and a dose of regional macroeconomic weakness. That said, our Q4 pipeline activity for both Europe and Asia is encouraging. Overall, like any major enterprise software company selling mission-critical solutions, our license performance depends on the number and relative value of large deals, which can be impacted by tough macroeconomic headwinds, however, we continue to execute very well in our target markets as reflected in our competitive win rates and solid customer activity. Shifting to services, customer demand continues to be strong. Q3 services revenue totaled $98.5 million increasing 16% year-over-year. Our service revenue is bifurcated into two revenue streams; consulting and maintenance.…

Eddie Capel

Management

Thanks, Dennis. So first, let me provide a little more detail on the deals we closed in Q3. As I discussed at the beginning of the call, we recognized four large deals in the quarter, two in retail, one in earth sciences and one in third-party logistics. All four deals were driven by strategic technology modernization programs with two of the four deals specifically driven by omni-channel initiatives. While we’re in the early innings, digital commerce continues to drive omni-channel interest across retail, manufacturing and wholesale. The other two large deals were driven by distribution and transportation, management, legacy system replacements. We continue to see solid progress in our core verticals led by the retail segment. In Q3, our license fee mix was weighted about 50-50 between warehouse management and our other solutions. A meaningful portion of our WMS and non-WMS license and services revenue activity continues to be driven by existing and new customer omni-channel initiatives and legacy supply chain modernization. The retail, consumer goods and life sciences vertical were the strongest license fee contributors making up more than half of our license fee revenues for Q3 2014. And we’re certainly very pleased with the successes we have achieved over the past two years or so as our software, platform technology and domain expertise are core differentiators when it comes to helping new and existing customers adapt today’s ever-changing market conditions and this is reflected in our win rates. Q3 software license wins with new customers that have permitted us to share their names include Bass Pro, Citizen Watch of America, E.Land Group, Frito Lay Manufacturing, Groupe Robert, Suzhou Hengding Logistics, VBM Retail and Vida Panama Zona Libre. Q3 expanding relationships with existing customers included Alliance Healthcare, Big Lots Stores, Cardinal Health, Central Retail Corporation, Chico’s Retail Services, Cotton…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Mark Schappel with Benchmark. Your line is open.

Mark Schappel - The Benchmark Company, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking the call. Nice job in the quarter again. Eddie, starting with you, is it fair to assume that you saw the normal competitive suspects in your large deals?

Eddie Capel

Management

Yes, I think that’s – by the way, hello Mark, good to talk to you. Not a ton has changed in the macro competitive environment. The usual suspects and the usual competitors are out there for us.

Mark Schappel - The Benchmark Company, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, great. And then also over the past couple of quarters, there’s been a focus – seemed to be a particular focus from your customers on your in-store inventory and fulfillment solutions, and I was just wondering if that trend continued for the most part this quarter.

Eddie Capel

Management

Yes, it did. And I think we’ve talked about it before. We’ve got a combination of already live or being implemented thousands of stores now on our store inventory and fulfillment solution which is quite rewarding and providing some terrific benefit for our customers. And as you essentially alluded to, that trend has not slowed down in Q3.

Mark Schappel - The Benchmark Company, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then one more question and one for Dennis here, but with respect to your hiring activity, it seemed to slow a little this quarter with only 35 new consultants hired. Was this just kind of a one-quarter blip that we can expect or are you really having a real hard time finding qualified people?

Eddie Capel

Management

Well, actually, Mark, so we’re doing quite a bit of hiring directly off campus. So you will see a little bit of lumpiness based upon graduation times and so forth. So we generally have two major classes coming in, one at the beginning of the year and one during the typical graduation time at the end of Q2. So as we continue that program, you will see a little bit of volatility quarter-to-quarter.

Mark Schappel - The Benchmark Company, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, great. And then, Dennis, one for you here. With respect to your 2015 preliminary outlook for revenue growth, you mentioned 8% to 9% revenue growth. Was that license or was that just total revenue growth you were referring to?

Dennis Story

Management

Total revenue growth.

Mark Schappel - The Benchmark Company, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. That’s all for me.

Eddie Capel

Management

Okay. Thanks, Mark.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Terry Tillman from Raymond James. Your line is open. Terry Tillman - Raymond James & Associates: Hi, guys. Can you all hear me okay?

Eddie Capel

Management

We can, Terry, thanks. Yes. Terry Tillman - Raymond James & Associates: Hi, guys. I’d echo Mark’s comment, nice job on the quarter. I guess the first question, maybe it’s more of a – it is a macro question. Yesterday, a large technology company, NCR, talked about – when they released numbers, talked about retail being a real area of weakness I believe. And I know you talk about being cautious overall in the macro. But the license results, it’s four quarters in a row of double-digit license growth in retail. It sounds like it’s the strong part of your business. Can you help us reconcile some of these kind of crosscurrents we’re hearing on retail and then the consistency you’ve seen in your business? Is it shifting in prioritization of budgets or how would you reconcile some of these crosscurrents?

Eddie Capel

Management

Yes, sure. A couple different comments in there. So, Terry, from our perspective we have yet to see and feel a real tailwind in the global macro economy. So with that, we feel duty bound just to offer a consistent little bit of caution that’s out there. That said, we’re very pleased with our performance over the last number of quarters, frankly, and continue to be very optimistic about the future. So please don’t confuse that overall general caution with our optimism and the bright outlook we believe we have going forward. With regard to NCR’s comments around retail and so forth, of course I don’t know their business anything like as well as they do, so I can only tell you kind of what we’re seeing. There is strength in retail for sure driven by the revolution that we’re seeing, the omni-channel phenomenon. We do believe it is still in the early innings, so there is a lot of strength there we believe still going forward. I really can’t pass a lot of comments on what NCR is seeing but I would say from our perspective, we do see the in-store experience moving to a very personal one, a very mobile one and a hardware independent clienteling experience. So I don’t know if that is something that NCR are on sort of the backside of there or not, but certainly that’s the direction that we’re seeing that in-store hardware is becoming device agnostic.

Dennis Story

Management

Terry, the other thing through the financial eyes is, is that tough macroeconomics not necessarily bad for Manhattan Associates given the retail dynamics that Eddie was talking about. We have a long history of driving efficiency in supply chains, but now we’re also on that consumer side in terms of driving revenue for our customers as well. So it’s a pretty nice dynamic and I think we’re getting recognized or the market’s validating our ability to monetize the supply chain. Terry Tillman - Raymond James & Associates: Okay, got it. And I guess, Eddie, as it relates to two deals or I guess two of the four deals that were omni-channel oriented. I guess was distributed order management or order management product a part of that? And just typically are these omni-channel led deals or are they bigger in size than your average deal in general?

Eddie Capel

Management

Let’s see. So when we refer to, I guess as a point of clarification when we – we’ve been doing business for a little while now, when we refer to an omni-channel deal, yes, it’s led generally speaking by order lifecycle management solution, Terry, and no WMS component, no TMS component or anything else like that. So generally it’s going to be order lifecycle management and probably the store execution components as well, number one. Number two, obviously we talk about our ASP, our average selling price as being 250 to 750. Two of the deals this quarter were omni-channel related and we’re double [comma] (ph) or greater than a $1 million deal. So that’s certainly above our average selling price and obviously we don’t go into what kind of details around deal size, but they are commensurate with the larger execution solution sized deals, WMS and TMS certainly. Terry Tillman - Raymond James & Associates: Okay, great. And I guess, Dennis, a quick question on Global Bay. Should we think about the contribution either in the third quarter or fourth quarter? Is it immaterial on the software side? Any perspective you can give on that and/or it’s accretion dilution or is it neutral to earnings?

Dennis Story

Management

It’s slightly dilutive. We would expect it to be neutral to earnings in the back half of 2015 and it’s really immaterial on the license side. Terry Tillman - Raymond James & Associates: Okay. And I guess my last question is just related to the initial outlook for '15 --

Dennis Story

Management

Terry, let me add one other thing. From my perspective, Eddie talked about the strategy with Global Bay in his script, okay. I view it as low-risk, high-return potential, the profit’s made in the buy not in the sale. Terry Tillman - Raymond James & Associates: And again, accretive or modestly accretive starting in the second half of '15 or neutral you said?

Dennis Story

Management

Neutral. Terry Tillman - Raymond James & Associates: Got it, okay. And just the last question, Dennis, is for you. If I go back 2011, '12, '13 and even this year, you have comfortably been above 10% total revenue growth. I know that you’ve had a certain kind of MO in the past, under promise and over deliver, but initially you are talking 8% to 9% growth. Is there anything to read in the sales coverage, the pipeline activity, or should we just chalk this up – you still got a quarter to go in the year this year and just leaving some conservatism in place? Thank you.

Dennis Story

Management

Yes, we still got some wood to chop with one quarter left and we’ll focus on that. But we’re not going to get away. We like our MO. We don’t see anything systemic at this stage, but we’re going to stick with our MO. Terry Tillman - Raymond James & Associates: All right. Thanks, guys.

Eddie Capel

Management

Thank you, Terry.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). There are no further questions at this time. I’ll turn the call back over to our presenters.

Eddie Capel

Management

Good. Thank you, Chris. Thank you everybody for joining us this afternoon. We’ve enjoyed reporting out to you Q3 results and we’ll look forward to doing the same for Q4 in about 90 days or so. Bye-bye.