David Day
Analyst · Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead
Thanks Michael. As Michael discussed, we took major steps in Q4 and Q1 to bolster our competitive position in the market and to improve our financial performance I'll start with a move to improve our competitive position. As stated on our last call, we eliminated our buyer fees effective November 1. While this move further reduced revenue and lowered our go-forward take rate, we remain confident that this action along with other actions we've taken, including technology investments, auction dynamics, transparency, and ongoing investments in quality, will continue to drive increased market share. As Michael mentioned, we also took steps to lower our operating and capital expenditures. I'll briefly cover Q4 results before discussing cost reductions and recent financial trends in more detail. Turning to our results, for the fourth quarter of 2017 we generated $246 million in advertising spend, up 26% sequentially; $31.4 million in revenue; adjusted EBITDA loss of $6.2 million; and a loss of $0.28 per share in non-GAAP EPS. The 26% total advertising spend increase in Q4 versus Q3 was slightly higher than the 20% sequential increase we indicated in our last earnings call, driven by strong seasonality across both desktop and mobile. Total ad spend was lower than prior year by 11%. If you look at a slightly different metric we refer to as amounts paid to sellers, or APS, which is ultimately what publishers measure our success by, we had an APS increase on a year-over-year basis of 5% in Q4. This marks the first such increase since Q2 of 2016. Desktop represented 53% of ad spend mix in the fourth quarter. Mobile's 47% ad spend share was up from 36% a year ago, representing an 18% year-over-year increase, driven by mobile app. Non-GAAP net revenue for the fourth quarter declined 11% sequentially from Q3 2017, due to a decrease in take rate attributable to removal of our buyer fees mentioned earlier, partially offset by the seasonal increase in ad spend. Our average take rate was 12.8% during the fourth quarter of 2017, a decrease of 530 basis points sequentially. Our Q4 2017 exit take rate was 11.6%. Take rate is defined as revenue divided by total ad spend. Operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2017 were $56 million, down from $95 million in the same period a year ago, representing a decrease of 41%. On an adjusted EBITDA basis, operating expenses for the fourth quarter were $37.6 million, or flattish sequentially and down from $45.2 million in the same period a year ago, reflecting the impact of our cost cutting initiatives from late 2016 and 2017. Net loss was $23.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2017 as compared to net loss of $21.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2016. The slight increase in net loss year-over-year is a result of lower GAAP revenue offset by lower operating expenses. Adjusted EBITDA loss was $6.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2017 as compared to positive adjusted EBITDA of $21.7 million reported in the same period one year ago. The decrease in adjusted EBITDA was driven primarily by a decrease in revenue, partially offset by lower cash costs, as previously discussed. Diluted GAAP loss per share was $0.48 for the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to diluted GAAP loss per share of $0.44 in the same period in 2016. Non-GAAP loss per share in the fourth quarter of 2017 was $0.28 compared to non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.37 reported for the same period in 2016. Capital expenditures, including purchases of property and equipment as well as capitalized internally used software development costs, were $19.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2017 and totaled $40.4 million for the full-year 2017. We closed the fourth quarter of 2017 with $131.6 million in cash and marketable securities, a decrease of $7.4 million from the quarter ended September 30, 2017. This reduction resulted from $25.9 million of combined cash operating losses and capital expenditures during the quarter, offset by a beneficial cash conversion cycle or the spread between payables and receivables. Free cash flow for the fourth quarter of 2017 was negative $7.4 million for the reason stated above, as compared to negative free cash flow of $15.1 million during the third quarter of 2017. Primarily as a result of the closure of our intent marketing offering in early 2017, we added significantly to our tax net operating losses. As of December 31, 2017, our total federal NOLs were approximately 240 million, resulting in a tax-effected federal benefit calculation of $50 million, which reflects the new U.S. corporate tax rate of 21%. Our total potential tax-effected NOL benefit, adding State and Canadian benefits to this federal amount, is approximately $65 million. I will now discuss our cost reduction efforts in more detail. The headline here which Michael mentioned is that we expect to be profitable on an adjusted EBITDA basis in Q4 of this year. The cost reduction actions we announced today, together with other measures taken earlier this quarter, will result in a reduction of $44 million or 23% from our total Q4 2017 annualized cost structure of $190 million. The $190 million is composed of the Q4 2017 adjusted EBITDA operating expenses on an annualized basis and the full-year 2017 capital expenditures. The reduction is a result of the elimination of approximately 100 positions and other operating costs refinements. Our actions include reductions to bring our general and administrative operations into better alignment with the current size of the business as well as in sales and technical personnel as a result of off-shoring certain development functions, organizational de-layering and restructuring, and reducing investment in unprofitable projects. We expect that our adjusted EBITDA OpEx will be below $32 million per quarter in the latter half of the year, and that our full-year 2018 CapEx will be less than $20 million or down 50% from 2017. I will now provide color on some key performance metrics for Q1, and in certain cases for future periods, with somewhat more specificity due to our proximity to the end of the first quarter. We expect that ad spend in Q1 will come in at greater than $205 million or in excess of 7% year-over-year growth, and more notably, we have been experiencing double-digit year-over-year ad spend growth since early February. We expect take rate to remain at or exceed 11.5% for the near-term, as it has remained since we eliminated our buyer fees on November 1. As a result, we expect Q1 2018 revenue to be above $23 million. Excluding one-time cash severance related costs of $3 million, Q1 2018 adjusted EBITDA operating expenses are expected to be slightly lower than Q4 at less than $38 million. We will realize the full benefit of our reductions in Q3 and Q4, which we estimate will result in a quarterly run rate for adjusted EBITDA operating expenses below $32 million per quarter. We expect that CapEx will decrease, as stated earlier, to less than $20 million, representing a 50% decrease from 2017. The reduction is due to relatively higher levels of investment in prior years to add capacity, the one-time rollout costs of approximately $5 million related to nToggle in the second half of 2017 that won't recur, and improvements to how we process and manage increases in ad request volume. We expect Q1 2018 cash and marketable securities to end above $120 million, although cash conversion cycle timing may impact this balance. We will continue our focus to preserve cash through execution of our plan to grow revenue and control costs. We have taken cost-cutting measures that we believe are prudent and that we believe balance the right-sizing of our cost structure without unduly impacting growth prospects as we look to return Rubicon Project to positive adjusted EBITDA in Q4 of 2018. We are encouraged by recent momentum in ad spend growth and we will remain vigilant in managing our costs. We remain confident and optimistic that our numerous initiatives, including the elimination of our buyer fees, will continue to increase supply, improve our fill rate, offer the lowest cost per transaction, and drive market share gain. I'll now turn the call over to Michael for some closing remarks.