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PAR Technology Corporation (PAR)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 6, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the PAR Technology Corporation Fiscal Year 2015 Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference, Vice President of Business and Financial Relations, Chris Byrnes. Please go ahead, sir.

Chris Byrnes

Analyst

Thank you, Mallory, and good afternoon, everyone. I’d like to welcome you to the call for PAR’s second quarter 2015 financial results review. I'd like to take this opportunity and take care of certain issues in regards to the call today. Participants on the call should be aware that we are recording the call this afternoon and will be available for playback. Also we are broadcasting the conference call via the World Wide Web. So please be advised, if you ask a question, it will be included in both our live conference today and any future use of the recording. Participating on the call with me today is PAR CEO and President, Ron Casciano; and Matt Trinkaus, the company’s Chief Accounting Officer. Please note that today’s call may include forward-looking statements that reflect management’s expectations based on currently available data. However, actual results are subject to future events and uncertainties. The information on this conference call related to projections or other forward-looking statements may be relied upon and subject to the Safe Harbor statement included in our earnings release this afternoon and in our annual and quarterly filings with the SEC. I’d now like to turn the call over to Ron Casciano for the formal remarks portion of our call, which will be followed by general Q&A. Ron?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Thank you, Chris. Good afternoon, everyone. As always, we appreciate your participation today. Today’s call will focus on our second quarter results. After my formal remarks on our performance in the quarter, Matt Trinkaus, our Chief Accounting Officer will discuss the details of our second quarter financials. Let me begin with the recently announced addition to PAR senior leadership team. Mike Bartusek joined the company as PAR’s CFO in mid-July. Mike is distinctly qualified to serve as our company's CFO, and we are looking forward to leveraging his experience for both the day-to-day financial operations of the company and long-term strategic planning. Mike is with us on the call today as well. Now let me start with our results for the second quarter. This afternoon we announced that the company reported second quarter revenues from operations of $63.3 million compared to $57.4 million in the second quarter last year, a 10.3% increase. On a non-GAAP basis, PAR reported net income from operations of $553,000 or $0.04 earnings per diluted share in the quarter. This compares to a non-GAAP loss from operations of $336,000 and a $0.02 loss per share in Q2 last year. We recorded GAAP net income from operations of $101,000 and earnings per diluted share of $0.01 in the quarter versus a GAAP loss from operations of $519,000 or a loss per share of $0.03 last year. The 2015 second quarter GAAP results include a $416,000 restructuring charge. For the first 6 months of 2015, revenues from operations increased 7.9% to $122.9 million compared to $113.9 million in 2014. On a non-GAAP basis, net income from operations was $610,000 and $0.04 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $979,000 or $0.06 per share for the same period in 2014. The company reported a GAAP loss from…

Matthew Trinkaus

Analyst

Thanks, Ron, and good afternoon, everyone. Product revenue in the quarter was $25.8 million, an increase of $2.8 million and 12.4% compared to the second quarter of 2014. During the quarter, the increase in revenue was driven by multiple sources, regions and product lines. Highlights for the quarter include strong growth within the company's international markets, noting a 28.9% increase over 2014. The majority of the increase within PAR's international markets was driven by the company's largest global customers as they continue to upgrade their technology platforms. Additionally, the growth in revenue from new customers contributed equally to the overall growth during the quarter. Service revenue was higher during the quarter, generating $15.9 million versus $14.9 million in 2014, noting a 7% growth. The increase in revenue is primarily driven by sales of software-related services associated with the company's Brink, PixelPoint and ATRIO software solutions. In addition, service revenue generated by the company's hardware repair center has increased compared to prior year driven by higher volume from the company's Tier 1 customers. The company's recurring revenue base, which represents both hardware and software-related service contracts, grew 5% in the quarter. Overall, recurring revenue represents 25% or $10.4 million of total hospitality revenue during the quarter. Contract revenue from our Government business was favorable year-over-year, increasing $2.1 million or 10.4% to $21.6 million from $19.5 million in the second quarter of 2014. The increase from Q2 2014 is mostly due to the activity within the company's ISR contracts. Contract backlog continues to be strong, noting a total backlog of over $73 million as of June 30, 2015. Product margin was 29.6% in Q2 '15 versus 31.1% Q2 of '14. The decrease in product margin percentage primarily relates to an increase in volume of lower-margin product offerings compared to 2014. Service margin…

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Thank you, Matt. In summary, PAR has taken many steps forward in the last few months, generating improved results for the first half of 2015 and building positive momentum in our two business segments. We are seeing increasing demand for our SaaS products, Brink, SureCheck and ATRIO, that will accelerate the growth of our recurring revenue in the future. We are encouraged about the strength in our Government business as evidenced by the double-digit revenue growth and improved profitability this past quarter when compared to the second quarter in '14. We have made progress against our key strategic initiatives, elevated our effectiveness in delivering innovative and impactful technical solutions to both existing and new customers within our target markets. We will focus on executing against these important initiatives in the second half of this year, with a clear objective of accelerating growth, distinguishing PAR as a global technology solutions leader in enhancing shareholder value. We appreciate your participation on today's call, and we look forward to providing updates throughout the coming quarters, as PAR continues its mission of building a strong technology company in the markets we serve. And as always, I want to thank our employees for their dedication, focus and hard work as they strive to achieve our performance goals. With that, we'll be pleased to take your questions. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Sam Bergman from Bayberry Asset Management.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

Can you talk about the revenue of this quarter, the increase? Is there any particular rollout of new customer that accounted for a majority of that revenue increase?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Sure. Sam. The revenue increase was aided in a couple areas, certainly McDonald's, as I mentioned in my remarks, was a big driver of the revenue increase, both domestically and internationally. A lot of our new customer wins in our Brink software and SureCheck accounted for smaller amounts of the revenue growth. And as you know, under a SaaS model, it takes a little bit longer to build up. But that's generally the major reasons, the McDonald's demand, and our newer products and newer customers as a secondary reason.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

So could you tell us, on Five Guys, how many implementations you've had? How many stores in the 1200 stores you've already installed?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Yes. Well, very, very few, Sam. We anticipate that the Five Guys rollout will start in Q3, and it'll continue over for probably the next 12 to 18 months.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

What kind of roll are you expecting on that in the third and fourth quarter?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Well, maybe close to half in the second half of the year in total, Sam. We're still working the details, the specifics.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

So have you started any implementation at all?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Yes, we've started. We had a couple in Q2, and we started the ramp-up in July.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

Okay. On the ATRIO side, I have not seen many announcements versus what we saw in the first quarter. What's the pipeline look like on that?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

The pipeline is growing, we have -- we did win one account that we haven't been able to announce yet. The hotel count for their property now is anticipated between existing hotels today and their growth plans over the next 18 months could be a 40-hotel win for us, which should be our largest win to date. The pipeline is increasing a little bit with the size of other hotel chains in that 20-plus areas. So things are picking up even though we haven't seen any announcements. I mentioned them in my remarks, Sam, we're up to 180 installed plus backlog as far as number of properties. So we are making progress.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

I know you are. I can see that. The other question I have is on defense or on your Government side. So the backlog seems to me that it's the lowest backlog in a long time. Is there -- what's the pipeline look like there?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Sam, you're right. It's -- this is the lowest it has been in several quarters. And however, I think it's a timing thing. And we have a very robust pipeline and are expecting some follow-on wins in the areas that we're working and especially in the ISR area. And hopefully, you'll see some announcements very soon that will grow that backlog significantly.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

Do you have any software numbers for us at all in this quarter?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

The numbers we reported were in Matt's comments about software and software-related services and recurring revenue.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

But you have a net amount of software revenue?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

We don't report that the detail, Sam. I mean, we do have -- obviously, the software revenue we have is EULA plus SaaS. And at this time, we're not reporting that. We're reporting total software and software-related services.

Samuel Bergman

Analyst

And are there plans to report that in the near future or not?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

We certainly are going to evaluate that option going forward, Sam. We are not ruling it out.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Hammill of Broadview Capital.

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

Nice to see an acceleration on the top line there.

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Thanks, Anthony.

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

In terms of the restructuring, and I think the original number was a cost of about $.5 million. It looks like you've spent pretty much that amount in Q2. Can we read that as saying that you're essentially done with the restructuring? Or is this a first small step? Maybe you can just expand upon exactly what's happened to date and then what's likely to happen in the future as you look to further rightsize the cost structure of the business.

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Sure, Anthony. As we announced at the end of our first quarter, we had embarked on our initial phases of cost reductions, where we estimated $2 million savings on an annual basis. We're very confident that we've achieved at least that amount going forward. And we'll start to see the majority of the benefit of that in the second half of the year. We are not done. We have other projects that we're about to begin. I think I alluded to that as well in the first quarter remarks that we're not done, and we expect to do more. I'm not at a point yet where I can try to quantify it, but certainly, we're going to shoot for large amounts. And they will really have an impact. So -- and we will begin those right away, starting now.

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

Okay. So longer term, if it's $2 million, that's still at the current level of profitability even if you were to sort of slash run rate $2 million of that cost, it's still not what I or like other analysts would deem an acceptable level of profitability. If we're looking forward, what do you guys and management and the board think of as an acceptable level of profitability for, let's say, the Hospitality business? Because I understand the margins at the [indiscernible] sort of [indiscernible]

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

That's a question I'm not going to pinpoint an exact amount. But let me tell you, we're working at it both ways. As we just discussed, Anthony, we are going to make some more of what I consider significant reductions going forward. But at the same time, we have to make sure that we have enough resources to achieve the revenue growth and continue the momentum we have with our software products. And that will certainly improve margins and accelerate the growth on the bottom line both. So we're happy with the progress we've made up to this point, but we are certainly not done in trying to drive much higher operating margins on the bottom line.

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

Okay. Moving to R&D, which is one of your largest cost. This year, you'll spend about a quarter of your market cap on R&D. How should we look at that? Is there a portion of that, that is kind of onetime in nature as you're looking to finally build out ATRIO? Or is that just -- this very high level is just something we're going to have to live with and hope the revenue gets to a point where, as a percentage of sales, it doesn't look so out of whack?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Yes. A couple of things about R&D, Anthony. First, the comparables are skewed because of the timing of the Brink acquisition, which was late in the third quarter last year. So that's impacting the comparability analysis. As far as the R&D...

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

Yes, I think more just on the absolute like [indiscernible] you guys do spend a lot of money on R&D. And as far as I know the revenue growth was decent this quarter, and we have yet to see much of that translate into growth and profitability. And I'm just not talking about this quarter, I'm talking about overall and looking back over the last.

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Yes, 3 to 6 months were at 7% R&D spend as a percent of total company revenue. I think you'll see a slight uptick in the dollars as we have a couple of new projects planned for Q3. And then after that, it should level out somewhat. But as you know, we're never done with software. We're always looking to add features and functions. And we have a pretty good team right now. We don't -- but we're constantly evaluating what investments will -- we need to make to continue to drive the revenue growth.

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

Okay. And the board as it's composed now -- I congratulate you guys on finding what looks like a very capable team. Can you let us -- from the outside, can you let us know about some of the maybe early findings or jobs that the board has passed the company with? Or anything that you can share with us in terms of what this seemingly very capable group has done and will do to help PAR become a better, more profitable company.

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Yes. Let me just say in general, Anthony. We're very pleased with the board. And they are advising us in the area of -- one of our key objectives is that is to grow software, grow recurring revenue. And they are helping us in that area, which is a key component to our future growth. And they, of course, want to see improvement on the bottom line as well. So we're all aligned and synched. And we got a good team together, and we're working well together.

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

Okay. And partially to echo one of Sam's points earlier. I think if the focus is on recurring revenue and software, it certainly would be helpful to be able to disclose how much the revenue is, because that's the revenue that's going to attract the high multiple and get people interested.

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

That's a fair question, fair comment, and we'll certainly take a look at that as the number grows.

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

Okay. And my last question, and I appreciate the time. With the restructuring and improvement on the cost structure, and again, hopefully, that continues, and with this nice top line growth, and hopefully that accelerates as well, that the Hospitality business as a standalone should be at least breakeven and making some money from here on out or at least that should soon be the case. With that, can you -- and in the context of that, can you once again explain to me why it makes sense to have both a Hospitality business and a Government business under one publically traded [ph] security. Because I understand in the past, there was the cash flow that would come in from the Government business that you could rely on to fund the other business. But if that rationale isn't there anymore -- is it -- what is the rationale for at least not exploring the separation of the two businesses?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Anthony, the boards in the past and the new board as well, always looks -- continues to look at our strategic options for our different businesses. It's on the agenda at every board meeting. And as you said, the Government business is doing very well, we have -- as I mentioned to Sam, we have a very big pipeline there, it's profitable, generating cash right now, restaurants is on -- and hotels are on the right track. But we're not talking about any major restructuring there or changes at this time.

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

Okay, but it is something that when the board meets?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Absolutely.

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

Big picture.

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

There's a lot of things, and it's a long list of very important things that we discuss, and it's our job to do that. And that looking at our different businesses and what options to grow them, then the end game is to maximize shareholder value. So that is discussed all the time.

Anthony Hammill

Analyst

Okay. Well, again, I'll just restate or pleased to have made an opinion that it's our view and I'm sure that the two businesses would go a long way to maximizing shareholder value.

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Yes.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from the line of Arvind Ramnani with Gordon Haskett.

Arvind Ramnani

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

I had kind of a broader level question. As you kind of look at a business, are there some kind of secular drivers that's going to cause kind of accelerated growth in terms of new innovation when essentially the merging of like hardware and software, what kind of plan need to -- is that kind of like a -- any significant secular forces at place that could probably kind of accelerated growth over the next couple of years?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

Well, certainly, our strategy for diversifying the revenue, growing the SaaS software that we've been talking about combined with our new innovative hardware products we've come out within the last year, we've come out with a tablet offering. We've came out with this new SureCheck all-in-1 product. So I think we're really on track to keep up with innovation that's going to drive growth, and keep up with the demands of our customers. And as we grow this recurring revenue, you'll see the accelerated growth in the bottom line.

Arvind Ramnani

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

Great. And -- can I specifically, like if you look at kind of far and you look, not so much further or the next 1 of 2 quarters, but if you take a longer term, whether it's 18 months or 2 or 3 years, can you paint like what would be like an upside scenario or even a little bit of realistic scenario as some of these things kind of come together?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

Well, I'm not going to get specific on size, but we certainly look to double the revenue of the whole company in the next several years, but it's going to come in steps, it's going to come as we continue to build up the software and recurring revenue. We continue to win new customers. Our Brink acquisition, for example, is ahead of plan and is beating our expectation so far. So we're very optimistic about the future.

Arvind Ramnani

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

Great, great. And again, if you fast forward like 3 years from now, how large as a percentage of revenues would you expect your SaaS or software business to be versus the entire business?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

I'm not going to speculate on that at this time, but certainly it'll be a much larger percentage of the total revenue. Again, our focus is recurring revenue, and it starts slow, but we're making progress, we're ahead of our plans. And you'll continue to see the benefit of it as, hopefully, our success continues.

Arvind Ramnani

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

Great. And just one last question. You had quite a few big global wins, which you've discussed in press releases, but how many of those wins do you think -- even though they may have bought more of your kind of traditional offering, how many of those wins that you had were as a result of having Brink in the portfolio? So what I'm trying to understand is, was Brink one of the key factors that helped you win those some of those things, even though Brink may not be what's primarily being used by the big global customers?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

Yes. Certainly, software drives the sale, and it was the Brink software that was the start and key reason that we won Five Guys, that we won Pita Pit, that we won Sonny’s BBQ. And we would not have been in the game if it wasn't for that product and PAR's ability to provide the total solutions to many of those customers, not only just the software, but hardware and services, life cycle support.

Arvind Ramnani

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

Great. And just quick follow-up in terms of pipeline, have you noticed a measured difference in pipeline, pre- and post-Brink?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

I'm sorry, that was pipeline, you asked?

Arvind Ramnani

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

Yes, I mean, I'm asking is the size of your pipeline -- how much is the wins? I mean, the wins are the wins, we kind of see that. But as the pipeline increases as a result, are you being wider, do more and more deals because of Brink?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Gordon Haskett.

Absolutely, without a doubt. When we acquired the Brink product, Five Guys was not in the forecast. And to win an account of that size with that product is a tremendous accomplishment, and it's going to get a lot of attention of a lot of bigger, bigger sized customers. We certainly hope so.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Bill Lauber with Sterling Capital.

William Lauber

Analyst · Sterling Capital.

Ron, good quarter, it looks like maybe our patience is going to be rewarded.

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Sterling Capital.

Thank you, Bill.

William Lauber

Analyst · Sterling Capital.

We've noticed and heard and had some anecdotal evidence that -- in this slow-growth economy, a couple of sweet spots in this economy are the hotel and the restaurant business. Are you finding that's true? And is that helping -- are you finding that these two sectors of the economy are possibly willing -- more confident, more willing to be spending money on software and hardware?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Sterling Capital.

Yes. We certainly are, Bill, finding. The CapEx budgets are stable and growing in some areas, and we're certainly seeing that in our day-to-day sales activity. So we're pretty bullish on the pipeline that we're building in our technology products, so -- but in both restaurants and hotels. So we're seeing some good uptick. We're seeing some accelerated replacement opportunities. So we just got to keep at it.

William Lauber

Analyst · Sterling Capital.

You mentioned that your McDonald's contributed significantly to the uptick in revenue. Do you anticipate that continuing throughout the year? Or is that...

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Sterling Capital.

McDonald's will be a solid contributor throughout the balance of the year. The growth rate may slow a little bit as we come to the end of certain demands, or fulfill certain demands in different parts of the world. So -- but we certainly are counting on our new wins here that we've announced with the -- with out non-major customers that are going to more than offset that slowdown.

William Lauber

Analyst · Sterling Capital.

There has been no mention of Yum!, what's going on there?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Sterling Capital.

Yum!, we're sort of in-between cycles with them. We're still delivering to them throughout the world. And our relationship is as strong as it's ever been, but there are in-between major cycles although we are -- started this year to deliver to one of their largest franchisees in the United States, who has been a long time customer of ours, and they're going through a replacement cycle now. But it will return the growth in the future for sure.

William Lauber

Analyst · Sterling Capital.

Okay. One last question concerning ATRIO. I know in the past, if I understood this correctly, that one of the concerns on the part of these hotel, especially the larger chains, was the fact that the security with the cloud is -- is that correct? And is that -- does that concern still persists? And is there anything that you are doing or can do to alleviate that concern?

Ronald Casciano

Analyst · Sterling Capital.

We think security in the clouds are getting a lot better than it was, Bill. I'm not sure that's a major obstacle anymore, and certainly, it is to some point, but we are making headways into the smaller independents and collections. I think the big guys, I don't believe there's been a lot of big decisions to change out at this point in time, that will come in the future. So we're not surprised by a lot of reluctance. I think we've mentioned before that the adoption rate in the early part of the ATRIO release was slower than we had anticipated, but it's starting to pick up.

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Ron Casciano for any further remarks.

Ronald Casciano

Analyst

Well, again, I want to thank you all for your participation and your questions, and, everybody, have a good evening. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the program, and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.