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SWK Holdings Corporation 9.00% Senior Notes due 2027 (SWKHL)

Q2 2020 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 18, 2020

$25.49

+0.04%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. Welcome to SWK Holdings Second Quarter 2020 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions]. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Jason Rando from Tiberend Strategic Advisors. Please go ahead.

Jason Rando

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining SWK Holdings second quarter 2020 financial and corporate results call. This morning, SWK Holdings issued a press release detailing its financial results for the three months ended June 30, 2020. The press release can be found in the Investor Relations section of swkhold.com under News Releases. Before beginning today's call, I would like to make the following statements regarding forward-looking statements. Today, we will be making certain forward-looking statements about future expectations, plans, events, circumstances, including statements about our strategy, future operations and the development of our consumer and drug our product candidates, plans for future potential product candidates and studies and our expectations regarding our capital allocation and cash resources. These statements are based on our current expectations and you should not place undue reliance on these statements. Actual results may differ materially due to our risks and uncertainties including those detailed in the Risk Factors section of SWK Holdings’ 10-K filed with the SEC and other filings we make with the SEC from time-to-time. SWK Holdings disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Joining me on today's call is Winston Black, Chairman and CEO of SWK Holdings. Winston will provide an update on SWK's second quarter 2020 corporate and financial results. Winston, go ahead.

Winston Black

Analyst

Thank you, Jason, and everyone for joining our second quarter conference call. Second quarter 2020 continued what has been a significant progress year for SWK, highlighted by improved quarter-over-quarter performance, demonstrated by strong returns from our specialty finance business. We believe this is reflective of the growth potential of SWK’s business and our ability to capitalize on attractive financing options opportunities within the small to mid-sized commercial-stage life sciences sector. Looking ahead, we believe that current industry and general economic dynamics, inclusive of the strong underlying demand for healthcare products and services despite the current COVID-19 conditions, should remain favorable throughout the remainder of 2020. These conditions and the credit quality of our portfolio will not only enable us to continue to produce strong results of our current specialty finance portfolio but also to provide new differentiated opportunities for us to deploy capital in a compelling efficient manner to support innovative companies, help them achieve their growth opportunities. When we initiated our growth -- our strategic growth plan in 2019, we viewed the expansion of our investor base as central for the planned success. Recent addition of SWK Russell indexes marks an important step towards achieving this goal. Russell indexes are widely used benchmark for actively managed investment strategies that should enable SWK to broaden its visibility within the investment community and increase liquidity of our stock as we continue to explore additional avenues to attract new investors and increase shareholder value. This achievement demonstrates both determination of SWK’s team with high potential we offer to investors. Before I discuss our second quarter results and achievements I’d like to provide a brief update on the COVID-19 situation and current position in our subsidiary Enteris BioPharma. As we indicated previously, SWK’s business has been minimally impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. We…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question is from Kyle Bauser from Colliers Securities. Go ahead.

Kyle Bauser

Analyst

Hey Winston, good morning. Thanks for all the updates here. Maybe -- can you talk a little bit about upcoming catalysts we should keep an eye out for within the Enteris business line? I know you've walked through a couple of them, but I didn't quite catch them. I just want to make sure we know to look out for over the next 12 months?

Winston Black

Analyst

Sure. So as we generally don’t like giving look forward guidance, but the things that we're looking for demonstrate the advancement of the business will be -- as far as on the manufacturing side is the continued build out and completion of that expansion project. Then, of course, any public announcements that are made by our various licensees of our intelligence technology in Cara and so of course we’ll be watching to see how they continue to hit their milestones. And then on new updates regarding kind of numbers of feasibility studies and specialty licenses regarding the business. So that's certainly the things that we're going to looking at and that are demonstrating advancement there.

Kyle Bauser

Analyst

Okay. And I think you mentioned Q4 of this year and then first half of next year, and what milestones were that, I think it was with Cara and clinical trial activity?

Winston Black

Analyst

Sure. So they -- yes so I am not talking about things they haven't -- have announced publicly. So from their second quarter update, week or so ago, they announced that they intend to begin the safety portion of their Phase 3 trial -- patient trial in the fourth quarter of this year, and they expect to have the FDA end of Phase 2 meeting during the first quarter of 2021, and then they expect to have additional Phase 2 results in the first half of 2021 for their other two Phase 2 trials in atopic dermatitis and in pruritus patients with hepatic impairment due to primary biliary cholangitis.

Kyle Bauser

Analyst

And as we think about deployment of cash, do you have a preference for share repurchases or to make it through COVID and conserve cash to support the current portfolio? Or do you think you have enough fresh capital to deploy for new investments? Just kind of trying to understand how you're prioritizing deploying cash through COVID here?

Winston Black

Analyst

Sure. Well, yes, it's -- to point out, thankfully the portfolio continues to perform well. So, the capital that we have today is not a static pool of portfolio. Those continue to generate healthy cash flow. So as we think about deploying both, the further cash flow that we'll be getting over the coming quarters and years plus the liquidity we have today. As I’ve mentioned in the last quarter, it really is a bit of a balancing game, and as we seek to invest our capital in the highest return areas, because we're -- there a lot of ways for companies to build shareholder value. And so, we're always evaluating share repurchases and then we’re of course looking at new transactions and, we of course, just want to make sure that there's enough liquidity to support for further companies as circumstances change. Because as everybody knows these are uncertain times and while we feel great about how things are going generally, there may and will be surprises. That's what we may have to, to help the companies worth and of course when we look at opportunities with Enteris too, as we can kind of fully understand, for example, our opportunities on some of the owned asset development potential, and maybe that we decide that that actually will be greater than prices deployed in other resources. So, yes, I think as we think about building the book and building Enteris and returning value to shareholders, we would like to allocate the capital in the most judicious way that would be possible.

Kyle Bauser

Analyst

And it’s certainly a lot of fresh capital that you can deploy for each of those and including Enteris which I didn't mention. So appreciate that. And as it relates to the specialty finance side of the business, is it a competitive market out there? I mean what's the activity like, as you evaluate new deals? Are they're less activities from other competitors bidding on deals, is it a little bit easier maybe to avoid those types of situations where it comes down to competitive front and you're going up against some other people or it's still pretty active, and there's still other companies that are looking to deploy capital to some of these high quality names?

Winston Black

Analyst

Sure. Yes, I think the first part of the answer to that question is exactly what you asked. The first thing is that we continue to see multitude of very attractive opportunities. And so I think we're little lucky in that. We can be very picky in evaluating different deals. And so, we’re of course, thankful for that and being testament to the platform we’ve built up here regarding kind of competition itself. It really kind of depends on what segments you're looking at. And in some places, it's just getting fairly competitive. In other places, it’s just a little -- end up deals with so many other potential lenders around. And so, yes -- and the other thing that's interesting is, I think from our perspective, the level of competition doesn't necessarily indicate the credit quality of an asset from our perspective. And so, I don't know that from my perspective be any sort of increase in competition. Certain segments, we’re producing the credit quality of opportunities, and we're still able to do reasonable deals that we've been working hard on to achieve our typical returns, as we have in the past. And so, it’s a little bit of a mix and so I don't know that that's really all that different from prior periods where certain segment is competitive and that kind of goes away and other segments could be competitive.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Nat Stewart from N.A.S. Capital LLC. Go ahead.

Nat Stewart

Analyst

Hey Winston, great job. Nice to see the credit portfolio hold up so well. Honestly better than I expected, given all the crazy stuff that’s going on. I just had a few questions. I noticed very synthetic royalty perform very well. If I remember, it has a step down on the royalty rate, want some targeted returns met. I was just curious where that synthetic royalty is and if there is any detail just on how the strong performance has had?

Winston Black

Analyst

Sure. Yes, I guess first on the strong performance, yes, the team there has just done a great job in growing that [suite of] product. And so, we're obviously benefiting from that and we're very thankful for their strong execution. And so, that’s going again quite well. The -- you'll recall it correctly the way that deal works is until we receive a -- I guess 1.7, 6.25 times the cash on cash return from the initial $10 million invested, until we hit that, we tend to receive the higher royalty rate. Then once that will close, that’s achieved, then it sets down to 5%. And then the royalty can be terminated by -- the royalty there can be terminated by buying it out on a change of control like transaction. In terms of how much further we have to go until we hit that multiple? Yes, I don't have that number at the top of my head. But yes, I think it's north of almost $5 million. But I can get that up and get back to you afterwards. All the capital we receive are obviously probably sensitive. It could be figured out in those public documents. I'll look it up and get it there.

Nat Stewart

Analyst

Yes, it looks -- I mean, it looks like -- I mean, it shows the quality of these different royalties and the credit agreements you've had that I can look at them and a number of them I can determine, I think they're really worth more than the book value. But my second question was on the contingent consideration. I think it's probably a little confusing for many people. How the Enteris deal was accounted for with the amortization and kind of the divergence and kind of accounting values, because I think you're actually building value there. But for the time being, the short-term, that's -- it's kind of hidden by the funny accounting treatment. But I was just curious about the contingent consideration, because that stepped up, that's actually a good thing. It's a liability increasing. And I was just curious, what was the cause of that? If I understand correctly, that's just based on the potential milestone payment. So it sounds like, if I'm remembering correctly, the milestone payments went up a bit, which is a good thing? Is there any more detail you can provide on that?

Winston Black

Analyst

Sure. So I guess first on the accounting itself. GAAP requires us to disclose the value of any payments that would have been made to the Seller as part of the deal to the reminder. We did have sharing of the proceeds of our license agreements, as well as any sort of proceeds on the initial period on the assets that the company had there on product candidates. And so, for us, we have to work the full value of that as an asset, meaning the 100% -- the full 100% would be paid out on adjusted basis. And then the amount that will be paid out to the Seller is the contingent liability. So you're exactly right that our general expectation based on kind of developments of the license, and in particular, you have that increased. And as a result of that, that liability results in a loss on the P&L and an increase to the liability. Even though with no offsetting amount on the asset side. Yes -- and it's really counterintuitive. I mean under the contract, we have lower expectations of marking assets down effectively due to gain, on the P&L, which it's lumpy, I agree it's lumpy. But it is indeed a good thing. And you’re right in that the value of the purchase price that was described to existing licenses, because we do expect sales, as we noted during the initial conference call that we expect to buy cash proceeds in the near to medium term, that our results in those assets being amortized over that period which if you look at it -- I agree -- I think the business has increased in value that we are yet to take on our balance sheet, but, yes, that's the way the accounting works.

Nat Stewart

Analyst

It's going to be a discrepancy for a period of time. But I think it will resolve itself over a period of years or as things further develop on the revenue side, so I just want to clarify that.

Winston Black

Analyst

Yes, I think that's right. I appreciate that. Yes. Thank you for that.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. At this time, we have no more questions. This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Winston Black for closing remarks.

Winston Black

Analyst

In closing, thanks, everyone. I really appreciate your time and attention and look forward in future to update as we continue to advance SWK Holdings. I'd like to also extend my sincere wishes and good health to all.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.