Matt Chambless
Analyst · William Blair & Company. Please go ahead
Thanks Boyd and good afternoon, everyone. On today’s call I’ll provide a high level overview of the quarter including some additional detail on bookings performance, a brief walk through of our fourth quarter financial results and our outlook for 2020 and beyond. Boyd already shared some of the highlights for the quarter, strong bookings, increasing SaaS mix, continued growth in TruBridge and record operating cash flows.So let’s jump right into bookings; total bookings for the quarter of $27.3 million increased 15.5% both sequentially and over the fourth quarter of 2018. System sales and support bookings saw increases of 32% sequentially and 11% year-over-year both driven by the net new EHR category. Absent the impact from MU3 system sales and support bookings for $17.5 million our second highest mark of the past three years and within $100,000 of the $17.6 million of comparable bookings in the first quarter of 2018, the current high market.TruBridge posted yet another stellar bookings period arriving at $9.6 million, a slight reduction from the third quarter’s $10.2 million of bookings which were the second highest in company history and 24% above the fourth quarter of last year propelling this growth was $2.5 million of bookings from customers’ outside of our traditional EHR base with the patient engagement solutions from Get Real Health gain in traction and adding $1.7 million to the quarters bookings.Note that we have included information on the composition and revenue conversion time frames for quarterly bookings in the tables to the earnings release. So I won’t provide commentary on the call. Along the same lines commentary we formerly gave in our prepared remarks regarding the historical and net new derived acute care implementations will now be provided in the earnings release, so we direct you to those tables for the relevant metrics.With regard to near term outlook for this metric, we currently anticipate 10 new client facilities going live with our drive solution in the first quarter of 2020, with eight expected to go live in a Cloud or SaaS environment.Turning to the financial results for the period, quarterly adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP net income measures were affectively in line with the prior year despite a 2% reduction in revenues driven by TruBridge growth and our cost control efforts. For the full year 2019, we managed to increase adjusted EBITDA by 4% and non-GAAP net income by 2% despite a similar 2% reduction in revenues.TruBridge posted results they were up 5% sequentially and 16% over the fourth quarter of 2018. The sequential improvement was driven by strong up sale for GRH’s patient engagement solutions which posted revenues of $2.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 compared to $500,000 in the third quarter. The strong GRH showing was slightly offset by lowered revenue contributions from the large AR work down opportunity we discussed at length on the last earnings call.Excluding GRH TruBridge revenues increased 5.6% over the fourth quarter of 2018, the volume declines for a few specific customers that we noted throughout the past year created $700,000 of headwinds against TruBridge revenue growth for the quarter, without these headwinds TruBridge would have posted 8.5% organic growth over the fourth quarter of 2018. TruBridge’s gross margin remains relatively flat at 49% during the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter increasing from the 43% margin during the fourth quarter of 2018, absent the impact of GRH TruBridge gross margins were 45% during the fourth quarter.Next, system sales and support revenues increased $500,000 sequentially, but decreased $5.8 million from the fourth quarter of 2018 as non-recurring revenues were pressured by the work down of the MU3 opportunity and the shift in lack in SaaS mix. As Boyd mentioned, our efforts to covert more of our new net EHR opportunities into recurring revenue arrangements have paid off, with the SaaS mix of 54% and 43% for the fourth quarter and year-to-date respectively compared to 8% SaaS mix in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 12% for the full 2018 year.Overall MU3 revenues decreased $2.9 million to only $200,000 during the past quarter while non-recurring revenues from net new implementations decreased $2 million. From a margin standpoint gross margin is 54% were relatively in line with the third quarter whereas the decline in non-recurring revenues and lower margin mix within those non-recurring revenues make for headwinds against the fourth quarter of 2018’s, 61% margins.Moving onto operating expenses, product development costs were flat sequentially and up 2% from the fourth quarter of 2018 mostly due to the addition of GRH. Sales and marketing cost were also flat sequentially but down 17% from the fourth quarter of 2018 mostly as commissions decreased with the decline in non-recurring system sales and support revenues. General and administrative cost were down $2 million sequentially and $1.5 million from the fourth quarter of 2018 mostly due to the planned design changes in our employee health benefits offerings intended to drive down cost while still providing competitive benefits to our employees and their families.Lastly, on the income statement our effective tax rate during the quarter was 12%. Going forward, we continue to expect an effective tax rate of 16% to 17% normalized for discrete items. Lastly, operating cash flows during the fourth quarter were just over $18 million. This record quarter was fueled by our stable yet growing recurring revenue base, coupled with the abatement of financing receivables headwinds that served the drag on cash flows from most of 2017 and 2018.Full year operating cash flows were almost double that off 2018 and represented nearly 90% of adjusted EBITDA for the year. This strength in cash flow allowed for a net reduction in bank debt of over $13 million for the quarter and $23 million for the year. The trends that Boyd and I have discussed strong bookings, increasing recurring revenues which made up nearly 84% of total 2019 revenues shipped towards SaaS revenues a stabilizing competitive environment and growing confidence in the opportunities for TruBridge and international have led management and the board to decide to reintroduce long-term targets and annual guidance.Our three-year outlook calls for average annual organic growth in recurring revenues of 5% to 8% driven by continued growth in TruBridge a third further shift towards SaaS EHR arrangement which we believe could reach as high as 80% over the forecast period as we work towards more moving exclusively to SaaS contracts and international expansion. For 2020, we expect recurring revenue growth to be towards the low end of that range and anticipate total revenue of $280 million to $290 million as they remain significant uncertainty about the near term pace of the SaaS mixed shift.On adjusted EBITDA margins although we previously stated a goal of returning to 20% margins by 2020, the near term impact of this shift in SaaS mix has caused us reassess near term adjusted EBITDA margins as a result, we envisioned 2020 margins to land within a range of 18% to 19%. But expect to work toward the 20% goal over the longer term. In terms of cash generation, we expect 2020 operating cash flows to represent roughly 80% to 85% of adjusted EBITDA.Finally, although we won’t be providing quarterly guidance, we expect next quarter to show a meaningful mismatch in revenue and expense recognition that will shift more profits to the remainder of the year. Headwinds from the lumpiness of GRH revenues and the 80% SaaS mix expected for net new Thrive go-lives will keep total revenues muted both sequentially and versus the prior year, while the seasonality of certain general and administrative expenses could result an incremental cost.In 2017, we shared our leverage target of 2.5 times following the Healthland acquisition. The strength in cash flows during the past year has allowed us to achieve and surpass that target with leverage near two times as of the end of 2019, with strong cash flow generation expected to continue for the foreseeable future and ample capacity under our existing credit facilities, we now have significant capital available to pursue more opportunistic capital allocation priorities. As Boyd mentioned, our board and management continue to monitor potential uses of our capital with an emphasis on driving shareholder value.At close, we’re proud of what we accomplishment during 2019 and excited for 2020 and beyond. We have a clear strategy for growth articulated by Boyd in his opening remarks and feel confident in our ability to deliver on our long-term targets with recurring revenues and adjusted EBITDA gradually increasing overtime.And with that, we’d like to open up the line for questions.