Aaron Graft
Analyst · B. Riley Securities. Steve, please go ahead. Your line is now open
Thank you, Luke. Good morning. For the first quarter, we earned net income to common stockholders of $23.5 million or $0.93 per diluted share. This was a very good quarter for TBK. We saw the typical seasonality that accompanies the first quarter of every year. However in this case, despite a modest pullback in volume, invoice prices remained elevated such that purchases at Triumph's business capital were flat with the fourth quarter of 2021. TriumphPay saw the number of invoices decline only slightly while the dollar value of invoices paid continued to climb. Overall, I am incredibly proud of this team. We control the things we can control, executing on those items with distinction and continue to make investments in the unique opportunity before us. In the first quarter, we announced the first conforming transactions in our TriumphPay platform. As a reminder, a conforming transaction is a payment from a fully enabled TriumphPay payor, either a freight broker or a shipper to a fully-enabled TriumphPay payee, either a carrier or their factoring company. Parties on both sides of the transaction are connected via API with TriumphPay which largely automates the process. What began with a beta test of 2 brokers and 5 factors in mid-January is now 39 brokers and 17 factors, including 5 of the 20 largest factors and 2 of the 30 largest brokers. While volumes are not material from a financial perspective, the progress forward seems to validate our thesis that this is a solution the market desires. From January 11 through March 31, we processed 53,000 conforming transactions totaling 132 million in freight spent. Conforming payment volume continues to scale rapidly with February and March volumes of 43 million and 86 million respectively. As of the end of the quarter, we were processing 1,600 invoices a day or about 3.8 million in payment volume as conforming transactions. In total, during the first quarter, TriumphPay processed approximately 4 million invoices paying just under 127,000 distinct carriers. We have now paid 168,000 distinct carriers in the last 12 months. First quarter payments process totaled approximately $5.7 billion and 8.8% increase over the prior quarter and a 147.7% increase from Q1 2021. TriumphPay's annual run rate payment volume exiting the quarter was over $24 billion. We listed as one of our metrics that matter, the continued growth in both factors and brokers that make up both sides of the network. As a reminder, the sales cycle for Tier 1 brokers can be multiple years. We only announced Tier 1 additions by name when they are integrated and we are providing services on their behalf. In the first quarter, we added another three factoring companies as TriumphPay audit clients bringing the total number to 72. We also continued to add brokers to the network, bringing our total count of freight brokers to 558 who are TriumphPay customers, TriumphPay audit customers or both. This number is down four brokers since our announcement earlier in March, because we made some minor system adjustments to consolidate customer entity reporting. This approach is more consistent with how we think about our customers and prevents a broker's subsidiary from being reported as a separate customer even if it operates as such. We think this is a more accurate way to look at things. As a result of this move, 28 brokers were removed from the broker count but they didn't actually leave the ecosystem. These reductions were offset by 27 new broker additions. Those changes along with the removal of some brokers due to acquisitions and the consolidation also affected counts for the quarter. Of the 27 brokers added in the corner, all were Tier 2s, Tier 3s and Tier 4s. Seven other brokers were integrated on Triumph payments, 14 on audit and 6 on both payments and audit. Overall, we have three factors and 44 brokers currently in the integration queue including one Tier 1 factor and four Tier 1 brokers with expected go lives over the next three quarters. Every quarter we discuss how many distinct carriers we paid in the last quarter and trailing 12 months or since inception. Another important carrier number is the number of registered carriers on the network. These are carriers that have claimed their profile and TriumphPay and are now fully integrated for payments, paperwork and all the benefits of the network. We added 15,000 new registered carriers in the first quarter, bringing the total number to just over 106,000 carriers who have claimed their profile on the TriumphPay network. Triumph business count also had a very strong quarter. Average purchases per day exceeded 60 million again for the quarter and the dollar volume of invoices purchased was $4.04 billion, a 62.2% increase over the first quarter of 2021. That's an annualized run rate of approximately 16.1 billion in purchases. Average transportation invoice sizes were $2,401 for the quarter, up $110 from Q4 of 2021. Triumph business capital purchased approximately 1.6 million invoices, down just 3.9% from the prior quarter and a 34.9% increase over the first quarter of 2021. Triumph business capital ended the quarter with 1.67 billion in accounts receivable and receivables held for sale, a 48.9% increase over the first quarter of 2021. This team just continues to surpass expectations achieving results that even without the benefit of strong invoice prices continue to break previous internal records. There's been a lot written and said over the last few weeks about an imminent freight recession. Our outlook is not as negative as the prevailing narrative in the media. Indeed, the market has rationalized as anyone would expect. But consider this fact, our April month-to-date average transportation invoice size is approximately $2,300. That threshold of $2,300 per invoice has only been exceeded in four individual months since 2007. We are not economists but we do closely follow several key market indicators in the sector in addition to our own internal statistics. What our data shows is a gradual drop-off from historic rates per mile offset by rising fuel costs. There has not been a significant drop-off in freight tonnage. At Triumph business capital, we have seen trucking clients adjust to small rate adjustments on a downward curve. But the carnage some are predicting typically only occurs when a recession dramatically and swiftly reduces tonnage which leaves trucks part. We do not see any sign of that in the near future. In my opinion, the media has seized on one side of a narrative to drive clicks and the market has just followed along. Regardless of the direction of freight, our job is to serve our customers in good times and in recessionary times. We have to be nimble enough to keep the business when everyone wants in and wise enough to structure our deals to weather the inevitable headwinds. Our history shows we know how to do this well and we plan to continue that trend. Our revenue may fluctuate with the transportation market but we are well prepared to handle a slowdown in trucking. One benefit of a slowdown in the trucking market is a heightened focus on the bottom line among our prospects. When margins are thin people have to look for every advantage. The promise of TriumphPay is to save our customers more than they pay us to use it. Getting the market's attention is easier when the tide goes out of it and it's not just a race to cover loads or by invoices. Thus, I expect any market weakness to create opportunities for us. Our focus doesn't change with short-term moves in our stock price or the transportation market. We are building something that will benefit everyone. It is our primary mission and we will accomplish it. Last quarter, I offered expectations on Q1 expenses at about 80 million excluding any strategic equity grant adjustments and we were just short of that estimate. We currently expect Q2 expenses of about $85 million, inclusive of expenses related to the disposal group as we continue to invest in the opportunity we see in front of us. Finally, let's turn to some unusual items this quarter. As we continue to focus our efforts on the opportunities in the transportation market, we are in discussions to sell 15 TBK Bank branches in rural Colorado and Kansas. The 159 million of loans and 20 million of other assets in these branches are now reflected in assets held for sale on our balance sheet. And 367 million of branch deposits likewise are reflected as deposits held for sale. Moving the loans to help or sale status created a $970,000 benefit to our credit loss expense in the first quarter. And once closed, we expect a reduction in quarterly revenue in expenses of about 2.25 million for revenue and 2 million for expenses respectively. Second, in another focusing effort, we have moved approximately half of the non-transportation portion of our factoring business. About 70 million in net funds employed to help for sale, anticipating a divestiture in the second quarter. This move created a $420,000 benefit to our credit loss expense in the first quarter and once closed we expect a reduction in quarterly revenue and expenses of about $2.7 million in revenue and $300,000 in expenses respectively. As evidenced by these moves, we will continue to simplify our operating model, focusing our strategy, capital and energy on the opportunities we see before us in our transportation related businesses. Let me be clear, for Triumph, nothing is as important as establishing a ubiquitous payments network for the trucking industry. Everything we do begins with that, end in mind. We will continue to maintain diversity of revenue and funding as appropriate. But overall our business model is narrowing its focus on to our ultimate goal. With that we will turn the call over for questions.