Randy Fields
Analyst · H.C. Wainwright. Your question please
Thank you, Ed. Lot of ground to cover today, lots of I think interesting information, especially if you saw our press release and we know that there will be a lot of questions at the end. So, to make sure that I cover everything I am supposed to, I am going to diverge from my usual and actually follow a bit of a script. So, here we go, fasten your seatbelts potentially because of the amount of information to be covered, pull up your futons, this may take a while. Okay. What you could see from the numbers that were in the press release, our core business, our supply chain business as we call it for the first six months of the year was up 24% year-on-year. Obviously, we are excited about that. I think two interesting points to make about it, which there I think on what our future looks like. Almost all of our growth comes from our existing customers. So, what that means is if you think about it is our customers like what we are doing for them. It means that it’s producing returns for them and they are expanding the scope of what we do for them. So, that’s a really good sign from your CEO’s perspective. It also means that we are becoming more and more successful with driving into our culture that is customer first attitude, which is helping our customers to achieve an economic return and we would refer to it as sell more, stock less, see everything in our tag line is in fact working. I want to give you a couple of examples of the kind of work that we have done in this most recent period. We have been working with a very large international retailer in one of their perishable departments, in particular its dairy. And we have been working with several of their very largest dairy providers and we were able to achieve the following results which if you know anything about this industry are frankly stunning. An 8% improvement in sales trend, I will say that again, an 8% improvement in sales trend. At the same time a 50% reduction in returns and a 40% to 50% reduction in out of stocks. In addition to that we have significantly reduced in fact you could say virtually eliminated the need for emergency replenishment which are called hot shots, very expensive to put a person and product in a truck and drive it to store, because you ran out of products. Needless to say, this program has legs and it’s rolling out to additional dairies. We are very, very, very proud of our team and the results that we generated. Here is another example. In fact this is the re-introduction of an old product that we had that comes from [indiscernible] days that is being reintroduced into the market because of the level of perishable products that you can now buy in the supermarket world. More than half of the volume today of the supermarket industry comes from freshly produced products in the store, think of it deli, bakery, produce that sort of stuff. So we have a company that we have been piloting with and it’s been rolled out to their system, a small Northwest grocer, very well known in the industry in spite of their size, great perishable products, great bakery, great deli. So the system has been installed for 2 years and generated an average increase in sales of 23% a year for two consecutive years. At the same time, it’s done that. It is significantly reduced like about 23% reduction in their shrink meaning product that was thrown away. So what that means is that we have driven their sales up significantly and we have helped them reduce the amount of products they got thrown away. I don’t have to tell you what that does to their bottom line. So those are just two examples that we have generated here recently of actually helping our customers with our core value which is sell more, stock less and see everything, very proud of the team exceptional results. We are beginning to work in some new categories of merchandise which should expand our footprint. You saw this morning hopefully a press release on working in the area of cell phone accessories. So for people who thought that what we did was limited to perishables, obviously this should take that off the table as a concern. We have also begun several strategic relationships with suppliers that have very large networks of retailers and over the next several years, 2 years to 3 years, it will significantly expand the retail footprint where we are present and obviously that bodes well for our future growth in our core supply chain business. As I look at where we are, we have made some great additions to the team. As you know a couple of years ago I personally felt like we were not touching our customers enough. We were not staffed appropriately and I think that concerned certainly on my part has been a lay, but doing a great job with our customers. They love what we are doing for them. So that means by definition on our core supply chain business, our backlog remains great and the opportunity suggest going forward we will continue to see an acceleration year-after-year in the growth rate of that business. So we feel very, very good about it. Before I get into more detail on the ReposiTrak I just want to give you the probably 200 backgrounder on food safety and why we consider that to be an important part of the opportunity that Park City Group has. Really two things, the issue of food safety is it has obviously a consumer concern and that is the heart of why people care about this. But when there is a mistake, it leads to potential tort and there has been some very important lawsuits over the last several years by tort attorneys that is frankly put the responsibility for bad products clearly not just on the manufacturer of that product, but clearly, clearly, clearly in the lap of a retailer who sold the defective or tainted product. So, it means that retailers are increasingly for tort reasons and wholesalers for tort reasons thinking about issues around product safety. Is the food that we are selling safe? Then in addition as many of you know, the Food Safety Modernization Act is in the final stages of being worded, regulated and rolled out and it’s under a court order. At the level of the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA is under a court order to finalize several major parts of the Food Safety Modernization Act in the course of 2015, specifically in the month of August part of it and in the month of October part of it. So, the biggest change that really comes to the Food Safety Modernization Act and here is a way to think about it and why it for us represents both an opportunity and for the industry certainly a concern. Think of it as Sarbanes-Oxley comes to the FDA. So, the reality here is that increasingly corporate executives are going to feel the weight of a regulatory burden. It’s not just that their company can make a mistake it’s that they can be held accountable for it. So, we along with other industry leaders are beginning to beat the drum, if you will, that there is the need to get compliant, to have visibility to your supply chain, to show the world that you are the good citizen that you want to be, all of those things, the net impact of which is salutary for us as it relates to ReposiTrak. Obviously, as you would imagine, as the deadline is nearing, industry leaders are certainly talking about it more and planning for it more. I want to read you something I know that’s not typical Randy, but I will read you something. This last weekend, Food Marketing Institute, FMI, had what they call the Midwinter Conference. The only people allowed to attend are C-suite executives from the supermarket industry and its attendant suppliers. And this was the keynote speech by the Chairman, the opening speech in the morning for all of the senior executives of the industry that were assembled. This is a direct quote by the Chairman of FMI, who is himself a wholesaler. Here is the quote. FSMA significantly raises the stakes of regulatory compliance. The consequences of being found out of compliance are much more costly in terms of money and reputations. And by reputation, I mean, the possibility of jail time for food retail executives. If they fail to comply through intent or negligence with elements of the FSMA regulation, needless to say, we are getting the industry’s attention with regard to coming into compliance to ReposiTrak is we believe become the industry standard platform for getting visibility and compliance into your supply chain. As you know, it’s very inexpensive. It’s cloud-based service. It’s been endorsed by two of the largest trade associations around the food industry. And the fact is it’s an enormous opportunity. Nobody knows exactly, but there are potentially millions of entities that ultimately need to get connected to give complete supply chain visibility to the food that we eat. As we mentioned recently in a press release, ReposiTrak has really accelerated its on-boarding process in the last several months. Okay, everybody, listen up, here comes the number you are all waiting for. We currently have 1,500 connections inside of ReposiTrak more or less. We said in the beginning of the fiscal year that we wanted by the end of June of this fiscal year, first of July mid-year to have about 2,000 connections. Obviously, we are on track. The number of sign-ups continues to increase. We have smoothed out the systems. We made it easier. We aren’t done yet. So, demand will be increasing. We have gotten better at helping people get on the system and it certainly – it is having the salutary impact on the compliance of people who were on it. I am going to come back to them in a minute. Couple of interesting little, I love giving these little insights in terms of customer stuff. Not everybody that we ask to join ReposiTrak will do it. Interestingly, I don’t know if you read about it, but there was a company called Happy Apples that had a little problem with Listeria and there is a number of people reported dead and then a reasonably large number of people who were sickened by Carmel Apples. Interestingly, this is an example of somebody that didn’t want to go on ReposiTrak and therefore if as a member of ReposiTrak, you would have chosen to not do business with people who weren’t compliant, you would have avoided the problem. So interestingly what we are finding is that when companies get on ReposiTrak in what we call a hub, a wholesaler or retailer engages us. Over the first few months, compliance improved significantly in their supply chain. So not only is ReposiTrak inexpensive, not only is ReposiTrak becoming the industry standard, but equally importantly it actually helps improve non-compliance of a supply chain. Just some observations that I see from where I sit it’s getting smoother. Two things are happening that are to me very exciting. We are beginning to get referrals from people saying this thing has been great for us, I have some people that I want to send to you that’s always good news. In addition, historically we have viewed this as primarily retailer and wholesaler centric and that we thought a few years from now we would begin to get suppliers and their supply chains on. As you have probably seen from some of our press releases in the last several months there has been an increase in the number of manufacturers who themselves have seen that there is value to ReposiTrak. And that ReposiTrak then is showing up in their supply chain. So there is more manufacturer and broker interest in ReposiTrak. And frankly, we had any reason to guess at this stage of the game. That obviously held it. But what’s great for the team is that the larger we get the faster it’s going. I don’t want – business is never easier, but is never easy, but it’s certainly getting easier. We are actively engaged at the moment in exploring the opportunity around prescription drugs. And I think within the next 6 to 9 months we will know whether or not there is actually an opportunity for us there. I think it’s fair to say given the announcements that we have made about the agreements around ReposiTrak and the acquisition of the ReposiTrak stock that we did not have under option which will gives us essentially all of the stock of ReposiTrak. ReposiTrak will be an accelerant to our growth rates in the next fiscal year. So as we begin to report combined results of both businesses, we will see once again an acceleration of the total Park City Group growth rate. Now that I have mentioned the acquisition, let me see what I can say about it. There will be more information filed shortly about it, but for all intents and purposes we are working our purchasing agreements for all of those shares that were not under our option to acquire when we announced that we have an option to acquire 75% of this. The total consideration for doing that will be about 900,000 shares. I think that’s about 5% of the Park City Group outstanding stock. So I think that it’s a very reasonable transaction for us, it’s certainly reasonable transaction for the holders of the ReposiTrak stock. And I think in spite of the change of ownership you are going to see further cooperation between in this case Leavitt Partners and Park City Group. We some other opportunities that we want to try and take advantage of going forward. Why now, several reasons I think it makes the business given how it’s ramping more administratively simple to manage and operate. We need speed, the business is accelerating it’s really important to be as smooth as glass that helps to improve the customer experience. Form a Park City Group perspective we see increased opportunities to cross sell Park City Group services into the ReposiTrak customer base and frankly vice versa. So by having the businesses together it certainly facilitates leveraging across our two sales organizations. They have been quite separate to-date. And finally the fact is that given where it is in time, we think it needs even more attention from management and this gives us the attention space that we need. And I think frankly from a combined entity perspective investors are going to clearly see how ReposiTrak opportunity translates into value ultimately for the Park City Group shareholders as well. So that’s why the timing, that’s why we think this is an important milestone in our development. So, let me just summarize all that yak-yak. Our growth has just begun to accelerate. The next few years now with the two businesses together we have got the core business accelerating on a wonderful basis. ReposiTrak is going to accelerate it dramatically. We are beginning to see the network effect affecting our growth rate, that’s been great. And I think it’s important to note that more and more of our revenue growth in dollars is coming from existing customers, which really implies and from a shareholder perspective hopefully you respect our point of view, which is this demonstrates that our value proposition of enabling our customers and sell more, stock less and see everything is working. In other words, we do a great job for our customers. That’s why we are growing. I know sometimes Wall Street would like us to grow. For us, we grow when we do a great job for our customers. Balance sheet is in good shape. And even though we will be seeing an acceleration in growth, we can fund this from where we are with our cash balance and our internally generated cash flow. Both of the businesses are resonating well in the marketplace. Obviously, I am more optimistic than I have ever been, but I start from a very high level, so things are great. And now, we will open it up to some questions.