Earnings Labs

Unisys Corporation (UIS)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, Jul 27, 2016

$2.67

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Unisys Second Quarter 2016 Results Conference Call. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Ms. Courtney Holben, Vice President of Investor Relations at Unisys Corporation. Please go ahead.

Courtney Holben - Vice President and Head of Investor Relations, Unisys Corp.

Management

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. This is Courtney Holben speaking, VP of Investor Relations for Unisys. Thank you for joining us. Earlier today, Unisys released its second quarter 2016 financial results. With us this afternoon to discuss our results are Peter Altabef, our President and CEO; Janet Haugen, our CFO; and Inder Singh, our Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to cover a few details. First, today's conference call and the Q&A session are being webcast via the Unisys' investor website. Second, you can find the earnings press release and the presentation slides that we will be using this afternoon to guide our discussion on our investor website. Third, today's presentation, which is complementary to the earnings press release, includes some non-GAAP financial measures. The non-GAAP measures have been reconciled to the related GAAP measures, and we've provided reconciliations with the presentation. Although appropriate under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP, the company's results reflect changes that the company believes are not indicative of its ongoing operations and that can make its profitability and liquidity results difficult to compare to prior periods, anticipated future periods or to its competitors' results. These items consist of pension and restructuring costs. Management believes each of these items can distort the visibility of trends associated with the company's ongoing performance. Management also believes that the evaluation of the company's financial performance can be enhanced by use of supplemental presentation of its results that exclude the impact of these items in order to enhance consistency and comparativeness with prior or future period results. The following measures are often provided and utilized by the company's management, analysts and investors to enhance comparability of year-over-year results, as well as to compare results to other companies in our industries, non-GAAP operating expenses, non-GAAP…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our first question comes from Frank Atkins with SunTrust.

Frank C. Atkins - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks for taking my questions. First question, I wanted to ask about Brexit. And it's early days, but have you seen any impact on the pipeline or volumes, especially in the BPO business, and then what impact does that have on the top line in terms of your currency assumptions? Peter A. Altabef - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, I'll take the first part of that question, Frank, relay to Janet for the second half and actually ask Inder to weigh in on some of the security elements of that. So we'll do a trio on this call. The first part of your question, with respect to our business, as you can see from our numbers about 30% of our revenue is in EMEA, 14% – and here I'm giving you first half numbers. 14% of our revenue is in the UK, that's as a company, 14% company-wide, and 10%, again first half numbers, of our revenue is in financial services in the UK. So, we have a decent presence in the UK and in financial services. The financial services piece is really roughly split between what I would call traditional financial services work and more BPO-type of activities, right. So, bottom line is, right now, we obviously have not seen any significant effect in the UK or in financial services. I think it's fair to say, like I think everyone, and we probably all get this in our inboxes on a daily basis now, there are a lot of companies that are kind of in a wait-and-see attitude. We'll just have to see if that wait-and-see attitude affects any of our prospects or pipeline. I think it's just too early to call. But I would expect there would be some wait-and-see that would eventually affect us in…

Frank C. Atkins - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, great. Peter A. Altabef - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Frank, thanks again.

Frank C. Atkins - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Good. And then as a follow up, I wanted to ask you press released the NSA designation as well as partnerships with Microsoft and AWS over the last few months. Can you talk about the opportunity set going forward there and what traction you're seeing in those areas? Peter A. Altabef - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, again we see this kind of in two ways. Unisys Stealth we think is a distinguishing technology for us, and we are continuing our efforts not only to market and build that, but also to build that middle layer you see in slide four of many different security products. Some of this or some of them are well established such as border security and others such as the advisory and consulting work we're investing pretty heavily now to build up. And then finally when we looked across the board, we're putting next generation and leading protocol securities in really all our offerings, some of that may be Stealth and some of that may not be depending on its applicability. So Stealth is very important for us as kind of a flagship product, getting these certifications which take a long time and are not easily obtained, we think enhances its flagship nature for us. That said, the sales length of closing transactions when you're talking about basically putting new protocols into company's infrastructures that includes the government as well as private. It is not a quick sale and it's very cautious. We believe that that continued interest is going to ultimately create significant demand, but I will tell you right now it is still early days. And the pipeline is growing but we do not yet have a substantial amount of revenue specifically related to Stealth. But we think the interest is apparent and growing and the need as well. So, that's kind of where we are on it and we'll continue to update you as it extends. We think the certifications this quarter are very important.

Frank C. Atkins - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

All right. Great. Thank you very much. Peter A. Altabef - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Welcome.

Operator

Operator

. Our next question comes from James Friedman with Susquehanna. Peter A. Altabef - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi. I think that's Jamie, but I'm not sure unless there's a change Jamie that we need to know.

James Friedman - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Hi, sorry I muted myself. Can you hear me okay? Peter A. Altabef - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We can.

James Friedman - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Okay. Yeah, nice job here. I just had a couple of questions. Janet, I wanted to ask about this slide 11, the potential economic benefit of the tax assets. I understand the math. I'm wondering is there a reason why you're calling this out now because I haven't seen this one in a while. Janet Brutschea Haugen - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So Jamie, it is an item that we obviously disclose in the annual financial statements. We've talked about it periodically. We haven't spoken about it in a while. As we continue to improve the profitability of the company, and as we look to further out to improve both the revenue and the margin, we thought it was important to give an update on tax attributes that we have available to us to offset any type of perception of an increased tax burden as we improve our profitability over time. Peter A. Altabef - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: And Jamie, this is Peter. Thanks for asking the question. It is also consistent with what I hope you have seen from us for over a year now, and that is more and more kind of transparency in the data that we have. Again, as Janet mentioned, the data is not new, it was publicly available, but perhaps not in as easily referenced way as this. And so, you're seeing us now put it into a slide. It'll move into the appendix for future calls, just like the pension obligation data, which is in the appendix and now with the share count analysis. We thought that, given the convertible issuance earlier in the year, we needed to provide some more examples about how that share count can work up and down. So, we're really trying to make sure that we could be as transparent as possible and respond to requests. We've had requests on some of this kind of disclosure. And so, if there are other things we can add in the future, we're happy to look at it.

James Friedman - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Okay. Thanks, Peter. And then, I had a question about slide 10. So, looks to me like free cash flow not adjusted, but free cash flow was positive in the Q2 for Unisys. I realize you don't guide to free cash flow, although you gave guidance for adjusted free cash flow. And I don't think that you're going to guide to a cash balance at year end, but maybe if you could at least help us with some of the waterfall of the free cash flow as we move forward excluding the adjustments that would be helpful as well. Janet Brutschea Haugen - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So, Jamie, adjusted free cash flow was what we talked about on the call, the $160 million to the $200 million range. To get to free cash flow, there are two reconciling items. The first is the cost reduction payment which we talked about earlier in the year. Our estimate at that time and continues to be about $90 million to $100 million worth of cash payments for the cost reduction. And then our pension contribution, right now as you can see on the chart in the appendix is roughly $136 million of cash acquired for pension contribution.

James Friedman - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Yeah, I'm just getting in the appendix. Okay, so those would be the – I mean, what was – I'm sorry, what was your CapEx number for the year, again? Janet Brutschea Haugen - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So, the CapEx number that we have discussed has been around $200 million which is a decline year-over-year, but we also said that we are continuing to look at more capital light approaches in our offerings. First half of the year, we are down in spending year-over-year, and so I would tell you right now that we think about $200 million but won't be surprised if that comes in a bit lighter.

James Friedman - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Okay. And then my last one, Peter, so I was interested in the announcement earlier this month about the Stealth certification for the payments industry. I think, you mentioned Sandstone in your prepared remarks, but I was just curious as to how you think about sizing that opportunity, the applicability or unique attributes of Stealth for payments, any kind of contextual color you could share and that would be helpful? Thank you. Peter A. Altabef - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You're welcome. Thanks. About those two – the partnerships and kind of the new platform we're providing Eric Crabtree, who joined us earlier this year and leads our financial services team globally is actually in the middle of a three-week trip in Asia-Pacific where we're actually actively talking about that platform to a number of financial services organizations in Asia-Pacific. We're actually quite excited about it. It definitely represents a step forward and a significant lean forward for our financial services business, right. With respect specifically to, let's say, PCI compliance and Stealth, yeah, I'll defer to Inder just very quickly as you know Jamie that PCI compliance is in the eye of the beholder and it really is a user requirement as opposed to a provider requirement. So we can go only so far in getting there and ultimately the end user has to finish it. But we made very, very significant progress in kind of doing our part. So, Inder over to you. Inder M. Singh - Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer: So, Jamie, the PCI compliance obviously is something that credit card processors like Visa, MasterCard, Amex and others have to all deal with. There are traditional ways of delivering PCI compliance. The way that we are actually delivering it is differentiated…

James Friedman - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And the next question comes from Joan Tong with Sidoti & Company. Joan K. Tong - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Good afternoon. A couple of questions. Regarding the investments that you guys are making right now and will continue to make those investments in the third quarter and the fourth quarter. Can you just give us some color like – further color in terms of what type of investment is that? You mentioned advisory and consulting, and also like when do you expect to see like the return on those investments, would that be first half of next year or is it more like a long range like a gradual or steady type of return going forward? Peter A. Altabef - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, Joan, thank you. That's a great question. And it highlights kind of the two kind of financial goals that we've set for ourselves. Obviously, we all know that this is the first year in over 10 years that the company has given guidance. We're working very hard to make sure that we can deliver to that guidance and we reaffirmed that guidance on this call, although we did it for the operating margin at the low end of that range. And so, what's going on there? There are a couple of things going on there. So, one thing is that the services margin enhancement, you saw 110 basis point improvement in gross margins year-over-year, while certainly in the right direction, is frankly a little harder slogging than we had hoped. It's taking more cycles and it's taking longer. And so, we are, A, using the, if you will the benefit of our current profitability to enhance the revenue – the investment in things like security expertise, in things like dedicated security sales…

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Ana Goshko with Bank of America.

Anastazia Goshko - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Hi. Thanks very much. You actually addressed many of the questions that I had. But just to clarify on the discussion on the cash flow and on the guidance. So Joan, I understand that you're directing us to the low end of the non-GAAP operating profit margin, so to the 7% end. But I think you did not adjust or direct us to the lower end of the adjusted free cash flow guidance. And is it the CapEx that you think that it's going to come in light and it's going to be a benefit relative to what you originally guided to? Janet Brutschea Haugen - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thank you for joining the call. Thank you for the questions. Yeah, so we're very committed to in that adjusted free cash flow to hit that range of $160 million to $200 million, while we are seeing an impact and guiding to the low end on the non-GAAP operating profit, as I mentioned in the comments as you rightly picked up. We are looking to see what we can adjust for that, either through lower CapEx without affecting the business and the prospects for the business in the top line, as well as other working capital improvements.

Anastazia Goshko - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Okay. And then, with regard to the EBITDA metric, I'm assuming that you are also guiding to a lower end of the adjusted EBITDA because that's kind of in tandem with the operating margin, is that accurate? Janet Brutschea Haugen - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: So, Ana, as I mentioned to Joan, we have been talking about the three past metrics for us, the overall revenue, the non-GAAP operating profit and the adjusted free cash flow. And obviously, towards the low end of that adjusted free cash – the adjusted free cash flow on – I'm sorry, the low end of the non-GAAP operating profit percentage, that would imply an impact on the adjusted EBITDA.

Anastazia Goshko - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Got it. Right. Okay. Okay, Well, thank you very much. Janet Brutschea Haugen - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thank you, Ana.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude the question-and-answer session. I'll now turn the conference back over to you for any additional or closing remarks. Peter A. Altabef - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, operator, and thanks everyone on this call for your questions. And to close out, I'd like to reiterate that we're pleased with the results of the quarter, which were held by our technology business and that we're seeing the benefits of our cost reductions and focus on profitability. We're excited to continue our efforts along these fronts and also on approving our top line over time. Thank you, again, for being on the call, and we look forward to continuing discussion.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's conference call. We do thank you for your participation today.