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NCR Voyix Corporation (VYX)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 7, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. Thank you all for standing by. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. If you do have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to the NCR Vice President of Investor Relations, Tracy Krumme. Thank you. You may begin.

Tracy H. Krumme

Analyst

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us on our Fourth Quarter 2012 Earnings Call. Bill Nuti, NCR's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, will lead our conference call. After Bill's opening remarks, Peter Leav, Executive Vice President and President, Industry and Field Operations, will update you on progress with respect to certain key initiatives. Bob Fishman, NCR's Chief Financial Officer, will then provide comments on our financial results. Our discussion today includes forecasts and other information that are considered forward-looking statements. While these statements reflect our current outlook, they are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to vary materially. These risk factors are described in NCR's periodic filings with the SEC and in our annual report to stockholders. On today's call, Bill will be referring to a presentation that is posted on our website. We will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial information, such as free cash flow and results excluding the impact of pension and other items. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial results to our reported and forecasted GAAP results and other information concerning such measures are included in our earnings press release and are also available on the Investor page of NCR's website. A replay of this conference call will be available later today on our website, www.ncr.com. For those of you listening to the replay of this call, please keep in mind that the information discussed is as of February 7, 2013, and NCR assumes no obligation to update or revise this information included in the call, whether as a result of new information or future results. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Bill. Bill, please go ahead.

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Thank you, Tracy, and welcome to the team. And thank you, Gavin. Gavin is in the room with us today doing a transition to Tracy. And many of you know him, he did a great job for our company. So thank you, Gavin. I'm on Slide 3, and I'm on the Q4 2012 Key Takeaways slide. Order growth in the quarter was strong, largely as a result of great order growth in retail, as well as travel. And really helped us position ourselves in Q1 for a relatively good start with backlog up 11% in the traditional businesses. Revenue growth of 3% exceeded our expectations in the quarter. And we felt pretty good about that given the fact that we came into the quarter, as we discussed on the prior call, with backlog around flat at that time. And that was driven largely by Hospitality, up 43% year-on-year in the quarter. So a great quarter for Hospitality. NPOI, solid quarter. We achieved a record NPOI margin of 11%. We feel good about that in the quarter. Software had a good quarter. And in particular, SaaS, which was up about 30% year-on-year. And the quarter was solid for us, and we'll talk about software as it relates to the year in a moment. And good cash flow. We were pleased with free cash in the quarter of $122 million, largely as a result of excellent progress in working capital in the quarter. Pension. We did make an additional contribution to pension in the quarter of $100 million, and we have landed in a position now where the total global underfunded status is about $440 million. We'll talk more about pension in the presentation and also during the Q&A. On the full year, next slide, we had a good year. I was…

Peter A. Leav

Analyst

Thank you, Bill. As Bill mentioned, Q4 orders increased 15% and quarter ending backlog was up 11% over the prior year period. The strong order growth we experienced during the fourth quarter positions us well for a solid start to 2013. Before providing you with an update on developments across each of our verticals, I want to take a moment to talk more broadly about our business. Technology is having an undeniable impact on how consumers interact with business and conduct transactions. The proliferation of smartphones and tablets, which is driving the omni-commerce movement, is steadily changing the consumer shopping experience. NCR is well-positioned through organic innovation, acquisitions and strategic alliances to win in this space. We have consistently invested in hardware, software and services offerings to address this dynamic shift. Our recently announced strategic alliance with PayPal is consistent with this approach. PayPal is the leader in online and mobile payments, with more than 117 million active accounts across 190 markets. Our partnership is a natural fit as it allows us to integrate NCR's broad retail and hospitality footprint with PayPal's market-leading digital payment technology. Together with PayPal, we will be able to provide restaurants and retailers with a simple and powerful way to offer consumers a rich mobile and digital payment experience. The initial stage of our partnership will include the integration of PayPal Mobile payment options into NCR's Mobile Pay application and online ordering solution, which will enable PayPal payments at over 60,000 sites using NCR's Aloha point-of-sale technology. We are excited about this partnership as it provides us with a solid opportunity to increase our software, Software-as-a-Service and services revenues in both the Hospitality and Retail verticals. Turning now to our lines of business. Financial Services revenue was up 1% on an FX-neutral basis in Q4…

Robert P. Fishman

Analyst

Okay. Thanks, Peter. NCR's total reported revenue in the fourth quarter was $1.64 billion, up 3% versus Q4 2011 on a constant currency basis. We reported a GAAP loss from continuing operations of $23 million or $0.14 per share, which includes a onetime pension charge of $119 million in the fourth quarter of 2012. This compares to GAAP income from continuing operations of $59 million or $0.37 per diluted share in Q4 2011. NCR's results from continuing operations include special items in both periods. Excluding pension and special items, non-GAAP diluted income per share was $0.72 per share in Q4 2012 versus $0.66 in Q4 2011. To analyze NCR's operational performance without the effect of special items and pension expense, please see the supplemental financial schedule included in our earnings press release and the supplementary non-GAAP material in the slides that Bill referred to earlier that reconcile our GAAP to non-GAAP results. Excluding the impact of special items and pension expense, our Q4 2012 gross margin was 26.4%, compared to 26.5% in the prior year period. This 10 basis point decrease was primarily the result of continued investment in our services business, partially offset by a favorable mix of revenue and continued focus on cost. For the full year of 2012, gross margin was 26.8% versus 24.9% in 2011. This gross margin expansion of 190 basis points was primarily driven from higher software revenues and improved mix of business and continued focus on cost improvement initiatives. Operating expenses, excluding pension expense and special items, were approximately 15.3% as a percent of revenue in Q4 2012, compared to 15.7% in Q4 of the prior year. The company continues to invest in sales and R&D, while reducing our overall G&A expenses. Non-GAAP income from operations or NPOI was $181 million in the…

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Okay, operator, you can now open up the call for questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Katy Huberty from Morgan Stanley.

Kathryn L. Huberty - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst

I don't think Radiant and Retalix are included in the 11% backlog growth number that you gave. So is there a scenario that when you add those businesses, you could actually do much better than the top end of the full year revenue growth range or does that backlog not fully convert in 2013? And what would be the other offsets?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

The backlog does not fully convert in the year, Katy. A good proportion of it does convert in the year, but it's not 1 for 1. Meaning, if the backlog grows 11%, you can grow the business 11%, because you have to have that kind of backlog growth quarterly in order to maintain that kind of traditional or core line of business growth. So I want to make sure you understand the backlog from that point of view. It does give you a lift in the first quarter or 2, but the overall year is highly dependent upon keeping that backlog at double-digit kind of growth every single quarter, which is, of course, what we focus on vis-à-vis orders, which is why the order number is so critical to track.

Kathryn L. Huberty - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. Great. And then as a follow-up, you pointed out, Bill, that Financial Services had a better first half than second half. You exited 2012 with a lower growth rate. How do you think about the new revenue streams like branch automation impacting 2013? Is that something that could impact the first half or is it more skewed to the second half of 2013 or is it even longer tailed than that?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

2013 will be a year of pilots and small-scale production branch environments with a number of customers. You'll see a bigger impact, in fact, a significant impact to revenues coming in, in '14 and '15 in that space. So consider '13 as kind of the step-up year for the future.

Operator

Operator

Meghna Ladha from Susquehanna.

Meghna Ladha - Susquehanna Financial Group, LLLP, Research Division

Analyst

So your guidance for Financial for 2013 at 2% to 4% for -- so what are some of the key growth drivers? Are you seeing any specific areas where you're picking up market share in this segment?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Yes, I think we're doing a great job in picking up share around the world, particularly Brazil would be one area I would focus on. India would be the second area I would focus on. We've had a concerted focused effort to win in the emerging markets over the long term. Again, it drives better balance to our revenues. But importantly, these are the big growth markets for ATMs as more of the mature markets stabilize and will mature over time. So I would say in the international space, India, Brazil come to mind immediately as good growth markets. Russia continues to be a great growth market for us, where market share gains can be had. And in the U.S., we've done a terrific job in the nationals or midsized bank space so far the last 2 years, and I continue to feel like we can gain share going forward. If you were to look at Financial Services, the real shift I think that's occurred in the last 12 months has been in that midsized bank space where ADA and regulatory compliance was driving revenues higher than secular growth would normally occur in those spaces. So I think people are normalizing a bit in that space. And as you can imagine, the back half of this year going into next year, your comps will be easier. And as that market continues to rollout deposit, assuming we're gaining share, I feel good about the potential to continue to drive both success in terms of share gains, but also growth in the long term.

Meghna Ladha - Susquehanna Financial Group, LLLP, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And then moving on to Retail, so you won a big deal with Wal-Mart in self-checkout in Q4. So how should we think about the revenue opportunity from this relationship going forward and have you received any indications from other retailers?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Well, winning Wal-Mart in the fourth quarter was important for a number of reasons, not the least of which of course, it was a large transaction. But in terms of validation of the technology as well on a global basis, it certainly helps given people follow Wal-Mart as an influencer in retail. That particular transaction will rollout over the course of 2013. It's quite large, and it will take us time to fulfill all of the orders for Wal-Mart throughout the year. That being said, I would expect us to continue to have success in that space. We are feeling very good about self-checkout growth in the retail space, not just here in the U.S. but globally, and we are seeing more interest as a result of that particular win.

Operator

Operator

Ian Zaffino from Oppenheimer. [Technical Difficulty]

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Are you there Ian? Can we move on to the next -- until Ian gets a good connection, can we move on to the next call?

Operator

Operator

Paul Coster from JPMorgan. Paul Coster - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Can you just give us a little bit of color on what's happening in Europe across each of your segments by geography and what your sort of sense of the sort of shape of the year is from a revenue perspective in that region.

William R. Nuti

Analyst

We had a good quarter in Europe, Paul. A surprisingly good quarter, in particular with Financial in Europe. Now as you know, we have a good position in Eastern Europe and in Western Europe. But Western Europe has been traditionally slower than Eastern Europe. Overall growth in the quarter was solid in that space. For Retail, we continue to make progress in Europe. Obviously, the acquisition of Retalix changes the game for NCR in Europe. Retalix has significant customers in Europe, particularly the U.K., and that will help us better diversify our revenues going forward, and they're higher-margin revenues as a result of them being software transactions and customers in that space. Hospitality continues to grow in Europe, but they are smaller, more nascent, and we're making investments in new headcount sales and initiatives in Europe to grow our Hospitality business over time. And of course, not Europe, but the Middle East, the big win we had in the quarter in travel was Oman airport, where that's a bellwether win for us in that we can replicate that kind of win in travel on a global basis once we get it right. And the Oman win was significant for us. Our travel orders in the quarter were significant for the company. Now significant for the size of that business is not something that I would point to as being a game changer for us in the quarter. It didn't really contribute that much to our growth in the quarter in terms of order growth, but for that particular business, it was sizable. So I think it gives you a sense -- I'm more optimistic, Paul, about Europe generally. Now that's a relative statement, meaning, I think it's less worse than we anticipated going forward, and I like our position in Europe. I like the position we have with Financial Services. I really like our position now in Retail as a result of Retalix. The investments we're making in Hospitality should pay off and our travel team there is doing a great job. Paul Coster - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. Just a quick follow-up. Can you give us some sense perhaps, Bob, of the cost of the internal investigations for OFAC and FCPA compliance and what maybe the next step is if there -- if you got some sense for the timeline.

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Yes. The overall cost was around $4.8 million, of which, $4 million as you can see we called out this quarter and $800,000 or so that we actually included in operational results in Q3 that we did not call out in Q3. Going forward, we're not anticipating a cost because the internal investigation is complete. Our special committee has completed their investigation on behalf of our board, and we will continue to work very transparently, very openly with the SEC, DOJ and OFAC towards hopefully successful resolution with them. But we're not anticipating anything material on cost given the findings of our internal investigation.

Operator

Operator

Roman Leal from Goldman Sachs.

Roman Leal - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

First, a follow-up question in Retail. Even excluding the Retalix contribution there, the underlying growth expectations are pretty solid. Can you help us think through -- obviously, there's the Wal-Mart deal, help us think through like what are the other factors that help you be more confident there, maybe the pipeline, and then also maybe any indication between what the growth in self-service versus traditional cash registers will be helpful as well.

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Yes, I think I began to talk to you all about what I suspected would be better growth in Retail this year about 3 quarters ago or so. Kind of giving you some indication that I expected 2013 to be a better year for Retail. And that's what has transpired. There is an upgrade cycle in place that we anticipated a while back. We're responding to it. We've positioned the company well to respond to it. So the underlying growth beyond self-checkout relates to that, in the core of what was NCR. Obviously, Retalix is on top of that and additive to the core growth. Self-checkout obviously had a terrific year for NCR. The self-checkout growth was, what was it Bob in '12?

Robert P. Fishman

Analyst

Revenue, let me get that for you.

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Yes, we'll get you the revenue growth we have in self-checkout, in a moment. It was a very solid year in that space, and we anticipate obviously another great year for self-checkout. So net-net, we feel good about the self-service business. We feel good about the point-of-sale business. And now with the significant software assets we've acquired, we feel good about our growth in that space, both for software and SaaS. Importantly, I want to point out that NCR did have 125% SaaS growth in the year. We have a large growing, fast-growing SaaS business at NCR. And the Retalix acquisition will give us another $20 million or so of additional SaaS business and make that business now -- in aggregate, when you combine NCR and what is Retalix, about $125 million to $150 million a year SaaS business inside that $725 million to $775 million outlook for software for NCR. A lot of that SaaS business will come from Hospitality and Retail.

Roman Leal - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And one last one in U.S. ATM. Your competitor obviously has cited a little weakness in regional, in the regional space, and I think you kind of echoed that. But what's really interesting is that they called out that mix shift that's having significant implications for their margins. It doesn't seem to be impacting you as much. Is that because of just the diversification of your business or are you positioned differently in U.S. ATMs?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

No, it is -- it does relate back to the diversification of our business in Financial Services, the fact that we're a global player, not an international player. We are not as sensitive as some of our peers do given segmenting in markets like the U.S. So we have a wonderful balance of our revenue stream that includes, of course, the U.S. But as you know in Financial Services, well over 50% of our revenues are outside the U.S.

Operator

Operator

Matt Summerville from KeyBanc.

Matt J. Summerville - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Just a follow-up on the ATM business. Your growth outlook in constant currency, up 2% to 4%. Bill, can you give a little bit of a sense in terms of what you're expecting by region, Europe versus Asia versus South America and North America around that 2% to 4% number?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Yes, Matt some color there. I expect the U.S. to be flat to down on the year and rest of world to be up, frankly in the mid-single digit range. Obviously for us, Brazil has been a major contributor to our growth in terms of revenue growth. They'll continue to be. They had a terrific 2012. Revenue growth in Brazil was off the charts for us. And I would think that we're going to see a bit better contribution coming from Europe in 2012 (sic) as well. But the real -- if I were to isolate the issue for you, which is somewhat less of an issue for NCR, of course, it's really in the U.S. and in nationals.

Matt J. Summerville - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division

Analyst

And then just as a follow-up on Hospitality. The business was up very strongly in the quarter, and even sequentially, it was up about $20 million, operating income fell $1 million on a sequential basis. Can you talk about what's going on in that business from a mix standpoint, and how we should think about the margin evolution in 2013?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

Yes, I think Bob gave the margins in his outlook for that business. But in Q4 in Hospitality, again, remember, we had a larger mix of customers from, what was old NCR, and we have made significant investments in hospitality. And we're going to continue to do that. Investments in Silver come out of Hospitality. Investments in SaaS, new salespeople and R&D come out of Hospitality. Investments in international growth and sales headcount in places like Europe. So we recognize that we have significant growth in that space. We recognize the opportunity long time is outstanding, and we want to make sure we're balancing investment with near-term profitability.

Operator

Operator

Ian Zaffino from Oppenheimer. Gil Luria from Wedbush Securities.

Gil B. Luria - Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Bob, you pointed out in your prepared remarks that you well exceeded your NPOI guidance from the beginning of the year by the end of this year. Should we view the NPOI guidance for this year as just as conservative as when we started this year last year?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

The answer is, I don't know, Gil. I mean, we start the year doing a risk-adjusted view of the year based on what we know in January. And as you all know, things change materially throughout the year. And the one thing I would tell you is that, we kind of hit exactly kind of the guidance we gave in Q4. So we did beat and raise last year's several quarters, and throughout the year we've always given you updates in terms of where we think we're going to land. The answer is, based on what we know right now, we think that's responsible guidance and what we see today.

Gil B. Luria - Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst

And my follow-up is, what are you assuming for the economic backdrop mostly in Europe and emerging markets to come up with your guidance for the year? Are you assuming an improvement in Europe? Are you assuming the same scenario in the emerging markets? What are the assumptions in terms of the backdrop?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

The assumptions are very consistent with what we saw in '12, Gil. So global growth of around 1.75% to 2.25%, broken down where you'd have the U.S. at 1.5% to 2%. Looking at Europe, flat to down 1%. And then emerging markets, in a basket of 5% to 10%, depending upon whether you're in Brazil or China. So I don't think that we're expecting any better global economic environment in '13 than we did in '12. The only thing I would say is, what I am seeing, it's a slightly -- and again this is difficult to quantify because we're talking about Europe here, but a slightly better Europe than perhaps than we anticipated doing our planning process.

Gil B. Luria - Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst

And then just one more follow-up, if you don't mind. In terms of the Hospitality business and the Retail business, you just rolled out the cell phone company with 600 locations. Sounds like you're developing a lot of solutions within the Hospitality segment around mobility. Are you seeing any share losses from some of the upstarts in mobility or is this really an opportunity to get incremental business in the Retail and Hospitality verticals?

William R. Nuti

Analyst

It's an incredible opportunity for us, Gil. I mean, we're finding ourselves now in the center point of the mobile payment revolution, whether it's people like PayPal wanting to partner with us and go to market with us or other customers wanting to go to market with us that we have not yet announced or what we're seeing in the small business space and/or travel with our Mobile Wallet application. I mean, we're just seeing a ton of interest in. One thing you have to recognize with Retalix is, Retalix's software, R10, is an enterprise platform that has incredibly good capability vis-à-vis omni-commerce and mobile in particular. So now we can enable more mobile applications, more mobile payment capabilities, both SaaS and enterprise software as a result of Retalix and what we've grown internally at NCR than we ever can before as we can continue to work with strategic alliance partners like PayPal. I think we have a great opportunity to become a very central player in this space. So thank you all for joining us today. And we look forward to talking to you in April. Bye-bye.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect from the audio portion.