Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Voxtur Analytics Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, note that all participant lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. Also, note that the call is being recorded. Thursday, August 24, 2023. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jordan Ross. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the Voxtur second quarter 2023 earnings call, where we will discuss our financial results and business highlights. Please note that our Q2 2023 results were released August 22, 2023, and can be accessed on SEDAR+ and on our website at voxtur.com. Joining me today are CEO Gary Yeoman and CFO Robin Dyson. We will begin with the prepared remarks and then move into Q&A. If we are unable to get to your question, you are always welcome to contact me directly at jordan@voxtur.com. Robin will begin by reviewing our financial results. After that, Gary Yeoman will provide updates as to how we are progressing toward our objectives through capital market activities, organic growth, and operational efficiencies and highlights.
Before we get started, please be advised that some of the information that we will share on this call may contain forward-looking statements. We caution you not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and undertake no duty or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or changes in our expectations. Further, on today's call, we will report using both IFRS and non-GAAP financial measures. We use these non-GAAP financial measures internally for financial and operational decision-making purposes, as we believe that they provide a meaningful measurement of financial performance and valuation. These non-GAAP financial measures are presented in addition to and not as a substitute for financial measures calculated in accordance with IFRS.
To see the reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures, please refer to our press release distributed Tuesday, August 22, 2023, and our management's discussion and analysis, both of which are available on SEDAR+. A replay of today's call will also be posted on our website. Finally, please note that all references to amounts or currency during today's call are to Canadian dollars, unless otherwise stated. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Robin Dyson.
Thank you, Jordan. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As addressed on our last earnings call, the rapid increase in the U.S. prime rate has had a negative impact on various lines of business at Voxtur, primarily with respect to our appraisal services, capital markets, and title lines of business. From the beginning of 2022 to present, rates have increased from 3.25%- 8.5%. On our Q1 earnings call, we noted that in response to our lower-than-expected revenue, the company has focused on cost reductions and adjustments to the company's strategy. We have taken these actions and continue to focus intensely on profitability. To drive profitability, we are pursuing both revenue growth through the launch of new products and services that we have developed, as well as continually assessing opportunities for process efficiencies and cost reductions.
Shifting to our discussion of revenue. Revenue decreased from CAD 38 million- CAD 29.9 million for the three months ended June 30, 2023 and twenty twenty-two, respectively, and decreased from CAD 79 million- CAD 59 million for the six months ended June 30, 2023 and 2022 , respectively. These decreases were primarily attributable to the negative impact of significantly increased interest rates on our appraisal service line of business and the negative impact on revenue of the amendments made to a services agreement with a related party effective January 1, 2023, which amendments also resulted in a significant decrease in direct operating expenses to support this revenue stream. Note that the related party referenced is no longer a related party as of April this year. We maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with this party, but in arm's length.
While revenue decreased on a year-over-year basis, revenue increased approximately CAD 1.1 million in the second quarter of this year as compared to the first quarter. This increase is primarily attributable to a stronger quarter for the capital markets business unit. Gross profit increased to CAD 15 million from CAD 12.7 million for the three months ended June 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively, and increased to CAD 28.5 million from CAD 26.6 million for the six months ended June 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively. These increases, despite the revenue decreases discussed, are primarily attributable to decreases in direct costs required to support appraisal-related revenue, revenue increases being attributable to high margin offerings and indirect cost improvements.
Other items to highlight with respect to the second quarter include Voxtur's achievement of positive Adjusted EBITDA of approximately CAD 530,000 for the quarter and the closing of equity financing. In June, the company closed the first tranche of a non-brokered private placement for gross proceeds of approximately CAD 3.3 million, and subsequent to June 30th, the company has closed additional tranches of financing of approximately CAD 7.4 million. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Gary Yeoman, to provide business updates.
Thank you, Robin, and good morning, everyone, and thank you again for joining us. As always, I would like to thank our shareholders for their support during this transition period and evolution of Voxtur becoming a pure technology company. Expanding further on Robin's comments, and with respect to our financial strategy, we have had to make very difficult decisions and changes to the company in order to account for some of the macroeconomic headwinds we are still experiencing, and more specifically, the volatility in mortgage rates and mortgage asset pricing. We are committed to making such changes in order to achieve sustainable profitability. As you can see, we are making great headway towards that goal based on our Q2 results and more specifically, ending the quarter with positive Adjusted EBITDA. I want to reiterate our focus on executing on near-term revenue opportunities while instilling financial discipline.
The improved Q2 results are primarily due to an increase in volume of our high-margin products, such as our mortgage trading platform and top technology-based valuation workflow, all being completed with significant expense reductions. While we have felt this type of financial strategy of focusing, both from a development and sales standpoint, on high-margin technology products, it is important to recognize that it has come at a cost of having lower top-line growth. Now, I will discuss some of the highlights and specifics within the business lines. Our mortgage asset trading platform facilitated one of the more notable and sizable trades that took place during the second quarter. We hope to leverage this achievement and continue the momentum.
In addition, the Blue Water team have onboarded one of the largest FHA and VA lenders in the United States on our platform, which gives the client the ability to see loan-level pricing, transfer, and transaction of whole loans and mortgage servicing rights, more commonly known as MSRs, with just a single click. Following this, Blue Water has added additional clients and expect to have a great impact moving forward, as we expect to see market stabilization from a mortgage asset, asset pricing viewpoint. Our valuation business has done extremely well on future proofing our valuation business and getting ahead of the curve with respect to modern appraisal approaches put forward by the GSEs. Furthermore, I am proud to announce we have officially become an approved service and technology solution provider for Fannie Mae's data collection business.
Voxtur's property data collection technology, called Walkthrough, is web-based interface that ensures complete and compliant universal data collection. Its holistic approach ensures that one-step inspection will meet the requirements for the GSEs. It is compatible with all smartphone types, allows for instantaneous content updates, and easily integrates the sketch completion into the process. Further, we are finally starting to see some growth and increased volumes within the default segment of our valuation business, as default mortgage holds, holds come off and mortgage modifications are being phased in. This trend has also had a positive impact on our title business. Additionally, we have changed our management team within our title business, and we are already beginning to see signs of improvement from a cost standpoint.
As previously mentioned, we have continued to evaluate and apply a variable cost model, which we believe will allow us to be more flexible while there is a level of uncertainty within the industry. We are also evaluating a new go-to-market strategy with respect to our alternative to traditional title insurance products. Additionally, we are equipping our title business with new data and software-enabled products to differentiate ourselves from our competition and hope to have these rolled out in the coming weeks and months ahead. Lastly, we are grateful for the support of our shareholders, including the investors that have participated in the recent private placement.
I'm proud to say that most of the participants have come from our existing shareholder base, which demonstrates their commitment and confidence in what we are trying to achieve at Voxtur, which is making homeownership more affordable by leveraging our abundance of technology assets and having a full set of diversified products to be able to provide a solution to our clients throughout the mortgage life cycle. It should be noted that we are continuing to receive interest in the private placement and hope to have it fully closed out in September. Thank you for joining us on the call today. We appreciate your time and your interest in Voxtur and obviously, your support. We'd be happy to answer any questions you may have at this time. I'll now hand this over to the operator to start the Q&A.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please slowly press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will then hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request. If you would like to withdraw from the question queue, please press star followed by two. If you're using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press star one now if you have any questions. Your first question will be from Christian Sgro at Eight Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Gary and Robin, and thanks for the update this morning, Gary. The first question I'll ask is around the software strength, and you called out the capital markets trading platform. It was a little sequential lift in Q2, and you referenced a customer win and some activity there. I was just hoping you could give a little bit more color on when that customer came on, if you expect that customer to continue to be active with the platform into Q3, Q4, and I guess just more broadly, how the capital markets business is trending through the year.
Yeah. Thanks, Christian. A s you know, capital markets can be lumpy, especially when it comes to trade, you know, with our bulk trades, you know, as they come through. But, you know, from a lumpiness standpoint, the yields usually always tend to kind of balance out over a quarter by quarter period. But, the major client that we've landed has signed a long-term workflow platform. They're using Blue Water's proprietary workflow. And, they come on in the second quarter as far as execution, and it's gonna take a little bit of time to build that up, but they're a very, very solid, reputable client.
Unfortunately, we can't share the names because that's just the, at the request of our clients or in order, you know, to be able to, protect their, their privacy. But, you know, from our standpoint we'll be involved with them on our workflow, on MSRs, on whole loan trading, on, flow, you know, trading of, of loans on a, month-by-month basis. So it really does give us an opportunity to play in the marketplace on a daily basis, and so we're extremely excited about having that opportunity. Was there another part to that question, Christian?
I think that covered most of it. Okay, thank you. It's good to see it's a longer term. It's a long-term commitment and contract.
Yes.
On the Q2.
Yes.
I'll ask another question. I'll move over to the balance sheet and capital allocation. You know, commentary on the BMO debts and the covenant there. I think there was also commentary last quarter on maybe a monetization event in the back half of the year. So I was wondering if that was still the roadmap, if that's the way you're going, or post this private placement, maybe that'd be all the capital needed to, you know, keep the business through, just keep the positive and work forward.
No, I think, Christian, that you know, we have, we have debt, obviously. And we have a number of opportunities to monetize the assets that we have. And we continue to work very, very closely with the Bank of Montreal. We talk to them regularly. As you know, I've got a long-term, 25-year relationship with them, and they've been just incredible partners for us in every way. W hen you're building a technology company, it does take some patience, and I have to basically take my hat off to BMO because they've just been incredible as far as having the patience and the understanding as far as we get through our processes of rolling out new technology and that.
So we're gonna continue to look at opportunities to monetize because our goal is to reduce the debt. But I guess from our standpoint, we also remain extremely buoyant with respect to increasing of our profits. More specifically, I think it's gonna become more abundant you know in the fourth quarter. We continue to roll out you know some of the technologies now. I mean, we're just thrilled that we've been approved by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for our data collection technology. And so we're thrilled about having that opportunity. We're continuing to you know see opportunities in all of the other business sectors. And so again, we're just working with BMO.
We're going to continue to, you know, look at these monetization opportunities, and look at some joint venture opportunities as well. It's stay the steady course. They're very much apprised, meaning the bank is very much apprised in every aspect of what we're doing in our business, and they continue to be extremely supportive and, and, and patient as we go through our process.
That's great. Thanks for the update, Gary. I think those are my questions, and I'll pass along.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, please press star one if you do have any questions. Your next question will be from Colin Fisher at Garrison Creek.
Good morning.
Morning, Colin.
Congrats. Congrats on the quarter. It looks quite good. With the, I just had a couple of sort of, okay, I don't know what the right question, right way to say this, but, administrative questions. With the new CFO and the new auditor, is there any changes in the revenue recognition driven by them?
Yeah, I'll let Robin answer that, but I think the short answer is not to my knowledge. I will take my hat off again a second time to our new auditors, MNP. They have been absolutely incredible. For them to, you know, to get through the year-end and of course, having to review historical financial reporting and then, you know, kick out Q1 and Q2 in the time that they have, I have to tell you, it's just been incredible. Their staff that they have allocated to this, you know, have been extremely diligent, extremely cooperative. You know, obviously, it's a very serious obligation today to provide, you know, audited financial statements in a public company.
So there's certainly no shortcut that anyone can take. But the transition has been extremely well, and our relationship is real strong. Is there anything you can add to that as far as any changes as far as revenue recognition?
Yeah, no, Gary, I would echo exactly, very pleased with the auditors and Colin, I can confirm that there have been no changes in revenue recognition policies or adjustments with that respect.
Then, a continuation on that, is there any changes in the recognition of direct costs, or has any direct costs moved from direct costs into indirect costs?
No. Nothing of significance, no. No changes in that methodology either.
Okay. And then you've got the, so from Q1 to Q2, we've seen an increase in the software and data licenses revenue, and then technology and managed services continue to decline. Is there cannibalization between the software and data licenses from the technology and managed services, or is it just separate business units? One is growing and one is falling behind given the macro events.
That's correct. I don't see any cannibalization.
Okay. With regards to the EBITDA I'll ask two questions in there. Is there a chance that you guys are going to start reporting your revenues in USD, given the amount of noise that you get, both in comprehensive income as well as in the adjustments for the EBITDA? And also, can you give some color as to what the costs related to non-operating items, non-recurring items, and/or strategic initiatives this year? This quarter did quite a bit of heavy lifting at a little over $4 million. Wonder if you could provide some color on that.
You want to take that, Robin?
Sure, yeah. In terms of the reporting, in U.S. dollars, I think that's probably, yeah, a natural thing that we would need to look at in the future. It's just, as you can imagine, quite an undertaking, in terms of we would have to present all of the historic information back in U.S. dollars. But I think that that is a fair consideration in the future, because you're absolutely correct. The amount of foreign exchange gains and losses is quite significant when the majority of our business is in U.S. dollars. So yes, fair comment. With respect to the EBITDA adjustments, the most significant adjustments, I would say, are with respect to, transaction type related costs, non-recurring type costs, in terms of some of the audit costs, because we had a duplication of that, were added back.
As well as development costs that we don't capitalize for financial reporting purposes, but new product development, those are another significant bucket. I think those are the key items.
Okay. Is that fair? So I'm gonna guess that's gonna continue to be quite a big noisy element then?
I would suspect that, yes, the nature of those adjustments will continue at the magnitude that they are for the current quarter.
Can you give some color as to where the, what the business units are that are driving the revenue composition and driving them, and roughly what the margins are for those new businesses that are driving the business? I mean, we've had a great expansion now above 50%. Is there a push that's gonna finally start breaking out the business units so we can get some color as to what is driving what, especially given the macro sensitivity of some business units? And then, maybe a bit of additional color on what the gross margins are in those units.
There, there's no question, Colin, that is a goal of ours, is to, you know, to be able to segment that and give some color as where, as far as each of our business units. But for the, for the most, most part, Colin other than, you know, primarily the AMC business that we have, most of the business that we have right now are, you know, focusing on pure technology. And so those businesses will, continue to, you know, to, you know, be quite a large business. High, you know, gross margins as well, as well as profit margins. And, as I've indicated in, in past discussions, we expect to start seeing, you know, some of those results with these new products offerings, you know, in the fourth quarter.
As I said before, the AMC business, I think that Our Broadway probably runs one of the best, you know, valuation businesses in the country. But in that particular case, which derives a good portion of our revenue right now, you know, those gross margins are in and around, you know, the 30%-32% margin space. And so therefore, it has a material impact with respect to, you know, if you want to look at gross margins and profit margins, because its profit margins are in and around the 10% mark. But other than that, most of our other businesses are focused on technology.
You're gonna see a massive transition with respect to what we're doing on the title side of the business and some of the new products that we're offering. We brought a new management team, a new whole holistic approach in how we wanna tackle the title. And I think that for the first time, you know, and probably in September, we're, you know, fully expect to see actual profits, where historically it just wasn't that. It was, it was focused on assuming that default business was gonna come back, and so therefore we'd have the staff to do it. You know, basically, our current management team said that, "This is not gonna work. We can't wait in perpetuity.
We're gonna tackle a whole different approach." And so we're gonna see profitability in the title business grow over the year, and that's gonna, you know, equate to a massive difference on our balance sheet, because of the losses that we previously incurred in that space.
Can you, maybe an extension to what you were referring to, in terms of businesses, can you give some color as to where you expect... Which businesses are hurting the most, and where are you expecting to see some, forward growth from the different business lines?
Well, we're gonna see forward growth in all of our business lines. But I think that the, you know, the business that has had the most profound impact is the one that we just bought, which is Blue Water. I mean, we're seeing some very evident and real tangible growth in that space. But, you know, with these interest rates rising, I think really what happens is two things, material things have happened, Colin. One is that with the rates rising so quick, I think there was a whole pause for a while on the MSR space because, you know, what did, how do you price them? And what do we do? And what is the marketplace? I think that there's been some selling of that, and so the MSRs are back in vogue again.
But we did have that, you know, that interlude that was impactful on that business. I think, I think the second, you know, aspect is that what Alan Qureshi and his team have done is they've built, as you know, a fully digitized, you know, workflow platform. And with that workflow and that digitization they're able to do, is they're able to review every loan, and I've went through this process before. I mean, there's over 1,200 rules, or more, you know, as that have to be in compliance with when a loan is reviewed. He's able to review every one of those, loans now, you know, in a fully digitized basis. I mean, the only thing that we can't, you know, wrap a warrant on is, you know, any misrepresentation or fraudulent activity.
But for him to be able to go through that process and run right through those 1,200 rules in a digitized basis, is going to have a material impact on the industry. Because I'm not sure if you've noticed this, but a lot of the loans right now that Fannie have taken on, they have the right to send them back if they find that there's any anomalies in those loans. And so someone that buys an MSR, you know, where they may make, you know, 1 or 2 points, you know, on, you know, on that, you know, to purchase that servicing right, they also take bear the responsibility of taking that whole loan back.
If there's, you know, more than a, you know, small amount of loans that they have to take back, it could just totally wipe out the profit that can be made. So Al has built two platforms, a post and pre-due diligence platform, where he can review all of the loans for those that are willing, you know, wanting to sell the servicing rights. And so they can, hopefully, when they sell them, have a reasonable amount of confidence that those loans are not gonna come back and sit on their balance sheet again. And for those that are buying it, they're also gonna feel that what they're buying is a quality, you know, loan batch, that they're buying a portfolio. So, again, a major shift.
Yes, we're gonna continue to do, you know, servicing rights and whole loans. It's like I said, that there's also a big shift to this whole due diligence. And I know Al and the team are extremely excited. They have a number of statement of works out there, you know, surrounding that. We signed, you know, an agreement with The Mortgage Collaborative, represent over 250, you know, banks and lending institutions, credit unions, et cetera. And now we have, we are the go-to platform within that collaborative to do exactly what Al is doing. So he's working very closely with the executives at The Mortgage Collaborative. And so we're, again, really excited about that, the growth in that opportunity.
Okay, thank you for that. Can you also give some color on the property tax division, how that's going, and any color as to whether there's expansion either in the current markets or into new markets?
Yeah. Obviously, and most people know that, you know, property tax, I've been around in that business, you know, for many, many years. I mean, I built the largest property tax business in the world when I, you know, when I started Altus and I was the CEO there. We have focused, you know, largely on servicing municipalities. And, you know, the biggest, you know, impact that we have on our property tax business is, you know, in the province of Ontario as we speak right now. For those that are on the call today, they're probably reading on a weekly basis, material concerns by a number of constituents that they want, you know, a reassessment done because the last time a reassessment was done in Ontario was 2016.
And so it's you know 7+ years removed from what you know values are today. And there's been significant shifts in valuations, as most know, because of the pandemic, et cetera. If you go into an office building today and, for example, in Toronto, you're gonna see probably 30% occupancy from Tuesday to Thursday and 10% occupancy from you know from Monday and Fridays. And so you know that whole segment of the industry is challenged, no question about it. The retail industry is challenged. But what has remained strong is the industrial you know and the multi-res side of the business.
So we've been working very closely with the province and making them aware of what our respective services are, our ability to review all assessments and the impact on tax and the impact within class, you know, and an ability to help municipalities with our proprietary real property tax analytics. And I'm very confident that we're gonna get extreme growth, you know, in that business unit, you know, in the coming weeks and months. We will have, you know, a prolific role, you know, for our company.
Okay. And then I'm just gonna finalize with the last two questions. Default and foreclosures, where are the is that still being held up? And then I guess the last question after that is the million-dollar question: Where do you see net profit for the whole company and cash flow positivity for the whole company?
Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess from a profitability standpoint, you know, as you can see, I mean, we've made massive cuts, you know, not only with our people, but on certain technology that we want to focus on immediate gratification and spending our time and our money on products that we know that are not gonna generate five years from now, but is gonna give us more of an immediate gratification. So, you know, we're, you know, we're... We've been through a hell of a lot, as you know, with having to deal with, you know, with our accounting anomalies in place because of the former auditor leaving, you know, having to kind of regroup from that.
But each of our business units have all been right-sized, have all been focused. We have I can go through each business unit, which I'm not going to. I'm just going to say that each one of them have near-term opportunities to develop new products right now. And so, you know, we, you know, I, I believe the third quarter is gonna be much the same, although, you know, you know, September's still waiting and it could be extremely good. But we think that there are a number of initiatives that are gonna be brought on in the fourth quarter, and I won't be as overt enough to say that, you know, we'll, we'll be cash flow positive and EBITDA positive, but we're certainly trending for that.
We're not, we're not talking about years, Colin, we're talking about, you know, quarters away. And, you know, I'm really, really... You know, it's funny, our share price has not been lower, and I don't think our company has ever been better. You know, our gross margins have improved because we've right-sized the business. We have no frills, right? There is no excess, you know, anywhere in this. Every dollar is watched, every penny is watched. And so I, you know, I'm really, really confident in our business. I actually love what Voxtur is doing right now and where we're going. And, you know, the unfortunate thing in business, sometimes where you just think you got a corner turned, then, you know, all of a sudden something else comes up, and interest rates double again or whatever.
But listen, we are structured right now that we want to be anti-cyclical. That's why we brought Blue Water in, so they could serve not only capital markets, but as a secondary side, when the primary new purchase, you know, is languishing. Defaults, you know, we're seeing some improvements. But at the same time, I don't think it's something that we can hold our hats on and, you know, the gates are gonna be knocked down with an abundance of defaults. People still have a lot of equity in their properties, and, you know, and they're leaning on that, as opposed to, you know, go into any kind of default at all. But what we are noticing, quite frankly, is an increase in the bankruptcy files.
About two years ago, we embarked on a platform, we'll call it our bankruptcy platform, where we've basically digitized the whole process. And it's very regulated. There's a whole bunch of different aspects where you have to be in compliance. I mean, and listen, Stacy is on our line, and she knows more than anyone, but it's heavily regulated. And as you go through, there's a whole bunch of bells and whistles and areas that have to be fulfilled. We built that platform, you know, with a major lending institution. And you know, by the grace of God, we're hoping that in the fourth quarter, at some point in time, that we'll be able to see some benefits of that platform that we built .
And we're really, really upbeat as far as, we certainly we're not upbeat, you know, with someone's plight, but we think that what we're offering right now is going to save all the lending institutions, you know, a lot of money by digitizing the process. And this platform that's led by Scotty Walters, you know, we're pretty, pretty confident that there's a lot of interest in that right now, because we're going to save everyone a lot of money, but everything will be digitized and accounted for. It, you know, it's going to be a massive upgrade to anything that's out there in the marketplace.
Okay, thank you. I'd just like to leave it with, I think it was a huge lift to get that, all those financial reporting done in the time you did. And congratulations on getting one done, before the deadline by quite a significant amount. So congrats, Robin, and congrats to the team on that, and Gary. And also, it looks great with the amount of cost controls that you've been doing, and I look forward to seeing some more growth as it goes forward. So congratulations on the quarter.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, please press star one if you have any additional questions. At this time, it appears we have no other questions registered. Please proceed with any closing remarks.
Well, again, thank you all very much for your support. We've come through some difficult times, but only know that I know this company is at the precipice of turning things around. Couldn't do it without your support. Lots of bumps and bruises, but only know that this team at Voxtur has never worked harder, have never been more confident. And, you know, we very much look forward to the day of being cash flow positive, EBITDA positive, you know, and talking about and sharing with some of the big wins that we have. So thank you very much for sticking with us and helping us get through this. We will reward your dedication to this company. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending, and at this time, we do ask that you please disconnect your lines.