Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Enghouse's First Quarter 2025 conference call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If anyone has any difficulties hearing the conference, please press star zero for operator assistance at any time. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Stephen Sadler. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. I'm here today with Rob Medved, Chief Financial Officer, and Todd May, VP Legal Counsel. Before we begin, I'll have Todd read our forward disclaimer.
Certain statements made may be forward-looking. By their nature, such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those in Enghouse's continuous disclosure filings, such as its AIF, which could cause the company's actual results and experience to differ materially from anticipated results or other expectations. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking information, and the company has no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.
Thanks, Todd. Rob will now give an overview of the financial results.
Thank you, Steve. I'll now take us through the first quarter financial highlights. Revenue increased 2.9% to CAD 124 million from CAD 120.5 million in Q1 2024. Recurring revenue, which includes SaaS and maintenance services, grew 4% to CAD 87.9 million, compared to CAD 84.6 million in Q1 2024, and represents 70.9% of total revenue as we continue to prioritize this revenue stream. Results from operating activities decreased to CAD 31 million, compared to CAD 32.6 million in Q1 2024. Net income was CAD 21.9 million, compared to CAD 18.1 million in Q1 2024, as we grow our business with a focus on profitability. Adjusted EBITDA decreased to CAD 33.1 million, compared to CAD 34.7 million, while achieving a 26.7% margin. Cash flow from operating activities, excluding changes in working capital, was CAD 37.7 million, compared to CAD 35.6 million in the comparable period. Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments were CAD 271.1 million as at January 31st, 2025.
The most recent quarter has brought about events that have created a great deal of uncertainty across the globe. There are new questions around trade flows, interest rates, commodity prices, and other factors which point to increased instability. Throughout this period, our first quarter operating performance continued its consistent positive trend and reflects our steady and disciplined approach to the business. In the quarter, we achieved revenue of CAD 124 million, a 2.9% increase compared to the prior year, while net income increased to CAD 21.9 million, or CAD 0.40 per diluted share, from CAD 18.1 million, or CAD 0.33 per diluted share, in the comparative quarter. We remain focused on predictable recurring revenue streams, with SaaS and maintenance services revenue increasing by 4% in the quarter.
While transitioning from exclusively offering traditional on-premise solutions, we are strategically committed to offering customers a choice between on-premise and cloud solutions, which has allowed us to preserve both one-time and recurring revenue streams. In turn, this has ensured that we keep an eye on the bottom line when many of our competitors face operating losses in their cloud operations. This focus on profitability ensures that we continue to augment our cash reserves while keeping our years-long streak of reporting quarterly net income. Our focus on profitability is reaffirmed by our ability to generate cash. Cash flows from operating activities, excluding changes in working capital, were CAD 37.7 million, compared to CAD 35.6 million in the prior year. During the first quarter, we returned CAD 14.4 million to shareholders through dividends and repurchased CAD 6 million of our common shares. In addition, on December 16th, 2024, Enghouse completed the acquisition of Aculab PLC.
Aculab offers a cutting-edge suite of solutions designed to elevate communication and security experiences. These include Communications Platform as a Service and state-of-the-art AI-driven answering machine detection, advanced voice and face biometrics technology, which will be added to our product offering. These products are sold directly to enterprises and indirectly through some of the leading healthcare and emergency management systems integrators in the U.S. and Europe. Aculab has been integrated into our Enghouse Interactive Management Group. Even with these outflows, Enghouse closed the quarter with CAD 271.1 million in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments, down only marginally from our record of CAD 274.7 million at October 31st, 2024. We continue to have no outstanding external debt financing. We are also pleased that on March 4th, 2025, Enghouse acquired Margento R&D d.o.o., a European provider of transit fare collection, account-based ticketing, automatic vehicle tracking, and payment solutions based in Slovenia.
Margento expands our European fare collection business and has a scalable and easy-to-deploy Mobility-as-a-Service platform, providing a unique user-centric mobile transit experience that will fit well within the Asset Management Group. Our strategic direction remains consistent and focused on long-term profitability and sustainability. We will continue to balance market demand by offering both SaaS and on-premise solutions and will not sacrifice profitability for revenue growth, which is reaffirmed by our ability to generate positive cash flows. Our robust cash position continues to allow us to capitalize on strategic acquisitions that meet our thresholds and provide continued returns to our shareholders, enabling us to increase our annual dividend for the 17th consecutive year.
Yesterday, the Board of Directors approved an increase of 15.4% in the company's eligible quarterly dividend to $0.30 per common share, payable on May 30th, 2025, to shareholders of record at the close of business on May 16th, 2025. I will now hand the call over to Mr. Sadler.
Thanks, Rob. Just to add a little bit, as you probably know from our last call, our new business unit strategy, which was implemented January 1, 2025, with functional global departments, is working well with a team approach to the business. With respect to acquisitions, in the quarter, we acquired Aculab, which was integrated into our IMG Business Group. Revenue was approximately CAD 1 million, and the business was EBITDA positive for the six weeks that it was included in our overall results, although below historic profitability percentages. We expect improvement in profitability in future quarters. After the quarter, in early March, as Rob indicated, we acquired Margento, which will be integrated into our transportation segment within our Asset Management Group. We continue to see substantial capital allocation opportunities in our industry sectors.
Enghouse is financially strong with resources to enhance its cloud and on-prem products with new features, including using AI to improve efficiencies in a practical manner. I would now like to open the call for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. Should you wish to cancel your request, please press the star followed by the two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Once again, that is star one. Should you wish to ask a question? Your first question is from Erin Kyle from CIBC. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning, Stephen and team. My first question, I want to start on recent M&A. You discussed the acquisition of Margento and the AMG Group. Is there any additional detail you can share there around the size of the acquisition, the process, and then is the revenue there primarily SaaS and maintenance with a bit of hardware?
In the transportation sector, they like, as they say, one throat to choke. There is hardware that will be going in there as well. It is around $10 million+ in revenue. I think that is all we are prepared to say right now.
Okay. Thank you. That's all I have to cover there.
Other than it wasn't in the quarter, there's no financial results in the quarter that we just announced.
Right. Thank you. I just wanted to turn to maybe the IMG division. We saw revenue decline there again in that segment. Was that decline related to the ongoing churn at Lifesize, or are there other factors there?
I think there's a lot of factors there. That whole industry is kind of tough right now if you look at the competition. We're holding our own. Again, we focus on profitability, not getting revenue at a loss. It's going okay. I think compared to Q4, you'll notice professional services is down a bit. That's generally because Christmas and just the time of year. There's uncertainty in the market. That's probably impacted it a little bit as well. In our overall results, our hardware is down a little bit, and that can be lumpy. It can be up and down the quarter. It's pretty steady. I would call it steady.
Okay. So the churn at Lifesize, was that stabilized in the quarter compared to the prior quarter then?
Yeah. I would say it's pretty, it was down a little bit, not very much. More importantly, the product there, we are still trying to get us some third-party products to make it more profitable. That is going to be our product going forward, mainly in the IMG Group. It has a newer front end. It's quite a good product, and we're going to be actually promoting that more. Until we get it nicely profitable and with getting us some third-party content from that product, we haven't pushed it yet. That is going to begin next quarter. We are hoping to see improvements there and expect Lifesize, which you've asked about. We hope that product that's in that group will increase its increased revenue, not decline it anymore.
Okay. Thank you. That's helpful.
Thank you. Your next question is from Kevin McVeigh from UBS. Your line is now open.
Great. Thanks so much and good morning. I think in the press release, you had highlighted kind of global uncertainty from trade, obviously interest rates, commodity prices, things like that. Have you started to see that yet in the business, or is that something you're kind of positioning for? Does that factor into kind of the pacing of the current M&A? Any thoughts around that? It seems like the uncertainty maybe creates some opportunity, but it feels a little subdued in terms of M&A relative to history. Any thoughts around that? I guess with our federal government, maybe triangulate any comments around that as well, if you could.
Yeah. I don't really want to talk about our federal government. I mean, other than I think we're going to have an election coming up if you're in Canada. In the U.S., just listen to Trump each day and you'll make your own opinion. Okay?
Sure.
In general, I think from our point of view, if you look at our industry, especially contact center, it's slowed a little bit because everyone's trying to figure out what AI means to it. Some people think it's going to eliminate contact centers. Others think it's going to have no impact. We think it's going to make the contact centers more important, get people up to speed faster, and use AI to help answer or help answering questions as they come in. It's a little bit of a hole now. It's slowed a little bit, again, because of AI. I don't think it's because of any of the other things you talked about. That could have an impact, but we haven't seen that yet. That still could come in the future. That's the IMG side.
The network side, 4G- 5G, is going a little slower from the telcos' point of view. They're not getting the return they expected from 5G. They slowed a little bit down some of their spending. That slowed things down a little bit there too. The environment, again, a little slower than we hoped for, but we also see improvements potentially coming as these things sort out. It is not our business causing it. It's sort of the environment we're in that's causing it.
Very helpful. I guess, and then I'll get back in the queue. You've already got a pretty enviable dividend yield, and it was good to see the increase. I guess what drove that, particularly given I think the indicated yield is almost 4.75%, so pretty high. Just any thoughts around the dividend and what drove that increase? It was already pretty impressive.
Yeah. We basically look at our cash flow and look at what we expect to do in the next year. It is actually after the first quarter, so we've got some visibility, not total. We believe what we think an increase in cash flow can be, we try and add some of that into dividends and, of course, some into capital allocation. We look at both. Again, if you look at it from a stock point of view, it looks like a higher dividend. That's just maybe because the stock's too low. It's not because of what we're doing internally, which means you'd have to ask investors, not us, why that's the case.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, please press star one should you wish to ask a question. Your next question is from Paul Treiber from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Oh, thanks very much and good morning. Just a question on deferred revenue. Deferred revenue has been fairly steadily increasing. I think this quarter it's an all-time high. Is there anything unusual that has been lifting deferred revenue, any change in terms, or is it just normal course that it's increasing here?
I think it's probably normal course increasing. You've got acquisitions that come in, they add to the deferred revenue. Q1 at this time of year, it's really the highest, or it has tended to be the highest because a lot of renewals come in in January. You don't expect that to go up every quarter unless, of course, we do other capital allocation acquisitions, which would add to it. It's pretty normal. We don't see anything unusual there. A little bit of exchange helps that too. You've got U.S. dollar where we have about 40% of the revenue. That when you get the revenue in and it's deferred revenue, it improves the deferred revenue a little bit as well. Nothing significant there, Paul.
In terms of renewal rates, I mean, you've been seeing a shift to the cloud. Are cloud renewal rates similar to what you've seen on on-premise or maintenance?
Cloud renewal rates are better. The reason why is because people are shifting from on-prem to cloud. The renewal rates on the on-prem are down. Some of that moves to the cloud, some of it moves elsewhere. The cloud's renewal rates are a little bit better. I will point out, and again, I know investors like in the cloud and renewals and processes there. Cloud business is not as profitable as on-prem business. It's just not. The platform guys are taking a big chunk of the revenue in their cost in doing the cloud, and we're generally in the public cloud. Although you see consistent, and you'll see that we're over 70% now in recurring revenue, the cloud revenue is not as profitable as on-prem, which generally is paid upfront, and cloud is paid as you go. You'll find that with a lot of people.
I mean, a lot of companies. It's not just us.
Just on service margins, they have been trending down, as you mentioned, with the cloud going up. Is the strategy to drive up margins there primarily through taking out some third-party software?
You're right. When you buy companies that, like Lifesize, for example, they had a lot high cost. They still have a high cost of their cloud business. As I said, we're trying to take out third-party software there, improve that. That's a big factor in the cloud. You've got a lot more impact by third-party software and how they're charged out by especially the public cloud guys. It takes a little longer to get to our profitability level we like, but we're working on that. It's coming soon because we're just about there right now. We're hoping the future that will be better. It also helps revenue because you don't want to sell a product that has those third-party costs. After you sell it to somebody, tell them now you got to take some stuff out.
It slowed us down a little bit in our revenue as well. In general, we got to get the products more efficient because the market is still tough. Margins are tight. A lot of our competitors are struggling, and they just can't afford to lose any revenue. They tend to, in a way, sell below cost to make sure they keep the revenue. We don't like to do that.
Lastly, on capital allocation, share buybacks continue to tick up. Is this a sustainable run rate? Do you see more room for share buybacks to increase here?
You know what? We do a share buyback not for the sake of doing it or for any financial engineering. We do it when we think the price is a good buy because we have alternative uses of the capital being acquisitions, etc. If the shares stay at a good buying price compared to our alternatives, then we would do share buyback, yes.
Okay. Thanks for taking the questions.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed.
Thank you, everyone, for attending the call and your continued support. Enghouse continues to operate profitably while deploying capital to grow its business without any dilution to shareholders. See you next quarter.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect your lines.
Thank you.