Good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Climb Global Solutions' financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2023. Joining us today are Climb's CEO, Mr. Dale Foster, the company's CFO, Mr. Drew Clark, and the company's investor relations advisor, Mr. Sean Mansuri, with Elevate IR. By now, everyone should have access to the second quarter 2023 earnings press release, which was issued yesterday afternoon at approximately 4:05 P.M. Eastern Time. The release is available in the investor relations section of Climb Global Solutions website at www.climbglobalsolutions.com. This call will also be available for webcast replay on the company's website. Following managed remarks, we'll open the call for your questions. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. Mansuri for introductory comments.
Thank you, Carmen. Before I introduce Dale, I'd like to remind listeners that certain comments made on this conference call and webcast are considered forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain known and unknown risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are also subject to other risks and uncertainties that are described from time to time in the company's filings with the SEC. Do not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements which are being made only as of the date of this call. Except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to any forward-looking statement.
Our presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted gross billings, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and EPS, and effective margin as supplemental measures of performance of our business. All non-GAAP measures have been reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in accordance with SEC rules. You'll find reconciliation charts and other important information in the earnings press release and Form 8-K we furnished to the SEC yesterday. I'll now turn the call over to Climb CEO, Dale Foster.
Thank you, Sean. Good morning, everyone. During the quarter, we continued to execute on our core initiatives to generate growth within our existing vendor base while adding new innovative vendors to our line card. This led to another period of double-digit growth to the top line in our ninth consecutive quarter of profitability improvement. In addition, throughout the quarter, we made strategic investments in our operating systems, new personnel, sales territory expansion, and training and development programs to reinforce our foundation. With a clean and efficient infrastructure and continuous focus on strengthening our line card, we are well positioned to continue our plans for growth and profitability as we scale our global footprint. We are committed to a focused line card, which enables us to partner with the most strategic and cutting-edge technology vendors in the market.
Out of the 38 brands we evaluated, through the second quarter, we signed agreements with only four of them. Quickly touching on a few of our latest wins. First, we partnered with Jamf, a publicly traded company that provides end-to-end systems management and security solutions for an Apple-first environment that is enterprise secure, consumer simple, and protects personal privacy. Next, we finalized our agreement with Offensive Security, a leading provider of professional workforce development training for cybersecurity. Offensive Security will be a viable cross-sell within our security offerings, which is one of our fastest growing segments of our business. Finally, we signed GitLab to our line card, the most comprehensive AI-powered DevSecOps platform in the world. We look forward to building a prosperous relationship with each of these vendors as we take their products to market.
In addition to our vendor wins, in April, we entered into a strategic partnership with another distributor called Radius. This unique partnership enabled us to leverage the Radius line card for direct sales in other markets, while providing them with an infrastructure trend to transact. In particular, excuse me, Radius has a strong vendor relationship with Tanium, a cybersecurity and systems management company, which has been a consistent winner in the market with a commitment to selling through the distribution channel. Drew will expand on the mechanics of this partnership later in the call. In late May, we announced our inclusion into the Russell 3000 Index, which became effective on June 26th. This achievement is a testament to the dedication and consistent execution of our entire global employee network, as well as our outstanding customers and vendors. We celebrate this milestone by bringing in...
ringing in the new NASDAQ closing bell in Manhattan a few weeks ago. I couldn't be prouder of the team we've built and look forward to achieving even greater success in the years ahead. We enter the back half of the year, we have a solid foundation in place to continue driving organic growth with existing vendors while adding new innovative vendors to our line card. We will also continue to evaluate M&A opportunities that can enhance our service and solutions and our, as well as our geographic footprint. These initiatives, coupled with a robust balance sheet, will enable us to execute organic and inorganic growth and profitability objectives in 2023. With that, I will turn the call over to our CFO, Drew Clark, to take you through the financial results. Drew?
Thank you, Dale. Good morning, everyone. As we review our second quarter financial results, I would like to remind everyone that all comparisons and variance commentary refer to the prior year quarter, unless otherwise specified. While we had another strong quarter, it was not quite as boring as the previous eight. Let's jump in.
As reported in our earnings press release, adjusted gross billings or AGB, which is a non-GAAP measure, increased 14% to $274.7 million, compared to $241.8 million in the year-ago quarter. In addition, net sales in the second quarter of 2023 increased 20% to $81.7 million, compared to $67.9 million, which primarily reflects organic growth from new and existing vendors. As we have communicated before, we focus on AGB as the true metric of our growth, as the calculation of net sales is influenced by product mix and the respective adjustment to convert AGB to net sales for financial reporting purposes under GAAP. In the second quarter, we had an increase in sales of products such as Tintri, that included hardware and therefore a lower adjustment from AGB to net sales.
Gross profit in the second quarter increased 10% to $13.7 million, compared to $12.5 million. Again, the increase was primarily driven by organic growth from new vendors, as well as our existing top 20 vendors in North America and Europe. This growth was partially offset by customers taking advantage of early pay discounts at a greater level than in the prior year. Gross profit as a percentage of adjusted gross billings, was 5% compared to 5.2%, and as a percentage of net sales was 16.8% compared to 18.4% in the prior year quarter. Both of those impacted by the early pay discounts taken by the customers in 2023 compared to 2022.
SG&A expenses in the second quarter were $11.6 million, compared to $7.9 million for the same period in 2022. SG&A, as a percentage of adjusted gross billings, was 4.2%, compared to 3.3% in the year ago period. The increase was primarily attributed to the previously announced and well-deserved one-time, $1.8 million grant of common stock to Dale in April 2023. As most investors are aware, the grant is a non-cash charge and has no impact on our adjusted EBITDA. In addition, SG&A increased as a result of investments made to improve our infrastructure, as Dale referenced earlier, including new personnel, ERP, and training and development costs. Commissions, which are a variable expense, increased over the prior year's quarter due to the growth in AGB.
Altogether, our SG&A included approximately $0.4 million of expenses that are non-recurring in nature. For the second half of the year, we expect SG&A, as a percentage of AGB, will be more consistent with the most recent trends and decline in 2024 after we've implemented our new ERP and continue to scale our operations. It's important to note that our newly formed distribution partnership with Radius Channels has a different economic profile than our typical vendor partnerships. The economics and mechanics are such that we recognize the total AGB generated by Radius Channels. We pay Radius Channels 70% of their GP through SG&A, as they are effectively running their own sales operation while utilizing our infrastructure to transact business.
Despite the different economic profile, this partnership is accretive to net income and adjusted EBITDA, and as Dale mentioned earlier, offers direct cross-sell opportunities with their vendors in other geographies. Net income in the second quarter of 2023 was $1.4 million or $0.31 per diluted share, compared to $2.8 million or $0.63 per diluted share for the comparable period in 2022. The decrease was primarily attributed to higher SG&A, as well as increased early pay discounts. Adjusted net income, a non-GAAP measure, which excludes the one-time stock grant, increased 12% to $3.1 million or $0.72 per diluted share, compared to $2.8 million or $0.63 per diluted share for the year ago period. Adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter increased 4% to $4.7 million, compared to $4.5 million.
The increase was driven by organic growth from both new and existing vendors, partially offset by investments made in our infrastructure and costs associated with our acquisition of Spinnaker in August of 2022. Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of gross profit or effective margin, was 34.1% compared to 35.8% the year ago period. Our effective margin and drop through were impacted by Radius and the aforementioned increase in customer early paid discounts. Before diving into our liquidity position, I'd like to touch on our new credit facility we closed with JPMorgan Chase in May. The five-year secured revolving credit facility has a borrowing capacity of up to $50 million and an accordion feature to increase the size of the facility up to $70 million.
This facility replaced our previous $20 million secured line of credit with Citibank, which was set to expire in June of this year. Under the new agreement, the interest rate is based on adjusted term SOFR plus 1.5%-1.75% spread. We look forward to working with the JPMC team as we now have additional capital and flexibility to fund our growth and execute on our strategic initiatives in the years ahead. Turning to our balance sheet, cash and cash equivalents were $43.9 million on June 30, 2023, compared to $20.2 million on December 31, 2022. While working capital increased by $3.4 million during this period. The increase in cash was primarily attributed to the timing of receivable collections and vendor payments.
As of June 30, 2023, we had $1.6 million of outstanding debt from the term loan that we closed in April 2022, which the proceeds were used to fund certain capital expenditures. We had no borrowings outstanding under our new $50 million revolving credit facility with JPMC. Subsequent to quarter end and consistent with prior quarters, our board of directors declared on August 1, 2023, a dividend of $0.17 per share of our common stock, payable on August 18, 2023, to shareholders of record as of August 14, 2023.
To echo Dale's point earlier, we will continue to utilize our robust liquidity position to evaluate M&A opportunities, both domestically and abroad, to enhance our service and solutions offerings across existing and future geographies. We look forward to executing our organic and inorganic objectives and delivering another period of strong results in the back half of 2023 and beyond. In summary, we're proud of the effort of our global team to generate another quarter of double-digit growth in AGB and operating EPS, which excludes the one-time stock grant. This now concludes our prepared remarks. We'll open it up for questions from those participating in the call. Thank you. Now back to you, operator.
Thank you. To our listeners, as a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star 11 on your telephone. You will hear a message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw the question, simply press star 11 again. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question is from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington Research. Please proceed.
Yes, good morning, guys. Dale, curious, are you seeing any changes in the demand backdrop from last quarter to the current period? Particularly, are you seeing any pushback on pricing or any changes in sales cycles?
You're talking from Q1 to Q2, that cycle?
I'm sorry?
Yeah, from Q1 to Q2. We haven't really seen that. We've seen some of our competitors, you know, that are more hardware - centric or centered, that, you know, they've seen a little slowdown as people have, you know, stopped buying as much hardware. We haven't really seen that, and we haven't seen it from our vendors. We have seen some consolidation of vendors, not going with as many distributors, so they're trimming that, and we've been fortunate enough to make it through those because they're looking at a broad line and then somebody that's much more strategic, and that we typically fit that. There's not a lot of competition on the strategic side. I haven't seen really a pullback.
Are you seeing strength in the same technology segments as the prior quarter? Any, any changes there?
We, we are. I mean, we're seeing a little slowdown in the data center side, but we are, you know, heavy security. If you look at our... You know, we, we put it out in a lot of our marketing. You know, we have, excuse me, 6 segments we focus on, security being one of the biggest ones. A lot of our vendors are all claiming security, and now we're starting to see the, of course, the AI terms propagate into much of their marketing slicks and what they're promoting, but haven't. We're continually looking for adjacent markets that are outside of our normal 6 categories to say, "Hey, is this something we should really start diving into?" We've got some that we'll probably announce in Q3, Q4.
Did the growth of the top 20 vendors grow in line with the business? Any exceptions there?
Very, very consistent in terms of the vendor mix in our top 20. We've got some new emerging vendors that are starting to chip away at the top 20. We expect that that mix of top 20 will shift slightly as we get to the end of the year and move into 2024.
Vince, if you look at some of the vendors, if you look at some of the sizes, you know, A lot of times you'll see a vendor that's, you know, in the, you know, they've raised $20 million-$30 million, they have that much in revenue. Now we have a couple vendors we've signed, they're in the, you know, $300 million-$400 million range, and they're really, you know, accepting distribution as their go-to-market. If you've seen a lot of the technology companies, you're just being a little cautious with the, with the economy, so they're trimming, and they're just putting more leverage or expecting more from the channel, which is a good thing for us.
Lastly, on the acquisition side, have valuations continued to improve? If so, does that make you more feel better about getting something done here in the near term?
If you look at, you know, some of the targets, it varies because if it's overseas, the margins are typically higher, so the multiples are typically, they're looking for a higher multiple. I think some of those have softened a little bit. Not drastic. I haven't seen a big change in that.
Okay. I'll go back in the queue. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Vince.
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Next question comes from the line of Howard Root. Please proceed.
Good morning, Dale and Drew. Can you hear me okay?
We sure can.
Sure. Nice job on the quarter. Continued nice progress. I got three questions, if you wouldn't mind this morning.
Yeah.
One more for Drew on the SG&A. You know, the, the jump up year-over-year was about $3.7 million, and I understand that the $1.8 million was that one-time stock grant, which hopefully the board doesn't do that again. They level load that going forward, so we don't have that issue. Then there was $400,000, I think you said, Drew, which was these one-time professional service fees that you mentioned in the press release, so that's $2.2. There's about, you know, another $1.5 year-over-year. If I'm looking sequentially, it just went up from $10.3 million to $11.6, which is a $1.3 million increase, which isn't even the amount of the stock grant and certainly not that included.
Can you give me a little hint, you know, level loaded that, what, what do you expect, you know, maybe Q3 or level loaded in Q2? What's the appropriate number of SG&A as we're looking forward on a dollar amount?
Yeah, on a dollar amount, so part of that delta between the prior year Q and this Q, was a variable component, commissions. If you looked at AGB, compared to, you know, quarter-over-quarter, commissions were.
C ommensurately increased. We had, again, a variable comp expense, but, probably about $500,000 plus in incremental commission expense associated with Q3, or excuse me, Q2 of 2023. Then, we had some payroll-related expense associated with Dale's grant that obviously is not will not re-reoccur in the prior, the subsequent quarter. That was about $150K, give or take. I think on a, on a level set basis, you'll see us pull back to a level that's gonna be probably closer to, you know, $10 million, $10.2 million.
Okay, great. Yeah, if you take the $2.2 off of the $11.6, that's what the SG&A would have been for that level of adjusted gross billings.
Howard, I wanna add to that, though. You know, we're gonna be opportunistic, and sometimes we, you know, I, I think of the whole Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come." Sometimes we have to build into what the vendors are asking. If they want us to take over the renewals platform, we have to, you know, move, you know, start investing in our team members to do that, and we've done a separate renewals team, and we've had to add to that. We'll be opportunistic as they're starting to push more things off the, off of their plate and into the channel. Of course, we get paid for that, but usually it's a little lagging.
We are gonna be and do that, you know, I don't-- I don't wanna say that that's gonna be perfect, but there are certain quarters we have two vendors come in and say, "Hey, we want you to do this, this, and this, and you we want you to run our incumbency program, you know, that we don't wanna run, and we don't wanna have it another one of your competitors." It's gonna be some ebbs and flows, but not at the, not at the level that was before.
Howard, even though we don't provide granular guidance or detailed guidance on a quarterly basis, I can tell you that from an internal perspective, our operating expense was spot on with our internal expectations, and part of that is increased headcount. Like, we acquired Spinnaker last year. We brought on some additional headcount that was not reflected in Q2 of 2022. Of the, I think, 10-plus Spinnaker employees, I think 7 or 8 of those folks remained with us, including obviously, Gerard is the Chief Revenue Officer over in EMEA now, and still running some significant vendor opportunities there. So we do have some built-in headcount increases that we expected and planned for. That's part of the year-over-year change in SG&A as well.
Okay, fair enough. Second question on adjusted gross billings. I mean, a nice increase year-over-year, up $33 million or 14%. If I look from quarter one to quarter two, it's down $32 million. Not, you know, sequentially, that wasn't the quarter. You know, I expect Q4 down, Q1 maybe, but is there a sequential aspect to that, or what sequentially on that drop in adjusted gross billings, what, what were you seeing there, and what do you expect kind of going forward?
Yeah. Howard, again, we were, we were on target with our own internal expectations. What happened in Q1 was a significant VAST transaction that landed in Q1 that we didn't expect. Q2, Spinnaker didn't quite perform at the same level. VAST opportunities got pushed out because of some data center delays over in Western Europe. Data center builds, both new construction and expansion, slowed down due to the economic headwinds over in Western Europe. Interest rates obviously rose, a lot of the data center owner-operators slowed down some of their process, which therefore slowed down some of the VAST opportunities that we had with Spinnaker. Nothing's gone off the pipeline. They've just moved out into future quarters.
As we indicated previously, when we acquired Spinnaker and have made, I think, comments, each quarter, there is going to be some cyclicality or lumpiness to the Spinnaker acquisition. We're gonna have some really strong quarters. We're gonna have some, you know, ebbs and flows and, and some dips, just because longer sales cycles for some of the vendor pro- products like Deep Instinct and VAST, but they're much larger in size and much higher margins. We believe that once we get into a probably a normalized run rate into 2024 and beyond with some of those vendors like VAST and then data center-related vendors, that we'll get more consistency, quarter after quarter, but there's gonna be a little bit of a lumpiness/rollercoaster over the next several quarters.
Okay. My last question, kind of related there, is on, on forward guidance. I know you, you don't give it, but, you know, at what point will you start at least giving next quarter guidance or some long-term targets? You know, it's kind of the same question every call. It's like, what, what do you see? Where are you in this market? Where are you in the revenue ramp? Is this linear? Is this just starting? Is this starting to need acquisitions to, to keep the growth going? It'd be just helpful to, to kind of get your take on it in this call and then going forward to get more quick, you know, guidance, or at least long-term targets for you, so we can kind of judge where this company's headed. What can you say, kind of where you are right now and..
Yeah, I, I think the best thing, you know, we, we just won't give, you know, detailed guidance. We're not at that, that stage right now that we feel comfortable with that. I can tell you, we can just talk about the industry in general, general and what we actually see. And, you know, I think that anybody that's followed us for a while has noticed, you know, the consolidation in the, in the North American market has happened in distribution as far as acquisitions. In the European market, you know, that is our target, and that is really our, our greenfield that we're gonna be going after, so that we see a, a lot of targets over there. That's on the acquisition front. There's plenty of targets.
It's almost as many targets that I talk about as our CMO, Charles Bass, talks about with emerging vendors. I still think you need to look at us from the vendors we sign. If you look at some of the names, of course, you know, unless you're super deep into the technology field, you don't, you never heard of some of these names. If you go to Crunchbase or you actually look them into what they're actually doing and how they're growing, we believe we should grow and continue to grow organically in that 10-15% range, because that's what emerging vendors grow at. They don't grow at GDP, where, you know, an established vendor grows at, unless they're, you know, acquiring companies.
You know, that's our, our broad line competitors are growing at that, you know, 4, 3%-4% GDP range, or not growing at all. That's what we focus as an internal team, that's what we see, and that's what we're gonna continually trying to drive to, is that, that emerging vendor. As we get more established vendors, yeah, we'll see some slowdown because they become a larger piece of it. The margins condense a little bit, and they don't grow as fast. We, we still consider some of our top vendors as emerging because, you know, they're still, you know, sub-$1 billion companies.
Okay, fair, fair enough. I just, you know, every quarter, just, you know, the more you give guidance and perspective and whatever you can do, especially in the next year, the more helpful it is for us to see what's going on and where we're headed. You know, nice quarter, again. Great job. Continue good work, and hope things continue.
Thanks, Howard.
Thank you. One moment for our next question. All right, we have Vincent Colicchio with a follow-up from Barrington Research. Please proceed.
Yeah, Dale, you just cited that 10%-15% growth number for the, you know, type of client you work with. Would, would you say that's sort of the level they're on target for this year?
Yeah, I mean-
Best you can tell.
Well, that's how we look at individual vendors, you know, that we do. I don't want to be held to the overall global piece of it. If you look at our vendor mix, you know, that is, you know, where we're trying to grow at, and there's some things that come at us. Like, like I said, we're opportunistic on, on some of our expenses when we have to, to build into a quarter and saying, "Hey, we have to have this team." Yeah, that's, that's our goal, let's put it that way.
Vincent, I would have stated this earlier as well, and I understand the market's need and investors' need for perhaps a little more guidance along the way, but we're in this for the long game. We're not focused on quarter-to-quarter. As Dale said, we're going to be opportunistic both in our organic growth and organic investments, as well as our acquisition opportunities, which that pipeline is fairly robust. I would say that we're comfortable that our adjusted gross billings will continue to, you know, have a low double-digit growth. The quarter-to-quarter may be different, but overall, over the next several years, we're very confident that it will grow this business at the same rate as our vendor population grows.
Okay. Dale, one last one. Should we continue to expect you to add approximately 3 vendors each quarter? Is that sort of the game plan?
Not really. It, it's, you know, it's what we actually see, and when, when they're ready to go. Some of them, of course, we want, a lot, lots, are more excited about signing them than they are signing us, or they're going and setting up their further channel structure. But yeah, I mean, sometimes it's gonna be a couple, sometimes it might be five. We're, we're trying to trim, but we still continue to trim. We, we talk about who we add. We really don't talk about who we trim, so we push a lot of vendors over to Climb Elevate, which is now over 500 vendors that they actually transact, but it takes it out of the core Climb business, so it doesn't get marketing dollars spent on it.
It doesn't get any really focus, so there's nothing there other than that, the transactional and the systems, connection to our customers. We'll continue to do that. We've also launched Climb Elevate over in the U.K., so they're doing the same thing over there. Then with our ERP coming online, we'll all be talking the exact same language. It'll make it a little, little easier for us across the pond.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Vincent.
Thank you all for your questions. I will pass it back to Dale Foster for final remarks.
Thank you, operator. You know, thank you to the shareholders, thank you to the Climb team, globally. We're gonna continue to deliver on our core initiatives as a company, I look forward to talking to you next quarter.
Thank you. This does conclude the conference. You may all disconnect. Thank you.