Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO)
NYSE: FICO · Real-Time Price · USD
1,010.50
-3.33 (-0.33%)
At close: Apr 28, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT
1,125.00
+114.50 (11.33%)
After-hours: Apr 28, 2026, 7:59 PM EDT
← View all transcripts

Earnings Call: Q2 2019

Apr 30, 2019

Speaker 1

Greetings, and welcome to the Fair Isaac Corporation Quarterly Earnings Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen only mode. Afterwards, we'll conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's Tuesday, April 30, 2019.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Weber. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon and thank you for joining FICO's 2nd quarter earnings call. I'm Steve Weber, Vice President of Investor Relations, and I'm joined today by our CEO, Will Lansing and our CFO, Mike Pung. Today, we issued a press release that describes financial results compared to the prior year. On this call, management will also discuss results in comparison to the prior quarter in order to facilitate understanding of the run rate of our business.

Certain statements made in this presentation may be characterized as forward looking under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Those statements involve many uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Information concerning these uncertainties is contained in the company's filings with the SEC, in particular in the Risk Factors and Forward Looking Statements portions of such filings. Copies are available from the SEC, from the FICO website or from our Investor Relations team. This call will also include statements regarding certain non GAAP financial measures.

Please refer to the company's earnings release and Regulation G schedule issued today for a reconciliation of each of these non GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measure. The earnings release and the Regulation G schedule are available on the Investor Relations page of the company's website atfico.com or on the SEC's website atsec.gov. A replay of this webcast will be available through April 30, 2020. And now, I'll turn the

Speaker 3

call over to Will Lansing. Thank you, Steve, and thank you everyone for joining us for our Q2 earnings call. We delivered another solid quarter as we continue to see traction in our software business and amazing opportunities in our Scores business. Because of the increased visibility into our growth, today we are raising our full year guidance. In our Q2, we reported revenues of $278,000,000 an increase of 9% over the same period last year.

We delivered $33,000,000 of GAAP net income and GAAP earnings of $1.10 per share. We delivered $47,000,000 of non GAAP net income and non GAAP EPS of $1.56 We dollars We had another good bookings quarter with more than $100,000,000 in bookings for the 5th consecutive quarter, and we continue to book a lot of new cloud deals. In fact, year to date, our cloud bookings are up 43% versus the first half of last year. Our software revenue was up a modest 3% this quarter. Applications were down 3% as we had less upfront license sales and services revenue than last year, while our decision management software was up 41%.

Some of the decision management increase was due to licenses, but we're also seeing the benefit of services and transactional revenues from deals we've signed in previous quarters. As we have said, we're happy with the strategic investments we've made and our innovative technology is being recognized by the industry. In fact, a recent Chartis report named FICO a category leader in AI for financial services and pointed to completeness of offerings and market potential. It's another data point that increases our confidence in investing in technology that helps banks meet ever more sophisticated requirements. As you know, last month we announced a partnership with Equifax to provide a connected platform experience combining Equifax data with our FICO decision management platform.

Since then, we've met with a number of customers who are intrigued with the potential of the turnkey cloud applications we are rolling out. We'll continue to keep you posted on our progress. I view this as an important initiative for FICO, and I believe it will greatly expand the footprint of our decision management platform. In the Scores business, we had another great quarter. We saw stable volumes and the partial effects of price increases that began to take effect in our Q2.

Total revenues were up 20% versus the prior year totaled $104,000,000 On the B2B side, revenues were up 27% over the same period as last year. This was primarily due to targeted price increases as well as some new product innovations. We implemented some price adjustments in January and they've been phasing in the last few months. B2C revenues were up 5% this quarter and 7% year to date. We're pursuing a number of potential deals and still see many opportunities in this space.

And we remain focused on driving shareholder value. We've repurchased $120,000,000 in shares halfway through our fiscal year, and we worked diligently to efficiently allocate resources, accelerate free cash flow and improve margins while still investing for the future. I'll share some summary thoughts later, but now I'd like to turn the call over to Mike for further financial details.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Will. Good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'll emphasize 3 points in my remarks. First, we delivered $278,000,000 of revenue. That's an increase of $22,000,000 or 9% year over year.

Our recurring revenue was $212,000,000 which is up 10% from last year driven by the strength in our Scores business. 2nd, we delivered $33,000,000 of GAAP net income, up 7% year over year and EPS of $1.10 per share, up 10%. Finally, we are raising our guidance to reflect the momentum we are seeing in our Scores business. I'll begin by breaking down revenue into our 3 reported segments, starting with applications where revenues were $142,000,000 which is down 3% versus the same period last year and is due to reductions in upfront license sales and services. Our applications bookings of $63,000,000 is down 9% from last year.

We do expect license revenue to expand though over the remainder of the year due to several large term license renewals. In the Decision Management Software segment, revenues were $32,000,000 which is up 41% versus the prior year, due primarily to increased services revenues as we implement new installations and deploy analytic models. Recurring revenue in DMS were up 4% from the previous year. Bookings were $28,000,000 which is up 41% from last year. And finally, in the Scores segment, revenues were $104,000,000 which is up 20% from last year.

On the B2B side, we were up 27% due primarily to some targeted price increases that began to feather in during the quarter. The B2C revenues were up 5% from the same quarter last year. We expect continued growth, particularly from B2B as the pricing increases continue to ramp up. Looking at revenues by region, this quarter 78% of total revenues were derived in the Americas. Our EMEA region generated 15% and the remaining 7% was from Asia Pacific.

Recurring revenues derived from transactional and maintenance sources for the quarter represented 76% of total revenue. Consulting and implementation revenues were 18% and license revenues were just 6% of total revenues. Cloud revenues were $67,000,000 this quarter, which is up 6% from last year. The growth rate was lower this quarter due to some customer churn on our CCS product. Year to date cloud revenues are $130,000,000 which is up 9% from last year.

Bookings this quarter were $106,000,000 up 4% from the prior year. We generated $15,000,000 of current period revenue on those bookings for a yield of 14%. The weighted average term for the bookings was 32 months this quarter. This quarter, we had 12 deals between $1,000,000 $3,000,000 and we booked an additional 7 deals over 3,000,000 dollars In addition, cloud bookings were $29,000,000 this quarter, down slightly from last year due to the timing of signed deals. Operating expenses totaled $230,000,000 this quarter compared to $213,000,000 in our Q1.

The increase relates primarily to variable expenses associated with increased revenue and employee incentive costs. We expect to maintain our current cost run rate over the back half of the year, while actively investing our resources in our highest strategic priorities. As you can see in our Reg G schedule, our non GAAP operating margin was 25% in the 2nd quarter, and it is 26% year to date. We expect that operating margins will be between 26.5% to 28.5% for the full year. GAAP net income was $33,000,000 or $1.10 per share and non GAAP net income was $47,000,000 or $1.56 per share.

The effective tax rate was about 16% this quarter and we expect our tax rate to be about 14% for the fiscal year. The free cash flow for the quarter was $44,000,000 versus $42,000,000 in the prior year, with the trailing 12 month free cash flow of $211,000,000 dollars And looking at the balance sheet, we had $77,000,000 of cash on hand at the end of the quarter. Our total debt is $828,000,000 with a weighted average interest rate of 4.8 percent. And the ratio of our total net debt to adjusted EBITDA this quarter is 2.6x, which is below the covenant level of 3. Depending on market conditions, we may be refinancing some of our fixed debt that we'll be maturing over the next 16 months.

During the quarter, we returned $37,000,000 of excess cash to our investors, repurchasing 150,000 shares at an average price of $2.47 Through the 1st two quarters of the year, we've repurchased 575,000 shares at an average price of $208 We still have about $80,000,000 remaining on the Board authorization and continue to view share repurchases as an attractive use of cash. We also continue to actively evaluate opportunities to acquire relevant technologies and products that advance our strategy or strengthen our portfolio and competitive position. And finally, as Will mentioned, we're raising our previous we provided guidance. Our new guidance for the full fiscal year 2019 is as follows. We expect revenue to be approximately $1,140,000,000 up from the previously guided $1,125,000,000 GAAP net income is now expected to be approximately $173,000,000 and GAAP earnings per share is now approximately $5.75 per share.

Non GAAP net income is now expected to be $214,000,000 or $7.12 per share. With that, I'll turn it back over to Will for final comments.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Mike. We're halfway through another fiscal year and we're very well positioned for the future. Our customers are increasingly seeking better, more advanced analytics and technology to optimize their most difficult decisions, and we are ready and able to help them. As a result, our pipeline is very robust. We have more and bigger deals in our pipeline than ever before.

We have a great team in place and we're effectively executing on our cloud strategy to drive profitable recurring revenue and earnings growth. I'll now turn the call back to Steve for Q and A.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Will. This concludes our prepared remarks and we're now ready to take any questions you may have. Eric, please open the line.

Speaker 1

And our first question comes from the line of Manav Patnaik with Barclays. Please go

Speaker 5

ahead. Thank you. Good evening, guys. Just on the guidance raise, so most of the raise, is it fair, was because of the price increases that are going into effect on the B2B Scores side? And then does that mean you still expect that kind of 9% growth from the software this year as well?

Speaker 4

Partially, Manav. So yes, in fact, the increase in the revenue guidance is driven from the Scores pricing, which we have some visibility now to the back half of the year. That's a bit offset by our growth in the software business. As you remember last quarter, we fell short of our revenue growth on professional services. We made a little bit of it back here in the Q2, but we expect for the full year we'll likely fall short, putting our software growth somewhere around 7 ish percent plus or minus.

So we're bringing that number back slightly and it's being replaced by the Scores item.

Speaker 5

Got it. And then just on the B2C Scores, the 5% growth feels a little light. Was there any comps or timing or anything going on there?

Speaker 4

No, nothing really going on there. It's growth that's coming through our partner pipeline, mainly through Experian.

Speaker 6

Got it.

Speaker 5

And then just lastly, Will, maybe just some broad color on the cloud transition, the SaaS transition,

Speaker 3

still have plenty of work ahead. We are now at the point where all of our major franchises are available in the cloud. We have FalconX coming out, which is our cloud version of Falcon coming out this year. And that's positioning us even more strongly in the cloud. But we still have work to do in terms of simplifying the product and consolidating the code base.

And so I would say that there's more work ahead, but we're really feeling good about it. The infrastructure is really solid. The reliability is there. The geographic reach is there. We have great network ops and operational control of it.

So we're pretty happy about that.

Speaker 5

Okay, got it. Thanks guys.

Speaker 1

And our next question comes from the line of Bill Warmington with Wells Fargo. Please go

Speaker 6

ahead. Good afternoon, everyone. So an initial question for you on this on the special price increase in auto and maybe it would help if you compare and contrast that one with the mortgage price increase from last year. You guys referenced a couple of terms in terms of the increase being partial and feathering in. So is there something that's different about the structure of the auto industry that where the price increase is going through a little more slowly than it did for mortgage?

Speaker 3

Yes, that's exactly right, Bill. It's slightly different and we have some lagging price coming in. And so that it's as simple as that. I mean it's still quite a major move in auto.

Speaker 4

I would add one other thing, Bill, and that is we've both with mortgage and auto, we've always said we will grandfather in any committed dates that exist with our resellers, the 3 bureaus. And in the case of auto, there are some committed dates that extend out. And so that's why it feathers in a little bit slower. And also the timing by which the credit bureaus implement their rate card with the end customers is different than it is for mortgage. And so those are a little bit of nuanced discussions that I guess add on to what Will said.

Speaker 6

Got it. That's helpful. And then on the bookings detail, it looked like the transaction and maintenance bookings went from about 55% of total bookings in the December quarter to about 35% of total bookings in the March quarter. And I just wanted to ask what was going on behind that?

Speaker 4

Really nothing. You are right. Those are correct numbers. In the Q1 as in some prior quarters, we had a heavier percentage of deals that we signed that were transactional or license oriented. This quarter happened to be one that was very heavy PS oriented.

I think roughly 60% or something close to 60% of our bookings this quarter RPS, which will burn off here probably in the next 6 to 9 months. So there really is nothing to it other than the mix of the deals that we signed this quarter than the past several.

Speaker 6

Okay. And then on the timing of the cloud bookings for the quarter, the $29,000,000 that was below the last couple of quarters. When you reference timing, do you mean there were some deals that potentially were going to book in the March quarter that are going to book in the June quarter? Or I just want to ask a little more detail on that.

Speaker 4

Yes, that's exactly right. I mean, we obviously are sensitive to the customers who want to sign deals by the end of the quarter, but we don't go the extra mile in terms of trying to get something signed by the end of March as compared to something in April or May. And practically speaking, these cloud deals are all ratable revenue anyway. And so it's simply a timing of 1 quarter to the next. And frankly, that's all it was this quarter.

We were happy with over $100,000,000 It certainly could have been a much larger number, and hopefully, we'll make some of that up in the back half

Speaker 3

of the year.

Speaker 6

Yes. And you guys have referenced the transition from the upfront license fee model to the SaaS cloud delivery model as being a headwind to revenue and margins in the past. I just want to know if you could help us quantify how much of a headwind that is currently

Speaker 4

or if you want

Speaker 6

to talk about in terms of the current quarter or in terms of the guidance?

Speaker 4

Yes. So under the old accounting rules, Bill, 605, it was a headwind. I think as I mentioned last quarter, when we first had to implement the new revenue rule 606, there's a strange little component to that rule for on premise software, which is whenever there is a renewal or a new license deal signed on premise, if there are guaranteed minimums in the contract, Those guaranteed minimums are required to be recognized upfront under the old rules rather than ratably under the old rules.

Speaker 3

Under the new rules. I'm sorry, under the new rules.

Speaker 4

Upfront. Yes, they're recognized upfront now. And we do have Falcon renewals from time to time that carry guaranteed minimums in there. And so that's actually created some license revenue that we are claiming this year, including in quarter 2 that we didn't claim in the past. So what we're finding this year these renewals is that we have more license revenue than we built into our plan.

And that's offsetting some of the softness in the recurring revenue that we're seeing from some churn on a couple of customers in CCS.

Speaker 6

Okay. And then final question for you. It looked like most of the expense increase on a year over year basis was in the personnel department. So I just wanted to ask a little color on that. Is most of that going into R and D personnel?

Or is that for implementation of the bookings? I just wanted to get a little get see if we could get a little color there.

Speaker 4

Yes. I'd call it 2 broad things. So the first is we have continued to add headcount in the organization and the headcount is primarily being added in R and D and operations. So that hits a combination of cost of goods and a combination of the R and D line item. That's where the heads are being added in.

Also as we've added in some heads for the existing employee base, we did, as we typically do, our annual compensation increase, which took effect in December. So the January through March is the 1st full quarter in which we have a 3 percent salary increase in effect for the remainder of the employees. So between the headcount added and the annual increase, that's the category that is driving the biggest part of the increase. The rest of the increase is frankly tied to variable incentive comp, commissions and incentive comp for the rest of the organization. And as a result of raising the guidance, it also affects that incentive comp line item and we as a result have to increase our accruals to catch up not only for the Q1, but the Q2.

So those are really the two things that are driving the cost increase. That's why we believe it's going to level out over the rest of the year.

Speaker 6

Got it. Well, thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Our next question comes from the line of Brett Huff with Stephens Incorporated. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, guys. This is Joel Heffler on for Brett Huff. Just want to ask on the M and A comment. What kind of assets would you guys be looking at? And for the right deal, is that something that you would lever up?

Speaker 2

Or are these going to

Speaker 3

be more tuck in acquisitions

Speaker 4

that you'd be looking at going forward? Thank you. So, We are always looking for interesting acquisition opportunities.

Speaker 3

We are always looking for interesting acquisition opportunities. We have a very active corporate development arm. And the challenge for us and we do as you noted, we do from time to time do small tuck in acquisitions for talent or little pieces of technology that we think would extend our franchises nicely. The more interesting question that we wrestle with is there are a lot of businesses out there that where we'd emerge or acquire them would result in accretion. And the problem is that we don't like their businesses as much as we like our own business.

And so every time it comes down to do you want to get bigger by acquisition, we our bar is we have to like their business as much as we like our own business and that is a very, very high bar. And so I would never say never and under the right circumstances, yes, we would lever up to do it. But we've been at this, I've been CEO of FICO for 7 years looking for the last 5. And I haven't come across the one that makes financial sense and is as attractive a business as our own. So we just take the money and we buy back FICO stock with it and give it back to our owners.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank

Speaker 1

you. All right. And Mr. Weber, we have no further questions from the phone lines. I'll turn it back to you.

Speaker 2

All right. Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining us.

Speaker 1

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect your lines.

Powered by