3P Learning Limited (3PL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the 3P Learning Investor and Analyst Briefing. Today, you will hear from Matthew Sandblom, Executive Chairman; Jose Palmero, CEO; and Anton Clowes, CFO, as they present to you the 3P Learning's half year results to December 31, 2022. I will now hand the conference over to Matthew. Please go ahead.

Welcome to 3P Learning's half yearly investor and analyst briefing for the half year ending 31st of December 2022. My name is Matthew Sandblom. I am the Executive Chairman of 3P Learning. I'll also be joined in this presentation by our CEO, Jose Palmero; and our CFO, Anton Clowes. First, I will give an overview of the company's performance, followed by a review of the strategy, and then I'll hand over to Jose to go into more detail about our performance in that half yearly period. On Slide 6, we have some of the highlights of the first half of the '23 financial year. Now I think the B2C billings and the B2B billings give a fairly accurate picture of how the year -- the half year has performed compared to a comparable period. In that, B2C billings are up 9% to $20.3 million, and that's coming off some quite high numbers that were influenced positively by COVID, while B2B billings, which is in the annual recurring revenue of $65.9 million are up 2%. Now that this is about -- while that's not high growth, we are spending a lot of money on building out new products or improving on existing products like Mathletics. So we don't expect significant B2B growth until the next financial year and the year after. While we're happy with what we're doing with the B2C, we're still growing. And overall, revenue of 18% is [ flattered ] a bit by the fact that we're comparing a previous period where we had less recognized revenue due to the accounting changes brought about by the merger of Blake eLearning with 3P Learning. So -- but we are controlling costs well even as we invest a lot in the product, and that is improving our underlying EBITDA. We did invest in Brightpath Assessment during this period, which had an effect on obviously cash, but we're still in a good, strong cash position. So overall, a solid sales result while we're heavily investing in new products. So overall, we're satisfied with how we are performing. On Slide 7, I recap 3PL overall strategy. In particular, in the B2B space, we want to cover all the fundamentals of learning and have very strong programs in each of these areas. Obviously, we have reading with Reading Eggs. We have maths with Mathseeds and Mathletics, with also a new updated version of Mathletics too in the second half of this calendar year. And the new product writing, which is Writing Legends, which will have its first significant release in July this year, a more complete program by the end of this calendar year. We've also, in the last 6 months, added Brightpath Assessment to our suite of programs. Initially, when we bought this program, it was mainly about writing assessment, but they would also quite significantly developed a maths component as well, which we're almost finished and we'll release in the market in the next couple of months. And then after that, we'll move on to reading assessment, which we will release in the next 18 months or so. That will give us assessment across all our core learning areas of reading, maths and writing and offer a more complete package for schools. In the consumer space, we have -- obviously, we've done our main project there [ has ] to separate our reading and maths. So people have a choice of either buying just reading or maths or combined product. Overall, we expect this to increase lifetime value per customer. Within the same sort of time period of about 18 months, we are planning also to release the consumer version of the writing program. We've also done quite a bit of work on Mathletics to make it a more consumer-friendly product, and we are seeing significant uplift in the consumer market revenue for Mathletics. I'll now hand over to Jose Palmero to give more detailed commentary on our results for the first half of this financial year.

Thank you, Matthew, and good morning, everyone. We'll start with an update on operations and profitability. We completed the restructure of our sales team with dedicated new business, Retention and Customer Success functions for all regions and welcomed our new Chief Sales Officer, Jenna Pipchuk, who joined our senior leadership team in January 2023. We also completed the integration of Brightpath and rebranded it Brightpath Progress. Our focus now is on Go to Market for the new and the improved programs starting in the second half of this financial year. Underlying EBITDA was $5.8 million which was 3x higher than the previous corresponding period and underlying cash used in operations was $5.4 million, which was lower than underlying EBITDA. This reflects the dynamics of our business which generates higher cash and profit in the second half, aligned with the Australian school year plus some higher operating costs in product development and marketing. In terms of performance in the consumer market, revenue was $20.6 million, which was 10% higher than the previous corresponding period with a net billings contribution margin of 42% compared to 43% last year. Even though the positive effects of COVID are no longer driving market demand, billings from all platforms and regions were up on pcp. Billings from our Direct Channel platform, for example, grew 14%, while APAC was our strongest region for B2C with 15% growth. During the first half of the year, we tried a Teacher Supervised Program Pilot, which yielded good interest and feedback, but the unit economics were not profitable enough. As a result, we discontinued the pilot, but we will keep exploring options for a Paid Premium Service offering for B2C. We also implemented the next stage of the separation of Mathseeds from Reading Eggs for B2C. The new subscription options together with a price increase for new users went live in January 2023. For B2B, revenue was $32 million, which is 25% higher than in the first half of financial year '22. But as Matthew mentioned, this increase was mainly due to the revenue recognition changes resulting from the merger with Blake. The more representative annual recurring revenue was up 2%, $65.9 million, including Brightpath. The $1.4 million in annual recurring revenue from Brightpath has now been secured until 2025. We also implemented Solution Selling in all markets from July 2022 with good market response to our maths package in APAC, in particular. Just as a reminder, our math package is when we sell Mathletics and Mathseeds combined for whole of school subscriptions. On the product front, we are now firming up release dates and Go to Market plans for new and existing programs. By June 2023, we will release a completely upgraded version of Writing Legends to existing users, including a new avatar system, navigation and automated feedback. The first 50 lessons will launch in early financial year 2024 to all users with about 100 new lessons progressively released in time for the Australian back-to-school period in calendar year 2024. Brightpath will have a maths assessment module available by June 2023 for APAC, along with a beta release of Mathseeds Prime for Grade 4. Improvements to Mathletics, available by June 2023, include a new Student Home Page, simpler Teacher Assign module, upgraded avatar system, new M-coin currency and new certificates while Reading Eggs will also see new awards and certificates as well as End of Lessons Skill quizzes. We don't expect major revenue contributions from these releases in financial year '23, but we should see benefits in financial years '24 and '25. The cost for product updates, of course, has been expensed during the current financial year. I will now hand over to Anton for more details on the financial results and cash flow for the first half.

Thank you, Matthew and Jose. Good morning, everyone. Set out on Slide 14 is the management's P&L for the first half of financial year '23. As alluded to by both Matthew and Jose, B2B revenue is up 25%, affected by the change in revenue recognition impacting the prior period. B2B revenue is otherwise steady half-on-half. First half '23 B2B includes approximately $400,000 in Brightpath revenue. B2C revenue is up 10%. Cost control in the first half has been disciplined. Sales and marketing higher spend reflects increased investments in digital marketing to drive B2C growth. And product and technology reflects additional investments in employee costs and software. Underlying EBITDA is up 205% on the pcp at $5.8 million. Moving on to Slide 15, which sets out the B2C performance metrics for the half. Gross billings and ARPU both up 9%; licenses steady at about $314,000; net billings up 8% to $18.2 million; and net billings contribution margin steady at 42%. From a revenue perspective, as highlighted previously, B2C revenue up 10% to $20.6 million. And the contribution margin up 1 percentage point to 36%. Moving on to Slide 16, which sets out the B2B performance metrics for the half. Closing ARR, $65.9 million, including Brightpath acquisition of $1.4 million per annum added to ARR. Exit ARPU marginally impacted by a lower Brightpath exit ARPU. As highlighted previously, the B2B revenue is up 25% [indiscernible] revenue recognition and impacting the prior period. Otherwise, B2B revenue is steady half-on-half. Contribution margin, up 5 percentage points to 56%. Licenses, excluding distributor licenses, up approximately [ 100,000 ], steady at [ 4.5 million ] which also includes the acquisition of Brightpath. Slide 17 sets out the cash balance bridge. Cash and restricted cash balances at the end of December 2022 were $14.8 million. We utilized $16.9 million of cash in the half, which was mainly represented by a $5.4 million utilization of cash in operations before tax, net property, plant and equipment and intangible additions of $1.6 million. $8.6 million related to the net acquisition of Brightpath, and we paid $1.7 million in related VAT payments linked to the merger. And finally, Slide 18 sets out the EBITDA cash flow bridge. Underlying EBITDA was $5.8 million. Working capital adjustments of $11.2 million, meaning underlying cash flow used in operations before tax was $5.4 million. The working capital adjustments reflects principally timing, higher receivables and lower payables balances at 31 December 2022 compared to June 2022 combined with a higher operating cost base in the first half of '23. I will now hand back to Jose for closing comments.

Thank you, Anton. It's been a busy first half as we continue to invest in product development, sales capability and now a new revenue source in the assessment market with Brightpath. We'll reaffirm fiscal '23 guidance of revenue of between $111 million and $115 million and underlying EBITDA of between $15 million and $18 million. In addition, we expect to generate cash flow from operations before tax within the same underlying EBITDA range of between $15 million and $18 million. Thanks very much for joining us. That concludes the formal part of the presentation. But Matthew, Anton and I will be happy to answer any questions. Thanks again.

[Operator Instructions] At this time, we're showing no further questions. That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.