Blend Labs, Inc. (BLND) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to today's conference call. My name is Winnie Ling, and I'm Head of Legal and People at Blend. Joining us today is Nima Ghamsari, Co-Founder and Head of Blend. You will find some supplemental slides attached to this webcast and posted to our Investor Relations web page at investor.ban.com. Before we begin, please note that certain statements made during today's conference call regarding blend and its operations may be considered forward-looking statements under federal securities laws. The company cautions you that forward-looking statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties and a number of factors many of which are beyond the company's control, could cause all events or circumstances to differ materially from those described in these statements. Please see the risk factors we've identified in our SEC filings, including our most recent 10-K. We are not undertaking any commitment to update these statements if conditions change, except as required by law. Please also note that we will not be discussing our results for the 2024 until our earnings release on May 8. and we will not be commenting on our performance or outlook during this call. With that, I'll turn the call over to Nima.

Thank you, Winnie. Today is a big day for Blend. A start of a new chapter that we believe fortifies our position as a leading banking technology provider with a built-to-last financial position. Just a short while ago, we announced a $150 million convertible preferred investment from Haveli Investments, a leading technology investor with meaningful fintech experience and a strong track record of helping companies like Blend scale and achieve long-term success. I'll share some specifics around the deal in a moment, but I do want to first emphasize that this investment represents a vote of confidence in Blend's position for future growth and our ability to generate less shareholder value. Haveli is choosing to partner with us because of our track record of establishing an industry-leading position in mortgage and successfully applying our playbook to other growth areas, notably deposit accounts, credit cards and the remaining components of the consumer banking business. They're also partnering with us because they share our vision for what's still in front of us, more value to our customers, more innovation and product enhancements, supercharged by our new platform, Blend builder. We wanted to partner with a team that can help us continue to push the boundaries, and we've learned from this process that Haveli's aligned with us and shares our vision. And illustrating the size of opportunity we see both ahead of us, we both see ahead of us, Haveli is making this investment with a conversion price to represent a 44% premium to our closing price today. I also want to point out that the preferred investment has 0 coupon and the retirement of our debt, which was part of this will generate approximately $18 million in annualized interest expense savings. An important question for us to explain is what we can expect to receive from Haveli beyond the $150 million in capital. I think this can be categorized into 3 buckets. First, we expect to gain a collaborator who will support our product and technology initiatives. Part and probably the most important part of our shared vision is to improve digital experiences for consumers and lenders and banks and accelerate the time to value for customers, our customers. Haveli brings a wealth of knowledge and experience that can be leveraged here. Second, Haveli will support our go-to-market objectives, including organic growth initiatives like strengthen our existing customer relationships and expanding into new markets as well as strategic opportunities if and when they arise. And the third and final point is that we expect Haveli to offer operational expertise. Brian Sheth, which is Haveli's Founder and Chief Investment Officer, will be joining our Board. He has nearly 25 years of investing in technology companies experience of which more than 20 of those years was spent building Vista Equity Partners where Brian served as President. He's major advised investments valued at over $100 billion and served as a Board Chairman to dozens of companies. I have no doubt that Brian will be a valuable adviser to us and keep a surprise of operational and financial best practices. Another critical question, of course, is how we deploy this capital. We made the decision in the fourth quarter last year to prepay $85 million of our term loan balance which also amended our debt to maturity by one year to 2027, provided we meet certain conditions. While we felt like our balance sheet was in a strong position coming out of this, we believe the company would benefit further by removing our debt completely and securing our longer-term focused investment horizon. We feel very confident this is the right strategy our first priority with this investment is to pay down the remaining balance of the term loan. By recapitalizing the balance sheet, we've taken the pressure off any near-term capital obligations and can focus without distraction on what is most important to us. serving our customers and building for the long term. Additionally, part of the rationale was reducing our interest burden now that our eyes are fixed on profitability and positive cash generation. On that point want to be very clear on what this means for our customers. We will be, like we always have, to be investing in the future of mortgage and consumer banking. Haveli has a history of helping technology companies serving financial services become industry-changing companies. There'll be a strong partner in supporting our innovation efforts across the business. Without the burden of servicing debt, we anticipate we will direct the interest savings resulting from this transaction into even more investment in our business. This capital will fuel our strategy on building the next generation of refinance capabilities for banks before the next wave as well as bolstering our Blend builder platform, which powers all of our products now. My last point before ending the call today is an important one. I want to assure all of your that we are not changing any of the commitments we've made, especially as it pertains to our non-GAAP operating profitability goals. If anything, we are even more focused on achieving our profitability goals this year because of this investment, and we expect that we will have accelerated our ability to generate positive free cash flow by removing the debt servicing costs. With this investment, 2024 is set to be a monumental year for Blend. We look forward to sharing more details with you on our progress against our goals during our Q1 earnings call, which is next week on May. Thank you, everyone, for listening in. Have a great day.