Bravura Solutions Limited (BRA.F) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Bravura Solutions Limited Full Year Results Announcement. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference call over to Mr. Shezad Okhai, Interim CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jamie. Thank you for joining us to discuss Bravura Solutions fiscal 2025 results. My name is Shezad Okhai, Bravura's Interim CEO. I'm joined by our Chief Financial Officer, Neil Montford. I'm going to provide a brief overview of our results. In fiscal 2025, Bravura delivered underlying revenue from customers, excluding the impact of the perpetual license agreement with Fidelity and prior to interest income and R&D incentives of $256.8 million, which is up 0.7% on a constant currency basis over fiscal 2024. The details of the impact of the Fidelity license agreement, which was announced in August 2024 can be found in the appendix. We reported underlying cash EBITDA of $43.8 million, representing a cash EBITDA margin of 17%, showing a marked improvement over last year. We ended the year with a strong financial position of $58.7 million in cash and no debt, allowing us to declare a final fiscal 2025 dividend of $13.1 million and a special dividend of $8 million. The CEO search is underway with a likely announcement by our AGM. I'm very proud of the results delivered by our dedicated team of 1,000 who made a measurable impact in fiscal 2025. Page 4 shows our results in more detail. Maintenance, support and hosting revenue grew by 5.6% (sic) [ 5.5% ] and professional services by 2.1%, neither of which are adjusted for FX. Margins continue to improve throughout the year, although at a slower pace than in fiscal 2024. We delivered a cash EBITDA margin of 18% in the second fiscal half of 2025 compared to 16% in the first fiscal half. We thought it would be helpful to highlight how our business is organized on Page 6. Within our 2 reportable segments, we track a number of P&Ls, each with a business unit leader and focus on the market niche. We believe that increased decentralization will result in improved customer intimacy and allows for better decision-making by those closest to our customers. This will be further strengthened by incentives that are linked to revenue growth and cash EBITDA margin at a business unit level, aligning managers with the outcomes they deliver and that of shareholders. On Page 8, we introduce a new recurring revenue metric, which represents our recurring software revenue and is defined as reported support, maintenance and hosting revenue, plus the portion of license fees that are recurring, less one-off support that is billed on a time and materials basis. Please note that this definition of recurring revenue has been refined from the version presented in the first half fiscal '25 results presentation. The figures are not comparable. We will be using this updated definition going forward. In 2025, recurring revenue was $154.3 million. On a constant currency basis, this is approximately flat compared to the $149.6 million delivered in 2024. Impacting recurring revenue was attrition of $8 million, which is the in-year impact of recurring revenue decline due to customer loss and shrinkage. This also includes the impact of the perpetual license agreement with Fidelity. The fiscal 2025 attrition will have a further impact of $6.5 million on fiscal 2026 recurring revenue as we experience the full run rate impact of those decisions. Counteracting the churn was growth of $8.8 million in recurring revenue. This is the in-year impact of growth in volumes, client expansion, pricing and new clients. Page 9 shows operating costs are down $17 million in fiscal '25 compared to fiscal '24, but remained stable across the first and second half of fiscal 2025. The table on the right shows the distribution of our employees by function. This reflects our continued investment in keeping our products relevant and responsive to customer needs. Page 10 shows our capital return and dividends. Bravura has a dividend policy of at least 50% of underlying NPAT. We will continue to prioritize organic growth where it is underpinned by a clear business case and an acceptable return on capital. After funding growth and operational priorities, excess capital will be returned to shareholders in the form of dividends and/or buybacks. Moving on to our outlook on Page 12. In fiscal '26, we expect revenues to be in line with fiscal 2025 and cash EBITDA to be above $50 million. Our priorities are to protect and grow recurring revenue, advance our platforms, explore partnerships with administration providers, continue to increase accountability at a business unit level and continue to drive efficiency gains. On Page 13, we show some key data points regarding fiscal '26. Here, you can see the percentage of fiscal 2025 revenue by currency. In the release dated 2nd November 2022, Bravura disclosed 3 customer exits. In fiscal 2026, one of these 3 customers will complete their migration away from Bravura to a BPO. This customer generated $10 million of revenue across professional services, support, maintenance and hosting in fiscal 2025, and we expect that they will complete their migration by January 1, 2026. On the professional services side, approximately 20% of our services revenue is from contracts with annual minimum commitments. We expect PP&E CapEx of $2 million to $3 million after a low year in 2025. I'd also like to highlight that we expect to either purchase or issue 6.8 million shares across fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2027 to satisfy outstanding rights and options for existing employee incentive plans. If we purchase all the share requirements, the net cash outflow will be greater than the P&L expense, primarily driven by the fiscal 2024 option plan. I'd like to now open it up for any Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Jack Daley from Shaw and Partners.

Congrats on another great result for Bravura. I guess just firstly, as we kind of look through the guidance that you provided for FY '26, could you maybe just walk us through maybe starting the revenue line, you talked about $10 million dropping off. How are you kind of seeing the demand for Bravura revenues, particularly in Europe? And I guess, is that going to be supported by software revenues or kind of more professional services revenues? And some of that, how you think that's kind of the time line for some of the contracts dropping?

Jack, sorry, I just want to make sure I've got the question right. Are you asking for clarity on how we see revenues in fiscal '26 between professional services and our recurring software revenues? I just want to make sure I got that right.

Yes. And I guess how we thinking about it versus new logos versus pricing coming through as well.

Right. Okay. Well, I'll take a first crack at it and Neil can follow up if I've missed anything. We are -- we have guided to expecting revenues to be in line with fiscal '25. As you saw on the recurring revenue bridge, we have experienced some attrition in fiscal '25. We expect, as I disclosed on the recurring revenue slide as well that, that fiscal '25 attrition will have a further impact on our fiscal '26 recurring revenues of $6.5 million. And in addition, we are expecting the one customer that I disclosed leaving in on Jan 1, '26. Offsetting that is growth. We are expecting growth within our existing customers. We are forecasting winning some new business. That's in our forecast as well. But I would say predominantly, our growth is within existing customers in both EMEA and in APAC. That growth is driven by growth in volumes, expansions that we're doing. Clients are -- clients grow, we grow with them. We continue to build enhancements for our clients. And we are looking for closing some cross-sell opportunities as well. So I do expect it to be a mix driven by existing clients, but we are looking at growth to offset some of the negatives that I mentioned on the call. I don't know if that helps -- if that answers the question, Jack, or whether you're looking for something else.

Yes. No, that's great. And I guess just on the -- I guess, Slide 9, you've kind of split out the FTE by category. I guess as we look into FY '26, it looks like there's more cost savings coming out of the business just driven by that increase in cash EBITDA. How should we be thinking about, I guess, the change in FTE by category? And I guess, what's kind of driving those increases in cost savings for the business?

Right. So I won't get into the details of changes in -- expected changes in mix of our staffing by category here. We wanted to share that mix of employees to demonstrate that we are investing materially in keeping our products relevant and responsive to customer needs. Regarding further cost reductions that drive the improvement in cash EBITDA year-over-year, we are always looking for ways to do things more effectively, more efficiently without lowering the high levels of service that we give to our customers and without slowing down the pace of change within our products. So I think change is happening across likely all of the departments and within different business units as well across the group. It's not one area in particular that we look at to drive effectiveness improvements.

Our next question comes from Olivier Coulon from E&P Financial Group.

Just on FX and assumptions around that in terms of the revenue guidance as a first question. And then presumably, there's no kind of material unsecured kind of logos within your revenue expectations for FY '25 -- sorry, FY '26? And then what's the, I suppose, market opportunity set looking like in terms of potential new logos in EMEA and Australia, if you don't mind.

Okay. Olivier, FX, the forecast assumes current rates hold. So any changes in FX rates that will impact our forecast for fiscal '26. We are active in the market. We will participate in RFPs for new logos. But at this point, I'm not going to disclose our current pipeline and whether or not we expect to win any large net new logos.

Okay. But is there a reasonable activity level even if it's not necessarily at the formal contracting stage at the moment? Like what's your read on the opportunity set in the U.K. and Australian markets as to like, I suppose, how many logos there are that are kind of floating around in the near term?

Right. So large replatforming decisions are not frequent at all. And these are large decisions where customers are looking to devote millions or tens of millions of dollars and go through an extensive change in platform is a massive investment. So these are not frequent decisions at all. And I'm just not in a position where we're going to disclose the level of activity of our sales pipeline.

Our next question comes from Ross Barrows from Wilsons Advisory.

I had a couple of questions, if I may. The first one is just a clarification, I guess, around the clients that you've called out that will be leaving or churning. You did say it was $10 million per annum last year and the client will churn at the start of -- at the end of the first half. So is it fair to assume that that's -- just to be clear, it's like a linear contribution. So there will still be a $5 million contribution this year?

I think that's a fair assumption. That's a fair assumption to make.

Okay. And then just in terms of the other clients that have flagged as having been listed as a customer exit, you may have said it before, apologies if you did. But was the comment just -- was there any comment around those other 2 customers in terms of their time line?

No, no comment on those other 2 customers.

Okay. And then just maybe one for you, Neil, just given it looks back a little bit. Just in terms of the definition of recurring revenue, the definition you've provided today in the footnote is pretty clear. But can I just clarify that? Because I guess, historically, the business had defined recurring revenue as the contracted recurring revenue, but also attached recurring revenue. If you go back to '23, that contracted recurring revenue is about $140 million and today's definition is about $154 million as you've given. So is it fair to assume that, that definition really just relates to what is contracted with good visibility into the business and that attached recurring revenue definition has been softened or almost completely dropped?

Thanks. That was a good question. The definition has changed quite a few times over the last 3 years. So even at the half year, we had a different definition as well. So we've refined it further. I think as we've called out, there are professional services -- within our contracts, there are committed professional services days, but we are not including that in the definition and that would have been in previous years when the percentage was up to sort of 80%, I think, 2 or 3 years ago. So it's a narrower but more precise definition that we're using now and we'll use in the future.

Great. And just one other quick one. Just on Slide 8, where you do have that recurring revenue chart, where you've got the attrition of $8 million and the growth of $9 million. Are you able to give any color around that $8.8 million or the $9 million, whether that's any new logos in there or new customers in that growth? Or is that just incremental growth from your existing customers?

Right. The growth is a mix of existing customers and new logos. So there are some new logos in there. I won't give the split today of what's coming from our base and what's new.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Scott Hudson from MST.

I just have a couple of questions. Firstly, Shezad, maybe you could help me understand what the driver of the, I guess, revenue beat was relative to your previous guidance?

It was likely FX and increased revenue with existing customers. But Neil, you likely have more color on that.

The question was what's the driver on revenue growth from previous guidance in FY '25?

Yes, Neil, I guess your guidance was sort of $248 million to $252 million. I'm just trying to understand what was the -- I guess, what pushed you to the sort of $257 million level?

So there were probably 3 or 4 different factors in there. One would be that the exchange rate, as we've called out, the exchange rate remained favorable. We've highlighted the level of income that we get, particularly in British pounds. So that was a positive. If we look at the full revenue, we received R&D incentives from the U.K. government, which were not put within our assumptions. Our professional services -- the third one would be our professional services revenue remained strong throughout the year.

So, can I just understand, is there any sort of change in approach to, I guess, revenue growth relative to under previous management?

Okay. So changes in approach to revenue growth, we continue to have and focus on a fairly decentralized business with local leaders in each of our markets, both geographically and within each market niche that we service within each geography. Each of those leaders is very close to their customers and prospects within the market. So we continue to invest in local customer intimacy to expand relationships with existing customers and to cover the market from a new name or a new logo perspective. So I wouldn't say there's been a material change from that perspective.

That's helpful. And then just on Page 12, you talked about building partnerships with administration providers. Could you maybe just expand on what you mean by that?

So Scott, as you likely have seen with some of the announcements, particularly in the Australian market, in some cases, having administration capabilities is important. So we are in early stages of partnership discussions in both Australia and in the U.K. to partner with a provider who would enable us to offer that type of administration capabilities in conjunction with one of our platforms such as Sonata.

Like a BPI partner?

Right.

Our next question is a follow-up from Olivier Coulon from E&P Financial Group.

Just following up on your commentary around an appropriate return on investment on growth OpEx. I mean, can you share with us like what sort of hurdle rate you are acquiring?

Olivier, I won't get into details of specific hurdle rates. Those could differ depending on what type of opportunity we're looking at and the size of that opportunity. So I won't disclose a specific number there. Rather, I just wanted to communicate that we are keen to invest in organic growth. We would like to ensure that the investments we make are ones where we believe -- that we believe will drive value for both customers and for shareholders.

Yes. Okay. And then, I mean, the cash EBITDA outcome that you're kind of targeting for this year to just ongoing kind of efficiency initiatives through the year. Is it fair to say that you won't necessarily harvest all of those in FY '26? Or is this really just the annualization of things that you've done late in FY '25?

So the cash EBITDA outlook is driven both by changes that were made late in fiscal '25 as well as ongoing improvements that the team is making during the course of fiscal '26.

And there are no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the floor back to Mr. Okhai for closing remarks.

Thank you, everybody, very much for joining and participating. I appreciate all of the questions, and look forward to speaking with you all again soon.

That does conclude our conference for today. We thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.