Datalex plc (DLE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone. We might as well start. It's 11:30. We went to the market this morning with the H1 results for this fiscal year 2023. And what we'd like to do on the call -- this is Sean Corkery here, the CEO of Datalex. And joining me this morning is Noel Walsh, our acting CFO; and Neil is also -- Neil McLoughlin, our Chief Legal and Commercial Officer, is also on the phone. So what we want to do is to give a little bit of background and context to the numbers that you read this morning. So moving on then, we note the disclaimer in terms of any forward-looking statements. You can move on there, Gail, one -- turn the slide. Can you hear me now, Noel?

Yes, I can hear you now. Right.

Okay. Sorry. Okay, okay. Have we moved on to the next slide, Gail?

Noel, can you move on to the next slide? I don't have control.

Of course.

Okay. So look, we note the disclaimer in terms of any future forward-looking numbers. Okay. Very much looked at growth return during this period. We had a 24% revenue growth in the first half of the year over the first half year-over-year of 2022, significantly signed a large new customer in LATAM, in Latin America, their largest airline. And we're on plan to activate that customer in Q4 of this year, and I'll talk a little bit about that later on. We successfully and importantly renewed 4 of our existing customers, Air China, Air Transat, Edelweiss and JetBlue. And they have, in addition to being renewed for an additional 5 years, have also moved to a fully service -- or Software as a Service, the SaaS, transaction-based contracts, which include board license and transaction-based revenue. Some of our growth in this period came from that, but obviously, these contracts only kicked in, in the latter part of this period. But we did see that come in towards the latter end of the period, as I said, and obviously, augurs well for the second half for 2024. We continue to make strong progress towards our activations, which are really important for the second half of the year, and they're very much earmarked around Q4. And based on that, we're comfortable with maintaining the 15% year-on-year growth, which ties in exactly to what we said in the Capital Markets Day in London in May. And we're really reiterating a lot of the things that we said on that day, and the first 6 months of this year kind of ties into that. Obviously, during this period as well, costs were front-loaded as we put investment into services to build the activations, in a sense to build out to get the rental fee. That all happened in the 6-month period. And so with that, let me hand over to Noel, as I said, our acting CFO, who will go through the numbers in a little bit more detail.

Thank you, Sean. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. As Sean previously mentioned, Datalex is delighted to report a 24% revenue increase for the first half of 2023, totaling $12.9 million during this period. Concurrently, we're reporting a 30% rise in total operating costs amount to $18 million. This has, in turn, led to a reduction in gross margin, which shifted from 30% in H1 2022 to 23% in H1 2023. Furthermore, we reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of $3.1 million, representing an increase compared to prior period's loss of $2.1 million. However, we interpret this as a positive sign for future growth as these cost increases are primarily linked to activation projects that benefit both our existing and new customers and which I will elaborate on later. Finally, we closed the period with $2.9 million in cash, showing a slight increase from the $2.7 million balance on June 30, 2022, and an increase in outstanding debt from $1.3 million on June 30, 2022, to $12.8 million as of June 30, 2023. To recap our performance, we are pleased to report a substantial 24% revenue growth for H1 2023, totaling $12.9 million. This growth was significantly influenced by our expansion of activation service projects, catering to both existing and new customers. Favorable macro trends, including increased market traffic across most regions, also played a crucial role in our performance. Our platform revenues reached $6.3 million, indicating a 7% increase from H1 2022, attributed to the recovery in the Chinese market and heightened market activity in various regions following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions. The primary driver of our revenue growth was services revenue, which reached $6.1 million, making a 61% increase from H1 2022, primarily due to activation of new customers and existing clients' continued investments in technology post-COVID. As mentioned at the top, we are reporting an adjusted EBITDA loss of $3.1 million, which is an increase compared to the prior period's loss of $2.1 million. This shift is primarily attributed to the increase in service revenue, which has subsequently impacted our gross margin and EBITDA due to associated personnel costs. It's essential to understand that we interpret our situation as a positive indicator of future growth as it aligns with our strategy to drive higher-margin platform revenue, particularly as we continue to onboard new customers. Switching to our cash position. Our closing balance as of June 30, 2023, stood at $2.9 million, showing a slight increase from the $2.7 million balance this time last year, but a decrease from the $6.5 million cash balance at the end of December 2022. In addition, we are delighted to announce that on September 14, 2023, the group secured an additional credit facility with Tireragh Limited referred to as Facility C, providing access to an additional $5 million in funding for the group. As of date of this report, we have drawn down $13 million from these credit facilities. The Board is actively exploring fundraising options to support our ongoing business expansion and to meet our debt facility obligations as they mature. Thank you for your attention, and I'll now turn it back over to Sean.

Thank you, Noel. And just to wrap this up then, we're very conscious that this is the first half numbers for the year. We're actively involved in the second half as I speak. A couple of key kind of priorities. One is on the key customers' go-live. As of today, we continue to progress on the activation projects in line with the customer time lines. And as I said previously, they are on plan to go live. And there's 2 customers in particular, LATAM and easyJet, that we go live in the October and November periods, respectively. They continue to be on plan. If there's any hesitation is that we're on plan. They have to keep consistent with, I guess, the customer timing, and they also need to be ready. And as I speak, they are very much on plan with their requirements and/or delivery to those requirements and those kind of time slots that you get from customers to make these installations in enterprise software. The second key priority is to continue with our strong sales activity and to announce a new customer win in the second half of the year. And again, that will happen in the Q4 time frame and to continue that activation, that customer win and then leading to activation process going into the 2024 time line. As you remember in the Capital Markets Day that we talked about in May in London, we very much talked about all these things coming together in the 2024 time line. And what we've announced today in terms of board activations and the strong services revenue in Q1 all lead to that assertion being true and our confidence on that assertion remaining very strong. The third key priority in -- on this time frame is to transition from myself, Sean Corkery, as the CEO of Datalex for the last 4 years over to Jonathan Rockett, who will be joining us as the new CEO on November 6. Jonathan and I have already started our transition process. And obviously, that will accelerate when he joins on the 6th of November officially. And that continues to be well planned, well documented and going very well at this point in time. So in summary, look, 6 months is not a long time in business. What we announced this morning in terms of growth being back is exactly as we expected. As part of what we said in London, as I say, it augurs well for the rest of this year and into 2024. Costs were kind of front-end loaded. As I said, you need to build a house before you can get the rent, and that is exactly where we are. With that, I would like to thank you for attending and wish you the best for today and a good weekend. I have no doubt we'll be talking to many of you separately on different calls over the next couple of days. So thank you very much.