Hansen Technologies Limited (HSN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Hansen Technologies Limited First Half '24 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Andrew Hansen. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the first half '24 results presentation. A little bit disjointed today, guys. I'm actually sitting over in Germany with the powercloud acquisition. But on the other end, back in Australia, I've got Graeme Taylor, our CEO; Richard English, our CFO; and Peter Beamsley, our Investor Relations on call, if need be, if we have any technical issues. So look, I'd probably like to just go through the agenda of today and a few housekeeping matters. If we do have any technical issues today and may be a short break or if need be, the guys here will actually take over. Look, we've got a bit of a busy agenda. So I will move through the slides as quickly as possible. We think we've been fairly comprehensive in the data which we've gotten in the system today and certainly very proud of the results which we're actually putting forward. I think it's probably worthwhile, I know that everyone's got a lot of interest in powercloud since the announcement a week ago. So I think what I'd probably like to do is just to discuss at the very start about powercloud. It's actually coincided with the acquisition of the business. E-World, which is the German electricity market fair has been taking place this week where there's hundreds of exhibitors and then a fantastic opportunity for me and some of the Hansen executive to be on the stand with powercloud today. Hence, my voice is quite quirky because what a great opportunity of meeting so many customers and so many partners on the one day. So that's gone really, really well. So look, just to talk a little bit about powercloud and just powercloud just go -- just back some of the highlights and business. I think, firstly, just to point out, the M&A activity is not actually slow, to be honest with you, with powercloud. We know our balance sheet and certainly the company bench should be able to integrate other opportunities as we go forward. But there's no doubt that the powercloud business and their applications, joining our existing suite is just this fantastic opportunity of taking the scale of the Hansen business particularly in the utilities market into the German marketplace. So it's played out exactly what we wanted, and this has been a lengthy gestation as a lot of these things do. But once again, the product suite, which were picked up here in powercloud, we're very, very excited about. I think it's -- powercloud, as we've already pointed out, they certainly have a proven team with very deep energy and IT experience and very much complements our own expertise as we're going forward. Their software is very modern. This is current architecture, it's innovative, et cetera, and being very much designed for the DACH region going forward. We think that what they've been able to achieve in their 10 years of picking up the Tier 1 and Tier 2 customers. But I'd probably just need to emphasize that the market in Germany is yet to adopt and to roll out smart leaders, et cetera. And as you know, people like -- places like Australia have been it for a decade or so. And so the opportunity is what will happen in the German marketplace with us now with powercloud is such a great fit and very excited for the team to actually join the rest of their Hansen colleagues. A little bit on the transaction overview, you'd understand, we bought 100% of the business. We think we've bought the business well at EUR 30 million to buy the business. And we see that the revenues are approximately EUR 24 million to EUR 28 million for the 25 year, and we expect EBITDA accretive in the next financial year. And look, just to explain that, as I did last week, this business is transitioning from that startup sort of phase to that maturity phase. They've certainly been impacted with COVID like a lot of IT companies have at the same time. And over here, where there's been the EU energy crisis and wars, et cetera. So I think what Hansen brings in that high level of maturity. In fact, it was a lot of our conversation I had today with a lot of their customers, which are really looking forward to that Hansen brings -- and brings to the team what we would call that Hansenization. We do have some work to integrate the business back and also their road map of products and offerings to actually be able to deal with the smart leaders and get back to that profitability has all been taken into account. But I think everyone would understand being well reflected in the price we paid for the business. So as we are, guys, everyone on the call, you'd understand we've got proven experience and speed to execution to integrate businesses. This is right in our wheelhouse. This is what we've done every single time before and very similar to what we've done in Enoro in the past to pick up a product in its level of maturity when the market is opening up and how we take advantage of it. So we'll be very, very sure that the Hansen team are already on the ground. We have plans for other people to turn up, and we've got an eager team in the powercloud executive, which are very excited to actually work with us and that global experience that we're actually helping to go forward. I suppose the rationale for buying the business is that strategic rationale. It is probably a new chapter for Hansen, certainly that growth innovation phase. And that continued excellence for Hansen, 600-plus customers in the marketplace, which we deal with. We think certainly joining forces with powercloud just deepens that whole scale and scope of the utility sector for Hansen globally. And certainly, our presence in what is the DACH market in Germany in particular. But certainly the skill set of the powercloud team is just first rate and their products. But I think also the powercloud key product suite, along with our products. A lot of the conversation I was having with customers today was where we're thinking of cross-selling by bringing a CPQ and Catalog MDM, some of our other product offerings were very, very well received by customers. And as I pointed out earlier, what chance do you do on day 7 of ownership, where you can actually meet with 20 customers and 5 partners, et cetera. You don't normally get this opportunity. Certainly we think that we paid a really compelling price for the business and people will be the judge of that. But the last number of years during COVID, prices have probably not been to in the where Hansen thinks they should be paid. So we think we've bought it well, and it has allowed for the investment we've made in the business and the investment we'll make over the next 18 months as we return the business to Hansen's standard processes. They've got a large amount of R&D, but we have rigors around R&D. And we once again had lots of conversations with customers today about our approach to R&D and how we have a 5-year view and how we bring it back to 12 months. Once again, all these things were all things which was music to everyone's year, lots of synergies between the business as we have here. And as we know, we -- in most of our business, our corporate services is all the standards we bring and to apply to all of our businesses globally. It is a perfect acquisition for Hansenization and the willingness of the team here to look to adopt some of that maturity. And I know that some of our lead executives, which will -- are on the ground now and over the next month as we do and to train people up -- as we point that many times, we don't run our business with expats, we give them systems and we give processes so that we can actually then go on to the next task ahead of us. And that's worked. And that's why we only have, to this data in fact, one expat who's roaming around our business actually working on their integration. We already are in the German marketplace. We already have MDM. We have 70-odd customers via reseller. And so this is the first time that we can actually look at how we best address our existing customer base, including also on the German marketplace where we have Telefonica. And Telefonica has already reached out to us and congratulating us, even though it's a different energy sector, but they see the logic and the synergies of what actually Hansen's doing it. We certainly feel that our view and our thesis is running through the business. We think that the Hansenization process, the product rollout the whole meter of the cash and getting ready for smart leaders will probably see about a $20 million investment to build out the product and Hansenization to what it is. But we're very confident we will be EBITDA accretive in financial '25. I think our track record in doing these things is great confidence. And as I pointed out at the very start of this that we're actually looking at other opportunities at the moment now, and we don't feel there's limitation to our capacity to take other opportunities on at the moment. I'm currently in Germany, and I'll spend a little more time here, but we've already placed John May, one of our lead executives in the company who is currently over here, who's done this many times before, globally for us in helping to integrate the business and bringing the right operations and legal and HR to help with the business. We certainly want to bring Hansen ethos into the powercloud. And what we've noticed is every time we've bought a business we just -- it's just common sense and it's music to everyone's is and they just understand what we've got to say. And I think that when we explained to our view that we want to be end-to-end, we want to be what's called a leader the cash. And that's certainly aspirations they want. And we have a number of modules across Hansen that we can actually bring to actually mature their offering sooner rather than later. And that was actually great today because some of their larger customers have great interest in what Hansen is able to offer in MDM, meta connection, trading systems, et cetera. So we'll continue to be on site here, but we would expect that some of the things we bring to the table is once again, it seems like we're here 24 hours a day, -- we've got operations around the world. We run programs inside the company around thought leadership. We run programs in that innovation and recovery. And just experiences that we can help them out, and there was a number of conversations today about smart meters and some of our learnings from our last 20 years of operation, which will continue to play out going forward. Certainly, the combined group, we certainly see the benefits of that market expansion with IP and talent. We've got a lot of people here in powercloud, not in to learn, but how they can actually understand what they can do in the greater Hansen business. We certainly have greater resources to assist in R&D and the portfolio development. As a lot of the callers, the listeners on the call today would understand some of our work through India and Vietnam and in South America is also good where we can actually help with resourcing going forward. But we're expecting the same level of excellence across all of our customers and lack of churn we have and security we have with our customers to play out into the powercloud business as soon as possible. So guys, that's where we are with powercloud. That gives a little bit more color to what the plan of Hansen and powercloud is. I can just keep saying we're very excited about the opportunity. And I think hence my voice is going bad because all I've done is been -- is talking to people and customers all day long. Just to move forward now, it's probably worthwhile we talked about the first half. And so, look, before I hand over to Richard, just to run through some of the key highlights of the first half of the year. Look, we've seen exceptional organic growth in the business. I think the numbers stand for that at the moment now. We've acquired powercloud, and we know we're exploring further opportunities. I think we've offset in the financial '23, the emissions, which is another new initiative, which I know our staff are buying into at the moment now. December were net cash positive and even with our most -- very comfortably leveraged in our business with further acquisitions. I think of a note of technology, someone sometimes questions our technology guys. Across the board, our technology is market-leading and proven by TM Forum, which is 1 of only 8 global vendors to attain ready for open digital architecture, which is the most modern architecture out there. And we're very proud of the awards we're winning for that innovation, which we're doing with their software development, et cetera. And certainly, this all reflects in that customer first approach, which we have to our business and that customer loyalty which we actually receive. Going forward, I think from a revenue point of view, 12.5% growth is not to be sneezed at. EBITDA margin of 31.1% whilst some of our costs are coming back into our business, still staying above our long-term 25% to 30%, we're still staying above 30%, et cetera. NPAT increased by 12.5%. Once again, we've always had this ability of providing our own working capital, paying dividends and also paying down debt and challenge and other people to find companies, which have that similar ability to what Hansen has actually done. Basic EPSa is at $0.135, up 11.5%, 11.8% compared to the [indiscernible] and net cash positive of $8 million. So it's a great opportunity. I've been at the helm here for 30-odd years but as a listed company from 2000. It makes us proud to go from strength to strength every year to systematic growth, underlying profitability, but cash generation where we can reward our shareholders with dividends. You'd also provide all the working capital. It's a great credit to everyone sitting inside Hansen to be able to work alongside me and grow the business as we do. So on that basis, and before my voice goes, Richard, can I pass over to you to go through some of the financials in detail, please.

Thanks, Andrew, and welcome, everybody again to the call. I think you can understand the -- and you can hear the excitement in Andrew's voice over there in Germany. It's been an exciting 10 days for Hansen with powercloud joining the Hansen family, a great asset and one that we've been looking at for quite some time. So really pleased to bring them into the family and report on them in the coming months. Look, I won't spend a lot of time on financials. You've all probably read the pack. But first up, revenue. This is a record first half for us, $167.7 million, strong growth of 12.5% and with some tailwinds coming in at 9.2% growth on a constant currency basis. It's worth pointing out that last year in the first half, for those that follow Hansen, obviously it was slightly softer than the second half last year. So we're expecting the second half to be a similar number to the first half. But more broadly, when you're looking at a half-on-half comparison, we're particularly pleased with the growth rates that we're displaying here. Underlying EBITDA, over the journey, Hansen's talked to margins of 25% to 28%. And of course we had the 3-year period of the pandemic, there was some restructuring. There was some global changes going on and our margins were slightly elevated. We have talked to guiding to plus 30%. And of course, in the first half, we've delivered 31.1%, which we think is a great result. It's also exactly where we had forecast and budgeted the business to be. So no surprises from outside. The second half, and Andrew will talk to this a little later on, there will be a slight softening in the margin due to a combination of both wage increases going through in September and also a split of license fees in the first half versus the second half. But overall, 31.1%, we're particularly pleased with that. And then underlying NPATA up 12.5% half-on-half. We've talked previously about building back our bench in the business, and we now have a full cohort of staff we have for the best part of 12 months. I think one of the points to mention here is around our tax rate. And the effective tax rate at the same time last year was 22.8% and it's up to 25.2% this year, and that's primarily down to the U.K. company tax rate changing from 19% to 24%, which obviously affects our NPATA number. But on a half-on-half basis, up 12.5% we think is a great result. Moving on to earnings per share. We're growing at 10.3% versus the same -- sorry, we're growing 10.3% on a CAGR basis in first half '20. I think if you look at the way we've leveraged our balance sheet over the journey, we deliver shareholder value by having strong cash generation, the ability to pay down debt and then borrow against that. The view for us is acquisitions are best funded via debt at a first stage and then obviously, equity as a second stage. And we're in a position now where our balance sheet is in such a strong state that even with the recent acquisition of powercloud, our leverage ratio is significantly below 1, and we have plenty of firepower to do further acquisitions in the future. So you can see the earnings per share there of 13.3%. Net cash, so normally we talk to net debt, and it's pleasing to talk to a net cash position of $8 million for the first half. So obviously we had some strong results. We handed back just over $9.5 million to our shareholders by way of dividend. And we also had a $10 million working cap build up in the first half, which I'll talk to a little later. Despite all that, we are now in a net cash position of $8 million. Obviously the powercloud acquisition does change that, and we'll update everybody on that in due course. But like I said earlier, there's no significant change to our leverage ratio. We are comfortably well and really under 1. Dividend per share, another $0.05 dividend. This, for us, reflects a lot of confidence in the existing Hansen business. And you just heard Andrew talk about paying a certain price for powercloud and then some investment required to get that business to where we want it to be. Despite that investment, we're happy to hand back some more shareholder returns to our shareholders via the way of a dividend. And we think that reflects really strongly on the existing Hansen business with strong cash flows and predictable revenue streams. I think over the journey, we've returned now $85 million to our shareholders in the last 4 years, so a great result. And to be honest, in the last 4 years, we've returned over $230 million to both our banks and our shareholders. So it reflects well on the existing Hansen business. Financial overview. So at the full year results last year, we gave everybody a bit more transparency into our revenue stream. So I won't go through in as much detail as last time. But what's important here is to understand that all of the revenue streams, there is predictable steady growth rates in Support and Maintenance, which is our backbone of the business. Every customer requires Support and Maintenance to run our software. That's up 11.7% half-on-half, which is a really strong trajectory. Across all regions, you can see a steady uptick in the Support and Maintenance revenue. And we rely on that revenue for a whole host of reasons, but it does provide a backbone to support further investment in the business. Services revenue. This is a bit of an interesting one for us because depending on where upgrades are or implementations are around the world, this will always move by region. We have a global workforce that we're balancing out our demand across the world based on what we have going on. And you can see here that Asia Pacific is clearly a growth region in this half, up 73% versus the same half last year. We've got some significant upgrades underway here. What that means is there will be obviously more upgrades and implementations in other parts of the world. But for now, and it's all around juggling our resources as best we can. We've got some really strong growth in Asia Pacific. Our license revenue is one that the analysts are always focused on because it can move our margin somewhat. And you can see here that we've had some material licenses land in the first half of $19.6 million. And it's very, very important to mention here that this was entirely expected. We had this budgeted. These are existing customers rolling on to new contracts. There's no sort of surprises or one-off adjustments here. This is a standard business for Hansen. We've had good growth over the last 4 years. We're up 9.2% on a CAGR basis. I think it's worth pointing out that the second half will be softer. We think licenses will be around the $13 million to $15 million mark in the second half, delivering license revenues of about $33 million to $35 million for the full year. Finally, on customer diversity. One of the real strengths of Hansen apart from having diversity across different regions and verticals is just that we don't have all of our eggs in one basket with 1 or 2 customers. And you can see that the largest customer represents only 8% of our revenue. They're a very, very satisfied customer. They've been with us for a very long time, and we continue to do some substantial pieces of work with them as they go through a bit of a digital transformation themselves. Turning on to the next slide, revenue by vertical. And this one is a slight departure from what people have seen over the last few years. The energy growth is up 23% versus the same time last year. Energy is a very, very exciting space. And you've heard about this a lot from Andrew on previous calls that we've had that there is a significant digital transformation underway around the world. And a lot of that is being led out of EMEA, which has been a growth area for us. But in all parts of the world, we are now seeing a whole host of our existing customers and new customers looking to do more with their software to deliver better benefits for their customers. So you'll see here that energy is significantly up. Comps are slightly down from a group perspective and also half-on-half. But look, the reality is that the comp space ebbs and flows depending on implementations we have underway, new logos, et cetera. We do anticipate this split by vertical will increase because, of course, powercloud is now part of the stable of the energy sector. So in the short term, the revenues will be skewed towards energy. In the bottom section, revenue by region, again great diversification, modest fluctuations as I discussed, off the back of implementations and juggling our global workforce. Clearly, EMEA is the exciting part of the group. You can see some big numbers there. And once we roll in the powercloud business, which we own as of last Monday, you'll start to see even more revenue coming out of a very, very exciting region. [Audio Gap] right, I've talked to support maintenance, up 11.7%, which is fantastic. Services revenue up 5%. So excluding licenses, the group is running at an 8.2% year-on-year growth rate, which we think is right where we had expected it to be and have no surprises to us whatsoever. So all in all, from a financial standpoint on the revenues, we're very, very comfortable at the split of revenues and the diversification. If I move on to cash flow. This is always one of our favorite charts to talk to because people know Hansen is a very, very cash-generative, profitable business that generates very strong cash flows. And again, we've got some strong cash coming through the door. Firstly, drawing your attention to an underlying nonrecurring item of $3.3 million. This has been a long-term planned exit from a talent center in Asia Pacific. It's been 4 years in the making. It's been a seamless transition as we've moved a lot of the knowledge across to both our very large centers in India and in Vietnam. Moving on to working capital. You can see a buildup there of $10.7 million. That relates primarily to a very significant upgrade that is ticking along, running to plan. The only reason we've got the $10 million buildup here is around contractual timing of when revenue can be recognized versus when it can be built and collected. Based on our schedule that will be unwinding throughout this calendar year, and we expect the full $10 million to be collected by December 2024. I think if you move further down the page, you can look at interest on debt and tax, which is a big number. And tax paid this year is $9 million versus $4.2 million at the same time last year. There's nothing to read into this. We had some refunds last year. There's always timing issues. And of course, there's been some tax losses that we've utilized in prior periods that we don't have now. And of course, it underlines our tax rate right now, which is slightly over 25%. All in all, free cash flow of $18.3 million to then distribute $9.3 million to our shareholders and approximately $16.6 billion to our banks. Finally, on to capital and market performance. And again, I don't want to spend too much time talking to cash generation, but you can see here when we bought the Sigma business, which is probably our most successful acquisition to date, we had debt of $186 million in Hansen. We're now down to $37 million. We've paid down 80% over the last 4.5 years. That's about $150 million that's been returned to our banks. So we're in a great spot to do more acquisitions. I know Andrew will talk to M&A a little later, but there's a lot happening in the space, and we've certainly got the firepower and the balance sheet to support us. We also have some very, very supportive banks and a shout-out to our banks who were great in supporting us through the recent acquisition with powercloud. I wont go through EPS growth or borrowing levels on the right. But in terms of NPAT, we have a fairly strong view on balancing our returns to shareholders versus ensuring that we have sufficient capital and firepower to do further acquisitions and also to invest in our products. The product is the backbone of the course of our business, and we continue to focus on investing in that, whilst balancing out some money back to our shareholders. So all in all, guys, I'm thrilled with the results. I know Andrew and Graeme are as well. And on that note, I'll pass over to Graeme to talk about AI and of course, our product road map.

Thanks, Richard. Look, first of all, let me start by adding my congratulations to the M&A team who have obviously brought a long-awaited acquisition into the fold and it's great to see the level of excitement that that's generating. And of course, no, I think Andrew and Richard will agree, one of the strong aspects of Hansen is the people we have to be able to take on responsibility for new business and to bring all of those skills to play very, very quickly. So whilst Andrew has run out of voice over there, it's been a very important period to get the Hansen brand in front of those powercloud customers and have them understand what we truly bring to the table. I mean moving into our core business just for a moment and talking about a very important thing, and that's our ongoing investment in products. The first half of the year has seen us have to divert some resources into our customers and other areas. There's opportunities that presented themselves. And so whilst there's been a bit of slowing in our product investment over the period, rest assured that we remain very much on track to where we want to be and intend to be. This is a little bit of the ebbs and flows that we experienced in our business as we deploy our resources effectively. And so I fully expect and understand that we'll be continuing to accelerate that investment in the second half as we continue to develop and keep our products very, very customer focused and delivering into that road map that really addresses our customer needs. Of course, we're seeing some great success as we take products and develop them for new markets like Germany. And this investment will continue throughout the rest of Hansen's history and will remain very strongly customer-focused. From a more broader point of view, talking about our products. I think Andrew mentioned earlier that our recent awards at the TM Forum in and around our open digital architecture is significant on many fronts, being open and offering an opportunity for customers to interface other aspects into our software quite seamlessly I think is something that's very, very important and continues to drive the way we look to service our customers. It also is evident [indiscernible] when I talk to the AI aspects of our business. So I think one of the other things that we've been able to achieve now is you'll recall us talking to our configure price quote and catalog offerings in the telecommunications sector, and it's been after significant development that we've been able to bring that product into the energy sector. And of course you've heard Andrew talk earlier about the excitement that the German market has as they start to understand the Hansen product suite and how that might be deployed into the German market. We recognize that industries are changing very, very rapidly. And this is why both from an R&D point of view and our product development, we're very, very focused on what our customers want and how they see their business evolving. Very, very important to remain relevant in this market. And this is something that Hansen continues to accelerate. Moving on to AI very quickly. This is obviously one very exciting area where a lot of investment is going in. And Hansen has many irons in the AI fire, but we're very focused once again on our customers. And so that open architecture and our ability to work with customers to be able to utilize a great variety of AI tools available in the market is where one-pronged our focus has been. Internally, we also have introduced a whole lot of AI tool sets into our development teams. And that's an ongoing program that involves training, utilization of the software. And of course, it has many benefits. When you're taking that mundane code punching factor out or a mundane testing aspect and handing that over to some artificial intelligence, it does generate a higher quality in the software outcomes as well as quite more significant testing allowing product and code to be released much more effectively into the market. So I think that we are very, very happy with the progress we're making with respect to our AI integration. And it will be continuing in our business for every day moving forward because this is such a dynamic technology that we will continue to embrace. So look, I think very exciting times across the board for Hansen. And certainly one of the things that I see as CEO here is the depth of talent that exists within this business. And certainly, it's great to hear that Hansen has been out there shaking hands with our friends at powercloud and that their technical knowledge is as strong as Hansen's because it's that investment that we've made in our people that will see us to integrate that business seamlessly. It will also see Hansen with a great deal of ability to continue to look and enhance its operations through further M&A. On that note, Andrew, I'll pass back to you, and hopefully, your voice has had enough of a rest to close out our presentation.

Thanks, GT. Thanks for that part of the presentation. And so certainly, look, just moving on to probably M&A part of Hansen's thesis going forward. Certainly we don't want to keep on dwelling on powercloud [indiscernible] now the proof is in the pudding. But -- and certainly we've not stopped our search. We're probably more impressed that we can buy quality assets coming back at more reasonable prices at the moment now. So we have not stopped our search. And I think we're pretty keen that we'll stay true to our thesis of how we look to buy business, which actually remain very much core to what we actually do, owning IP, Tier 1, Tier 2 certainly in the billing and the space in both the communications and the energy marketplace. These conversations take a long time. But the powercloud conversation was probably 12 months, and we kept that under wraps and did the deal which we actually did. We have a founder-led type mentality and people understand that this is I'm spending shareholders' money, I'm spending my own money and said that we don't want to be wasting our money and our time going forward. So I think M&A is looking much, much better for us at the moment now and price is coming back. But as we've been saying for the last 4 years, we're still looking at things all the time. We're doing DD, but we're only going to do the ones which really excite us that we know we can make a difference and those which are doing a long-term strategic fit into our business. Hansenization has always been good to us and proven a process which we can actually take via language and cultures around the world. And I've got a team ready to go. So the M&A guys continue to look at acquisitions now because the operational team is now running off with powercloud. So we look forward in the near future to be able to probably even talk about more M&A opportunities for the shareholders of Hansen going forward. At this point of time is guidance, where is guidance for the year. As you can imagine, the -- it will take us a bit of time to integrate the powercloud business. And you can look at powercloud in a number of different ways. We've been very open about the way in which we've actually bought the business and the need for investment in the business, but we think it's been so well reflected. There's no way Hansen could enter the German marketplace, write some software and win that many customers, it would cost us tens and tens of millions of dollars. And to be able to do it in one fair sweep is just fantastic. So I think what we want to do is actually just talk about a little bit more color of the year. So we've given some breakdown there before we integrate the business on where we think the business is going to be sitting there. So we think that revenue growth for the guidance is still 5% to 7% for business going forward with above 30% EBITDA for Hansen. We know that powercloud will provide in this next 6 months between $16 million to $18 million worth of revenue. When underlying EBITDA will probably be between minus $7 million and $8 million. So it will give us a combined revenue growth for the year of 11% to 13%, which is very strong organic growth and inorganic growth and underlying EBITDA with the powercloud adjustment back of 26%. So we do have a clear roadmap to profitability. We're not fools when we buy these things, and we will prove that in no time at all. So wish to thank everyone for listening in to the presentation. I hope a little bit more color in the powercloud acquisition has helped people understand the rationale of what we're actually doing here and also the great results we've done for the first half of the year. So on that basis, more than happy to -- between myself, Richard and Graeme or Peter to answer any questions someone has. So I'll hand it back to the moderator. And if we have any questions, feel free to ask. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Today's first question comes from Chris Gawler with Goldman Sachs.

Just a couple of questions on the guidance and then one on powercloud quickly. So you're still pointing to around that $34 million mark for licenses for the full year. Just picking that apart, it implies that the base business, excluding licenses, is relatively flat half-on-half and year-on-year before FX. Just wanted to get just some further color around that? Is it timing of project implementations and I guess, what the outlook is into '25.

Yes, Chris, thanks for the call and the first question. Mate, there's a few things going on. Of course, I mentioned before around juggling a global workforce with implementation in Asia Pacific, et cetera. You're quite right. There's a bit of a balance between the first half and the second half. I wouldn't read anything more into it than that. We are planning to come out with guidance, of course, for FY '25 in August. But probably between now and then there might be an update as well on the powercloud acquisition. So we'll keep the market informed as to how this year is going, but also next year as well.

Sure. And then just on the margin side of things. I just wanted to clarify that you mentioned that you expect the EBITDA margin to decline sequentially in the second half. And yes, just interested in a bit more color around what's driving the cost base increases here?

Yes. Look, I did say the margin is coming back a touch. It's still within our guidance of plus 30%. A lot of that is driven by license fees. As everybody knows, they typically drop straight to the bottom line in terms of margin accretion. So naturally you'll see licenses are stronger in the first half versus the second half, you will see some margin dilution from that. The second thing is every single year we have wage increases going through in September. So you get the full 6-month impact of that for the second half of '21 as well.

Sure. And then last question for me on the powercloud business. So it's obviously losing a bit of money at the moment, you've got a clear strategy to pull costs out of that business and get it back up to profitability. I just wanted to clarify your comment around it being EBITDA accretive within FY '25 and confirm whether that's on a run rate basis during FY '25 or for the full financial year?

Yes. So just to clarify, that is on a run rate basis. So the new year is starting only 3 or 4 months from now. So there's a bit of work to be done that we expect at some stage throughout FY '25, the business will be earnings accretive.

And our next question comes from Josh Kannourakis with Barrenjoey.

First one just on powercloud. Just a point of clarification. So on the acquisition, you noted that the purchase price was about actually 17 million and then you put $13 million of working capital into the business. So is the way that we should look at this that effectively you are putting -- the 30 million is effectively offsetting the cash impacts of the losses until you can get it to breakeven. And maybe just to give us a bit of context around that.

Yes, I can talk to that, Josh. So look, the agreed enterprise value was EUR 30 million. And what we've done here is injected some capital to both support in the short term with the R&D road map. And there is some cash burn over the coming months as we have disclosed in the guidance. That also gives us the working capital to provide some runway into FY '25 and enhances the business and continue with that road map journey that Andrew talked about before.

Got it. So maybe just clarifying that though, and you mentioned the sort of $20 million of investment in that business. How should we look at that profile, both in terms of, I guess, you've talked about the EBITDA, but maybe in terms of, I guess, the capitalization profile just from a cash flow perspective as well.

Yes. Look, Josh, we've owned the business for 6 or 7 days. So what we're doing is indicating to the market that we will be spending some more money on this business. We think it's a great price that we paid and worthy of investing not only the initial working capital but a further $20 million at some stage. We've got a team of executives landing on the ground and some that are already there, assessing the spend of our investment over the next 3 to 6 months and we can give an update accordingly.

Got it. And so the business, I guess, you mentioned that progressive sort of profitability profile. But as you look at it structurally in terms of gross margins and the like of the business, do you think this is a business that can get back up to hands on like margins or above?

Look it's early days, Josh. But look, it's an amazing market to get into. It's now the third biggest economy in the world. They do have market-leading software. I know that you've reported in the past that it is one of the platforms around the world that's very well known. So we think it's absolutely worthwhile investing in the business. It's early days, but Hansen has a long track record of buying businesses at compelling prices and then turning them into Hansen metrics over time.

And our next question comes from Lafitani Sotiriou with MST Financial.

3 questions, if I may. The first is I just want to clarify on Slide 18 in the presentation. Just with the license revenue, there's a comment there around the IFRS 15 revenue recognition. There's some -- I think you know that certain contracts require upon recognition for licenses. Can you just add a little bit more color? Like is there a dollar figure that's been recognized in this period? And how has that changed?

Yes, the dreaded IFRS 15 accounting standard. So this is something that we've been complying with for over 5 years, Laf, and there's no change in the way that we treat our license revenue. It's based on a performance obligation when the license has been delivered to a customer, and we recognize a portion of that license upfront in all cases, and then there's an allocation towards Support and Maintenance for the duration of the contract. So there's nothing in the first half that is unusual or inconsistent with the prior 4 or 5 years in the way we treat license revenue.

Got it. The next question is in relation to the R&D capitalization program. I just want to reconcile the existing guidance, which is the last result of 5% to 7% of revenue being spent in FY '24 with the additional $20 million spend. I know not all of it will fall in financial year '24, but some of it will be for the acquisition. So can you just talk us through, we've now got a net expectation above the 5% to 7% of revenue for financial '24? Or how should we reconcile the 2 separate guidance?

Sorry. Look, I'll just start from an operational point of view, it's Graeme Taylor. I think what we're seeing here is from the Hansen side of things, we're a bit slow out of the gate in the first half, and we will make up some ground on our particular products in the second half of the year. I think turning to powercloud obviously we are looking and assessing how they're spending R&D at the moment. And certainly our initial reaction is that we'll bring the disciplines to that business that we have here with a view to making sure that R&D and investment in the product is continued but very focused, a, on the customer outcomes; and b, on a return on investment. So part of that ongoing investment that Richard has spoken to will definitely be R&D. Some of it will be just returning the business to profitability. And obviously you have to make an investment to do that. So when you balance that with the price we paid for the business, we're quite happy that there's going to be some good shareholder returns in the not-too-distant future.

Can I just clarify? So you still anticipate at the group level, excluding the acquisition to fall within the 5% to 7% guidance that was previously…

We're probably slightly short of that initial guidance is my reaction where we are now just because of the way we've had to divert resources in the first half. So it will be a little slower than first thought, but not materially so.

Okay. And so then the extra $20 million into R&D restoring profitability may be a mix of R&D and other one-off costs. And so just to follow up on, I think it was Josh's question, can you clarify, like is there going to be an anticipated broader understanding of what the run rate R&D will be for the powercloud business? Will it be [indiscernible] is it 5% to 7% of revenue?

Thanks for the question. It's like I said before, it's early days. We know enough about the product to know that we wanted to buy it. But in terms of the road map, the disciplines involved in executing R&D in Germany, we will bring them under our disciplines and our assessment and ROI, which everybody knows is very, very tight. So we can't give you a clear guide on the R&D for the powercloud investment yet, but we will do in due course.

All right. Got it. And final question just on the guidance for EBITDA accretion within financial year '25. Within that guidance, are you assuming any revenue growth occurring from financial year '24? So what is the actual '24 number? Like is it up or down based on your guidance? Or is it relatively…

So the FY '24, we've given guidance on where we think powercloud's revenue is. So we bought a business that is in a growing market, and Andrew talked to the rolling out of smart meters. So you would think there are plenty of opportunities to expand and grow in the region. Again, we've owned the business for a week. We will give an update in due course. But we're not buying that business to see it go backwards, that's for sure.

And our next question comes from Nicolas Burgess with Ord Minnett.

Just a couple of further follow-ups on powercloud. So you've given us some detail around the cost of integration and that sort of thing. But clearly, you're after quite a significant amount of synergies in the short period of time to achieve that sort of breakeven result. So perhaps you can give us a little bit more color on sort of the top 1 or 2 immediate initiatives that are going to deliver the bulk of those savings and that profitability. Is it as simple as shrinking the footprint, the physical footprint of powercloud or other things?

Nick, I might actually throw to Andrew to make sure he's still awake over there. He's on the ground. He's probably best placed to talk to the first 90 to 120 days.

Yes. Nick, look, a good question, Nick. But to tell you the truth, one of the tasks we're doing there is doing a reconciliation of what the effort of the company is against what the delivery aspects have to be. So one of the things you're trying to put together very quickly is a PMO, project management office, which when we quickly reconcile every bit of work the company does these are Hansen disciplines where we measure the productivity of the team, we measure it by hour, et cetera. It's a bit too early to say, I probably wouldn't want to say on the call at the moment now. But this is all about throughput. This is not about fixing things with numbers. This is actually about having probably focused. And we will be calling meetings with most of our customers soon to try and understand their own expectations of the business. So a combination of things. You know the way these things work, Nick, there's the 2 levers in any business. We've got our expenses side and the revenue side. We certainly see the revenue upside where the revenues, the number of years are going to come forward with smart meters. Our job is to reset the -- to a steady state inside the businesses what the costs are concerned. Part of that is going to be finish off the R&D, which we've talked to extensively about so far and now sitting at the customers. But we think some of the blended opportunities we have from corporate service, Nick, also add to it. So they're all things which add up very quickly to returning the company to profitability.

Okay. That's helpful. Just a couple of further follow-up questions, just on the nature of the -- some of the costs in the Hansen business before powercloud. So EBITDA margin, you've talked about, Richard, I think, some investment in sales development capability, and that's likely to persist. Can you give us a bit more color on that and the reasons for that?

Yes, Nick, I mean, we've been investing in both account management and sales now for the best part of 2 years. So I don't think there's going to be any more uplift in cost there. But what we've been doing is building back a complement of key staff around the world reporting into our -- well, our Chief Customer Officer and also Head of Sales and growth. And they've been out there looking at opportunities in all parts of the world. So it's not something that just happened this year. We've talked about it last year as well, that we've been building back our sales capacity. And the reason we're doing it is because to the point I mentioned earlier, there is just an awful lot of transformation underway, and we think that we're well placed to capture a big chunk of it.

Okay. And final question. I think there's about $3.3 million of one-off costs that you've taken below the line, which is generally not -- or it's not something you guys do often, I should say. So what were the nature of those costs and why have they been classified as one-off? So that's the exit of a jurisdiction that we've been into the best part of 20 years. And we've been planning it for over 4 years. It's a gradual migration of a talent center, which is becoming a little cost prohibitive and moving it to other areas. So we've got India with 450-odd staff, and Vietnam, which is now nearly 200 staff, and they've taken the knowledge from this center and moved it to a more cost-effective area, but also with plenty more staff in place. So it was becoming a little small to operate on its own and also the cost of running it will be coming a little higher. So yes, it's been planned for a while, no surprises. But the cost to exit that region are not insignificant, but they're certainly not ongoing. So we thought we'd strip it out from a group standpoint.

And our next question comes from Evan Karatzas with UBS.

Okay. So maybe I just wanted to start on powercloud. Can you -- now that you've owned the business, can you talk a bit about the peak valuation of powercloud was? Or I guess what the valuation implied by the General Atlantic investment in 2019 was, please?

Andrew, would you like to talk to this or?

Look, it's always hard. What was the valuation made, it is public record. I don't think it's for us to really to talk about the way they value the business. But it's fair to say they value the business a lot more than what we actually bought the business for. And I think that's probably -- I'd rather not comment on it and make the valuation. This was not a competitive process. There was no banks involved. This was Hansen having direct conversations about why we wanted the business and coming up with a valuation. So I guess, just in end of the day, the price they accepted for the business is the price of the business. But we also had worked through knowing the investment in the business. So you could in effect say we actually -- if we had an advertiser, we bought the business for $60 million, you probably [indiscernible] fantastic deal as well. But the way we've stripped it out and just been very honest with people, maybe some we shoot ourselves in the foot. But, Mate, at the end of the day, the business is worth what we pay for. We just think it's very, very good. And we were lucky to avoid a competitive situation which may have paid many more multiples than what we would have bought the business -- what we did by the business for.

Yes. Okay. Maybe just coming back to the Hansen business. This organic growth of 5% to 7%, just given the long visibility or predictability you have, can you just give any updated thoughts on if this is something that one can continue beyond FY '24 and into FY '25, please?

Evan, we'd love to give you guidance for next year, but we've got a process. We go through a really very extensive budget process every year by region, by product, by project, which we then present to the Board in May and June. So we're going to hold fire on providing guidance for next year.

Okay. Fair enough. And then just on this delayed R&D activities to focus on implementation resulted in less -- it sounds like it will result in less employee benefits capitalized in 2024. Correct if I'm wrong but that assumes more was through the P&L. Can you give an idea of how much that was? Is that going to revert back in the 2H, please.

Sorry, Evan. I just had your mute. Can you just repeat that question? I'm not fairly clear.

That's all right. There was a comment that you've made that said delayed R&D activities to focus on implementations, resulting in less employee benefits capitalized? I assume that was more -- or more than expected was expensed. So yes, sort of the P&L. So can you just give an idea of how much that was and if that should revert back. So I guess, the normalized level in the second half.

Yes. I mean this relates to what Graeme was talking around. We've guided to 5% to 7% of R&D investment, and it's coming in below that and likely to come in slightly below that due to the demand on new logos and upgrades, et cetera. So you can do the math, but we said if you pick a number in the middle and say 6% of revenue was the R&D investment, we're going to come in below that, and that's the amount that's staying on the P&L and has not been capitalized.

Okay. All right. So then the extension to that, you're probably not going to answer this, but then so you've done $94 million of employee costs in the first half. Should that come down then in the second half given that normalization of the R&D?

I think what we do is we show our gross employee cost on a line item, and we actually understand the amount of R&D. So you've got cost that's being deployed into 2 different line items, if you like. I think, yes, the simple answer is you'll see a reallocation, a larger reallocation in future periods as we ramp back up to that higher percentage. But it's -- because it is a combined number in our results. But it is a slower burn currently than we anticipated it would be.

I think the other thing, Evan, is that $94 million of remuneration costs that you're talking to includes the underlying costs for the exit of that jurisdiction. So in the statutory account, it's the $94 million less the $3 million that I talked about before.

And our next question comes from Jules Cooper with Shaw.

Sorry to sort of labor on it, but I just wanted to -- just to understand the purchase price of powercloud, so we get the enterprise value of EUR 30 million, there is a EUR 17 million purchase price and then an initial working capital injection. Just so I'm sort of clear, is that $13 million working capital, like you've sort of alluded to, offsetting the operating losses you see in that business in '24 and potentially a little bit in '25? Or is it that you're settling accounts payable, working capital that have built up in the business that it's sort of like, it's an outflow today. And then you will still incur the operating losses in '24 and '25. Just to sort of clear that up and how we should sort of see it through the accounts would be helpful. And then I've got a follow-up as well.

Yes, Jules, it's Graeme. Jules, I think you got to look at it this way. We bought the business net of cash and net of debt. So it's been necessary to break this up into -- we essentially paid an amount of money for the shares to gain 100% ownership of the business. That was the sort of EUR 7 million, EUR 8 million you're talking to. And then it's been necessary to put some cash into the business to allow it to just continue to trade on a normal monthly cycle as you talk to pay its debts and do other things, payroll and so on and so forth. So we've made an initial -- put initial $13 million into the business and now we're in business of usual mode and continuing on with the program about 100 days to get the business looking more hands-on like. And as Andrew spoke to, that's why he's over there at the moment, meeting customers, partners and so on.

Right. Okay. Excellent. And then just a follow-on to that. You've got $3.3 million of one-offs this period restructuring. What should we think is a reasonable number for the restructuring in the sort of 90 to 120 days for powercloud which I assume would be incurred in the balance of '24.

Mate, I think it's something we're still getting our heads around. We've just owned the business for a short period of time. And I'm sure you understand even though you get involved with doing due diligence and seeing information that the sellers providing. It's really important to do that assessment. There's some very, very talented people within the business. And we want to take the right amount of time to make the right decisions. And so look, it's a bit early for us to start talking to next steps.

Okay. All right. And then just the last one, just on that sort of $20 million of R&D that you sort of think that's what the powercloud business might require. That is incremental to sort of the cost base currently for the business? Or do you sort of see that as being partly funded through your initiatives? Or is that $20 million on top of the current cost price? Is that how we should think about it?

Yes. Look, I think what we've done at this early stage is we've looked to our planning around the integration of this business. We've sort of set aside that order of capital, if you like, because it's important to make sure that we take the right steps. Look, how it ends up playing out, Jules, I guess time will tell. But we've got the business in a position at the moment where it's well-funded and the business can move forward. And as Andrew mentioned, we're going through a program of work that Hansen's renowned for and always delivers an outcome. And so we want to make sure that we're able to strategically invest the capital needed to keep the product moving down the development program that it's on, as well as structure the business appropriately to be integrated and deliver return to shareholders. So it's no more -- no more than that. And I think as we get further into our 100-day plan, the ways we deploy that capital will become very clear.

Yes. Is there sort of a time period which we should think about, that allocation of $20 million? Like is it over a year, maybe over 2 years? Just broad things.

No, to me that's sort of 18 months that will be allocated, that sort of requirement to. And look, there's a lot of water to go under the bridge as I'm sure you understand. So we'll have a lot more clarity at various points when we come back to the market. For example, when we deliver the full year results in a little under 6 months from now, of course we'll have a much greater handle on the program.

I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Hansen and the management team for any closing remarks.

Just before we do, we do have one question online. It comes from [ Paul Middleton ]. The question is what kind of earnings multiple was [indiscernible]. I'll just pass that to Richard.

Paul, thanks for the question. Look, this is a different type of transaction. We've talked about getting it through a compelling price. But what we can tell you is that the revenue multiple is one that is often talked about in the tech market, and it's circa a multiple of 1 versus powercloud's turnover. So we think it's a good price to what we paid. Andrew, are you still with us for closing remarks.

Yes, I'm here guys. I was just waiting, but look thank you, everyone, for listening in, and we look forward to updating you in the future. Thanks for joining.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. We thank you all for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.