iOCO Limited (IOC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So welcome to the iOCO First Half 2025 Results Call. I'm Rhys Summerton. I'm the co-CEO, and I look forward to taking you through the results with Ashona, who is our CFO. So if you just take a look at Slide 3, iOCO clearly has a history and it's got a long history, and it did a lot right and it did a lot wrong. But when we -- and when I say we, I'm talking about Dennis, our co-CEO and myself, when we discovered iOCO in June 2024, we found a group that had a lot of revenue. It was generating ZAR 6 billion of revenue a year, which actually puts iOCO in the top quartile of all revenue generators on the JSE. And yet its market value was in the bottom decile of all companies. So it had a lot of revenue, but not a lot of market cap. So what we had to do is kind of found out how we could get the profitability up because it was loss-making at that point and try and drive the change from being a business with a lot of revenue and no profit to being a business with a lot of profitability. And so Dennis and I set about a three-point strategy to turn iOCO around, but more importantly, to make it a sustainable business going forward. And the first thing we do is cost rationalization or cost cutting. The second is decentralization or what we call radical autonomy. And we look forward to telling you a bit more about that later on. And then the third part is this capital and resource allocation, which I guess is really why I'm here. Now on Slide 4, the key takeaway from that is one of the best decisions we made, Dennis and myself is we brought back Ashona to be the CFO. And that really kickstarted our focus on the cost rationalization. Slide 5, as a reminder, since I've been involved with iOCO, everybody you speak to is very proud to be employed at iOCO, and they actually have a very long history. Many staff members have a long history of being part of iOCO and they're proud of it. And there's a lot to be proud of. It's Level 1 B-BBEE. It has 4,500 people employed, and that's important. And it's also the future of iOCO is linked to the fortunes of South Africa. So if South Africa does well and South Africa needs a tech champion, we think iOCO can actually be one of those South African tech champions going forward. Slide 6 shows you the diversity of the business. iOCO has been through a history of having to dispose of good quality businesses but we're left with some really beneficial and useful businesses, which if managed correctly, can generate significant cash flow for shareholders. And we'll come back to talking about how we're going to manage iOCO going forward. Slide 7, the turnaround. Now these numbers have been achieved by the team, and what it shows is the potential of the group. So although we're only at the halfway stage, EBITDA was up 150%. EBITDA was at ZAR 252 million from only ZAR 97 million last year. But importantly, the number that I want to draw attention to is gross profit. So when you look at gross profit, it's actually a very good measure of how well the business is executing on its -- on contracts. And this gross profit number actually grew in the first half of this year compared to last year. Revenue was down, but some of that was an intentional loss of revenue because, as I said earlier, we had a business that had a lot of revenue, but no profitability. We're in a far better position now with far higher profitability and slightly lower revenue. And now we will hand over to Ashona for our financial review.

Thank you, Rhys. Good day, everybody. We are pleased to report a strong set of interim results. Gross profit grew by 2.8% despite revenue declining by 6.4%. Gross profit is the real measure of our performance due to the year-on-year impact that IFRS revenue recognition has on the revenue line. Gross profit landed on ZAR 823 million. The decline in revenue was largely driven by lower infrastructure and hardware sales, lower contribution from the public sector and variations in net revenue accounted deals recognized under the IFRS accounting standards. It's worth highlighting that hardware deals inherently have a lower gross profit impact due to the deal structure, which mitigated the flow-through effect on overall GP. This period marks a milestone as we have dedicated substantial efforts to achieving efficiency and productivity management across all businesses at a project level as can be seen in the improvement of GP margin. We are also seeing gains from Phase 1 of our turnaround strategy, leading to a reduction of 26.5% in operating expenses. We had a very good quality of earnings with EBITDA growing by 159% to ZAR 252 million. Benefits from the initiatives we implemented have seen us landing strong EBITDA with all the profit margins moving in tandem. We have also managed to reduce our net finance cost from ZAR 59 million in the first half of 2024 to ZAR 48 million in the first half of the current year. Finally, it is pleasing to report that we have turned headline earnings per share around from a loss of ZAR 0.11 in the previous half year to a profit of ZAR 0.19 per share in the current year. Resilience and focus have been central to achieving our current performance in today's competitive landscape. One of the key pillars of our success has been the improvement of working capital and free cash flow generation, strengthening our financial foundation and enabling greater agility and resource allocation. This discipline has positioned us to capitalize on opportunities. Innovation and technology remain essential in today's fast-paced world, with market demand for these high-growth technologies expected to continue. iOCO's commitment has reinforced our reputation as a trusted partner in driving digital transformation. On the international front, our expansion into EMEA, driven by the growth of iOCO has yielded positive results. Our strong international performance underscores our ability to adapt to diverse markets while delivering value to our new and existing client base. From a financial perspective, the bottom line tells a compelling story with increased gross profit and improved margins, coupled with tightly controlled operating costs. We achieved considerable EBITDA growth, reflecting our focus on efficiency and profitability. This slide shows our segmental EBITDA performance. While there have been standout performers within our portfolio, the collective efforts across our businesses, together with corporate cost efficiencies have been a key driver of the overall increase. iOCO Digital has excelled achieving a 54% year-on-year increase in operational EBITDA. This growth is attributed to efficiency and restructuring efforts, enhanced customer delivery and improved cost efficiencies. The performance of Outsourced Knowledge Solutions may show flat revenue growth, but the substantial EBITDA increase demonstrates the impact of solid gross margins and targeted investments in sales capabilities. The Connected Industrial Ecosystem business has improved EBITDA, largely driven by gross margin efficiencies and a focus on growing year-on-year revenue. iOCO International has also delivered strong results with a 31% year-on-year increase in EBITDA, overcoming challenges related to delays in procurement in countries like Egypt. Operating cash flows improved significantly from the prior comparative period. Cash flow generation has been strong, resulting in an overall net cash increase of ZAR 143 million. This was achieved despite significant cash outflows, including capital investment expenditure of ZAR 25 million, tax legacy payments and lease obligations. We concluded the year with a closing cash balance of ZAR 298 million. From a working capital perspective, there was a further improvement in net working capital compared to the comparative period resulting in a reduction of net debt. This was largely a result of an improvement in trade and other payables, but also a reduction in receivable accounts as we reduce the overdue debtors that have impacted our cash flow in the past. This slide shows our consistent reduction in bank term debt since 2023, where debt has been reduced by 50% over the last 2 years. In the current year, progress includes reducing bank term debt from ZAR 644 million to ZAR 613 million, paying ZAR 39 million in interest and ZAR 31 million in capital. These repayments were entirely funded by cash generated from operations, a historic milestone for iOCO as capital repayments were previously reliant on asset disposals. This marks a significant milestone in establishing sustainable financial practices and operational resilience. As mentioned earlier, our term debt interest payments reduced by over 60% since 2023. Notably, the group's overdraft previously utilized to its maximum capacity has seen considerable improvement due to focused efforts on correcting the working capital cycle. This has led to a significant reduction in the daily overdraft utilization across the group. The financial impact is clear. Interest paid on the overdraft dropped from ZAR 22 million in FY '24 to ZAR 6 million in H1 '25. This demonstrates the group's enhanced liquidity position. On the right, you will see the group's history of paying down term debt, where previously proceeds from sale of business and the rights issue were directed at paying down bank debt. Going forward, our capital allocation strategy is to continue repaying legacy debt from cash from operations. From a balance sheet perspective, maintaining strong emphasis on balance sheet health remains a priority for us. Net asset value improved from ZAR 499 million at FY '24 to the current ZAR 616 million. Goodwill held steady at ZAR 570 million as midyear impairment testing revealed that the recoverable amount of cash-generating units exceeded their carrying values. Lease liabilities decreased to ZAR 63 million from ZAR 81 million as of FY '24. This reduction was driven by the exit from buildings deemed no longer necessary. Consequently, lease payments have also declined during the current period. I now draw your attention to our key balance sheet ratios. Annualized return on assets has improved from a negative 5% in the comparative period to 8% as a result of significantly higher profit for the period. Annualized return on equity has also shown an improvement from negative 36% in the comparative period to a positive 40%. Again, this is due to increase in profit for the period. The repayments of debt and overdraft have also positively affected the gearing ratio, which has similarly improved. The improvements to equity through the current period's profitability have also impacted this. I will now hand back to Rhys to discuss our outlook.

Thanks, Ashona. So as we said at the start, we've got a three-stage recovery plan. In the first stage, cost rationalization or cost cutting. The second is decentralization, this radical autonomy approach. And the third is capital and resource allocation. So basically, the rest of this presentation is about what we've done and what we're going to do. So what have we done in Stage 1? That's the cost rationalization you'll find it on Slide 20. This gives some examples of costs that we've cut in the first half of the year. So head office costs, internal IT costs, that's ZAR 186 million those combined. We've exited some properties, and that's another ZAR 22 million. Overall, we think that there's opportunity to cut some costs even further. But we would say that Stage 1 of the cost-cutting is largely done. And so what's left is not going to have as big an impact in the remaining part of the year, but we've certainly made a lot of headway. And with cost cutting, what you've always got to do is cut quickly and then allow the group to go back to a growth trajectory. So now we get to Stage 2, which is this decentralization or radical autonomy. So remember, earlier on, we showed a slide with all these different businesses and profit centers in it. So we realigned the group. Really, if you look at South Africa, with four business unit CEOs, and that's Conrad, Beavin, Dion and Clydie. And what we did is we said to them, each of you is going to run your business unit as though it's your own business. We gave them incentives based on the share price. So they are incentivized at a group level to make sure that there's upside that gets unlocked in the valuation of iOCO, but more importantly, they are incentivized based on how their individual businesses perform. So we kind of cover both bases with this approach. And then on international, we've got Essam in the Middle East and Richard in a new role, which is looking after the global cloud business and in the U.K. So overall, we think that this approach is going to result in a recovery in revenue. So let's just look at revenue on Slide 22 for a second. What you'll notice from the results is that the revenue number was down about 6.4%. And some of that was due to contracts that we had already lost in prior years, which had finally run off in this year. As Ashona mentioned, public sector has fallen from about 14% down to 11%. And that's something that we think has a tremendous opportunity for recovery. A few years ago, iOCO used to get in the high 20s as a percentage of revenue from public sector. And so that number is kind of troughing in 2025, and we hope and are already seeing signs of an inflection and an improvement in public sector revenue. And then we've had some low-quality revenue like hardware sales and the impact of IFRS 15 on the numbers. So really, what we're saying is that there will be a revenue trough in 2025. We think we're there already. We're starting to see contract wins coming through, which you'll see on the following slide. So we've already had some success. ITS, for example, has secured contracts ZAR 354 million. And noteworthy is international because international in the first half of the year didn't show much revenue progression, but now there's ZAR 91 million of new contract wins in that business. So that's very positive. Some of those enablers of growth is, as I said, an improvement in the public sector. We're coming off a low base. And relative to iOCO's history, public sector used to represent 20 -- the high 20s as a percentage of overall revenue. So that's something that we can improve on, and we're already seeing positive signs there. And then there's also the opportunity to partner with other businesses to drive revenue in hard-to-reach areas. And then there's the opportunity to improve our annuity revenue. So one of the things we want to move away from in iOCO is having to constantly chase new contract wins to replace contracts that have fallen away. Rather, we want to concentrate on high-quality annuity revenue going forward. And then on the efficiency side, we've done a lot to already reduce costs but maybe a further -- few costs that we can cut are collapsing the legal entities, which are no longer required, and we can improve on working capital. And we can remove some cost duplication as well. So there's still some work to do. But as I said, I think on the cost side, most of it is done. So that takes us to Stage 3, which is capital and resource allocation. Now one of the most important things about H1 was that we had a very strong cash conversion of EBITDA. If you actually look at it, we had more than 100% conversion of EBITDA to cash generated from operations. And that's kind of a first in iOCO's history. And that allowed us to have a very simple capital allocation decision. We simply took the money and paid down the most expensive debt, and that's overdraft. And so as Ashona pointed out, the interest on the overdraft in 2024 was ZAR 22 million. Interest on overdraft in the first half of the year was ZAR 6 million, but we've largely extinguished the overdraft now. So the second half of the year shouldn't see much interest on overdraft. And so that number is going to be permanently lower or at 0. Capital allocation as the outlook, though, is important because what we want to do is continue to drive EBITDA performance and the conversion from EBITDA to cash. And what are we going to do with that cash as it comes in? iOCO is an extremely cash-generative business, if run efficiently. And so first and foremost, we want to continue to reduce the bank debt. And so we've got some idea where we want that to land by the end of the year. And then once we've reduced bank debt, we want to focus on being able to use the cash flow to conduct share buybacks and opportunistic acquisitions. So we'll only pursue those once we've reduced debt even further. And that brings us on to the final slide, which is the market guidance. And so -- on the left-hand side, you'll see that we've got a ratio there of net bank debt-to-EBITDA of 1:1 by the end of '25. So what that number means is that if you assume that all the cash flow in the second half of the year is used to repay debt, that number, the year-end debt number should equal the EBITDA number for the year. And then more importantly, on the right-hand side, we feel very confident in the business that in the long term, we think that iOCO can deliver double-digit free cash flow per share growth off the 2025 base. So that should give people confidence into the future about what iOCO can actually do. So you have a business which is generating over 40% return on equity. You've got a highly cash flow generative business that's gone from being highly leveraged to now being a very sustainable business with a strong balance sheet and an improving balance sheet. And we think that 2025 will be the trough of revenue, and so we start to grow revenue in 2026 off the 2025 base. And for that, we look forward to seeing everybody on the 14th of October in an Investor Day in Johannesburg. And with that, I'm going to open up for questions.

Okay. So we'll pause. I think questions have to be typed in. And as they come in, we will try our best to answer them. If I can't answer them, I'll hand it over to Ashona. So I think the first question that's come in. It says there have been several leadership changes in the past. How stable is the current executive team? And what assurances can you give investors about continuity? So that's a good question. I guess anybody who's followed that long and winding path of EOH and iOCO would see that there have been changes, particularly over the last couple of years. I think when we first got involved in our kind of due diligence before we bought into iOCO, we -- I think we met with two different management teams, and that was in the space of just a couple of months. So there have been changes. I think that when you think about the executive team and what we've tried to establish here under this radical autonomy banner. We've got four very strong chief executives in South Africa running each of the business units. We've got two new positions internationally with Richard and Essam. And we think that team should be stable if they deliver. And so radical autonomy only works if the underlying managers and chief executives are going to deliver on the results. And so we kind of like the idea of consistency and continuity, but if there's an element of nondelivery, then we'll have to change those chief executives. And we'll kind of be ruthless on that as well because radical autonomy can only work if we've got the very best people running each business. As far as the Board is concerned, I think it's worth looking at because we've kind of restructured the Board as well and reconfigured it. And we've got some really good people on it. It's a smaller Board. And I think as you would have seen, when we came in, the Board kind of had to accept a 50% cut in director fees, which also created its own natural attrition. So we'll continue with that, and we think it's definitely stabilized. Good. So next question. It's a question directed at me and it says, now that you've been on the Board for a few months, beyond cost cutting, a 30% GP margin business doesn't have much competitive advantage. How are you thinking about the model going forward? So it's a good question. I'm not sure I agree on a 30% GP margin business not having a competitive advantage. I think -- I'll explain to you how I think about it. When you've got a business like iOCO, that had this kind of tapeworm at the head office, which was really strangling the life out of the underlying businesses because it was sucking all the cash in and getting fatter while the underlying businesses were starving. What that meant is that iOCO could only go really after contracts that had at least a 30% margin. I think what we want to see going forward is that incrementally, we grow GP, absolute GP. So if you look at the first half year-on-year, the GP, I think went up 2.8%, notwithstanding the decline in revenue. So we want to continue with that. So we think that the way you should look at it is more on the basis of what is the absolute GP number, and that will filter down into what is the absolute EBITDA number. So we want to see growth on that. And if you look at the guidance that we gave about how it filters through right to the bottom line, what you'll eventually see, and we're fairly confident in this that off the 2025 base, you should see double-digit free cash flow per share growth. So that's not kind of a short-term forecast. We think the quality of iOCO and underlying businesses could achieve that into the long term. So we don't see any reason why that number shouldn't be achieved. Right. Another question that we have. It's again about management changes, and it says, how much did staff headcount change? So I think that question is about the first half of the year. So it's a very interesting question because, obviously, you look at the slide, and we've shown all the cost cutting that we've done. But when you look at the cost cutting and when you compare it to the numbers of people, it's an interesting observation because iOCO employs 4,500 people. And yet the cost-cutting that was done really resulted in less than 100 people leaving iOCO. So that kind of tells you if you took the -- the cost saving divided by 100, we really did do this without trying to impact the operating part of the business. We try to do it at the tapeworm part of it. So that's how you should think about this headcount changes. The next part -- next question is revenue per headcount a sensible KPI? I don't think it is. I think what -- the way we measure the business is far more on GP and EBITDA and eventually on free cash flow. So at the end of the day, this is a highly free cash flow generative business, if run efficiently. And so that's kind of the underlying metrics. We think revenue is kind of a pretty poor proxy for performance here. But I think GP is probably your closest and then EBITDA next, but eventually, it will get down to free cash flow. And then another question, how much of the expenses in this period was nonrecurring cost? I think we've got that on Slide 20 somewhere. We detail in the first half how these costs came down. And we've shown that. And you'll see there that there's been some big numbers that have come down. But as I said, I think most of the cost saving has been done, but there's still some further efficiencies that we can do. But certainly, as far as the head office is concerned, I think we've rightsized that probably 80% to 90% of the way. Good. And then just going on to some other questions -- find the next question. And then -- there's a question, what acquisitions are of interest to iOCO? If you look at the group, what we're trying to do is find acquisitions that are going to take iOCO into the future rather than protect the past. And iOCO has been a business that historically has been very acquisitive. And that's had some good parts to it, and obviously, some not-so-good parts to it. But in tech, you have to continuously look ahead into the future. And if you don't make acquisitions, then you're going to get left behind. And so I think iOCO needs to make those acquisitions as soon as we have the funding available, and that means we need to pay down the debt further. And so if you go back to the guidance that we gave, the guidance that we gave was this net debt to EBITDA of a ratio of 1:1 or 1x. That obviously has two parts. It has a one part is we expect debt to be lower than the current ZAR 613 million bank debt by the end of the year. And obviously, we expect EBITDA to continue to recover from prior years. So if you take those two numbers, we'll be at net debt to EBITDA of 1x by the end of the year. We'll look to continue to use any cash flow we have to reduce debt further, and we'll have opportunities for acquisitions. Acquisitions, we think there's many ways of financing them and coming to an arrangement, and we already have our targets out there of three acquisitions that we're interested in. And when the funding is there without taking any risk on the business and the valuation is appropriate, importantly, because there's two rivals for our free cash flow. The one is acquisitions and the other is buying the shares back. We will execute on that. All right. Next question. This is a question about share buybacks. You mentioned possible share buybacks once debt has been sufficiently reduced. Do you have a number in mind for the debt to start share buybacks? Well, the first thing that we need is for shareholders to approve share buybacks. We don't have that yet. And so as soon as we get the approval, we think that with net-debt-to-EBITDA being below 1, we think that is -- iOCO could easily justify a balance sheet like that. And then we will look to share buybacks if the share price is attractively priced, obviously, and continue to use the remaining cash for reducing the debt even further. In the long run, I think we want to get to a point where the balance sheet is debt-free. But equally, I think what we want to do is get to a point where you have to have a little bit of a leap of faith here because you want to get -- if all the debt was repaid, it would remove a reason why the share price is undervalued. And so at some point, you're going to have to say, well, we're going to buy shares back because we're confident enough that the cash flow is going to come through and we're going to pay down the debt. Good. Then there's a question here. It seems like the terms of your operating model, the business has come full circle in terms of responsibility for individual business segments. How do you plan to avoid the past mistakes of senior managers? So I think in the past, we don't really know exactly all the issues, but we know some of the big issues that went wrong. And the good news is those people that were responsible for some of the mistakes, let's say, of the business are no longer anywhere near iOCO. And the people that we have, one of the things that's really impressed me is the quality of people that you meet every day at iOCO. There's 4,500 people, but there's really excellent people here. There's people that sold their businesses to the old EOH. And in those days, they would get half the proceeds of the sale in shares. They've suffered from getting shares at ZAR 130 or ZAR 140 and seeing the share price plummet to ZAR 1. That created serious losses for them. And along with that, you had -- the fact that these guys actually ended up staying in the business, they stayed in the group. They saw something there to remain loyal. And what we've tried to do is say, look, there's very good people here. In the past, it hasn't worked the kind of different management styles that have been created. But if you look internationally at other companies, and it's a tried and tested way that decentralization or autonomy works. And so we want to trust the individuals. But equally, what we've changed is that we want everybody incentivized based on the equity. So that although you operate in business units and you're responsible for your business unit, you kind of cross collaborate based on all having a common goal of adding value to the share price. And in the long term, those that get it will be part of iOCO, and those that don't will obviously leave. But we think we have a very, very good team at the moment and certainly the people we've come across are truly impressive. I think we have one last question. Is that right? It says you're targeting 1:1 bank debt to EBITDA by the end of the year? What is your longer-term leverage target? And when do you expect to reach this target? That's a good question. We at 1:1 by the end of the year. We're confident of that number. As I said, we'll continue to reduce debt. We want to eventually have no debt on the balance sheet. I kind of think iOCO was a little bit like a toddler and the bank was a bit like the parent. And so as iOCO got back on its feet, it needed the support of the bank to help it. But iOCO is becoming a teenager. And teenagers don't want their parents anywhere near them. So I think that's our attitude to the bank. We appreciate what they did for us, but the sooner we don't have them near us, the better. So we're looking to reduce that. But as I said earlier, there's the opportunity to do share buybacks. If you think about the steady state of iOCO is probably free cash flow generation of over ZAR 400 million a year plus with growth. And if you take the point that we had 0 debt eventually, ZAR 400 million, we could use that to buy a lot of shares back at a ZAR 2 billion market cap. And that's what we're going to be focused on. I'll see if there's any last questions. Okay. So there's another question here. There are a number of businesses that are not profitable and in some cases, not liquid. Will you be liquidating these companies? So that might have been the case historically. Thanks for that question. I think that might have been the case historically. But the good news is that we've really tightened up the financial controls. And that's what I said earlier, I said you shouldn't have a business like iOCO that can't generate cash. Maybe there's a question mark about growth, but you should never get to the point where you can't generate cash out of this business, if run efficiently. And since we've got Ashona back, we've tightened up those controls quite a bit. And there are no businesses -- no material businesses that are actually loss-making. And that's one of the real highlights of the first half is all the businesses are actually pulling their weight. I think what we can do better is look at what return on invested capital each of the underlying businesses generates. And maybe there will need to be some rightsizing there as we drill down deeper and deeper. But at this point, we've come a long way, and we've really tightened that up a lot. And I think -- that's it. If you do want to ask any further questions, then please reach out to Ashona or anybody else at iOCO, and they will be very happy to answer your questions directly. Thanks very much, everyone.