NIIT Learning Systems Limited (NIITMTS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to NIIT Learning Systems Limited Q3 FY '24 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand over the call to Mr. Vijay Thadani, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, NIIT Learning Systems. Thank you, and over to you.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, and welcome everyone for being here on our quarter 3 earnings call. These are busy times for results, and we truly appreciate that you decided to spend the next 1 hour with us in understanding how NIIT Learning Systems Limited, also known as NIITMTS, has been going and the performance in quarter 3 as well as the outlook for quarter 4. I have with me our management team. I have Sapnesh Lalla, who is the CEO and Executive Director; I have Mr. R. S. Pawar, who's our Chairman; Sanjay Mal, the CFO; Kapil Saurabh, many of you are associated with him; and many other colleagues. So without further ado, I will hand you over to Sapnesh who will give us an initial briefing and details of our performance. And based on that, we'll open it for Q&A. Over to you, Sapnesh.

Thanks, Vijay, and thank you, everyone, for your interest in NIIT Learning Systems Limited for joining the call. The operating performance for the quarter is as follows: Revenue for the quarter was INR 3,913 million. It was up 8% year-on-year and 2% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. Please note that these financials include the impact of St. Charles, an acquisition that we did in November of '22, a composite scheme of arrangement for demerger of the business from NIIT Limited as well as the foreign exchange volatility. Excluding St. Charles, that is organic business grew 3% year-on-year and 5% on a quarter-on-quarter basis. In constant currency, the revenues for the overall entity was up 5% year-on-year and 3% quarter-on-quarter. The organic business grew 6% quarter-on-quarter in constant currency. For the 9 months, the consolidated revenue is up 18% year-on-year. As we have shared earlier, the volume of trading consumption has been lower than normal due to the prevailing uncertainty in the environment, and that has not changed in Q3. We have, however, made up some of that lost ground through scope expansion across a number of customers as well as through addition of new customers, several of whom have now transitioned into run rate customers. While the growth has been impacted due to the prevailing economic uncertainty, we have improved like I pointed out, our wallet share, we've also broad-based our offerings and have increased market share across a number of customers. Further, the company continues to maintain its track record of 100% renewal, reflecting continuous improvement in our long-term competitive position across the market. In the past quarter, we added two new managed training services customers, taking the tally to 86, one in life sciences and healthcare and the second in the technologies and telecom segment. We also had four renewals and one scope expansion this past quarter. As I pointed out earlier, the total number of managed training services customers now stands at 86. Visibility is $348 million as of December 31, 2023. This is as compared to $321 million last year, same period and $350 million in the previous quarter. EBITDA for the business was INR 934 million, was up 8% year-on-year and 3% Q-o-Q. EBITDA margin was 24%, was up marginally quarter-on-quarter. The company continues to leverage automation to improve productivity across its practices and is in the process of implementing a number of new systems and measures, including leveraging AI to improve productivity across its practices. The depreciation was at INR 143 million and this is versus INR 170 million in the previous quarter. This includes notional amortization cost on consolidation of St. Charles, as we have discussed earlier. The net other expenses were INR 16 million as compared to INR 66 million in the previous quarter, predominantly on account of stamp duty not being charged last quarter of INR 43 million on account of the demerger, which was a one-time expense, as well as a fair value adjustment on the acquisition of St. Charles. The profit after tax for the third quarter was INR 568 million. It was up 23% year-on-year. EPS is at INR 4.2 as compared to INR 3.4 same period previous quarter, and it's up 23% year-on-year. The effective tax rate was at 26.8%. For the year, we expect the effective tax rate to be around 28%. The balance sheet and cash flow continues to be robust. Last quarter, we pointed out that there was a temporary increase in working capital due to the transition of contracts from NIIT Limited to NLSL. A large majority of those contracts are now transitioned to NIIT Learning Systems Limited, and that has normalized the working capital cycle to a great extent. Owing to that, the free cash flow for the quarter was higher at INR 1,099 million. The DSOs are at 59 days as compared to 62, same period last year, and 46 previous quarter. The cash balance is at INR 6,588 million and the net cash at INR 5,599 million. The return ratios continue to be robust. The company had 2,417 employees at the end of the third quarter, and this was down 51 from a quarter-on-quarter perspective. As we have said over the last couple of years, we are continuing to make disproportionate investments in sales and marketing owing to the underpenetrated market that we operate in. We expect that this investment will improve the velocity and accelerate new customer acquisition. Last quarter, we also made a strategic investment in EIT InnoEnergy to open up the green energy sector. Decarbonization, as you're probably aware, is perhaps one of the largest opportunities for all of humankind, and this initiative will enable us to not only play our part in it, but also create a business opportunity that could be quite significant for us. We are, as I pointed out earlier, making rapid progress in leveraging AI across multiple aspects of our work. There are a number of work streams that are currently on addressing both how to become more efficient in doing what we do today, but more importantly, how to also create more effective learning paradigms and learning systems that would significantly improve the effectiveness of learning that we offer and improve the outcomes. We would like to reiterate that the rapid transformation in the industries we serve owing to digital transformation, decarbonization, acceleration, and biopharma and AI represent a very large opportunity for NLSL, and we are doing everything we can to take the largest share of this upcoming opportunity. In terms of our guidance, we had expected the first half of FY '24 to be flat and guided as such and then a sequential pickup in Q3 and Q4. Our results for Q3 are in line with the earlier stated expectation last quarter, though it is lower than what we had thought of as we got into the year in April of 2023. We continue to see robust customer additions, and we continue to enjoy a robust contract pipeline that we hope to close as we go through this quarter and next. Despite continuing sluggishness in spends, we expect Q-o-Q improvement in Q4, and while growth has been slower this year, the margins have been maintained despite normalization of expense in Q3. We expect that the margins will be in the same ballpark as they were in Q3 as we get into Q4. With that, I would hand the discussion back to Vijay.

Okay. I don't have anything further to add to this briefing. And therefore, I'll open it up for questions now. Operator, can you please open the line for questions?

[Operator Instructions] We have a first question from the line of Siddhant from Goodwill.

My first question is on...

Can you use your handset mode, please? It is not very clear.

Hello? Yes. First question is on the line of head count. Considering the time of demerger, we have guided for 20% growth in the medium to long term, any reason why the headcount is down right now?

Like I pointed out, we are working on a number of efficiencies, specifically leveraging artificial intelligence to do a number of processes that are routine and mechanicals and going to improve productivity, we were able to work with fewer headcounts.

Okay. Second question would be on the margins and pricing. Would our newer customers be having some kind of higher pricing or higher margins compared to our legacy customers or is it largely in line?

This is confidential information, so we don't discuss specific customer pricing or margin relating to customers. But I can say that there are a number of factors that are considered as we price out opportunities, whether it is to do with the value that we create, whether it is to do with the cost of addressing those opportunities, the risk involved in those opportunities, and so on and so forth. So there are many factors that go into pricing and opportunity and we don't specifically discuss customer-wise pricing with external media.

Yes. Final questions on the follow-up, and we discussed this last time also. On the ESOP policy of NLSL, is there any update? And considering -- because the new entity is generating a lot of cash. So any update on the ESOP policy of NLSL?

On the ESOP policy of NLSL? Yes, I think you would be hearing about that in a few days.

In a few days, Okay. Perfect.

We have a next question the line of Shradha from AMSEC.

Congratulations on a great quarter. Just a couple of questions. First is, are we seeing any green shoots of recovery in our large existing clients, given the fact that organic growth in this quarter was quite strong? So any indication on what are the budgets or talk for next year with large clients indicating?

Here's what I would say. I think most of our growth is coming from acquisition of new customers and transitioning them into run rate customers. We have not seen opening up or increase in budgets as yet. And we don't expect budgets for calendar 2024 to be higher than what it was in 2023. Some customers have indicated that they have to take a haircut on budgets, but we don't expect the budgets to be higher in 2024 as compared to 2023. Our growth, however, in our existing customers will come from doing more for our existing customers by offering them more capability than they are currently using, which would mean wallet share or market share expansion with our customers. And that is something that we are working very hard towards. We have seen expansion, scope expansion. For example, I pointed out earlier we saw scope expansion with one customer in this past quarter. And our expectation is that we will do a lot more of that as we look ahead into the next few quarters.

Right. And apart from wallet share gain in the existing customers by replacing some incumbent players, is it also to do with higher outsourcing in those customers which will help us in CY '24?

It will be more of that because as you might know, most of our customers tend to be first-time outsourcers, specifically as it relates to L&D. L&D outsourcing is an underpenetrated market. And therefore, any share gains or wallet share gains will be by having them outsource more. And this is something that we have seen in the past whenever customers come out of uncertainty, the first thing that they start looking at doing is to assess what are the activities that they must do themselves and how much fixed costs should they carry. And as they make those choices, we expect that even some of our customers who are consuming a smaller subset of our services, given our brand permission, we look at an NIIT to do more with them.

Right. And another question, sir, is on the revenue visibility number which has been coming off for the last three quarters now. And in this context, then, how should we look at our growth number for FY '25?

See, like I pointed out, in FY '25 and as we started with Q3 and we'll continue in Q4 of the current year, we are starting to see sequential growth. We expect the rate of that growth to increase over a period of time. And we are reasonably sure that in the midterm and long term, we'll reach our 20% growth expectation.

All right. And just one last bookkeeping question. I think you indicated that the tax rate for the year will be 28%. But for nine months, we are at close to 26%. So do we expect a substantial jump up in our 4Q tax rate?

This is Sanjay. So we are likely to see a little bump in the quarter four, essentially because of certain one-time kind of true ups which are going to happen in quarter four. And certain expectation of payout which we have, there will be some dividend related or cash moments on which the withholding tax will be there, which will get added to this.

Okay. Okay. So tax rate in '24...

Yes. On an overall basis, it is likely to be about 28%. But on a stable basis, it could be a little lower going forward.

Right. Sure. And another bookkeeping question on the depreciation part. Why did the depreciation number come down this quarter?

Depreciation is more on account of one of the contracts in real estate related, where we are serving based on the platform and IP which we have. The contract has been extended, and hence basically there is an amortization which is spread out and leading to a lower charge.

And this run rate is what we can assume for future quarters as well?

That's correct.

Barring the normal addition of CapEx, what that would cause other than, yes.

We have a next question from the line of [ Ganesh Shetty ], an individual investor.

Congratulations, sir, for great set of numbers. I just have one question regarding general trend in outsourcing of learning. As we move ahead, are we experiencing any spike in outsourcing of learning services from big corporates, what we are expecting? That is number one. Number two is, are we exploring new geographies within North America and Europe to expand our capabilities and to expand our offerings? Can you please throw some light on this, sir?

Thanks. It's a great question. We do expect to see acceleration in the propensity to outsource. Like I pointed out earlier, as economies or corporations start to come out of a period of uncertainty, they pause and look at how they are running large business processes. Learning and development is a significant business process, and several times organizations decide that it's better for them to have an organization that has core expertise in doing it, rather than -- and so a number of organizations, as they are reviewing the operations that they run themselves, start focusing on what's core to them and look at outsourcing what's not core to them that someone else can do a better job on. Most of our customers have used that logic to create a partnership with NIIT. And I think as things start to improve, we will see a higher propensity to outsource. And now you had a second question. What was your second question? Your second question was about geographies. So we are continuously increasing our geographic footprint, both from the point of view of acquiring customers as well as being able to service them. Most of our customers are large multinational organizations which expect us to have a global platform so that we can service them where their people are. We have now built a global platform where we can service our customers pretty much at any corner in the world. We are also building business development capabilities, specifically in Europe, different countries in Europe, so that we can address the large corporations in Europe with a better coverage.

We have our next question from the line of Pranaya Jain from Banyan Tree Advisors.

So I have three questions. First question is, you have always mentioned that this is a 20-20 business, 20% growth, 20% margin. So first question is, what is helping you keep your margins at 20% to 24%? Management: Do you want to finish your three questions?

Do you want to finish your 3 questions? Did you want to complete your questions?

I think we can go one by one also.

Okay, fair enough. I would say we've known for the last few quarters that there is economic uncertainty. And there is little that we can do about economic uncertainty other than make investments as well as choices which enable our business to grow as well as to become more productive. And that's really what we have done. We have focused our energies on areas which can help us grow. For example, focusing on several of our key customers so that we can increase wallet share, as well as investing in business development so that we can accelerate the pace of new customer acquisition. Productivity and using technology and automation to improve productivity is an essence of NIIT's culture. And we've continued to focus on that so that we can become more efficient, we can become more effective in how we use resources. And those two dimensions have really helped us maintain margins.

Right, so just a follow up on this. Do you think this is sustainable? Or do you think it will come back to 20% which you had earlier alluded to?

Like I've said earlier, we think that this business is a 20-20 business and margins will normalize over a period of time where we will have to make investments as markets open up. And those investments will cause the margins to normalize.

As well as the new businesses -- new contracts when they come in, there are transition costs.

There will be transition costs. We've gone through a period where the transition costs have been lower. The big contracts, transition just lower.

I think it's safe to assume that the steady state case is 20-20. At this point of time, the lack of the first 20 which is 20% growth is being made up to an extent by the higher profitability. But I think in steady state, that 20-20 equation will work.

Got it. So second question is, can you share what is the average vintage of your top 10 clients?

Top 10 clients. I want to say -- I know for a fact that top 5 have been with us for more than 10 years. Top 10, it's hard to say average but probably more than seven, eight years.

Got it. Got it. Can you share these numbers going forward if you think it's useful for us?

Yes. What is the number you want us to share?

Longevity.

The average longevity of customers or average revenue of top 10?

No, average vintage of your top 10 customers. So top 10 customers contribution you already shared. And third question is, when it comes to inorganic growth, would you be looking to fund acquisitions using debt as well or will it only be through internal cash that you generate?

In the past we've used both and we'll continue to look at all options available to us to make the best and the most efficient choice.

See, leveraging the acquisition partly helps you manage it better from a taxation point of view, from a liquidity point of view, from keeping your opportunity door open point of view. So I think as a policy we've used a mix. And it's worked out well for us.

We have our next question from the line of Dinesh Kulkarni from RDST.

First of all, many congratulations on a good set of numbers. I have a question on the macro here. Like we see a lot of companies, especially in the U.S., are reducing headcount there. Just UPS yesterday mentioned about 12,000 reductions in headcounts. I just wanted to know -- and this is going to be a trend for the last one year and it will most likely continue. So do you see any impact of this on our business, especially where we have any per head, per account revenue opportunities? And is this impacting the business in this quarter or are we expecting any impact of this going forward?

I think it could be seen as a chicken and egg. There is uncertainty and therefore organizations are lowering the headcount that they have or it is a fact that they may be hired too many over the last couple of years and they are shedding some of what they have. Notwithstanding what is causing it, we know that a number of organizations, large organizations, are letting go of headcount. But what is also at play is that the unemployment rates in the United States are continuing to be very low. So while organizations are letting go of folks, they are also able to find jobs. So I think while several large organizations, given the uncertainty, are reducing their headcount and that has a negative impact on us. But from a long-term perspective, given that the unemployment rates are very, very low, what that means is that the economy continues to be robust. And that is good news for us because it will enable us to bounce back much faster and given the robustness of the economy an investment cycle will start as soon as the interest rates become more palatable.

We have a next question from the line of Nemish Shah from Emkay Investment Managers.

First of all, congratulations on good -- so I had one question...

I'm sorry, Mr. Shah, you're sounding muffled. Can you use your handset mode?

Yes. Is this better?

Yes.

Yes, so I had a question on the sector mix that we provide. So the management and consulting piece has been declining sequentially for the last two quarters. So if you could just highlight, is that largely to do with the discretionary spend in the macro environment or are you seeing some challenges in terms of the acquisition and some integration issues or something?

No, I think it's mostly seasonality. The third quarter has a number of holidays and most consulting organizations or professional services organizations take a fair bit of time off during Q3 and that is what got us to see a decline in Q3. But as far as their business is concerned, it's continuing to perform well.