Nucleus Software Exports Limited (531209) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everyone. This is Pelcia. A very warm welcome to all of you for this Nucleus Software earnings conference call for the quarter and half year ended on September 30, 2024. For discussion, we have here from the management team, Mr. Vishnu R. Dusad, our Managing Director; Mr. Parag Bhise, CEO and Executive Director; Mr. Anurag Mantri, COO and Executive Director; Mr. Surya Prakash Kanodia, Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Ashwani Arora, Senior Vice President; Mr. Ashish Khanna, Chief of Staff and Chief Marketing Officer; Mr. Mukesh Bangia, Vice President; Mr. Abhishek Pallav, Vice President; Mr. Pradeep Malik, Vice President; Ms. Swati Patwardhan, Chief Human Resource Officer; and Mr. Tapan Jayaswal, Financial Controller. As you're all aware, Nucleus Software does not provide any specific revenue earnings guidance. Anything which is said during this call, which may reflect company's outlook for the future or which may be conceived as a forward-looking statement must be reviewed in conjunction with the risk that the company faces. An audio and the transcript of this call would be shortly available on the Investors section of company's website, www.nucleussoftware.com. With this, we are now ready to begin with the opening comments on the performance of the company. And post that, we would be available for the question-and-answer session. With this, I now pass it over to Mr. Vishnu.

A warm welcome to all of you to this conference call on our performance for the quarter 2 financial year 2025. We are very happy to let you know that the quarter has been a reasonable quarter, and we are looking forward to more exciting news in coming quarters. With those words, I would hand it over to Parag.

Thank you very much for your comment. Just to add to what Mr. Vishnu mentioned, I would want to reiterate on what I had said last quarter that our strategic initiative of Hoshin Kanri, which is a lean-based initiative is progressing, and we are starting to already realize some benefits from it, and we would continue to work on it, which will give us benefits in multiple benefits in the subsequent quarters. Thank you very much.

[indiscernible] Tapan sir to present the financial numbers please.

Thanks, Swati. Am I audible, Swati?

Yes, yes. Go ahead.

Okay. So starting from revenue. Our consolidated revenue for the quarter is at INR 202.2 crores against INR 195.4 crores quarter-on-quarter and INR 205.3 crores year-on-year. Overall revenue in foreign currency, including India rupee revenue is USD 24.1 million for the quarter against USD 23.4 million quarter-on-quarter and USD 24.9 million year-on-year. Product revenue for the quarter is at INR 171.4 crores against INR 168 crores quarter-on-quarter and INR 174 crores year-on-year. Revenue from projects and services for the quarter is at INR 30.8 crores against INR 27 quarter-on-quarter and INR 31.2 crores year-on-year. As for expenses, cost of delivery, including cost of product development for the quarter is 71.4% of revenue against 75.5% of revenue quarter-on-quarter and 61.6% of revenue year-on-year. In absolute terms, this is INR 144.4 crores against INR 147.5 crores quarter-on-quarter and INR 126.3 crores year-on-year. Marketing and sales expenses for the quarter is 4.5% of revenue against 2.2% of revenue quarter-on-quarter and 5% year-on-year. In absolute terms, this is INR 9.1 crores against INR 4.2 crores quarter-on-quarter and INR 10.4 crores year-on-year. G&A expenses for the quarter is 8.5% of revenue against 7.6% of revenue quarter-on-quarter and 8.2% year-on-year. In absolute terms, this is INR 17.2 crores against INR 14.9 crores quarter-on-quarter and INR 16.9 crores year-on-year. EBITDA for the quarter is at INR 31.5 crores against INR 28.8 crores quarter-on-quarter and INR 51.7 crores year-on-year. Other income from investments and deposits is at INR 18.5 crores against INR 14.8 crores quarter-on-quarter and INR 11.1 crores year-on-year. Total other income for the quarter is INR 19 crores against INR 15.1 quarter-on-quarter and INR 11.9 crores year-on-year. Total taxes are at INR 13.5 crores against INR 9.7 crores quarter-on-quarter and INR 15.3 crores year-on-year. Net profit is at INR 33.1 crores for the quarter against INR 30.2 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 44.6 crores year-on-year. Other comprehensive income is at negative INR 2.7 crores for the quarter against INR 1 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 3.4 crores year-on-year. Total comprehensive income, which includes net profit and other comprehensive income is at INR 30.4 crores for the quarter against INR 31.2 crores quarter-on-quarter and INR 48 crores year-on-year. EPS for the quarter is at INR 12.35 as against INR 11.28 quarter-on-quarter and INR 16.65 year-on-year. In terms of foreign currency hedges, on 30th September 2024, we had USD 3.75 million of forward contracts at an average rate of [ 84.29. ] There is a mark-to-market gain of INR 0.01 crores, which is taken to hedging reserve in the balance sheet. Revenue contribution from the top 5 clients for the quarter is 28.2% against 28.8% in the previous quarter. The order book position is INR 720.5 crores, including INR 672 crores of product business and INR 48.4 crores of project and services business. On June 30, 2024, the order book position was INR 813.4 crores including INR 752.2 crores of product business and INR 61.2 crores of projects and services business. Total cash and cash equivalents as on 30th September 2024 are INR 895.1 crores against INR 920.8 crores as on 30th June 2024. This includes balances in current accounts of INR 56.7 crores, various schemes of mutual funds INR 609.7 crores, fixed deposits of INR 193.8 crores, investment in tax-free bonds of INR 34.9 crores. With regards to receivables, we are at INR 99.7 crore against INR 175.4 crores previous quarter. During the quarter, there is a gross addition of fixed assets of INR 2.55 crores, consisting primarily of INR 2.2 crores on computers and servers and INR 0.27 crores on office equipment and INR 0.08 crores on software. Now I'll hand it over to Swati.

Thank you, sir. Now I hand over to Pelcia. Please start the question and answer session. Over to you, Pelcia.

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from Grishma Shah from Envision Capital.

I'm keen to know what was the strategic initiative that we've embarked on, as we mentioned in the listening comment? And given that the order book Q-on-Q has not seen a significant increase, if you could throw some color on the deal pipeline and how the orders of an outgoing ahead.

Thank you for your questions. This is Parag. I will talk about the strategic initiative. I had probably talked about it in the last quarter as well. This is an initiative called Hoshin Kanri, which is more on -- which is kind of talks about the strategy that we have identified a few areas of improvements. Now Hoshin Kanri is based on lean principles. Lean principles actually comes from Toyota, which implemented the data production system, which became very popular and almost an industry benchmark in manufacturing. After that, services companies and software companies have also very recently started adopting it. So we are probably one of the very few who have adopted it. So there is a -- there are initiatives which we have identified, essentially talks about streamlining those initiatives, identifying waste in those initiatives, making operational efficiencies. So we have identified a few initiatives, which relate to improving customer experience, which relate to improving agilities. There are some internal HR initiatives. Those are which we are working on. There are senior level leaders who are leading these initiatives, there are teams associated with these initiatives. We are being guided by an organization role as LEI, Lean Enterprise Institute based in U.S. Their vision is to propagate lean philosophy in various industries. So that is the vision they progress. So their senior consultants are guiding us on a regular basis. So there's a very broad level. If there are any follow-up questions, I'd be happy to answer.

Will it entail in terms of margin or better response time to consumers? I mean, what is the final outcome of this all initiative?

Okay. So ultimately, yes. So these initiatives are not short-term initiatives. These are targeted at making fundamental changes in the way the organization functions. So of course, the impacts of these -- the positive impacts of these initiatives are long term. But ultimately, yes, ultimately, these will -- in due course, we expect them to result in profitability, increased margins, better orders because as I mentioned, specifically, a couple of them are targeted at improving customer experiences and our business depends a lot on referenceability. So when we improve those experiences, take the experience at a different level, we also expect this to contribute on business growth. So I can't say in percentage terms, but it's a long-term impact that we are expecting.

Okay. And what is the reason for softness in sales this quarter? And how do you think it will pan out given that the order book is also -- growth has also slowed down?

Yes. So you talked about pipeline. The pipeline continues to be strong. Yes, we did face -- we are facing some, I think, temporary delays in closing orders. We are having pipeline which is an at advanced stage. I can't say what -- if there is any specific reason, but it's just that they are taking time to convert, but pipeline continues to be strong.

I'll just add here. This is Vishnu. The cycle time for orders has had almost increased 50% or in some cases, 100% 8%. Something that would be -- that a typical organization would take a decision in 1 year now is taking 2 years more than that.

Okay. So is it that there is more competition which is there in the market? There are more alternatives because our offering is core to operate for any bank to operate given how banks are adopting to digitization and improving customer experience, why should the retail double the time to get an order conversion?

Talking about competition, clearly, there are more competitors, and that could be a reason why our customers are getting confused. We make it a point not to oversell our commitments, we try to make them as robust as we can. And that's where maybe our customers may be getting lost.

Next question comes from Anuj Sharma from M3 Investments.

See, if I look at the business in the last 6 and 7 quarters, there was a reset of pricing, which flowed down to the income and, of course, the operating profit. Over the course of time, we have seen that we have managed to hold on to the revenue or maybe say the price increases. But the operating margins have sort of come down to our long-time average. If I were to just normalize all of the scenario, can we say that we are now at a quarter which is more sustainable and replicable going forward? That's question number one. And second, in terms of, again, resets in both domestic and international customers, that exercise is broadly done.

Yes. This is Surya here. Thanks for the question. So let me take the first one related to margins. So you're right. I mean, in the last, I would say, last couple of years, we have been doing a lot of reset of our pricing, which went into our revenue and jumped into our margins as well. At the beginning of the year, we kind of took a conscious decision to invest in our people and invest in our technology because these are like our biggest assets to be prepared for the next round of growth for the organization. And because of that, you would see that the margins have dropped by almost like 10 percentage. But having said that, we would not believe these are the sustainable margins. We would want to go back to what it was last year. And what Parag spoke about Hoshin Kanri, that is actually one of the steps in that direction where we would be looking to kind of take care of or remove all the internal, I would say, excess expenses, optimize the cost. So that is also one of the objective of that. So as a combination of these 2 and selling more of our IPs, we believe that we should be back to our margins that we have done in the last year.

All right. And on the second part.

On the domestic and international, obviously, if you see compared to last year, our percentage of revenue from domestic has increased to 58% from 55%. But I would say that when we look at our pipeline, existing pipeline, the good news about our pipeline, that it is spread all across. So it is not like kind of concentrated only in domestic or concentrated only in one particular region in the international as well. So that is something which is giving us a confidence that our growth, which is going to happen, should happen all across given that we are having presence and engagements and discussions all around the globe.

Yes. Okay. Okay. And the second point on the reset, is that reset broadly over, including the surpluses overflow? And is that -- is today's revenue a fair indication of all the resets into the revenue?

So let me put it this way. Most of what we were set to do has happened. It is not like completely happened. But yes, what you see now is more or less taking into account all the resets that would have happened.

All right. All right. See, also one commendable thing is this reset was long overdue. Another of our illustrious past has been a very strong international presence. I'm talking of couple of years ago. What are we doing to get back and which geographies -- so spread out is a good idea, but do we get more confidence on certain geographies that in the next 3, 5 years, we'll be able to develop more competence out there? And yes, so what's the long-term plan on international business?

This is Ashish Khanna. So I think definitely in multiple geographies and regions, we are getting kind of good traction starting in Southeast Asia. So a couple of countries within Southeast Asia is picking up well, including Vietnam, Philippines. Similarly, in Middle East, we are getting good traction, both in terms of financial institution opting for a digital transformation and opting for a solution like ours and on the lending front as well as on the transaction banking front. And similarly, if we move towards Australia, similarly, we are getting good traction there in Australia as well as a focused approach we are following as an organization for 17-plus countries as of now with a lot of our customers now trying to look for a solution or a product which can give them an advancement with respect to an ecosystem. And our new product is fully aligned from a technical stack on those areas. So I think in a nutshell, I think we are getting good traction in different markets, which Surya also mentioned. And we are having a focus -- 17 countries focus as of now to expand and strengthen our position.

Yes. See, in addition to that, the 17 countries, in how many countries we will be currently dominant or let's suppose we expect to be dominant in 3, 5 years, like the way we dominate in India. Do we envisage maybe in the next, 3, 5 years, we could have the dominance as we have here in any other country or even after 3, 5 years be spread out playing across geographies? What is the strategy there?

Right. So thanks for the question. I think definitely, we -- as from a strategy standpoint, we do have a focus to play a dominant role at least in 30% to 40% of these countries, which I mentioned, the similar way we are behaving or we are operating in India. And we are -- as part of our strategy, we have kind of zeroed down on those countries where we will play a dominant role and countries where we'll continue investing to strengthen our position, strengthen our product. And eventually, maybe after 5 years, 4 to 5 years from now, probably we'll increase this percentage to be more dominant player in other countries. So definitely, the strategy is mix of playing a dominant role as well as playing a role to strengthen our position in some of the countries.

Okay. Okay. And my last question is, I think you have alluded to detailed a bit earlier. But this new initiative and foundation, which we are now undertaking, how different Nucleus will be in the next 5 years, let's say, I understand the initiatives will take time. But how different Nucleus will be? And what is driving these investments? What difference can we see in Nucleus of today and let's suppose 5 years hence?

Okay. Thanks for a very meaningful question. I think our customers are used to getting high-quality delivery from us for decades now. Where this initiative, the strategic initiatives will take us to ensure that every single engagement, we have to admit that not all engagements are to our satisfaction. So where this strategic initiative will take us is to be in a position to say that every single engagement is a very, very robust engagement where the customers are delighted. So that is the core. And likewise, we are also equally confident that all the Nucleites would be very happy with the work environment. Some of us might be working many long hours, some others may not be thankfully required to work that. We have a confidence that everyone would be able to have a meaningful balance of work and life. And our contribution to society continues to be there. We hope to increase that. So it's a very, very important strategic initiative. And as we are just 5 months into it, but we are getting very good vibes as we are progressing.

Okay. All right. Vishnu ji, I may just put in what is driving this change? Is it that we want to a bigger -- be a bigger enterprise? What's driving the thought process?

Again, that -- in some manner, that goes without saying. But what is more important for us is ensuring that every single penny that we take from our customers, they see a reasonable amount of value, if not immense value coming out of the money that they spend on us. And likewise, we want to just make sure that every Nucleites is happy as a professional as a human being as an individual. And likewise, we would be able to make sure that our shareholders are also satisfied.

Next question comes from Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital.

Just looking at the quarter's regional or geographical growth basis, the growth was largely driven by 2 specific markets. So is it safer to assume that a large part of incremental revenue came from reset of AMC repricing on those markets? Or is it led by new deal win alone?

So Rahul, just to be more clearer. So when you say growth of revenue, you mean growth quarter-on-quarter?

Yes, incremental on a Q-o-Q basis.

Q-o-Q basis, yes. So see, the -- so a part of the growth was definitely contributed by the repricing exercise because I mean, there are certain customers which still have to be updated. So repricing has happened for those customers and a part of the growth has been contributed from that. And the other part has been contributed by the regular growth in business by bringing in more of particularly time and material revenue. These are the 2 major factors which contributed to our revenue increment.

Right. And secondly, is there a way to quantify or give a color in terms of how much of our new wins or overall revenue signing is coming on the subscription model versus on-premise upfront signing model?

So incrementally, see, what we are doing right now is like more in the in the tune of new selling. That is something where the upfront revenue recognition would not be that great. But yes, I would say still, there would be a substantial part, which will come from that.

So would you attribute that on a like-for-like, you are getting a little bit of disadvantage of more and more signing coming from subscription model. So the revenue recognition is a slight disadvantage, which is also impacting profitability.

I would not say a disadvantage. It is just like the recognition of revenue gets spread over a larger period, but still the total revenue remains the same. So I would not put it...

Yes, yes. I mean in a particular financial year, still mathematically, that would be a disadvantage. I'm not talking about the lifetime potential.

See, Rahul, how will it happen, it's like over a period of time, then you will start kind of getting revenue from pieces which we have sold earlier as well, which we are not getting earlier. So that is the reason we said that if you look over a larger period of time, it will compensate each other. That is how I would want to say it.

Yes, yes. I understand the merit of that model. What I'm trying to understand is it meaningful enough to impact some bit of profitability or it's the early function of lesser revenue growth, which is impacting the profitability versus last year.

Yes, it is the second one that you said.

Okay. Okay. And one more thing on the cost side of it. Of course, you attribute -- you alluded that there is an intent to take care of it. But what is an ideal band of profitability you would like to operate at? Because we have seen a very big volatility in this thing. And we've been consistently investing both in G&A and S&M and of course, on the headcount side wherever required. So is there a way where we would be more comfortable in a broader band, which we may kind of be moving into as a safer zone for us to model from a future perspective.

Rahul, so see, I will not be able to give you any range of number because then it will tend to forward guidance that we don't do. But having said that, as an organization, our endeavor is to see that we come back to the margins that we were able to deliver last quarter. And for doing that, we are like banking on -- sorry, last year. So for doing that, we are banking on, obviously, new sales that should happen given the pipeline that we have and the cost optimization that should eventually come through after doing everything that we are like initiating to do as part of Hoshin Kanri, as Parag was mentioning.

So you're saying, let's assume we did 25% EBIT margin in last year, it is potentially achievable in the near future?

That is what we are striving to do, Rahul.

If you just look at the kind of a growth that we saw in FY '24, a bulk of that incremental revenue came from a onetime incremental revenue that came in from AMC repricing, we didn't come up with any new cost base. And that's where as profitability was way, way sharper. Now from a purely cost perspective, if you look at our annual run rate from FY '24 to FY '25, that has already moved meaningfully. So you still think despite that aspiring for 25% plus margin is not a big ask.

Yes, because we are banking on the new sales, as I said, Rahul. Because once we do the new sales, we don't see because we being a product company, IP company, we don't see that the proportionate increase in cost would be as much as the new sales comes, and that is something which would help to bump up the revenue as well as margins.

Right. Right. And this decision-making concern that we've been observing for quite some time. So would you attribute a little bit of whatever bold attempt that we took in terms of the repricing of the AMC. This is also kind of becoming a hindrance for a lot of people on the decision-making part because anybody who would be signing now would be trying to understand the long-term pricing for the product before committing it to the new signing?

I think -- thanks, Rahul, for the question. But I think this is a trend we are observing across industry and not just very specific to Nucleus. The sales cycle today has been a little longer in the entire industry itself. And this is the trend we and our peers companies are also experiencing. On the perspective which you bring in that with the change in pricing, is there a change in thought process in the market? I think by God's grace, I think that's not the case. The reason is because the pricing structure, which we have done is very, very happily accepted by our customers. And they understand the kind of a cost we are incurring to support them from last so many decades. So I think that was never raised as a concern from any of the existing customers. And that acceptance was very smooth in terms of our conversation with the customers. So that's not the case. I think the case is primarily more on the decision-making in terms of digital transformations, what kind of initiative financial institutions want to take. And finalizing on the scope, I think those and internal procurement decisions are taking some time, and this is something which most of the organizations are facing today, not just Nucleus.

Right. And last bit from my side. Do you see any near-term respite on this elongated decision-making cycle kind of a thought process or it is difficult to gauge at your end? And secondly, the amount of regulatory involvement that we observed nowadays in the banking and BFS space, you think will it drive a new set of growth in tech investment? Or you think it's not a meaningful trigger for us?

No, sure. I think your -- both parts to your question. One, we can draw a conjecture that because of the regulatory needs changing so far, customers have also become more careful. They want to even evaluate that part. So that probably adds to the time that it takes for decision-making. Secondly, yes, the regulatory changes coming in so fast is also contributing to business growth. And there, we definitely see us at an advantage because the flexibility of the product there, the knowledge that we have of the industry, for us to deliver those changes either to existing customers or to build it into our new releases is much easier for us. That's definitely an advantage. So yes, it is definitely going to contribute to an extent to the business growth because they're coming in pretty frequent and a lot of them.

Next question comes from Vinay Nadkarni from Hathway Investments Private Limited.

Just wanted a couple of bookkeeping questions. One is how many new clients have we added in this quarter and this half year?

So we haven't added any new client in this quarter.

Neither in this quarter, not in the half year?

No. half year, we have added.

How many? Can you -- can I have the number?

One.

One. Okay. And have we lost any clients during this period?

No.

Neither in the quarter or in the half year?

Yes.

Okay. And the order book breakup that you have given, INR 720 crores, can you just give me a breakup of product and services, you have given product, I thought it was INR 600 crores and services were INR 48 crores, but add up to INR 720 crores. So just wanted to check out if I got the numbers wrong.

Can you speak that question, please?

Yes. The order book as on 30th of September. Can you just repeat those numbers? I thought you said INR 720 crores. Am I right?

Surya, should I repeat that?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. So this INR 720.5 crores, it was including INR 672 crores of product business and INR 48.4 crores of projects and services business.

Second part was on -- are you facing any significant headwinds in your growth, which -- because for the last -- I mean, it's not only you, other companies also are finding the same here. The last 7, 8 quarters have been very stagnant in terms of plus/minus INR 200 crores. Is there anything significant which is holding you from growing and baking this INR 200 crore barrier?

Yes. Essentially, we've talked about it earlier also that some of the -- I mean most of the players in fact, not some most of the, most of the players are taking much longer time to take the decisions. And that is essentially the biggest barrier. They are being very cautious. They are being very careful in taking their decisions.

But it could spill from 1 year to the other -- 1 quarter to the other quarter, right? Or is it just going cyclically?

No, no, no. That's what we wanted to say that if earlier, some people would take decisions in 2 quarters, 3 quarters. Today, they are taking 6 quarters, 8 quarters to take the same decision.

Okay. Okay. And is there any new product that you're looking at launching? Because when I look at your cash and cash equivalent, it has been above your 1-year sales number for a long time now. So is there anything that you are planning to add into your product basket in order to service a larger variety of customers or larger requirement of a single customer?

Certainly, we -- our teams are -- our engineering teams are working on -- have been working on and are continuing to work on the latest technologies, including AI. And as and when they are in a shape to be shipped to our customers, we'll be making the announcement.

Okay. And lastly, on operating expenses. From last quarter -- last year, same quarter to this year same quarter, it has grown by almost 10 percentage points, 61.6% to 71.4%. This is basically caused by employee because that would be a major chunk, right?

You're referring to that consolidated number, Vinay?

Yes. The numbers that you gave at the beginning of the conversation, you have said that year-on-year, it has been 61.6% compared to 71.4% expenses to revenue. Am I right? Or did I take it wrong?

Yes. No, you're right. So basically, you're talking about the commentary which was given at the beginning of the call, right?

Yes.

See, most of it is attributable to the employee cost change that has happened. And that is what I referred to earlier in my speech that what we have done is like we have invested both in our employee base as well as in our technology and basis that the cost has increased as a percentage of revenue.

[Operator Instructions] As there is no more participants, so I would like to hand over the call to Mr. Vishnu for his closing comments.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued interest in Nucleus Software, and we would like to reiterate our commitment to deliver value to all our customers, Nucleites and the society at large. Thank you.

That concludes our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect now.