Praemium Limited (PPS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Barry Lewin, and I'm the Chairman of Praemium Limited. Welcome to the 2022 Annual General Meeting. We have a quorum, so I declare the meeting open. On behalf of the Praemium Board, I would first like to formally acknowledge the many traditional owners of country throughout Australia and recognize their continuing connection to the lands, water and communities. I'll start by outlining some of the procedural matters. Today's meeting is the first time we've been able to get together in person since 2019, and it's great to meet in person again today. We are also conducting the meeting with a virtual component. This hybrid format allows shareholder and proxies wherever they may be to attend virtually. All shareholders and proxies have the ability to ask questions and vote today. For those of you online, should you experience any technical difficulties, a recording of our meeting will be available on our website following the meeting. If we experience any technical issues during the meeting, a short recess may be required. Should that occur, we'll communicate accordingly. I'd like to introduce to you my fellow independent Nonexecutive Directors who are present at the meeting. Stuart Robertson, sitting on my far left; Daniel Lipshut, sitting next to him; and Claire Willette, sitting next to me. I'd also like to introduce Anthony Wamsteker, CEO and Managing Director; and David Coulter, Chief Financial Officer, sitting in the audience. Also with us today are the company's auditor, Grant Thornton, with Crystel Gangemi as audit partner here today. Welcome, Crystel. And the company's share registry, Link Market Services, who are running the meeting today. It's great to see so many shareholders and friends of the company with us this morning. The online platform is now open for shareholders' questions, which I encourage you to submit as early as possible. To ask a written question, please follow the instructions as displayed on the screen. Please note that while you can submit questions from now on, I'll not address them until the relevant time in the meeting. Please also note that your questions may be moderated. Or if we receive multiple questions on one topic, we may amalgamate them together. For those shareholders who wish to ask a verbal question, an audio question facility is available during this meeting. [Operator Instructions] For those shareholders who are here in person today, if you have any questions or comments on a particular item of business, please state your name or the organization you represent before doing so. Finally, due to time constraints, we may not get to answer all questions. If this happens, we'll answer them in due course via posting responses on our website. Voting today will be conducted by way of a poll on all items of business. Instructions on how to vote through the platform are displayed on the screen. In order to provide everyone with an opportunity to vote, and in case anyone cannot stay for the whole meeting, I will now formally open the poll on all resolutions. I will give you a warning before I move to close voting. For those voting holders physically in the room with me today, you will have received a voting card upon registration. Please complete the reverse of the voting card. And should you require assistance to do so, we have Link staff available to assist you. You do, however, have the ability to change your vote up until the time I declare the voting closed. Moving to the agenda for today's meeting. I will first present a brief Chairman's Report. I'll then ask Anthony to address us, after which we will invite questions from shareholders. We'll then move to the formal business of the meeting, where we have a number of resolutions to put to shareholders. Moving to my Chairman's address. The 2022 financial year has seen a continuation of a significant change initiated by the Praemium Board during the previous financial year. This change resulted from a determination to simplify the business and put the group on a clear path to growing profitability and shareholder returns. The Annual General Meeting and the annual report formally adopted at this meeting provide an opportunity for your Board to update you on the progress of that change. We will also outline why we feel there is emerging evidence that the current direction of the business will produce sustainable success for the business and for all stakeholders. Highlights in this financial year included a 21% uplift in EBITDA to $16.6 million, including a $19.1 million underlying EBITDA from our continuing Australian business. The continued exceptional growth of Praemium's SMA built off our market-leading technology has generated $2 billion in net flows from a $6.9 billion base. We delivered $4.8 million in annualized synergies from the September 2020 acquisition of Powerwrap, and the executive team has undergone a significant restructure. We successfully divested Praemium's international operations for $62 million, with a profit of $46 million, and we also announced a $0.05 per share fully franked dividend, which was paid on 10 August 2022 and a $25 million share buyback from the divestment proceeds to reward shareholders. The buyback is on market and therefore transparent to all market participants whilst affording Praemium maximum flexibility. In addition to these financial year highlights, $10.6 million in borrowings and accrued interest was repaid in August and the elimination of this debt meant that we did not incur any upward repricing of that facility in the wake of increasing interest rate rises more broadly. I would like to take this opportunity to expand on the rationale for divesting our international business. This division consumed significant capital and management time over the approximate decade the strategy was pursued. The investment was originally made on the assumption that the international opportunity was at least as large as that in Australia and that it could be pursued utilizing essentially the same strategy, technology and business processes as here in Australia. The current Board and management team felt that this assumption was largely correct, did not take full account of the execution risk and the necessary bespoke IT development for differences in the U.K. tax and regulatory framework. In essence, it did not compare at all favorably with the wonderful opportunity we have here in Australia, and it provided an ongoing drag for an indeterminate period of time on cash flow and profitability. The sale of Praemium's international operations was a huge milestone for the company. It was achieved through a methodical and collaborative effort across multiple time zones with many regulatory and technological challenges to be overcome. The sale to Morningstar, one of the world's leading financial services businesses, with a much greater ability to dedicate the capital and resources, may well see the full potential of the international business realized in due course. This successful divestment will allow Praemium to focus on the enormous opportunity at home. Another change has been to restructure the executive team and refocus the Australian business priorities. The refreshed team is responding to the challenge of ensuring that Praemium continues to grow market share, revenue and profit in our preferred segment, modern advisers serving clients with sophisticated investment requirements. Praemium has the leading technology choice for Australia's most successful financial advisers, with nearly half of Barron's top 100 advisers using our technology in their practices. I would like to thank my Board colleagues for their support and the entire Praemium team for their committed efforts. My fellow directors and I also wish to express our sincere gratitude to all shareholders, both new and existing, for your continued support. We are confident you will benefit from your investment in Praemium in the years ahead. I'll now hand over to Anthony, who will present his report to the meeting.

Thank you, Barry, and may I add my welcome to everyone here today and online. We are pleased with the financial and business results over the last year despite some significant volatility in asset prices and market returns over the second half of financial year '22. Praemium is a growth business. We operate in a business sector that is not only growing in absolute terms, but that is also seeing a dramatic shift in market share from the previous incumbents to a new generation of challenger investment platforms. This shift has been driven by 2 main factors. The first is not unique to the investment platform business. Newer players in many sectors are merged with more efficient technology solutions. The second factor, however, is somewhat unusual. The structure of the industry that we operate in used to reward vertically integrated business models. Now it rewards independence. The 2 factors contribute to superior outcomes for the consumers of financial services or platform services, financial advisers and their clients. We believe that the shift in market share has further to run, and we plan our business activities accordingly. The changes we've made over the last 18 months are part of this plan and which are summarized at a high level with the 4 pillars, which represent our corporate objectives. We have more work to do on each of our 4 pillars, and the progress we've made to date is only a first step on a long journey to fully realize our purpose, enabling advisers to deliver great outcomes. Praemium has some important advantages over other technology solutions in the platform market in Australia. The tax planning and reporting capability is based on the most comprehensive corporate actions database in Australia. It enables advisers to deliver better outcomes to their clients. We expect this advantage to become more important in the coming years, and we continue to invest to maintain our leadership position. Our platform is also backed by the most comprehensive range of data feeds, and our reconstruction technology automatically delivers accurate performance and tax reporting under all scenarios. Praemium placed third overall in Investment Trends' most recent platform competitive analysis and benchmarking report. Notably, the difference between first and third was very slight and narrowed from 2020. Praemium was the winner across 3 of the 6 categories, ranking best, as you can see, in decision support, online business management and security and data and integration. Indeed, Praemium scored the biggest improvement in the annual investment trend survey amongst the top 3 platforms; a proof that the recent changes we've made have been well received. The appeal of Praemium service functionality and technology was evidenced by significant improvements in funds under administration and net inflows for 2022. Total FUA of $40.5 billion was up 10% on the prior year. Platform FUA flow of $19.5 billion was up 6% on the prior year and despite market conditions being adverse to the growth in FUA. VMAAS noncustodial portfolio administration and reporting service FUA of $21 billion was up 15% on the prior year. Net inflows of $2.9 billion were up 42 -- up 92% compared with 2021. This FUA and flows performance has been sustained into the 2023 financial year as well. Total FUA floor is up a further 2% in the first quarter to $41.4 billion. This FUA includes platform quarterly net inflows of $659 million, drawn $445 million from the Praemium managed account scheme and $214 million from the Powerwrap scheme. VMAAS was also up 2% to $21.4 billion. These increases were achieved against the backdrop of declining equity markets in that first quarter. Further [ variation ] of the quality of our offering is at over 40% of the advisers in Barron's top 100 financial advisers utilize some combination of Praemium's technology, administration service and platform to manage their client portfolios as referred to in Barry's talk. The list is dominated by high net worth advisers for whom Praemium offers a comprehensive platform solution, covering all types of assets, both custodial and noncustodial and delivering comprehensive reporting and a whole-of-portfolio view. So if an adviser has, as most advisers do, clients with custodial and noncustodial assets, we're at the best place to come to get that whole-of-portfolio view for those clients. Allow me to finish by adding my thanks to everyone in the Praemium team for their contribution to the results we have achieved this year. I'd also like to thank our clients for their ongoing support and suggestions on how we can further improve our product and service offering. And finally, thank you, our shareholders, for your investment in our business, often cases, in over many years. That concludes the business update, and I'm happy to open for any questions. And I'll hand back to Barry for that.

So we'll now proceed to questions from shareholders. Questions relating to audit queries and specific resolutions will be addressed later in the meeting. Are there any questions or comments on the phone?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Thank you. Are there any questions or comments online? No questions online. And are there any questions from those in the room? There are no questions from anyone in the room. So we'll proceed to the formal business of the meeting. Before proceeding, I'd like to remind you that only shareholders or their appointed proxies are entitled to vote or speak at this meeting. I now move to the business outlined in the notice of meeting. I will provide an opportunity for discussion on each resolution and would ask you to limit your questions to the resolutions put before you. I confirm that Andrew Farrell from our share registry, Link Market Services, has been appointed to act as returning officer for the purpose of conducting and determining the results of the poll. As Chairman of the meeting, I'll vote in favor on all open proxies for all resolutions to be put to the meeting. Section 317 of the Corporations Act requires directors of a public company to lay before the Annual General Meeting the financial report, the director's report and the auditor's report. The company's annual report was released to the market and are made available on the company's website on 31 August 2022. There's no requirement for a resolution that the annual report be adopted. However, at this point, I invite any questions shareholders may have for the auditors. Are there any questions or comments online?

There are no questions online.

Are there any questions on the phone?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Any questions in the room? There are no questions in the room. There are 4 items of general business; 3 being ordinary resolutions and 1 special resolution. I'll move through each resolution individually. The first item of business is resolution 1, the adoption of the remuneration report for the year ended 30 June 2022, as set out in the 2022 annual report. The vote on this resolution is advisory only and nonbinding on the company. However, the directors recognize the outcome of the resolution as an indication of shareholder sentiment in relation to the 2022 remuneration report. Are there any questions online or on the phone?

There are no questions online.

On the phone?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Any questions in the room? There are no questions in the room. Details of the proxy voting on this resolution are displayed on the screen. As the next item of business relates to me, I'll hand the meeting over Anthony. Thanks, Anthony.

Thanks again, Barry. So we come to resolution 2, the reelection of Director Barry Lewin. The next -- Barry retires by rotation in accordance with the company's constitution and, being eligible, offers himself for reelection as a director. So I'll open up now to any questions. Are there any questions online?

There are no questions online.

Are there any questions on the phone?

There are no questions on the phone line.

All right. Are there any questions in the room? All right. The details of the proxy voting on this resolution are displayed on the screen. And I will now hand back the meeting to Barry.

Thanks, Anthony. Resolution 3 is for the amendment to the terms of the 2021 performance rights. This resolution seeks shareholder approval for the company to vary the TSR conditions attached to the 2021 performance rights as outlined in the notice of meeting. Are there any questions or comments on the phone?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Are there any questions online?

There are no questions online.

Are there any questions in the room? No questions in the room. Details of the proxy voting on this resolution are displayed on the screen. Moving to the final resolution, Resolution 4, which seeks shareholder approval to amend the company's constitution as set out in the notice of a meeting with effect from the close of this meeting. Are there any questions or comments on the phone?

There are no questions on the phone line.

Any questions online?

There are no questions online.

Any questions in the room? There are no questions in the room. You'll now see details of the proxy voting as displayed on the screen. So that concludes the formalities of the meeting. If you've not already voted, please cast your votes now as the poll will close shortly. [Voting]

The results of the poll will be released on the ASX company announcements platform as soon as they are available this afternoon. On behalf of the Board, I'd like to thank all shareholders for your support of Praemium during the year. And I declare the poll in the 2022 Annual General Meeting closed. Thanks very much for your attendance.