Sezzle Inc. (SEZL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, or to those joining us from Sezzle's home here in the United States, good evening. And welcome to the Sezzle Inc. 2021 Annual General Stockholder Meeting, our second Annual General Meeting as a listed company on ASX. My name is Charlie Youakim, I'm the CEO and Executive Chairman of Sezzle, and I will be chairing the meeting today. 2020 turned out to be quite a year for all of us, and I'm happy and proud to report that Sezzle ended up coming out of the year quite well despite all of the turmoil. Thank you for joining us today and for believing in us. Let's begin the AGM proceedings. I confirm that we have a quorum for the meeting to proceed, and I am pleased to declare the meeting formally open. I'm delighted to be able to also extend a warm welcome to all of our stockholders and CDI holders who are participating through the online meeting platform. As was the case last year, this meeting is being held virtually, which means that there is no physical meeting taking place in person but rather by remote electronic means only as is permitted by the company's bylaws. I would like to start by acknowledging my fellow directors who are each joining the call from their usual locations. Joining from Sezzle's home city of Minneapolis is Paul Paradis, my Co-Founder, Executive Director and President. Joining the call as well are our 4 independent nonexecutive directors: Paul Purcell from Chicago, Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore from Maryland, Paul Lahiff from Sydney and Mike Cutter from Melbourne, Australia. In terms of our team, we are also joined by our CFO, Karen Hartje; our Australian Company Secretary, Justin Clyne; and our Head of Investor Relations, Lee Brading. Also online today is a representative of our auditors, Rachel Polson, from Baker Tilly in Minneapolis. The Notice of Meeting was distributed to all stockholders and CDI holders in accordance with the company's bylaws and the ASX listing rules and is also available from our website and the ASX announcements platform on the ASX website. I will take the Notice of Meeting as read. In terms of process for the meeting, we will begin the meeting with a joint presentation from Karen Hartje, Paul Paradis and myself, while the formal proceedings comprising voting on the 13 resolutions occur in the background. The resolutions will be decided by poll. Voting on the resolutions is now open via the online meeting platform. The voting icon will appear on the navigation bar. Once you click on this, the resolutions will appear on your screen. You can vote any time during the meeting until I declare the voting closed. You can also change your vote at any time throughout the proceedings. I will give you a clear prompt later in the meeting to warn of the close in voting. I don't propose to read each of the resolutions as these are clearly laid out in the Notice of Meeting. The proxies received in respect of each resolution prior to the cutoff time are contained at the back of the presentation, which has been lodged with ASX. We will also take the opportunity for questions and you can start submitting questions now, including any questions for the company's auditor, and we will address these later in the proceedings. We will now move on to the presentation. As mentioned earlier, you can find our presentation posted on the ASX website if you would like to follow along. If you are following along at home or in office, please open your presentation and proceed to Slide 5 where we'll cover the agenda. In today's presentation, we will cover the following topics. First, we'll cover our mission and how we think about building a great company. Next, we'll talk about the innovation expansion that we've been working on over the last year. Third, we'll go over our financial performance. And finally, we'll move on to the votes. Let's get started. Please use Slides 7 through 11 as your guide as we discuss our mission and approach. In case we have any newcomers, I wanted to repeat our mission. Our mission at Sezzle is to financially empower the next generation. We embrace that mission in every decision that we make as a company. Additionally, we follow a stakeholder approach to building our business. On Slide 8, we lay out some examples of that approach in action. The approach and -- this approach and philosophy led to our Public Benefits Corp. endorsement and our B Lab certification as a B Corp. And as we went through that certification process, we identified gaps which we have since filled. First, we were not doing enough for the environment, so we have rectified that by partnering with Climate Neutral to purchase carbon offsets to get our company to a carbon-neutral position. But we didn't stop there. We also partnered with Trees for the Future to plant trees on the borders of African farms to help the environment and to also financially empower the African farmers that take part in that program. We've also partnered with our merchants on social good activities. One example of this is our partnership with Ministry of Supply where we partnered to provide clothing for job seekers in a post-COVID economy. We also have a dollar-for-dollar match for charitable contributions and 2 scholarships: one to support minority students in tech and one for students committed to making the world a better place post-graduation. All of this good work fits our ethos and helps us get to a better place with our stakeholders. You can now see how our approach resonates with consumers on Slide 9. We're the most trusted buy now, pay later brand among consumers, largely due to our ESG-forward approach. The chart on the right shows that our social mission is attracting young consumers who believe that emission is mission-critical when making a purchase decision. On the next slide, we cover the shift in attitudes towards spending behavior created by the pandemic. First, we see that 42% of millennials have shifted to online shopping more, but they've also increased their buy now, pay later use, and they plan to continue to leverage buy now, pay later in the post-pandemic world. On the next slide, we talk a bit about our greatest asset, our people, and our approach to doing the right thing with our teammates. One way we've done that is to embrace diversity, equity and inclusion. We've always been believers in these principles. So we formalized some of those beliefs behind the principles. We've created a DEI committee within the company and have supported the growth of employee resource groups to help ensure that communities within the company can amplify their voices as a group, to make sure that they've been heard and represented. We've also expanded our hiring searches into areas of diversity and under representation by posting on diversity job boards and attending minority career fairs, such as the Black Virtual Career Fair. We're doing all of this because our team is asking us to do it and because it's the right thing to do. Serving our team has led to strong scores from within. Our internal barometer sits at a 90%-plus satisfaction level. And our external reviews match the same feeling, with Glassdoor reviews coming in at 4.9 out of 5 for the company. This employee happiness leads to a highly productive team, which leads to our next section, innovation and expansion. Our employees were busy in 2020 and remain busy in 2021 serving our prime-to-be shoppers. On this slide, you'll find some information on our typical customer and why we call them prime-to-be. Take a look at the chart in the lower left-hand corner. That chart shows you the average credit score in the U.S.A. by age group. You can see that the credit score is correlated with age. That tells us that these young consumers are truly prime-to-be and tend to score lower due to less credit experience and less data. Our strong underwriting and our pro-consumer mindset has allowed us to design a product that gives these young consumers access to Sezzle's purchasing power to the tune of a 90%-plus order approval rate with great repayment rates on the back end. This is the same group of consumers that is being denied more frequently by traditional credit programs. We're winning with the young consumers that traditional providers can't figure out how to serve. If we can continue to win these consumers, our user lifetime value will continue to rise. On Slide 14, we demonstrate the products that will continue to win them over. Our core product leads the way, of course. Our interest-free 4-pay product continues to drive tremendous user frequency and repeat usage with user reviews that lead the industry. We added value for our smart, credit-minded consumers by enabling credit building for them with Sezzle Up. Credit building was a feature many of our shoppers requested and we obliged. Sezzle Up is our flagship product expansion from 2020 and will continue to be a key part of our growth story in 2021 and beyond. In the third column, you see our virtual card, which is about to take center stage as we move into off-line payments. Our virtual card can be added to a Google or Apple Wallet in a single tap where it can remain parked for our shoppers. As our shoppers learn about this new, easy and elegant functionality and start to see our logo in their favorite retail stores, we will expect to see off-line payments grow as a share of our total underlying merchant sales. And on the right screen shot, we highlight our long-term product expansion. We believe that this product will unlock late and underlying merchant sales within our current merchant base and also allow our sales team to attack new merchants and new merchant categories. It could be a powerful product expansion for us in all of our geographies as we roll it out across the company. On Slide 15, you'll notice that despite our product expansions, we still understand that the core product is the key. And the stats on the left of that slide tell you why, with 52% of consumers stating that they are more likely to make a purchase from retailers that offer interest-free installments and 88% of consumers stating that they feel more favorable towards retailers that offer more than 1 buy now, pay later option. On Slide 16, we wanted to show everyone why we think Sezzle Up is going to be such a successful product expansion for us. Please take some time to read the quotes there. They are extremely powerful and really exemplify why we think this is such an important product for us. These are just a subset of the feedback we get from our consumers when they talk about Sezzle Up. You know you're making the right decisions when you create a product that makes an impact like this. On Slide 17, we wanted to give you a bit more detail on our virtual card solution. As I touched on earlier, we think the off-line solution we've created will help us in future years and will also help us create a more compelling offering to retailers looking for a full omnichannel solution. When you flip to the next slide, I hope you have as big a smile as I do as we can now claim Target as one of our merchant partners. We are extremely excited to grow this relationship as Target is a Tier 1 retailer in the U.S. and a perfect match for our product and our company. If you take a look at the numbers in the bottom right-hand corner of Slide 18, you'll see why we're so excited. Target is a retailer on a massive scale with over $90 billion in total revenues across all of their channels. Landing Target is good for our business today, but it also puts our company on a new level in terms of respect and clout within our sector and here in the U.S.A. and abroad. We couldn't be happier. On the next slide, we give a few more details on our long-term product and why we see it playing such an important role in our growth going forward. As I hope you can see, we've got a lot going on at Sezzle, which bodes well for our future. Next slide, please. All of this work leads to exciting new frontiers and also leads to best-in-class work as recognized by many third-parties. Please take a look at the recognition we've received on this slide. We are performing at a high level across the organization, which makes us all proud. And last but not least, we wanted to touch on our international work on Slide 21. You'll see that we've been flag planting. We've recently launched an effort in Brazil, which adds to the asymmetric international opportunities across the company. These opportunities are asymmetric in that we find great teams and give them the tools and capital that they need to succeed. It may take a bit more time, but in the end, we believe it will lead to the creation of more shareholder value with less risk. That's all for innovation and expansion. I'll now pass off the baton to Karen Hartje to cover our financial performance. Karen?

Thanks, Charlie, and hello to all. Before I start the financial update, please note that our financial statements are prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles and are presented in U.S. dollars. The year-end 2020 financial results have been audited, but first quarter financial results are unaudited. We are pleased to present our financial scorecard that reflects triple-digit percentage growth in UMS and Sezzle income from full year 2019 to 2020 on the left and from first quarter 2020 to first quarter 2021 on the right. 2020 UMS totaled $856 million and was 3.5x the $244 million in 2019. First quarter 2021 UMS totaled $375 million and was 3.1x the $119 million in first quarter 2020. UMS drives Sezzle income, which was up 293% from full year 2019 to 2020 and up 216% from first quarter '20 to first quarter '21. As a percentage of UMS, Sezzle income totaled 5.8% for the full year 2020, up 34 basis points from 5.5% in 2021 (sic) [ 2019 ]. Sezzle income, as a percentage of UMS, totaled 5.9% in the first quarter of 2021, up 4 basis points from 5.9% in the first quarter of 2020. The increase in UMS is driven by the increase in active customers, active merchants and repeat usage. Active consumers totaled 2.2 million at year-end 2020, 2.4x the 915,000 at the end of 2019. Active customers totaled 2.6 million at the end of first quarter '21, 2.3x the 1.1 million at the end of first quarter '20. Active merchants at the end of 2020 totaled 27,000, up 167% from the 10,000 at year-end 2019. At quarter end 2021, active merchants totaled 34,000, up 168% from 13,000 at the end of first quarter 2020. Repeat usage increased by 608 basis points from 83.7% at year-end 2019 to 89.8% at year-end 2020 and increased 510 basis points from 85.6% in first quarter '20 to 90.7% in first quarter '21. You can see from the charts on the left, the growth momentum that we experienced in 2020 continued through first quarter 2021. The top chart reflects average monthly UMS per quarter and the bottom chart reflects total UMS in the Sezzle income rate. In first quarter 2021, we had a record high numbers for UMS, active customers, active merchants and repeat usage. Active customer repeat usage grew to 90.7% and represented the 27th consecutive month of growth. The top 10% of Sezzle's consumers, on average, now transact 49x per year or roughly 4x per month. During first quarter '21, larger enterprises, such as Market America Worldwide and Lamps Plus, were added to our growing list of merchants. We have driven migration from card to ACH with over 15% of dollar volume processed via ACH in first quarter '21 compared with less than 3% in first quarter '20. In the next slide, you will see the positive impact that makes on our processing costs. Net transaction margin totaled $7,175,000 in first quarter '21, 7x the $1,027,000 earned in first quarter '20. As a percentage of underlying merchant sales, first quarter net transaction margin totaled 1.9%, up 100 basis points from 0.9% for the first quarter of 2020. Walking through net transaction margin, we start with Sezzle income at 5.9% of UMS for first quarter '21, relatively flat to the 5.9% rate earned in first quarter '20. We feel good about preserving that rate. Our largest expense line item, cost of income, improved by 60 basis points to 2.4% of UMS. This reflects the improvement in payment processing costs due primarily to the migration from card to ACH. Net transaction loss of 1.3% is comprised of the provision for uncollectible accounts that improved by 10 basis points to 2.3% in first quarter '21, offset by 1% in account reactivation fees that were flat to first quarter '20. Net interest expense improved by 30 basis points to 0.4% of UMS, reflecting primarily the lower cost of funding with the new line of credit. So in summary, from first quarter '20 to first quarter '21, we drove year-over-year improvement in all net transaction margin costs to the tune of 100 basis points comprised of 60 basis points in payment processing, 10 basis points in loss provision and 30 basis points in funding costs. Next page, please. As of the end of March 2021, cash totaled $67.4 million, and we had $27 million drawn against our line of credit with $46.6 million remaining unused borrowing capacity. In July and August of 2020, we raised USD 58 million net of cost via an equity raise. In February of 2021, we refinanced our receivables funding facility with a new 28-month $250 million line of credit. The new credit facility lowered our borrowing costs, extended the maturity and increased our borrowing capacity. Every additional dollar of capital supports $14 of underlying merchant sales. Capacity on the current line of credit would fund more than $3 billion in incremental UMS. We continue to maintain a disciplined approach to cash management. As a result, our balance sheet is well positioned for growth, and we are excited for our future. At this time, I would like to turn it back to Charlie.

Thanks, Karen. We will now take questions from stockholders. [Operator Instructions]

I will now begin responding to questions that have been submitted and direct any questions to our auditor as relevant. We'll wait here for a few minutes. There's no questions at this time. I'll give you all a couple of minutes. All right. Still no questions. I think we're just going to move on. The first item of business relates to the tabling of the company's financial reports for the year ended 31st of December 2020. I note shareholders have been given the opportunity to ask questions concerning the financial statements of the company. A vote in respect to the financial statements and accounts is not required, and I will move to the resolutions contained within the Notice of Meeting. I appoint Maria Dzopalic of Computershare Investor Services as the returning officer. As mentioned at the start of the meeting, voting on the resolutions is currently open, and you can vote at any time until I declare the voting closed. Results will be released to the ASX after the conclusion of the meeting. Please note that only stockholders, CDI holders, proxy holders or authorized stockholder representatives may vote. Any directed proxies given to you by the stockholder will be automatically cast as directed when the poll is closed. If you have an issue trying to vote, the voting icon will appear on the navigation bar. Once you click this, the resolutions will appear on your screen along with the voting options that are relevant to that particular resolution. Simply select one of these options to cast your vote. When voting is closed, your final voting selection will be recorded. If you have any difficulties, please refer to the user guide, which was included in the Notice of Meeting and is also available on the ASX company announcements platform. We'll take a few moments or a couple of minutes now to allow you to finish voting. Please complete your voting now. [Voting]

Voting has now closed. Please note that the final results will be advised to the ASX and also made available on Sezzle's website along with all of our ASX announcements after the meeting. Thank you all for your attendance online today. As the business of the meeting is now concluded, I declare the meeting closed and thank everyone for their participation today.