Dun & Bradstreet - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to the Dun & Bradstreet fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star and zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Sean Anthony, VP, Corporate FP&A and investor relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Sean Anthony (VP of Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis and Investor Relations)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Dun & Bradstreet's Financial Results Conference call for the fourth quarter and full year ending December 31, 2023. On the call today, we have Dun & Bradstreet CEO, Anthony Jabbour, and CFO, Bryan Hipsher. Before we begin, allow me to provide a disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements. This call, including the Q&A portion of the call, may include forward-looking statements related to the expected future results for our company and are therefore forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ materially from our projections due to a number of risks and uncertainties. The risks and uncertainties that forward-looking statements are subject to are described in our earnings release and other SEC filings. Today's remarks will also include references to non-GAAP financial measures.

Additional information, including reconciliation between non-GAAP financial information to the GAAP financial information, is provided in the press release and supplemental slide presentation. This conference call will be available for replay via webcast through Dun & Bradstreet's investor relations website at investor.dnb.com. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Anthony.

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Thank you, Sean. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. On today's call, I'll start with a brief overview of our fourth quarter and full year results, followed by a look back at some of our most significant accomplishments in 2023 and a brief view into our plans for 2024. After that, I'll pass the call over to Bryan for an in-depth review of our results and to discuss our guidance expectations for 2024. We'll then open up the call for Q&A and finish up with a few closing comments. With that, let's get started. We finished off 2023 with not only our strongest quarter of the year but our strongest quarter since going public.

We had organic revenue growth of 5.1%, adjusted EBITDA of $261 million, and adjusted net earnings of $140 million, or $0.32 EPS. We beat our guidance in both revenues and earnings, and we're still able to balance continued investment in our new innovations and product enhancements that help support our 30% Vitality Index in the quarter. Compared to our original guidance back in February, revenue, organic growth, and earnings were all at the high end, and EBITDA came in the middle of our ranges. For the full year, we delivered total revenues of $2,314 million, organic growth of 4.3%, adjusted EBITDA of $892 million, and adjusted net earnings of $432 million, or $1.00 EPS.

Our Vitality Index for the full year finished at 27%, up from 17.5% in 2022, as we continue to deliver new and innovative solutions to clients throughout the world. Whether it was in North America, growing 5% with a 29% Vitality Index, or international, growing 5.3% with a 34% Vitality Index in the quarter, our value proposition is resonating with businesses in need of data, analytics, and workflow to more efficiently and effectively operate in these rapidly changing environments. Businesses throughout the world are coming to us to solve some of their biggest challenges. The three most common themes we are seeing right now play directly into the areas that we had prioritized for our investment.

First and foremost, master data management has always been a foundational component of having a sound data strategy, and its importance is increasing significantly with the advent of Gen AI. We believe that we're in a privileged position because of the pervasiveness of the D-U-N-S Number, our unparalleled business entity resolution capabilities, and the largest and most robust commercial data cloud in the world to capitalize on these exciting trends. Master data management continues to be at the core of our growth strategy, and by investing in new, expanded, and alternative datasets, integrating our D&B's cloud into the most prolific data delivery platforms, and collaborating with the top cloud and Gen AI companies in the world, we are making a full push throughout 2024 to take advantage of this coming wave of innovation.

Secondly, with the launch of our own AI-powered solutions, we are enhancing our existing products with conversational search, generative insights, and improved predictive signals. We are launching standalone net new capabilities such as Abe for Hoovers, where clients can utilize conversational search using natural language processing to reduce the friction in helping our clients to more accurately research and target higher propensity prospective companies or Ask Procurement, which will be in GA at the end of this quarter, where clients can automate multiple steps in the sourcing and procurement process, saving days of work and potentially millions of dollars. While AI is front of mind in our product development prioritization, we aren't ignoring the continued demand for our existing solutions.

While we continue to have leading revenue retention rates at 96%, we're also seeing a continued strong demand for our faster-growing solutions, such as those in our third party and supply chain risk management. We delivered another quarter of strong double-digit growth in that area, and it's no surprise as business leaders, boards, investors, and governments continue to raise the bar on companies' understanding of who they are truly doing business with, and what the financial, regulatory, cyber, social, and climate risks associated with those third parties are. Our D&B Cloud now covers 558 million business entities, including UBO data on 352 million shareholders. 270 million businesses with climate risk insights and detailed data-driven ESG ratings on 80 million D-U-N-S.

And not only do we have unparalleled data on the company itself, we have also been able to map nearly 35 billion relationships between Tier One, Tier Two, and Tier Three suppliers. We are creating a more real-time predictive performance analytics that continue to create demand in the client verticals we have today, and even more importantly, in new verticals we are entering, like capital markets. Capital markets firms have consumed massive amounts of data over the years to create that last bit of alpha in their evaluation of potential company performance. Through the creation of a new set of capital markets-focused solutions, we have launched into the space with an immediate impact.

With our ability to link and enrich a capital markets client data through the D-U-N-S hierarchy, add deeply correlated performance insights from our alternative data sets on public companies, and deliver unparalleled insights into over 500 million private companies throughout the world, we have just begun to scratch the surface on what is possible in this space. Underpinning these results and the ones to come, is a significant progress we continue to make in our back office and cloud migration efforts. We have made significant progress in the completion of our modern quote-to-cash project, which will ultimately allow our go-to-market, delivery, and finance functions to operate at an even higher level of efficiency and effectiveness.

Through the use of best-in-class processes, modern software platforms, and artificial intelligence, we will not only save operating expenses, but expand revenues through more efficiently closing deals through shortening the time from quote to final signature. We also continue to make large strides in our cloud migration in 2023 and plan to complete even more in 2024. Overall, I'm very proud of our team's execution across the company in both the quarter and the full year. With organic growth approaching 5%, Adjusted EBITDA of nearly $900 million, a strengthened balance sheet through improving operating free cash flow, and the refinancing of our secured debt layer last month, I'm very pleased with the progress we are making towards our medium-term targets of organic revenue growth acceleration, expanded profitability, deleveraging, and enhanced free cash flow conversion.

In the quarter and throughout the year, we engaged our clients with urgency, delivered our data and analytics with precision, and created new and innovative solutions to satisfy prospects' growing needs. By doing these three things, we're also able to finish off the year with some really exciting wins and renewals in the quarter. Beginning with North America, where we had a 95% revenue retention for the quarter and 97% retention for the year, I want to start off with the first win to come in the capital market space. It was with one of the world's largest multinational alternative asset management, private equity, and financial services companies. Through our structured data, corporate linkage, and business signals, we are supporting their efforts in merging and mastering their internal data cloud, and also helping to predict viable acquisition targets for investment.

These use cases, along with several others, such as private credit evaluation, are common for private equity firms throughout the globe, and we see this as a huge opportunity for us going forward. On the more traditional finance solutions use case, we are pleased to announce the expansion of our relationship with Johnson Controls. Johnson Controls is a world leader in smart buildings, creating safe, healthy, and sustainable spaces. We expanded our relationship through the addition of a global finance risk solution that was able to eliminate multiple vendors, ultimately demonstrating the scale and value of our integrated solutions. Another great example of a retain and expand win was with a leading global aerospace company.

This client was rolling off a multi-year agreement, and we worked closely with them to execute another multi-year agreement of the same tenure with an expanded set of solutions that includes supply chain risk management, master data management, and global trade controls. And we look forward to continuing to help them navigate the increasing global complexities around supply chain and third-party risk management. Speaking of supply chain and global risk management, our international segment, which had 94% revenue retention for the quarter and 93% revenue retention for the year, expanded a relationship with one of the leading ERP providers in the U.K., Sage. Sage added RACI, or Risk Analytics, Compliance, and Intelligence, that supports enhanced workflow in the managing and monitoring of supply chain risk and compliance.

We also expanded our relationship with Siemens in Germany, a multinational technology conglomerate, who added our sales acceleration tools through Hoovers and a Direct Plus API integration. We have seen excellent wallet share growth with Siemens over the past few years as we continue our strategy of landing and expanding the biggest and best companies globally. We signed another multi-year deal with KION, a multinational manufacturer of materials handling equipment. They are using our Data Blocks integrated directly through their ERP system to manage their global credit risk decisioning. And finally, SEB, a leading Swedish bank, added our master data management solutions to support their overall data transformation efforts. SEB is a great example of how companies throughout the world are accelerating their transformation efforts and using D&B as the backbone of their data management strategy.

As I said before, if you want to leverage the true power of AI, it starts with rich, reliable, trusted, and timely data. While we have what we believe to be the premier commercial data cloud in the world, we want to continue to strengthen our position through investments in data, cloud capabilities, and our most recent GenAI initiatives. Coming off a strong year of financial, sales, and operational performance, we are excited about 2024 and continuing the momentum we have been building. We will continue focusing on innovating with urgency, delighting our clients, expanding strategic relationships with key partners, driving a disciplined investment strategy, and turning the vast amounts of opportunities in front of us into enhanced results.

We plan to build on our areas of strength in third party and supply chain risk management and master data management, capitalize on new opportunities such as capital markets and GenAI, and extract the appropriate amount of value from the investments and enhancements we have made to our existing solutions. We expect another year of accelerated organic growth, increased earnings, and continued deleveraging through enhanced profitability and improving free cash flow, while balancing near-term financial performance with the proper level of investment in new solution development, enhancements to existing solutions, back office upgrades, and GenAI initiatives. In summary, we are on track with achieving the medium-term guidance we set forth at our Investor Day, and we are excited about the opportunities ahead of us in 2024.

With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Bryan to discuss our financial results for 2023 and outlook for 2024.

Bryan Hipsher (CFO)

Thank you, Anthony, and good morning, everyone. Today, I will discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results, and then our outlook for 2024. Turning to slide one. On a GAAP basis, fourth quarter revenues were $630 million, an increase of 6% compared to the prior year quarter, and an increase of 5% before the effect of foreign exchange. Net income for the fourth quarter was $2 million, or a diluted earnings per share of less than $0.01, compared to a net income of $23 million for the prior year quarter. The $21 million decrease in net income for the three months ended December 31st, 2023, compared to the prior year quarter, was primarily due to a higher tax provision in the current year quarter.

For full year 2023, revenues were $2,314 million, an increase of 4% compared to the prior year, and an increase of 4% before the effect of foreign exchange. On a full year basis, net loss was $47 million, or a diluted loss per share of $0.11, compared to a net loss of $2 million for the prior year. Turning to slide two, I'll now discuss our adjusted results for the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter adjusted revenues for the total company were $630 million, an increase of 6% or an increase of 5% before the effect of foreign exchange. The increase in adjusted revenues was attributable to balanced growth in our segments, along with the positive impact of foreign exchange. Revenues on an organic constant currency basis were up 5.1%.

Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA for the total company was $261 million, an increase of $10 million or 4%, primarily due to organic revenue growth, partially offset by associated data and data processing costs and higher benefit expenses as we returned to a more normalized run rate as employees began to use their healthcare benefits more than in the prior years. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA margin was 41%, a decrease of 80 basis points compared to the prior year quarter, which included a 140 basis point negative impact from the increased healthcare costs I just mentioned. Fourth quarter adjusted net income was $140 million, or adjusted earnings per share of $0.32, compared to $131 million, or $0.30 in the fourth quarter of 2022.

This was primarily attributable to higher Adjusted EBITDA and higher tax benefits in the current year quarter, partially offset by higher depreciation and amortization, higher interest expense, and higher non-operating expenses.... Full year adjusted revenues for the total company were $2,314 million, an increase of 4% or 4% before the effect of foreign exchange compared to 2022. The increase was attributable to growth in the underlying business, partially offset by the negative impact of foreign exchange and the impact of the divestiture of our business consumer business in Germany in the second quarter of 2022. Revenues on an organic constant-currency basis were up 4.3%. Full year Adjusted EBITDA for the total company was $892 million, an increase of 3%.

Higher Adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to revenue growth and lower costs related to professional fees and facilities, partially offset by associated data and data processing costs, higher healthcare and management incentive plan expenses, as well as the negative impact of foreign exchange. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange, EBITDA increased 4%. Full-year Adjusted EBITDA margin was 39%, a decrease of 20 basis points compared to the prior year, which included $16 million of increased healthcare and incentive compensation, or a negative impact of 30 basis points. Full-year 2023 Adjusted net income was $432 million, or adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1, compared to 2022 Adjusted net income of $440 million, or $1.02 per share. Turning now to slide three.

I will now discuss the results for our two segments, North America and International. In North America, revenues for the fourth quarter were $457 million, an increase of approximately 5% from prior year quarter, and also 5% on an organic constant currency basis. In finance and risk, revenues were $241 million, an increase of $10 million or 4% due to a net increase in revenue across our third party and supply chain risk management and finance solutions. For sales and marketing, revenues were $215 million, an increase of $12 million or 6%. Sales and marketing growth was primarily driven by our master data management solutions.

North America fourth quarter Adjusted EBITDA was $224 million, an increase of $9 million or 4%, primarily due to revenue growth and associated data and data processing costs. Adjusted EBITDA margin for North America was 49%, a decrease of 40 basis points from the prior year quarter. Turning now to slide four. I will now discuss the full year results for North America. In North America, revenues for 2023 were $1,644 million, an increase of $57 million or 4% from the prior year. North America revenues on an organic constant currency basis increased 3.7%.

North America Finance and Risk full-year revenues were $888 million, an increase of $21 million or 2%, primarily attributable to a net increase in revenues across our third-party risk, supply chain management and finance solutions. Partially offset by decreased revenue from our credibility solutions and from the public sector, primarily as a result of the expiration of a government contract in April 2022. North America Sales and Marketing full-year revenues increased $36 million, or 5% to $756 million. This was primarily driven by growth from our master data management solutions. Full-year Adjusted EBITDA for North America increased $25 million, or 4% to $743 million.

The increase was primarily due to revenue growth and associated data and data processing costs, lower net personnel costs, and lower costs related to professional fees and facilities, partially offset by the negative impact of foreign exchange associated with our offshore technology team. Full year Adjusted EBITDA margin for North America was 45%, flat to the prior year. Turning to slide five. In our international segment, fourth quarter revenues increased 8% to $174 million, an increase of 5% before the effect of foreign exchange, and organic revenues on a constant currency basis increased 5.3%. Finance and risk revenues were $116 million, an increase of 10% or an increase of 7% before the effect of foreign exchange.

This was attributable to growth across all markets, including increased revenues from our U.K. market, attributable to growth in our third-party risk and compliance solutions, as well as finance analytics. Higher revenues from our worldwide network alliances related to increased cross-border data fees and higher revenues from Europe, driven by growth in finance, analytics and our latest API solutions. Sales and marketing revenues were $57 million, an increase of 6% or an increase of 3% before the effect of foreign exchange. This was primarily due to higher revenues from United Kingdom and European markets, driven by higher data sales delivered via our latest API solutions. Fourth quarter international Adjusted EBITDA was $55 million, an increase of $6 million or 13%. The increase was driven primarily due to revenue growth from the underlying business, partially offset by higher personnel and data processing costs.

Adjusted EBITDA margin was 32%, an increase of 120 basis points compared to the prior year quarter. Turning now to slide six. In our International segment, full year 2023 revenues increased 5% to $670 million, or an increase of 5% before the effect of foreign exchange, and organic revenues on a constant currency basis increased 5.8%. International finance and risk full year revenues of $449 million increased 7%, both after and before the effect of foreign exchange. All markets contributed to growth, with strong demand for finance, analytics and API solutions in the United Kingdom and Europe, and higher revenues from worldwide network alliances related to increased cross-border data fees.

International sales and marketing full year revenues of $221 million increased 1%, or an increase of 2% before the effect of foreign exchange. Excluding the negative impact of foreign exchange of $2 million and the impact of the divestiture in 2022 of our business to consumer business in Germany of $1.8 million, organic revenues increased 3%. Growth was primarily driven by higher revenues from the U.K. and Europe, driven by new to market and localized solutions such as Hoovers, as well as higher data sales delivered via our latest API solutions. Full year 2023 international Adjusted EBITDA was $215 million, an increase of $13 million or 7%.

The improvement in adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to revenue growth from the underlying business, partially offset by higher costs related to personnel and data processing costs. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 32%, an increase of 50 basis points. Adjusted EBITDA for the corporate segment was a loss of $66 million, an additional loss of $10 million, primarily attributable to higher healthcare and performance-based incentive plan costs. Turning to slide seven, I'll now walk through our capital structure as of year-end, and then we'll discuss on a pro forma basis, taking into effect the debt transactions we recently executed. At the end of December 31st, 2023, we had cash and cash equivalents of $188 million, and total principal amount of debt of $3,589 million.

The $3,589 million in principal was made up of $460 million of unsecured notes at 5%, which mature in 2029. Term loans of $2,652 million at SOFR + CSA + 2.75, that matured in 2026. $452 million at SOFR + 3.00, that matures in 2029, and borrowings of $25 million under our revolver. Turning to slide eight. On January 29th, 2024, we successfully refinanced our term loan and revolving credit facilities in a leverage neutral transaction, which repriced and extended maturities on the entire secure layer of our capital structure.

On a pro forma basis, the $3,589 million in principal is made up of $460 million of unsecured notes at 5%, which mature in 2029. A single term loan tranche of $3,104 million, repriced at SOFR + 275, that matures in 2029, and borrowings of $25 million under our revolver, repriced at SOFR + 250 and subject to a leverage-based pricing grid. The revolver maturity was also extended to February 2029. We have a total of $2,750 million floating to fixed interest rate swaps.

$250 million effective to February 2025 at 1.629%, $1 billion effective to March 2025 at 3.214%, and $1.5 billion to February 2026 at 3.695%. We also have three cross-currency swaps at $125 million each that settle in July of 2024, 2025, and 2026. Currently, 89% of our debt is either fixed or hedged. As of December 31, 2023, we had $825 million available on our $850 million revolving credit facility, and our weighted average interest rate was 6.3%. Our leverage ratio was 3.8x on a net basis, and the credit facility senior secured net leverage ratio was 3.3x.

We are pleased with our efforts throughout 2023 and in early 2024, to take advantage of favorable market opportunities to proactively address our capital structure's maturities and reduce the cost of our debt. Turning to slide nine. I'll now walk through our outlook for 2024. Total revenues after the effect of foreign currency, are expected to be in the range of $2,400 million-$2,440 million, or an increase of approximately 3.7%-5.4%. This includes an assumption of a modest headwind in the first three quarters of the year, partially offset by a modest tailwind in the fourth quarter, due to the effect of foreign currency related to the expected variances between the U.S. dollar, euro, British pound, and Swedish krona.

Revenues on an organic, constant currency basis are expected to be in the range of 4.1%-5.1% for the full year. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $930 million-$950 million. Adjusted EPS is expected to be in the range of $1-$1.04. Additional modeling details underlying our outlook are as follows: We expect interest expense to be approximately $220 million. Depreciation and amortization expense to be in the range of $125 million-$135 million, excluding incremental depreciation and amortization expense resulting from purchase accounting. An adjusted effective tax rate of approximately 22%-23%.

Our effective tax rate takes into account the introduction of the Pillar Two minimum tax rate throughout Europe, and most significantly in Ireland, where our prior rate was approximately 9%. Weighted average diluted shares outstanding of approximately 433 million. For CapEx, we expect approximately $150 million-$160 million of internally developed software and $45 million of property, plant, and equipment in purchased software. While we don't give quarterly guidance, I did want to provide some color on how we expect the year to progress. We expect the first quarter to be closer to the midpoint of our range, second quarter to be around the high end, third to be below the low end, and fourth to be around the high end of our range.

The lower growth in the third quarter is due to some of our revenues shifting from on-delivery to more ratable recognition throughout the year. We expect margins to be flat in the first quarter and then move relative to the revenue growth for the remaining quarters. We are also anticipating operating free cash flow conversion as a percentage of adjusted net income, excluding the impact of the AR securitization, to improve versus the 51% we had in 2023, and make progress towards our target of 80% over the medium term. Overall, we expect 2024 to be another year of stronger financial results, with accelerated growth in organic revenues, EBITDA, net earnings, free cash flow, and a net leverage metric of around 3.5 times by year-end.

The team is focused on delivering against our operational and financial objectives, and we look forward to updating you on all the progress in our upcoming calls. With that, we're now happy to open the call for your questions. Operator, will you please open up the line for Q&A?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while we poll for questions. Our first question is from the line of Kyle Peterson with Needham and Company. Please go ahead.

Kyle Peterson (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks, guys, for taking the questions, and good morning. You know, just wanted to touch a little bit on, you know, the building blocks for organic growth here. You know, good to see that kind of 4%-5% range. But, you know, maybe if you could break down a little bit between, you know, whether it's pricing, upsell, cross-sell, and new logos, that'd be really helpful.

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Sure. Good morning, Kyle, and thanks for the question. You know, as we've said, you know, we see about 2% of our growth coming from pricing and incrementally from new logos, upselling of, you know, existing solution, cross-selling of existing solutions to clients. And, you know, as we see, you know, what incrementally has increased, I'd say, on the MDM side, the master data management side, and, the third-party risk, and, you know, supply chain, management side has been, more current. As I said in my prepared remarks, on the MDM side, it's the precursor to AI, and I think more clients are seeing that, and there's more of a focus on that.

You know, we have a right to win in that market and are in a privileged position. Similarly on the supply chain side, we've been doing a lot of great work, you know, mapping that out. As I said, we have mapped out 35 billion relationships. So, for example, work we're doing with one of the big three automotive companies, we've mapped 40% of their entire supply chain, is what we currently have, and I just don't know if there's anyone that's, you know, close to that in this space. So in these areas which you hear a lot about, you know, we have been investing in some pretty impressive capabilities.

And in the case of master data management, that's one where we've always been focused on, and now the market's coming to us because of, you know, Generative AI movement.

Bryan Hipsher (CFO)

Anthony, if I could add on to, you know, as you said, you know, price rise traditionally been in that 2% range, you know, raising up, you know, to something north of that kind of, you know, in that 2.5% range this year as a contribution to revenue. Then on the new logo side, you know, I know you mentioned the capital markets win that we had in the fourth quarter. You know, Kyle, those are certainly, I think, a big pool of potential new logos for us to go after, as we've released, you know, the new solutions around capital markets.

We've seen an impact, I would say, almost immediately as we brought those solutions in the fourth quarter and how the pipeline's building throughout the early first quarter of this year.

Kyle Peterson (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

... Got it. You know, that's really helpful. And then, I know you guys touched a bit on some improving cash flow conversion and kinda, you know, working to, you know, maybe have some more kinda shareholder-friendly capital return policies. But maybe if you guys could just kind of, you know, rank order and remind us, you know, what would be some of the priorities for some of the cash flow as that continues to improve here?

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Yeah. So the first, Kyle, is investing in the business, you know, and driving organic growth. We're committed to, you know, the dividend, obviously, and really, debt paydown. So when we think about M&A, you know, I'll tell you, the bar. You can see we haven't done anything in the M&A space, relied more on partnerships over this last year. The bar is very high for us to do something in the M&A space. We'd have to have extreme conviction on that, you know, the team knows that. So it really is, like I said, focusing on our accelerated organic growth and being very thoughtful about that.

So where we are increasing it, we've also pulled back in some areas where, you know, products where we don't have a lot of growth, we don't see the immediate need for it. So it's not all additive. We're being very thoughtful about where we invest that way. And also, obviously, being very focused, as you see our, you know, continuous reduction in our leverage ratio.

Kyle Peterson (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. That's, that's helpful. Thanks, guys.

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Thank you, Kyle.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Seth Weber with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Seth Weber (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to just try to drill in a little bit on the EBITDA margin forecast for 2024. Just if, if it's possible for you to maybe disaggregate the guide a little bit, how much of that is there's more of this healthcare, you know, pressure that we saw in the fourth quarter that's gonna continue, versus how much of it is spending on new programs, or just more broadly, just kinda typical cost inflation, you know, labor, et cetera. You know, I think you call that data, data and processing costs and things like that. If you could give us any help just to how to think about the lack of expansion in 2024? Thanks.

Bryan Hipsher (CFO)

Yeah, Seth. So, you know, when you look at our organic, you know, growth and what we expect and call it the midpoint of a guide, it's roughly, you know, 30 bits of expansion from that perspective. I think we're balancing, you know, obviously, being mindful and continuing to invest in data and in Gen AI and continuing to accelerate our organic growth rate. If you look at a couple of those puts and takes, as you said, you know, in 2023, and especially even in the fourth quarter, the healthcare benefits, right, were, you know, increased $6 million for the year. In our incentive compensation, which we had paid down about 80% across the company in 2022, was up closer to target in 2023.

So those things are really starting to run right into 2024, where they certainly impacted 2023 more. But outside of that, you know, again, as I said, when we talked about kind of more in that, you know, getting towards 50-100 bits of margin expansion, you know, 30 bits is kinda on the edge there. You know, another $5 million or $10 million is something that we're just, again, trying to be mindful around, you know, making sure that we're, you know, investing and continuing to accelerate the business. Because, you know, I know we're excited about MDM, I know we're excited about third-party risk and compliance.

Our opportunities, you know, on the Gen AI side, maybe Anthony can talk a little bit more, you know, from that perspective, you know, we have a lot of that that's in front of us, and so, you know, trying to be that kind of, you know, not penny wise and pound foolish is the approach we took this year.

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Yeah, Seth, just, just add on, you know, to Bryan's point, our typical margin expansion, probably another $5 million-$10 million, which is a relatively small number when you're doing, you know, about $950 million of EBITDA. In particular, in the moment that we're in, where we see a lot of this opportunity in front of us, you know, the biggest regret would be if we didn't achieve as much as possible in this growing wave of innovation with Generative AI. So again, we're being very thoughtful about it. We're expanding margins 30 basis points in 2024. We've got a great growth, you know, guide that way, which again, will continue to build into 2025 and feel really good about what that looks like.

So, again, these, these are the things that, you know, we think are really important in balancing, you know, our short-term immediate results, but also, our, our medium to long-term, you know, full opportunities here.

Bryan Hipsher (CFO)

Seth, just one more piece as you're, you know, bridging items doing 2024. You know, we continue to look at the portfolio, and there was a small Finnish. We call it voice of the customer solution set that was about $2.5 million in revenue, $2.5 million in expenses, and we ended up, we're finishing the sale of that from that perspective too. So again, that's just something from a modeling perspective that I think not, you know, overly material, but, you know, just something to consider that as we see these opportunities to get low margin, no margin businesses such as those, you know, we want to get them out of the portfolio so you can kind of see what the true, you know, results are really provided.

Seth Weber (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, makes sense for that. And then just a follow-up, just on the international growth continues to be, I think, you know, better than what we would have thought. Can you, you know, there are some growing concerns around Europe lately. I mean, can you just kind of catch us up on what you're seeing in some of the international markets and how comfortable you are with the outlook for international business in 2024? Thanks.

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Sure. Yeah, we've got a lot of confidence in our international franchise overall and, you know, the momentum that we've built there. So there's been a lot of great work taking D&B products, localizing for the markets. It's been a great tailwind for us. There's been the creation of new capabilities, the one I mentioned in my prepared remarks, RACI, which is, you know, added workflow monitoring to risk and compliance intelligence. And that's one where we started it internationally, and we're bringing that one back, you know, to the US. But overall, like I said, you know, with Europe specifically, to your question, you know, we see that in, you know, mid-single-digit growth in 2024.

And so again, as you look at, you know, I'm very proud of our team and of the caliber, the performance, how hard everyone works and is committed. You know, with Bisnode, when we acquired it, it was a decliner. We got it back to neutral. From there, we've got it growing a few percent, and I think we'll be about mid-single digits this year. And so, by having more direct control of the client, like we do in Europe right now, by owning Bisnode, we're able to get to these large companies. We've had a real nice growth of penetrating larger enterprise clients, you know, that are based in Europe. So again, I'm really proud of the team there.

They're very focused and, you know, we do have confidence in them in 2024.

Seth Weber (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Appreciate the color, guys. Thank you.

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Thanks, Seth.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Andrew Jeffrey with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Andrew Jeffrey (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Good morning. Appreciate you taking the questions. Anthony, definitely, you know, hearing a lot and, and have been about MDM and, and supply chain management, and that seems to be driving a lot of the growth. When... And, and Bryan, you mentioned portfolio review. Just high level, if you step back, are there products or solutions or areas of the market perhaps that are sort of utilizing resources without generating comparable returns to some of your growth areas? And, and would, would D&B or has D&B or will D&B think about reviewing the portfolio in a more holistic way and, and maybe getting a little more targeted and focused? You know, how do you, how do you think about the portfolio overall, I guess?

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Yeah, great question, Andrew. It's something that we focus on all the time. Bryan mentioned just the Finnish business that we're going to divest of, and we did a small B2C business in Europe last year as well. So we're constantly looking at that, but we're also looking at it because there are certainly parts of where we are investing, I'd say, in the business, not getting the return that we would in other parts, but those parts are really critical to us. So if we think of the credit business, which you know has been a headwind and a decliner for us in previous years, we think this year that it will not decline.

We'll get it to even or low single digit growth. The value of the data that we get from that business is really valuable for other parts of our business, which are growing well and driving insights for us, which help us in other parts of our business. So, you know, overall, when I look at, you know, the return that we're getting, you know, by line of business, we certainly are, you know, I'd say that consolidating a number of products, right? So that's going to be a key area where we're going to continue to drive efficiencies. So, I think, you know, we shut down seven product lines last year alone, where we've migrated.

We've had a lot of success migrating our clients to our more modern solutions, and we talked about the importance of that. But in the meantime, we've also been able to shut down the legacy systems there. And there's a lot of work that way, where I'd say we have probably the most focused, Andrew, is there's opportunities. We continue to completely migrate off the system to shut it down, then it requires no investment. And while some of the legacy systems exist, they still do require investment, obviously, right? And it could be a low level of investment, obviously, right? From a security perspective, for example, but they still require investment. And that's really where we're focusing our attention, in addition, like I said, to the portfolio review.

Andrew Jeffrey (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. I appreciate that. I guess my other question is from a data ingestion or data cost standpoint, can you talk a little bit about sort of timeline, to the extent you're acquiring new datasets, and that's part of the cost structure and maybe one of the things that's limiting what otherwise would have been stronger margin expansion? Can you talk about the path from sort of data ingestion to new product introduction or revenue generation?

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Yeah. I'll start then, Bryan, you could tack on from a margin perspective. You know, I, I'd say, look, it's certainly an area where as we look at the lead that we have in master data management and and we, we've talked a little, we've got the D-U-N-S Number, which is pervasive everywhere, right? And it, it's a privileged position. Our entity resolution is best in class, and obviously, the commercial data that we have in the database, we believe is the best in the world, and have a lot of proof points around that. So the idea with bringing on additional data is how do we continue to drive, you know, enhanced value in that space?

So if we think of, you know, some alternative data sources, we're finding real value from them in combination with what we already have and in combination with working with our clients. So with the capital markets win that we discussed in the fourth quarter, again, a very, very large player in the space. You know, through this new alternative data that we're having, you know, some of it is really driving the most incremental value, right? On top of all the other data and insights that we have. So that's why it continues to be a really important driver for us and a momentum builder, I'd say.

And similarly, from an ingestion perspective, the team's doing a great job, obviously, in, you know, shrinking the timeline of when we ingest it, when it's available for clients, and really simplifying the data supply chain on a steady basis. Bryan, I'll let you-

Bryan Hipsher (CFO)

Yeah, and Andrew, what I would say is like, you know, one of the things that we've done a good job of is we continue to invest, you know, in data, and we're gonna add data processing. That's pretty, you know, normal, right, to support the business. This year in 2023, really, you know, the component that was kind of abnormal was the $10 million of incentive compensation as we reset from, you know, roughly 80% PAL, you know, in 2022, as I said earlier, to 2023. And then the healthcare benefits were up about $6 million on a year-over-year basis.

You know, that's just, you know, frankly, people going back, you know, more to the doctor, people, you know, increasing, you know, from a usage of their overall benefits, where that had been a little bit, I think, you know, lower, certainly coming out of the pandemic and initially from the work from home. You know, those are two things that are back towards more run rate. But certainly you add another $16 million onto the $892 million, and you see, you know, the expansion from that perspective.

Andrew Jeffrey (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

All right. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Steinerman with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Andrew Steinerman (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, Bryan. Just a little bit more on the data processing cost. You call it—I think you call it data processing, but is it third-party data purchasing or also third-party processing, purchasing? And do you feel like we're gonna have to continue to talk about this subject from a margin perspective, or do you feel like you'll be able to realize enough value with the customers that it's not gonna be an ongoing subject?

Bryan Hipsher (CFO)

Yeah. So, Andrew, again, I think we're always gonna have, obviously, our data and data processing, right? So this is the, you know, for instance, cloud charges, right? This is the processing charges that we have to support, you know, our overall revenue streams. And so it's not necessarily that these things are, you know, incrementally or over and above where they should be, right? You're going to have, you know, that level of cost, you know, embedded within, you know, the overall margin structure. And so, like I said, you know, really when we think about, you know, the typical data, you know, costs, the processing costs, a lot of those costs are internal in our data supply chain, in our, you know, cloud infrastructure.

But again, that's normal, right, in terms of us driving the contribution margins that we would expect. Really, as I said again, you know, in 2023, for instance, you know, the abnormal piece was more around, you know, some of these kind of resetting of incentive-based compensation across the company and some of the elevated healthcare benefits. As we're heading into 2024, again, we'll expect, you know, normal, you know, data and data processing fees, right, that run through. But, you know, it's more, you know, along the lines of, you know, us continuing to drive organic revenue growth.

Then it's just being mindful of, you know, the environment and where we want to make the investments and push forward in, you know, some of the Gen AI investments, some of the investments we're making around capital markets, which is, you know, where we're expanding margins, but just not, you know, pushing them towards the higher end of our expansion ranges.

Andrew Steinerman (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thanks, Bryan.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question is from Manav Patnaik with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Manav Patnaik (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. I just wanted to touch on, you know, I think you said it was 27% was the Vitality Index. Just hoping a little bit more color on, you know, just some more quantification around, you know, how you calculate that, maybe the base, and how is that gonna contribute to 2024 guidance?

Bryan Hipsher (CFO)

Sure. The way we calculate the Vitality Index is revenues from newer products that we have. And really what we're trying to measure, you know, with that is, do we have a lot of our clients on older products, older solutions? So if you think about that, at renewal time, you know, do you have your best foot forward with the clients, or are they on an older solution? So, so for us-

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

... with our vitality index being so high, and it won't always be this high because like I said, it cycles. It's, and it will probably in the 20% range, I imagine, which again, is, I think, exceptionally high. But what it'll do is it'll allow us to be in a position of strength on renewals with our clients, number one. Number two, the way they're architected facilitates us to sell add-on capability, because it's built into that infrastructure on our more modern platforms versus what's possible today with some of the legacy ones. So from that perspective, Manav, you know, that's why it's important to us. We're driving higher client satisfaction. We're seeing a lot of great operational results from that and, you know, from our re-renewal rates.

It also puts us in a great position from a cross-sell, up-sell perspective, as we continue to innovate, you know, small bundles, analytics, et cetera, that we can plug in easily and clients can buy easily, and they can implement easily.

Bryan Hipsher (CFO)

Yeah, Manav, I think, you know, to Anthony's point, one, we wanna make sure, you know, you know, like, one of the vintages from early on is falling off, right? You know, as we head into 2024. So don't be surprised when that, you know, Vitality Index number, you know, starts to migrate down this year. But I think, you know, when you think about how does that impact guidance, right? It's helping us from a pricing perspective, right? It's helping us obviously from a cross-sell, you know, an up-sell perspective. Our retention rates, right, you know, continue to be, you know, industry highs from that perspective. So it was really important for us to not only, you know, invest and upgrade, you know, materially solutions that we had, but as we bring on, you know, capital markets, right?

As we do, you know, things like, you know, Anthony mentioned, Ask Procurement and AI for Hoovers, these are all things that, you know, ultimately fall into, you know, supporting the Vitality Index as we go forward.

Manav Patnaik (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you. And, Bryan, maybe just a quick follow-up. Relative to EPS, anything to keep in mind in terms of conversion for free cash flow and stuff?

Bryan Hipsher (CFO)

Yeah. So, Manav, this year, in particular, on EPS, you know, I think the President of Ireland signed into effect Pillar Two on December eighteenth, so late last year. So that had a pretty big, obviously, impact in a year-over-year basis. From that perspective, you know, the tax rate's going from roughly, you know, 18%-23%. You're talking probably in the range of, you know, $0.06 from that side. When we think about the conversion component, you know, free cash flow going into adjusted income, a couple of things, you know, that are driving that improvement. One, you know, D&A and CapEx are starting to converge. You know, CapEx has come down off of its peak, you know, back in that 2021, 2022 time frame.

And so, as you know, those two start to converge, that, that was always a big, you know, component of the gap. And then, you know, while we have some of these cloud migrations going on, some of the back office work, as those wind down and some of those duplicative costs come off, that also, you know, helps the, the two to converge from that perspective.

Manav Patnaik (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

All right. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, we take the last question from Heather Balsky with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Heather Balsky (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, thank you for taking my question. I appreciate it. I wanted to go back to the question earlier, with regards to investment spend and margin and how you think about it philosophically going forward. I appreciate that right now, GenAI is a meaningful opportunity. But given that we kind of operate in a world where there's a lot of innovation going on and technology seems to, you know, be advancing very fast, kind of how do you think about balancing your margin target, your midterm margin target with the opportunities that, you know, you see today and the potential for additional opportunities in the future? Thanks.

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Well, thank you, Heather. No, it's a good question. Look, we're very focused operationally. I mean, what I'd say, again, looking back at 2023, we had the core margin expansion, you know, that you'd expect with this type of business, when you adjust for, you know, the unusual healthcare and the incentive benefit comps, right? So in terms of the core engine, how it's producing revenues and how the margins are expanding, you know, we see that we have confidence in it. And when we look to 2024 and having margin expansion of, you know, 30%, you know, we guided 50-100.

And like we said, there's about a $5 million-$10 million difference there of investment, where I think the number would be much greater, typically, you know, with the opportunity that's in front of us, in front of many in this market, with the advent of Generative AI. But it's a testament to where we have pulled back spend and where and how efficiently I'd say we are spending it and where we are investing. So, this isn't something that I'd look at on any given year and look at 2024, 2025 as any given year. I really look at them as inflection points in this industry.

I'll say in the data and analytics industry, there's potential here, and those that really understand that, I think, are really doubling down their investments to take advantage of that space, and it'd be foolish for us not to do that. And like I said, it's a relatively small investment that we're making that precludes us from being in the typical margin range that we would be. But like I said, we feel really good and that the juice is worth the squeeze.

Heather Balsky (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Thank you, Heather.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I now hand the conference over to Anthony Jabbour for his closing comments.

Anthony Jabbour (CEO)

Thank you, Ryan. As always, I'd like to thank my Dun & Bradstreet colleagues for their exceptional efforts to sustainably grow our business for the years to come and to our great clients for their partnership and guidance. I'd like to thank you for your interest in Dun & Bradstreet. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The conference of Dun & Bradstreet has now concluded. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.