Magic Software Enterprises - Q4 2022

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Magic Software Enterprises 2022 fourth quarter and full year financial results conference call. Magic fourth quarter 2022 earnings release was issued before the market opened this morning. It has been posted on the company's website at www.magicsoftware.com.

At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief questions and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a re-reminder, this conference is being recorded. For operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero.

With us on the line today are Magic CEO, Mr. Guy Bernstein, Magic CFO, Mr. Asaf Berenstin, and Magic CTO, Mr. Yuval Lavi. Magic fourth quarter 2022 earnings release was issued before the market opened this morning. It has been posted on the company's website.

Before we start, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain projections or other forward-looking statements. The safe harbor provision provided in the press release issued today also applies to the context of this call.

Magic expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any of these forward-looking statements, whether because of future events, new information, a change in its views or expectations or otherwise. During the course of today's call, management will refer to non-GAAP financial measures.

A reconciliation schedule showing GAAP versus non-GAAP results has been provided in the press release issued before the market opened this morning. A replay of this call will be available after the call on our investor relations section of the company website. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Asaf Berenstin, CFO of Magic Software. Please go ahead.

Asaf Berenstin (CFO)

Thank you, operator, thank you everyone for joining us today as we report our fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results. During the call today, I will review highlights from our fourth quarter results and provide an overview of our achievements. We appreciate your continued support and look forward to sharing our progress with you. During the year, we continued to make big strides across multiple fronts of our business, which is reflected by our record-breaking results exceeding $500 million in revenues for the first time, and with double-digit growth recorded across all of our key financial indices for the year. Revenues, gross profit, operating income, EBITDA, net income, and dividends distributed to our shareholders.

Our strong results demonstrate the growing investment made by enterprises and organizations worldwide, even during challenging macroeconomic environment, to leverage their digital technologies and cloud-based platforms, creating high demand for our innovative software solutions and services, which together with the outstanding execution by our teams, led to another year of strong performance recorded across our business. This quarter, Magic delivered its strongest fourth quarter top line and bottom line results, with revenues increasing by 10.6% year-over-year to approximately $147.1 million, exceeding market expectations and non-GAAP net income increasing by 9.9% year-over-year to a fourth quarter record-breaking result of $13.9 million.

Growth in Q4 was mainly driven by our North American operations, growing in double digits, accompanied by a strong pipeline, offsetting the negative impact of the Jewish New Year holiday season, which this year resulted in a decrease of approximately 6.5 billable working days, equivalent to approximately $2.8 million in our Israeli market operations compared to the same period last year, and 4 billable working days equivalent to approximately $1.2 million compared to the third quarter of 2022. On a constant currency basis, revenues for the fourth quarter of 2022 would have increased by 16.5% year-over-year to $155 million, with 69.6% reflecting organic growth. Magic fourth quarter results strongly demonstrate our sustained profit-oriented approach. We continue supporting our existing loyal customers as well as closing new deals.

The continued strategic focus on the execution of our priority of top-line growth resulted in yet another strong performance for the quarter. Our strategy allows us to carefully balance our growth, resources, investment and risk across regions and markets. Our solid execution in the fourth quarter and throughout this year validates our strategy of building a broad business portfolio, which provides for the foundation of our sustained solid performance and growth as we continue supporting our customers throughout their innovative digital transformation journey based on our long-term engagement cycle.

Despite seeing some caution in recent months in the high-tech sector, we are still witnessing a healthy demand and maintaining a solid pipeline to deliver continued growth also in 2023, as our customers increasingly engage us as a preferred partner for innovative digital information initiatives. As such, we continue to fortify our position as a leading software solution and IT service global vendor. We are extremely proud of the positive results we continue to demonstrate, particularly from our organic growth and from achieving this quarter another growth milestone, crossing for the first time the $500 million in annual revenues.

This is a significant milestone which serves as a key evidence to our continued success. We are certain than ever that we have all the tools in place for sustained growth. We have a well-established track record of growth, profitability and high cash generation. The Magic team worldwide, which this year has crossed for the first time the 4,000 employee and contractors headcount mark, is committed to executing our strategy to deliver growth and continue improving our shareholders' value.

On the M&A front, we continue to explore M&A opportunities in the fields that we operate in, as well as in fields that we target and identify growth opportunities as we have in the past. Moving to the financials and starting with the geographical breakdown of our revenues, during the fourth quarter, North America accounted for 55% of total revenues, Israel 37%, Europe 6%, and APAC and the rest of the world accounted for 2% of our fourth quarter revenues. Our revenues in North America reached a record high of $84.9 million, up 20% compared to $70.6 million in the same period last year, with 12% organic growth year-over-year. On a sequential basis, North America revenue grew by 7.5% from $70.9 million in Q3 2022, with 0.2% sequential organic growth.

Revenues in Israel reached $48.2 million, down 7% compared to $52.1 million in the same period last year. On a constant currency basis, revenues in Israel increased by approximately 3.2% compared to the same period last year and despite the negative impact of the new year Jewish holiday season. Turning now to profitability. Despite the significant currency headwinds and the negative impact of the Jewish holiday season, we were able to deliver growth in our gross profit as well as in our gross margin, as our non-GAAP gross profit for the fourth quarter of 2022 reached $43.2 million, up approximately 11.5% compared to $38.7 million in the fourth quarter of last year. Our non-GAAP gross margin for the fourth quarter of 2022 increased 20 basis points from 29.1% in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 29.3% in the fourth quarter of 2022.

The breakdown of our revenue mix for the year of 2022 was approximately 17.4% related to our software solutions, with gross margins of approximately 64% and 82.6% related to our professional services with gross margin of approximately 21%. While in 2021, 20% of our revenues were attributable to our software solutions segment with a gross margin of approximately 64% and 80% related to our professional services with gross margin of approximately 20%.

The increase in the percentage of our professional services is due to the continued strong demand for our professional experts driving our professional service revenue stream, as well as the acquisition of TGG concluded during the third quarter of 2022. The breakdown of our gross profit mix for the year was approximately 39% related to our software solutions and 61% related to our professional services, compared to 44% and 56% in the same period last year. Moving to operational cost.

Our non-GAAP operating income for the fourth quarter of 2022 decreased by 2.9% to $19.2 million, compared to $19.8 million in the same period last year and $18.5 million in the third quarter of 2022. This reflects an operating margin of 13% for the quarter, compared to 14.9% in the fourth quarter of 2021 and 13.1% in the third quarter of 2022.

Financial expenses. During the quarter, we had financial debt interest expenses of $684,000 resulted from our $51 million financial debt, compared to $200,000 recorded in the same period last year for a total financial debt of $37 million.

As interest rates are still expected to rise, we expect our interest expenses to continue growing. Net income attributable to non-controlling interests. As our business combination model has often relied on keeping former shareholders in acquired entities as minority stockholders, in addition to their managerial role in such entities, we are allocating a portion of our net income to these minority shareholders. Net income attributable to non-controlling interests amounted this quarter to $1.5 million, compared to $1.8 million in the same period last year.

Our non-GAAP tax expenses this quarter totaled $2.5 million, compared to a tax expense of $3.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Our effective tax rate for the year was approximately 18%, compared to 17.8% recorded in 2021. We expect our effective tax rate in 2022 to be in the range of 19%-20%.

Our non-GAAP net income for the fourth quarter increased 9.9% to $13.9 million or $0.28 per fully diluted share, compared to $12.6 million or $0.26 per fully diluted share in the same period last year. Turning now to the balance sheet. As of December 31st, 2022, cash and cash equivalents, short and long-term deposits and marketable securities amounted to approximately $87 million, compared to $88.8 million in the previous quarter.

Our total financial debt as of December 31st, 2022, amounted to $51.1 million, compared to $59.1 million in the previous quarter. During the fourth quarter, our cash flow from operating activities reached $12.1 million, compared to $5.9 million in the same period last year.

Our cash flow from operating activities for the year reached $49.6 million, compared to $37.8 million in 2021. In accordance with our dividend distribution policy, our board of directors has declared a semi-annual cash dividend in an amount of $0.30 per share and in an aggregate amount of approximately $14.7 million, which together with the dividend distributed for the first half of 2022 in an amount of approximately $14.2 million, reflects 71% of the company's net income attributable to its shareholders for the year. In closing, I would like to turn to our guidance for 2023.

As we are witnessing a healthy demand and developing a growing pipeline to deliver continued growth in 2023, we anticipate revenues in the range of between $585 million-$593 million, reflecting annual growth of 3.2%-4.6%.

This growth takes into consideration anticipated organic growth, the current macroeconomic environment, and the current devaluation of foreign currency exchange rates versus average rates in 2022. Based on 2022 average currency exchange rates, Magic 2023 annual revenue guidance would have been between $600 million and $608 million, reflecting annual growth of 5.9%-7.3%. In summary, this was a strong, challenging, and overall exceptional year of execution on many fronts, and we want to congratulate the Magic global team for their outstanding performance in 2022.

The results we delivered show that our strategy is working and that by focusing on our investment to deliver profitable growth, we can significantly enhance shareholder value. With that, I will now turn the call over to the operator for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. If you have a question, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you are using speaker equipment, kindly lift the handset before pressing the numbers. Your questions will be pulled in the order they are received. Please stand by while we pull for your questions. The first question is from Chris Reimer of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Chris Reimer (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Congratulations on this strong quarter, and thanks for taking my questions. Just touching on operating expenses, we've seen double-digit increases over the past few quarters. Do you expect this to level out at some point, or is there some other investment going into there? Is it just macro related? Just wondering what the moving parts around the operating expenses are and how you see that going forward.

Asaf Berenstin (CFO)

The majority of the increase in our operating expenses relate to our sales and marketing. Some of it, a portion of that, one-third of that was from the acquisitions that we did, especially TGG, which contributed around $3 million to our sales and marketing expenses in 2022 versus 2021. All other increases are mainly related to our investment in increasing our sales team and our recruitment teams, and the bonuses that we pay as part of the growth that we experience in our revenues and our gross profits.

Chris Reimer (Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Just touching on the headcount and your employees' levels, how do you feel like you're positioned now, and how do you see the trends in staffing? Is it still hard to acquire new employees, or do you find maybe that they're staying longer? Just any of the trends around that and how you see your employee levels going forward.

Yuval Lavi (CTO)

I think we see that the trend is changing. Still, you know, the chasing after the talents is still a challenge. Let's say that the regular IT players are easier to get on one hand. On the other hand, we see some hesitance from the from customers because of the economical uncertainty. You know, on one hand, it's easier for us to find the employees.

On the other hand, some hesitance in the market.

Asaf Berenstin (CFO)

I would add to that one thing is that normally we serve as subcontractors to our customers. You know, on a difficult macroeconomic environment or where there is this, you know, winds of recession, the customers tend to go with their subcontractors rather than with increasing their internal headcount, and this works for our benefit.

When there is actual, you know, recession, then you first try and, you know, minimize the responsibility of the subcontractor. Currently, we only see winds of recession or sounds of recession, but we don't actually see it in the demand for our services.

Chris Reimer (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. That's it for me. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Kate Kronstein of William Blair. Please go ahead.

Kate Kronstein (Equity Research Associate)

Hi, guys. Congrats on the nice quarter. This is Kate Kronstein on for Maggie Nolan. My first question is, can you guys talk through a bit the foreign currency mix in revenue and the cost base right now?

Asaf Berenstin (CFO)

Basically, we have experienced, you know, significant devaluations in the 45% of our businesses as 55% of our business relates to the U.S., to North America, this is something that doesn't affect us. Something around 35%-40% of our business is still done in Israel, and we experience almost 11% devaluation of the exchange rate between the dollar and the shekel.

Every one hundredth of a change in the exchange rate has a $700,000, you know, a negative impact over our top line. Since eventually we have Israeli people, Israeli employees that carries out projects in the Israeli territory goes down also and devaluates the operating margins.

Every one of the changed basis points in the exchange rate, you know, reduces our operating profit by around $75,000-$80,000. Of course, we took that into consideration when we provided the guidance for 2023. If the average exchange rate in Israel between the dollar and the shekel was 3.36 for 2022, we are currently at around 3.6. That has a significant impact over our revenues, and by that, over our targets by around $15 million-$16 million.

If changes, if rates will, you know, if the shekel will get stronger again, then, you know, it will be implicated in our revenues next year. We will update our guidance.

Kate Kronstein (Equity Research Associate)

Okay, great. That's super helpful. Thank you. My last question, have there been any meaningful changes that you have observed, in client behavior across any of the industry verticals that you could call out?

Asaf Berenstin (CFO)

No. We don't really feel any change in the behavior of customers. We do hear concerns. For now, we didn't feel it.

Kate Kronstein (Equity Research Associate)

Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator (participant)

If there are any additional questions, please press star one. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. Please stand by while we poll for more questions. There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Bernstein, would you like to make your concluding statement?

Asaf Berenstin (CFO)

Yes. Thank you everyone for joining the call. I sure hope that we will bring you some more good news in the near future, and we'll update the revenues as well as the as the guidance. Because of the uncertainty in the market right now, we'd rather be conservative. See you in the next quarterly call. Thank you.