Perficient - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2023 Perficient Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you would need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like now to turn the conference over to Tom Hogan, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Good morning, everyone. This is Tom Hogan, Perficient's President and CEO, and with me on the phone today is Paul Martin, our CFO. I'd like to thank you for your time this morning. As usual, we'll have some prepared comments after which we'll open the call up for some questions. Paul, can you please read the Safe Harbor Statement?

Paul Martin (CFO)

Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. Some of the things we will discuss in today's call concerning future company performance will be forward-looking statements within the meaning of those securities laws. Actual results may materially differ from those discussed in these forward-looking statements, and we encourage you to refer to the additional information contained in our SEC filings concerning factors that could cause these results to be different than contemplated in today's discussions. At times during this call, we will refer to Adjusted EPS and Adjusted EBITDA.

Our earnings press release, including a reconciliation of certain non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP, is posted on our website at www.perficient.com. We have also posted a slide deck which includes a reconciliation of certain non-GAAP guidance to the most directly comparable financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP on our website under investor relations. Tom?

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Thank you, Paul. Good morning again, everybody. We appreciate your time as we discuss Perficient's fourth quarter and full-year results and share our outlook for 2024. As we have previously discussed, the second half of 2023 was a challenge with extended sales cycles and a shift in client buying behavior. That said, several things have happened in recent weeks that give us optimism that in 2024 we'll return to growth, particularly in the second half. First of all, we're excited to have completed the acquisition of SMEDIX earlier this year. This team is incredibly skilled in development of software that runs medical devices, and their joining Perficient makes us even more a formidable provider in the healthcare and life sciences industries.

Almost all of the nearly 200 colleagues who joined Perficient are based in Romania, and with these new team members, nearly 60% of our billable headcount is now located outside of the United States. As a reminder, we're unique in the marketplace. We're the only firm in our space with true global depth across the United States, Latin America, and India. Our intentions long-term are for Romania to become our hub in Europe as we replicate there what we've already built in India and Latin America. Another data point contributing to our confidence for 2024 was Q4 bookings, up nearly double digits on an annual basis and even stronger sequentially. As we've talked about on occasion on these calls over the years, there's a strong correlation between bookings realized and revenue recognized five to six months out.

The deals we won in Q4 will be ramped in driving revenue beginning in the second quarter. The Q4 strong bookings were driven primarily by larger deals. We booked 56 deals greater than $1 million during the fourth quarter of 2023, flat year-over-year, but sequentially up from 37 in the third quarter of 2023. While annual deal volume was flat, the size of the wins is what drove the near double-digit increase I mentioned earlier. A final point we're sharing that underscores the momentum building is the update on the large project win I mentioned on the last call. During October, we closed a multi-year program with a client that will require hundreds of Perficient colleagues to support their digital transformation initiatives. The program began to ramp in Q4, and we expect the team will be fully staffed by early second quarter.

This program is an example of what we believe will be several capacity model relationships we'll gain in coming quarters and years. These programs will help provide revenue consistency and serve as the foundation for continued project-based initiative growth. We continue to remain well-diversified from a customer, industry, and platform perspective. Healthcare and financial services remain the strongest verticals, but we're also excited about our momentum in both manufacturing and automotive. I will say clients across each of our industry verticals are expressing strong interest in our perspective and capabilities related to artificial intelligence, and this is a discipline we've had for nearly a decade.

A subset of leaders within our Generative AI Innovation Group, which consists of more than 800 colleagues around the world, have been working in global blended Scrum teams developing multiple POCs, client demos, and frameworks both on behalf of clients and in exploration of efficiencies we can gain across internal operations. Additionally, we're engaged with our clients delivering significant usable AI projects. I'm talking about applications which provide personalized responses based on customer intent and natural language analytic query chatbots to help customer experience analyze, understand, and understand the customer sentiment.

I'm extremely proud of the work we've been doing with one of the largest and leading pharmaceutical companies in the world, providing AI capabilities to their clinical research teams. These AI capabilities provide researchers with data anomaly detection, natural language querying, generative narratives of data, and can help predict critical items that studies set up. All of these AI capabilities will help provide a major global impact on health incomes.

Finally, in January, we launched our PACE Framework, which provides a holistic approach to responsibly operationalizing AI across an organization, and it powers organizations to unlock the benefits of AI while proactively addressing risks. PACE addresses the key factors in responsible Gen AI adoption, including company policies, advocacy controls, and enablements. Also exciting is the continual progress being made to our proprietary Envision Online platform. The Business Capability Library module within the tool has grown to more than 700 defined capabilities. New capabilities were introduced for marketing commerce, order management, customer service, and product information management.

The platform selection module now addresses more than 8,000 system requirements, 500 vendors, and 80 different types of platforms across disciplines like order management, analytics, marketing automation, product information management, customer data platforms, personalization, BI reporting, and many, many more. And finally, we're excited about the launch of Perficient's fourth employee resource group, LiveWell, which is a global colleague community focused on supporting our colleagues with physical, emotional, and financial curriculums and content. LiveWell joins Women in Technology, Giving, and Cultural Connections as forums for our global colleagues to connect, collaborate, and make a difference around topics and causes they're passionate about. We continue to focus on investing in programs our colleagues express desire for, which results in an enthusiastic and engaged workforce and leads to even greater outcomes for our enterprise customers. And with that, I'll turn things forward to Paul to speak to the financial results.

Paul Martin (CFO)

Thanks, Tom. Let me start with the fourth quarter results. Services revenue, including reimbursable expenses, were $216.5 million in the fourth quarter, a 5% decrease over the prior year. Services gross margin, excluding reimbursable expenses and stock compensation, was 37.7% in the fourth quarter compared to 40.8% in the prior year. SG&A expense was $40.3 million in the fourth quarter compared to $43.7 million in the prior year. SG&A expense as a percentage of revenues decreased to 18.3%, 18.8% in the prior year. The decrease in SG&A expense as a percentage of revenues was primarily due to lower bonus expense and bad debt recoveries that occurred in the fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $46.7 million, or 21.1% of revenues in the fourth quarter compared to $54.3 million, or 23.4% of revenues in the prior year. Incentive expense was $4.3 million in the fourth quarter, $6.5 million in the prior year.

Net interest income was $0.4 million in the fourth quarter compared to $0.8 million of net interest expense in the prior year, primarily due to a $1.2 million increase in interest income resulting from higher cash balances and higher interest rates. Our effective tax rate was 29.5% in the fourth quarter compared to 28% in the prior year. Net income was $23.2 million for the fourth quarter compared to $26.5 million in the prior year. Diluted GAAP earnings per share decreased to $0.65 a share compared to $0.74 in the prior year, and adjusted earnings per share decreased to $0.99 a share for the fourth quarter from $1.14 in the prior year. Please see the press release for a full reconciliation to GAAP earnings. Now turning to the full-year results.

Services revenue, including reimbursable expenses, were $892.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, essentially flat compared to the prior year. Services gross margin, excluding reimbursable expenses and stock comp, was 38% for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to 40.2% in the prior year period. SG&A expense was $170.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to $171.1 million in the prior year period. SG&A expense as a percentage of revenues decreased to 18.8% from 18.9% in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the year ended December 31, 2023, was $190.7 million, or 21% of revenues compared to $205.8 million, or 22.2% of revenues in the prior year period, which continues to exceed the peer group average. Amortization expense was $20.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to $24.5 million in the prior year.

Net interest expense for the year ended December 31, 2023, decreased to $0.4 million from $3.2 million in the prior year, primarily due to a $2.7 million increase in interest income. Our effective tax rate was 27.5% for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to 25.9% in the prior year. The increase in the effective tax rate was primarily due to a decrease in research credit benefit and an increase in the impact of stock compensation, partially offset by a decrease in the effective acquisition costs compared to the prior year. Net income for the year ended December 31, 2023, was $98.9 million compared to $104.4 million in the prior year. Diluted GAAP earnings per share decreased to $2.76 for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to $2.90 in the prior year.

Adjusted earnings per share was $3.95 for the year ended December 31, 2023, compared to $4.28 in the prior year. Our ending billable headcount at December 31, 2023, was 5,849, including 5,578 billable consultants and 271 subcontractors. Ending SG&A headcount was 969. Our outstanding debt, net of deferred issuance costs as of December 31, 2023, was $396.9 million. We also had $128.9 million in cash and cash equivalents and $300 million of unused borrowing capacity under our credit facility. Our balance sheet continues to leave us very well positioned to continue to execute against our strategic plan. Operating cash flows increased to $103 million in 2023 from $118.1 million in the prior year, primarily due to increased cash inflows related to accounts receivable. I'll now turn the call back over to Tom for the outlook. Tom.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Thank you, Paul. Perficient expects first quarter of 2024 revenue to be in the range of $212 million-$218 million. First quarter GAAP earnings per share is expected to be in the range of $0.31-$0.35. First quarter adjusted earnings per share is expected to be in the range of $0.74-$0.79. Perficient expects its full-year 2024 revenue to be in the range of $925 million-$965 million. Expects its 2024 GAAP earnings per share to be in the range of $2.64-$2.77 and expects its 2024 adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $4.05-$4.20. With that, operator, we can open up the call for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. The first question comes from Jesse Wilson, William Blair. Your line is open.

Jesse Wilson (Equity Research Associate)

Hi. Good morning, guys. This is Jesse on from Maggie. So for my first question, I wanted to talk about bookings. What have you seen in the first two months of this year, and how do you see the cadence of revenue growth for the full year, given your comments about the second half and due to the fact that you probably have more visibility to the second quarter at this time?

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Hi. Good morning, Jesse. So the pipeline continues to be very robust. January was a good solid booking month for us. We have a number of months to go here in the quarter. Pipeline continues to be there. We continue to see the delay, though, in our bookings. We saw it in Q4. And I still think we have a number of deals we're still going after that we still have a couple of months left or a month left here in the quarter with some big deals we're still chasing. As far as revenue, per my comments, you'll really see it ramping towards the second half of the year. I think there's a lot of great conversations.

We definitely see a tone from our clients shifting from the cost takeouts and talking more about some of that discretionary spend that were definitely favorable environments for Perficient in the past. We're seeing some nice trends that should give us some indication that we should have some nice second half ramping. But the first two quarters here and the bookings are going to really dictate what that ramp looks like and the pace of the ramp throughout the year.

Jesse Wilson (Equity Research Associate)

Okay. That's helpful. And then for my follow-up, can you talk about your expectations for gross margin and utilization throughout the year? I'm trying to understand what might be causing the headwinds to profitability this year.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Sure. So from a utilization standpoint, the January timeframe, December is challenging with the holidays. With January, usually a little slower to the ramp of some projects, but we ramp up to it'll be 80% we expect for the quarter, and we'll continue to run the business at 80% throughout the year. Gross margins in the first quarter are always challenging as we have some reset to taxes and the like. So margins are challenging in the first half, but we plan to ramp the gross margins to the 40% by the end of the year.

Paul Martin (CFO)

Yeah, Jesse, margins are generally lower in the first quarter. This year in particular, we've had some higher benefit costs that'll impact Q1. But our overall strategy is we've been talking about as we continue to ramp faster offshore, which has higher margins, we're going to continue to see some improvement from that that will get us fairly close to this year's margins are a little higher for the full year.

Jesse Wilson (Equity Research Associate)

Okay. Thank you both. I'll hop back in with you.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for the next question. The next question comes from Mayank Tandon with Needham. Your line is open.

Mayank Tandon (Senior Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning, Tom and Paul. I wanted to double-click on the second half recovery. What is the level of visibility today? I only ask because we've had so many head fakes across the industry. So I'm just trying to get maybe some more data points, more color in terms of our client budget set. Have they committed to certain projects? So just want to gauge your level of confidence on that second half recovery that's implied in the guidance.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think, Mayank, what you're seeing is a couple of things which I alluded to in the comments. First, the bookings in Q4 were quite strong. It's typically about five to six months out where we start seeing that really start to ramp. So that applies for some nice second half ramp. The large program that we kicked off in Q4 should be ramped in Q2, which should add some nice ramp as well to the year. We're also seeing a number of projects we were able to kick off here at the beginning of the year. One project actually was a mid- to low eight-figure deal that was brought down to a seven-figure deal that we continue and are very hopeful that will continue to ramp throughout the year, which will give us some nice second half ramping as well.

We also have a number of deals we're chasing like we were for the deal we were in in October. We're hopeful to have one of those deals also done here by midtime of the year, which will give us some ramp for the second half. Not to mention, as I alluded to earlier, we definitely see a different conversation with our clients of budgets opening up here and having conversations now about second half projects that are more in line with spending for them discretionary side versus just cost takeout. So all those things together is what really gives us the insight to what the second half looks like.

Now, the question ultimately is what that ramp looks like. Is it the ramp that we see at the top end of our range for the second half of the year, which will give us a really nice growth number for the year, I think, compared to our peer group? Or is it going to be a little bit more wavered as we saw in the 2023 period? Quite honestly, time will tell over the next couple of quarters.

Mayank Tandon (Senior Analyst)

Got it. That's very helpful color. And then as a quick follow-up, I wanted to get a sense of the conversations you're having with your clients around pricing. And then that ties into sort of the revenue trajectory from what you can push on the utilization side. I think you mentioned, Tom, 80%, but just want to get a sense if that's the number for the full year, or is that where you're progressing towards? And then last but not least, are you actually hiring organically today, or is the headcount increase that we saw in the fourth quarter all driven by the acquisition?

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Acquisition was a big part of the Q4 headcount increase. A couple of different things there. Mayank, as far as the clients and what we're seeing from the revenue perspective, it definitely is something that I think will work to in the second half of the year. I think the question, when I think about the types of deals that we're going after right now and the ramping of the great new talent we brought in in Q4, I'm just not really sure what that growth curve is going to look like. So, Paul, do you want to?

Paul Martin (CFO)

Yeah. So, Mayank, we continue to manage the headcount to 80%. So with the numbers in Q1 ramping throughout the year, the headcount growth will really start picking up more in Q2, 3, and 4.

Mayank Tandon (Senior Analyst)

Okay. And then do you still have just to be clear, do you still have any gas left in the tank to drive utilization higher, or are you already at levels where you want to sustain? And then also just wanted to get your comments, Tom, around pricing. I think that was the other part of the question.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Yeah. So utilization, I think we're in a good spot. We're at a place where around 80% in the United States. We'll maintain that. Utilization is a little lower as we think of our global utilization. Now, together, we'll be at 80% for the organization. We'll be there in Q1, like I mentioned, a little slower in January. From a pricing standpoint, keep in mind that project-based, the deals that we're working on allows us to really have a very flexible pricing model that we're closing deals, three to six-month type projects, which allows us to really make sure we're pricing appropriately based on our costs. So we'll continue to pass on as we need to the pricing model to maintain the margins in the United States. But keep in mind, really, where we have the pricing levers is whereas we leverage our global teams.

Utilizing our teams in India, leveraging our teams in Latin America allows us to be competitive from a price standpoint. Obviously, the margins are nice in those regions as well, where we don't have to sacrifice on price in the United States because we can get to the price target utilizing our global headcount. We shouldn't see really an adverse impact to margins because we can be price-sensitive utilizing our global network of teams.

Mayank Tandon (Senior Analyst)

Great. Thank you so much.

Operator (participant)

One moment for the next question. The next question comes from Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open.

Brian Kinstlinger (Senior Technology Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions. I'm wondering first if you can speak to the pricing and wage trends, especially as it relates to new wins and new hires.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Yeah. I mean, pricing is pretty aggressive right now, but I would say we're not seeing a tremendous downward pressure. I think ABR essentially was flat quarter-over-quarter. We're not seeing that we're going to have to really get price aggressive to win deals. Once again, as we continue to shift to our global teams, that's really where the conversation comes in on price versus having to get aggressive on individual ABRs.

Brian Kinstlinger (Senior Technology Analyst)

Thank you. On the large wins that you've discussed, are they with existing customers where you're replacing slightly smaller projects with larger projects, or are they new customers generally?

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Not necessarily replacing smaller projects with big projects. I think expanding the footprint within our clients is a big part of it. We have some nice new logos as well. But our thesis on growth has always been land and expand, building relationships. You see that in our top 50 accounts that continue to grow year-over-year in the relationship as well as size of relationship. So the majority is expanding current footprint within our current clients.

Paul Martin (CFO)

Brian, as we talked about, there was also in the quarter the big win in healthcare of a 100+-person project. So it's a mix of both. But as Tom said, most of the deals themselves were existing clients, which is consistent with how we run our business.

Brian Kinstlinger (Senior Technology Analyst)

Great. My last question on the first quarter guidance. Typically, the fourth quarter is less billable days. You've got a large project ramping. You've got an acquisition that's going to give a full quarter as opposed to, I think, a partial quarter. I'm just wondering at the low end of guidance, is it that you have projects that are falling off and a lack of wins in the middle of last year that are replacing it? I'm just wondering. Typically, there's not that big of a drop from the fourth quarter to the first quarter, if you can help me understand that. Thank you.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Sure. It's not a full quarter with the acquisition. It's a little less. So just perspective there. But quite honestly, it's just a ramp that we saw in January. What you're seeing there is as we end projects, start next project, in that calendar year, some years are very seamless, and they continue to move from one calendar cycle to the next. Others, we see some challenge of clients being ready to onboard and bring people into projects. And that really lacks what you're seeing there. So it's not necessarily understanding where people are going to go. It's really ramping them into the current engagements that we know about.

Paul Martin (CFO)

I think clients have been a little more cautious, particularly early in the quarter, on ramping up project size. As a result of that, we had some delays that affected the Q1 estimate.

Brian Kinstlinger (Senior Technology Analyst)

Great. Thank you, guys.

Operator (participant)

Yep. Please stand by for the next question. The next question comes from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington Research. Your line is open.

Vincent Colicchio (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah. Tom, how do you feel about the direction of client budgets? Is it still sort of difficult to assess that?

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

It's difficult to assess. I will say that there is a definite more optimistic tone, though, in the conversations we're having. So we'll see when the rubber hits the road as far as the buying process. But as we're seeing right now, projects that we were seeing delayed in 2023, we're definitely seeing reengagement and discussing when to ramp those projects up, which is good, which has to lead to closing those and having some bookings associated with them. I'll also say, and I mentioned earlier, that a lot of the conversations that we're having were regarding optimization of operations, the cost takeouts. We are seeing a return to conversations regarding more discretionary spend, more revenue-generating spend with customers, projects that were delayed in 2023 because they wanted to hold back. We're seeing more engagement around that in 2024. But as I keep saying, Vincent, I want to see the rubber hit the road and see the bookings come through. But the tone from our clients definitely is becoming more optimistic here in the late part of 2023, early part of 2024.

Vincent Colicchio (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Question on the acquisition side. Should we expect you to be active? I think you usually do three a year. Will you be back to that this year? And will there be a theme to it? Will you be doing some Eastern European deals, for example?

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

We are active. We're always looking for a great acquisition to really benefit our portfolio and then geographic. I will say that Europe is of interest, and we are in conversations and looking at what we could add to our portfolio in Europe. All that being said, yes, we are very inquisitive, and we'll continue to be so in 2024. Hopeful, we'll have something done in Q2, but a long way to go with nothing too imminent right now. But we are targeting we'd like to have something done in Q2, but we'll see what happens in conversations, but nothing else really to report at this point.

Vincent Colicchio (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks, Tom.

Operator (participant)

Yep. Please stand by for the next question. The next question comes from Jack Vander Aarde with Maxim Group. Your line is now open.

Jack Vander Aarde (VP and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Good morning, Tom and Paul. Thanks for taking my questions. Tom, so I believe it's been covered a little bit, but just so I can be clear, last quarter, there was some commentary regarding some delayed project starts and maybe customer buying decisions, but there was no major project halts or cancellations. Do you feel like visibility and just things in general have improved since last quarter? Thanks.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

No worries. Good morning. I'm not sure about since last quarter, quite honestly. I think it's the same as last quarter. I think we have some good insight. To your point, we haven't seen major cancellations. We're not in conversations. There's always lumpiness to this business a little bit, but I don't see any major cancellations on the horizon, knock on wood. The conversation, though, that we've always had is really more around delays. And then we continue to have insight into the pipeline. I keep going back to what we saw in Q4 2023. I'd like to see it change in this first half is moving forward with these buying decisions. So the insight, I'd say, is the same, remains the same, and the difference being is a bit more of a positive tone. We'll see where that turns here towards the first half of 2023 in the bookings.

Jack Vander Aarde (VP and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Then maybe just a follow-up, maybe for either Paul or Tom. Just want to, I think, a few quarters ago, you guys were talking about organic growth and longer-term organic growth targets. Just given your comments on the booking strength, do you see the potential to support a double-digit organic growth rebound towards the back half of the year or just heading into 2025? What's your confidence or overall plan around organic growth? Thanks.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

So the long-term thesis of the business does not change. We have provided and produced with our peers, when you think of a like-for-like business of our non-U.S.-based business of teens to 20% type growth, 30% growth a number of years ago. As we continue to grow, we continue to see that we will see that high teens to low 20s for non-U.S.-based and then single-digit in the U.S.. Will we get there in 2024? I think that may be aggressive. I think from all of the conversations we're having, the pipeline, what we're seeing at the macro level, we're favorable to a 2025 returning to those volumes where we'd be in the double-digit organic growth perspective. There's a lot of variables in there as far as the macro, but that is the thesis of the business. I'd like to think we are at that run rate towards the second half of the year, but it's not going to be implied, obviously, of an organic number for 2024. If we can get some of these bookings in, we start seeing the discretionary spend come back. 2025, I think, is a good environment for Perficient.

Paul Martin (CFO)

Now, Jack, I think from our view, digital transformation is still in the relatively early innings. And one of the things we've seen is there's been all this uncertainty, is that at some level, it's discretionary as to timing, but there's big ROI in the projects that we do. So eventually, they get funded. And when this spigot gets turned back on in a meaningful way, I think we feel very well about how we're positioned.

Jack Vander Aarde (VP and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Excellent. I appreciate the color, guys. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Yep. One moment for the next question. The next question comes from Puneet Jain with JPMorgan. Your line's open.

Puneet Jain (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey. Thanks for taking my question. So I want to ask about visibility to this year's revenue numbers. How much of the full-year guidance, maybe at the midpoint or at the low point, is already under contract? And also, how large is the large healthcare client? I think, Paul, you mentioned 100 people. So is it fair to assume that the contract should be about $10 million-$15 million in annual revenue when fully ramped?

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

So the insight, Puneet, keeping in mind that our project length is typically less than six months. So I think we have insight from a pipeline perspective. However, from a backlog perspective, it would be abnormal for us to have the majority of the range already booked. It's just not the business we run. I would say we have line of sight to where we can and will grow the organization, but obviously, have a lot of work to do to capitalize on the insights we know about business and the pipeline that we have in regards to the second part, Paul?

Paul Martin (CFO)

Yeah. So in regards to the healthcare account, that's going to ramp into notionally 200 people. So obviously, it's a nice-sized project. It's been ramping starting probably in October or November and should be fully ramped for the pieces that we have under contract by the end of the quarter. And there's also additional opportunities out there with that customer.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

Just for perspective, the challenge on the ramping is more at the client level than it is our level. We have the ability to ramp much faster. It's a matter of the client to be able to consume the talent that we're providing, as well as they've actually decided to move out one of the majors from that relationship. There's some knowledge transfer and shifting of work, shall we say, from this other organization to us, which is taking place as well. The ramp isn't fully dictated by us, which is why we're also seeing a little bit slower ramp than we initially anticipated as the client prepares to be able to absorb our team.

Puneet Jain (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Got it. And it's nice to see addition in Romania. So my question is, when you got into Latin America through PSL acquisition, I believe in 2020, that was an absolute home run for Perficient. That business grew so much. So now that you are getting into Central Europe, can you talk about what client conversations look like? It could be a little bit early, but are you seeing anything or what you expect for ramp in Romania location?

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

I agree, by the way, Puneet. I agree that Latin America was a home run and looking forward to stepping into the batter's box to keep that analogy going and hit another home run. I will say it is early. We just finished that acquisition here a month or so ago. I will say, though, that a number of our clients are quite interested in now us having a foothold into Europe. Most of our U.S.-based customers have some large Fortune organizations have some European presence, and they've been asking for our ability to service them in Europe. Also, there were some nice relationships that came with SMEDIX that were interested in representing the full portfolio of Perficient offerings too as well. So I think that bidirectional excitement is really there.

Once I mentioned, once again, it's still early, still in the conversation phase, but I think Europe is going to be a nice place for us to hit another home run for Perficient. It will take a little bit of time. Latin America was great through some acquisitions, and I'm really excited about the team that comes from SMEDIX. Very high-talented engineers that right now are focused on med device, but we're really excited about bringing different areas of our portfolio into that region.

Paul Martin (CFO)

And I think, Puneet, similar to what we did with PSL, we have a beachhead, so to speak, now in Central Eastern Europe, similar to what we did, as I said, with PSL. Yeah. So we fully intend, I think, to build that out, as Tom said in his opening remarks. And I think that's a big opportunity for us.

Puneet Jain (Executive Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

I show no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Tom Hogan for closing remarks.

Tom Hogan (President and CEO)

All right. Well, thank you, everybody. Look forward to connecting here shortly in the next couple of months to talk about Q1 and where we look for Q2. So have a great day, everybody. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for your participation in today's conference call. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.