Sezzle - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Sezzle Inc. first quarter 2023 results call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Charlie Youakim, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead.

Charlie Youakim (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Good morning, everyone, or to those joining us from our home here in the U.S., good evening, and welcome to Sezzle Inc. 2023 first quarter presentation. My name is Charlie Youakim. I'm the CEO and Executive Chairman of Sezzle, and I will be leading the presentation today. I'm joined on the call by our CFO, Karen Hartje, our President, Paul Paradis, and our Head of Corp Dev and IR, Lee Brading. In the first quarter, we started the year out as planned by continuing to improve key profitability drivers, such as increasing total income as a % of UMS and decreasing operating expenses as a % of total income. Of course, these numbers don't always improve month to month or quarter to quarter. If you look at the trend lines, you can see what we're focused on and what we're executing on.

The company continues to put a priority on profitability. We're still in a period of economic uncertainty, which has us prioritizing profit over growth. That being said, we are getting more aggressive again. Back in 2022, we analyzed initiatives in an almost miserly fashion, looking for immediate ROI. In 2023, we've let the team know that we can extend ROI timelines and begin making more investments for the future. This mindset should lead to more growth and better profit outcomes for future quarters and future years. I'm proud of what our team has accomplished in the first quarter with a profitable GAAP quarter and our best quarter ever on an Adjusted EBITDA basis. I think our investors should consider that statement as they value us.

We just had our best quarter on an Adjusted EBITDA basis. It wasn't a quarter that is typically not a strong one for our sector. We have more initiatives in the works. We've been busy bees. We're excited to tell you more. I'll jump into the presentation now and tell you all about it. If you'd like to follow along, you can find the presentation posted on the ASX website. Let's get started. Keep in mind that all dollar amounts here are in USD. On slide three, you can see key products that are driving results we're seeing today, Premium and Up. When I explain Sezzle today, I like to focus on the key pillars of the organization. Our core product is still our PM4 BNPL product, no doubt about it. That product has changed the lives of millions of consumers and thousands of merchants.

Our core product remains the pillar product. As we continue to get to know the consumer, we're starting to understand themes around what's important to them. The first is financial empowerment, and that's where Up shines. We're helping consumers with their financial futures as a side product of what we're doing. We knew we had a good idea at the start of launching Up, we could feel it. Today we have enough data to measure it, and the result has been impactful. For the average Up member, we're raising their credit score by 20 points in the first 4 months. That's regardless of payment status with us. You can imagine many consumers that use the product properly are doing even better than that. We plan to continue to create ways to help the consumer on their financial journey.

Second, we know consumers want more access with our BN system. This is where Premium comes in. With Premium, we give consumers access to premier retail brands. They love us for it. We want to continue increasing access for consumers, which is where our Anywhere card comes into play. We expect Anywhere to become yet another product from Sezzle that should create financial tailwind, just like Up and Premium have already. We have found that both Premium and Up, and likely Anywhere, enhance engagement and retention of our consumers. It's because we're giving them what they want. You can see that played out on slide 4 with our consumer reviews. We monitor these consumer reviews closely.

We have launched a number of new products since early 2022. The worst thing that can happen is disappointing or disenfranchising our existing customers with those new products, especially the ones who already loved us. As shown here, we continue to excel at giving consumers what they want, even after our new product launches. We have great reviews across all the ecosystems we operate in. We're scoring well because we're building the products that our consumers want and need. You move ahead to slide 5, we start getting to the numbers. We definitely see some dramatically better numbers here. They really show us what a year of consistent execution in the right direction can do. Total income up over 25% year-on-year to just shy of $35 million for the quarter. GAAP net income.

You can't even put a percentage on that one, or at least one that's meaningful. We went from losing $28 million to making $1.7 million in a quarter. Our unit economics, what a great result here. We changed from a slim margin to a large one, moving from 0.8% net transaction margin to a 5.8% net transaction margin, all as a % of payment volume through our systems. The next step shows a bit of the picture of how we got there. We added income from other sources. Merchant processing fees are down as a % of total income because we grew our top line from other business initiatives such as Premium. Finally, we're doing all this great work with a smaller linear team.

Our decision in 2022 to focus on North America is still paying dividends. On slide 7 and 8, we wanted to show you all our first quarter results across a number of performance metrics over a three-year period. There are a few items to talk about here. The most important, in my opinion, is what's going on with our unit economics and our efficiency. We turned $34.7 million in total income into $21.4 million of gross profit. That's a fantastic conversion percentage with 62% of top line converting into our gross profit. This is why I keep talking about operational leverage. With that level of efficiency, we have the potential to put up some large net income numbers by focusing on top line growth while keeping our team size relatively flat.

As we get into the second half of the year, I think we'll start to demonstrate the strength of that leverage. The only metrics to drop in our scorecard are our active consumer and active merchant numbers on slide 8. We are losing micro merchants and in turn, some active consumers, as we make the trade-off from growth to profitability. One key driver of that was our implementation of a merchant fee. If the merchant does not hit a minimum monthly processing volume, we lost micro merchants that were not able to pay that fee. As you can see from our numbers, merchants that boss at a nominal fee don't correlate with merchants that drive volumes as income. The more good news in the numbers here are around engagement.

We continue to drive repeat usage higher, and we also continue to create more of the volume out of our own ecosystem. With marketplace volumes rising to 29.5% of total volume. This shift is great for the company because our importance to merchants continues to rise as we drive more and more volume directly to them. All in all, we're very pleased with the results on this scorecard. I'll now hand the presentation over to Karen Hartje, who will walk through some of the financial details. Karen.

Karen Hartje (CFO)

Thanks, Charlie, and hello to all. Before we dive in, just a reminder that our first quarter results are unaudited and presented in US dollars. Starting with slide 9, in the bottom chart, you can see that first quarter 2023 UMS totaled $369.8 million, down from $450.5 million in first quarter 2022. The year-over-year decrease reflects the 2022 strategic initiatives, including credit risk improvements related to the Prophet machine learning model, as well as renegotiating with and/or off-boarding unprofitable merchants. While Underlying Merchant Sales declined, first quarter 2023 total income increased by 25.5% to $34.7 million from $27.6 million in the first quarter 2022.

On a quarterly basis, total income as a percentage of UMS increased to 9.4% in first quarter 2023, representing a record high compared with 8.5% last quarter and 6.1% in the same quarter last year. Consumer engagement remained strong as repeat usage increased to 94.4% in first quarter 2023, up 188 basis points from the same quarter a year ago. On slide 10, you can see that first quarter 2023 transaction expense totaled $8.2 million or 2.2% of UMS, compared with $11.8 million or 2.6% of UMS in first quarter 2022. Transaction expenses comprised primarily of payment processing costs, and these costs as a % of UMS decreased because of our payment strategies to incent customers to choose ACH as their primary payment option.

Additionally, we are seeing the benefit of favorable renegotiated terms with network partners as well as the benefit of Pay in Full as a payment option for consumers at the point of sale. On slide 11, you'll see the first quarter provision for credit losses totaled $1.7 million or 0.5% of UMS. In addition to continuous improvement in underwriting driven by the Prophet machine learning model, receivables originated in 2022 performed better than expected, resulting as a benefit recognized during first quarter 2023. We expect that our pursuit of top line growth in 2023 will cause an increase in the provision for credit losses. We plan to manage this marginal uptick through the Prophet model.

On slide 12, you can see quarterly total income plus transaction-related costs that include transaction expense, provision for credit losses, and net interest expense reached a new record high of $21.4 million in first quarter 2023, 5.6 times the $3.8 million from first quarter 2022. Similarly, our unit economic margin, measured against either UMS or total income, represented new quarterly highs of 5.8% and 61.6% respectively. The pro-positive performance was driven by revenue and cost initiatives implemented in 2022, most significantly the launch of Sezzle Premium and improved consumer underwriting. With stronger unit economics, we are better positioned as we pursue growth opportunities this year.

On slide 2013, while income less transaction-related costs improved year-over-year, so did non-transaction-related operating expenses. First quarter 2023 non-transaction-related operating expenses decreased by 38.7% to $19.3 million over the same period last year, with improvements across the board from third-party tech and data to marketing to personnel. As a percentage of total income, the ratio was more than cut in half from 114% in First quarter 2022 to 55.7% in First quarter 2023. Last year, $4.4 million in professional fees associated with the proposed and ultimately terminated Zip merger were recognized in the First quarter. As we pursue growth opportunities and implement our next round of initiatives, we expect non-transaction-related operating expenses to increase modestly.

On slide 14, fourth quarter GAAP net income was $1.7 million, drawing a striking comparison to the $28 million net loss in first quarter 2022. This is the third consecutive quarter that we have delivered positive GAAP net income. On an Adjusted EBITDA basis, a non-GAAP measure, we reported $8.3 million for first quarter 2023, compared with negative $17.8 million in first quarter 2022 and positive $7 million last quarter. You see the trend moving from negative to positive, driven by our key 2022 initiatives, including enhanced underwriting and the growth of our subscription premium product, Sezzle Premium. On slide 15, at the end of the first quarter 2023, we had total cash of $60.6 million, comprised of $59 million in unrestricted cash and $1.5 million in restricted cash.

The first quarter 2023 reduction in total cash from year-end was driven by the pay down on our line of credit and decrease in merchant accounts payable. We had $59.8 million drawn on our line of credit as of March thirty-first, 2023, compared with $65 million at year-end. At March thirty-first, we had $84.8 million in net notes receivables and $65.3 million in merchant accounts payable, of which $51.3 million was attributable to the merchant interest program. Given our positive operational performance and healthy liquidity position, we are comfortable with our current capital structure. Now, I will pass it back to Charlie to close out the presentation.

Charlie Youakim (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Karen. The last part of the presentation is just a quick update on April and our initiatives. First, April. If you can, please take a look at slide 17 for that result. For April, total income and net income numbers were relatively subdued as volumes were slightly down from March. Unfortunately, the operational leverage sensitivity works both ways. If volumes drop, we lose strong rates on gross profit and our OpEx stays flat, we basically had a break-even net income. Our Adjusted EBITDA still comes in quite strong at $2.1 million. That $2.1 million removes dot-com and interest expense for those out there. The part of the result that does stand out this year is the year-on-year look at the numbers. We're significantly better at running this business year-on-year when we compare results to last year.

We also continue to attract more users into Premium, which stands at 155,000 subscribers. Premium is now a major part of our business less than a year from its launch. On slide 18, we wanted to remind you that we still have plans to add to the bottom line as we work our way through the remaining months in 2023. We believe that our initiatives will add an additional $10 million in net income on an annualized basis through three key drivers. First, the launch of an Anywhere card, formerly the Flex Card. By giving our customers more access to use our systems where they want to use this, we believe that our revenue, income and engagement numbers will continue to grow. Second, through further monetization of our marketplace channel.

We continue to increase engagement in the app, and we're doing it in a win-win sort of way. We keep on adding merchant deals and discounts and attractive affiliate relationships to that ecosystem that lead to happier customers and additional income. Through a bank partnership that will unlock more income and open up even more product launches for the company in the second half of the year. We'll have more detail about it in its whole, but for now we're leaving it vague on purpose for competitive reasons. On page 19, we want to give a quick update on the corporate exchange side of the house. The first is the Foreign Ownership Restriction removal. This removal allows U.S. citizens to buy Sezzle shares on the ASX, which will allow for more demand from our home market where our product is best.

Next is our NASDAQ listing, which also ties to the reverse stock split. Due to NASDAQ listing rules, we have to have a stock price above $4 U.S. to list with NASDAQ. Based on our own research and discussions we have with equity capital market staff for the United States, we targeted a post-split price in the double digits. Thus, we decided on a 38-to-1 reverse stock split. We've also made good progress with the SEC and NASDAQ so far this year, so we think we can go live with NASDAQ before the end of the quarter. We're definitely excited about that. Not many companies get to ring a bell on an exchange, and now we get to do it twice. Well, that's all for the quarterly update. We hope you enjoy the monthly updates.

We love the cadence and plan to continue to do it for the foreseeable future to keep you updated with our progress.

Thank you. I'll now hand it back to the moderator for Q&A.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star two. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Philip Chippendale from Ord Minnett. Please go ahead.

Phillip Chippendale (Telecommunication and Technology Analyst)

Hi, Charlie and team. Thanks for your time. First question. Just looking at slide 18, and these FY23 initiatives that you've outlined. I'd just like to unpack a couple of those. Firstly, just on the Anywhere card, can you just run through the revenue model here, please?

Charlie Youakim (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, good to hear from you, Phil. The first thing, you know, basically the Anywhere card, it's a card that'll be a subscription model. The initial launch of it'll be a slightly higher price point than Premium. What that'll allow the customer to do is basically tap the card that's present in their mobile app, anywhere they wanna use it. The revenue model consists of subscription, as well as interchange revenue. Those are the core drivers of the initial launch of that product.

Phillip Chippendale (Telecommunication and Technology Analyst)

Okay, great. Thanks. Just turning to the bank partnership. You know, you've sound like you're remaining tight-lipped on the details there. Perhaps you could talk to us or just give us a sense of how far advanced those discussions are. It sounds like you've identified at least one party that you're potentially talking to and that this is a reasonably developed discussion so far.

Charlie Youakim (Executive Chairman and CEO)

We definitely have progress with the relationship. You know, we're not talking about plans, you know, or they are final plans, but they're underway. I don't know if I can give any more details about how far along, but we do expect it to be a big part of the drivers of that $10 million in net income. We're gonna be, you know, to get that done, we're gonna have to complete that, you know, in the near term for that to have additional impact on the second half.

Phillip Chippendale (Telecommunication and Technology Analyst)

Okay, thanks. I suppose just, you know, in terms of that breakdown in contribution to the $10 million across the three different categories that you've identified, I mean, you just made a comment there that the partnership would be a significant component of that $10 million. You know, should we think of it as being, is it roughly a third, a third, a third? Or perhaps you could just draw us to where the most amount of value is going to be recognized here.

Charlie Youakim (Executive Chairman and CEO)

I think probably more, you know, towards the Anywhere card and bank partnership, where the weightings are. It's probably not a third, a third, a third. I would say the top and bottom items are probably the bigger drivers. Again, these are products that are not necessarily launched. Those are, you know, more of an estimate at this point.

Phillip Chippendale (Telecommunication and Technology Analyst)

Okay, thanks. Just touching on slide 11 and the credit losses. This might be a question more for Karen. You know, the first quarter 2023 figure of 0.5% was an extremely low number, and you indicated in your discussion earlier that you'd expect that to rise over the balance of calendar 2023. Have you got a range in mind where you think your business is sort of optimally placed to pursue some revenue growth, whilst keeping those bad debts under control?

Charlie Youakim (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Do you want to take that?

Karen Hartje (CFO)

Sure. Without, you know, putting a forecast out there, I would say that we expect a provision for credit losses to come in better than what we saw last year. I think we ended the year around 1.8%.

Phillip Chippendale (Telecommunication and Technology Analyst)

Okay, great. Thanks. Karen, maybe while you've got the floor again, this is the last question from me. It's just looking at the non-transaction related operating expenses. There's a nice chart on slide 13. We saw a slight uptick into the first quarter of 2023 to $19.3 million. Is it fair to assume, do you think, that you're perhaps past the low point in that OpEx?

Karen Hartje (CFO)

Phil, I don't. That could be a fair assumption. I would also say that in first quarter of 23, we, or in the first quarter, we always have higher professional services expenses because of our annual audit. It's kind of the seasonality first quarter and then, you know, we are adding a few staff positions.

Phillip Chippendale (Telecommunication and Technology Analyst)

Okay.

Charlie Youakim (Executive Chairman and CEO)

A little further color on that one. I think, you know, like Karen said, it could bounce around a bit, but our goal is to keep relatively flat this year. If we start to have better than expected results, you know, then we'll start to hit on the gas a little bit more, which means growing the team side, but I would still say relatively flat.

Phillip Chippendale (Telecommunication and Technology Analyst)

Okay. Thanks. That's all for me.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. We'll pause for any further questions to register. There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Youakim for closing remarks.

Charlie Youakim (Executive Chairman and CEO)

Thank you. In closing, I just wanna send out another shout-out to the Double team. We continue to do a great job in executing on our plans, and the results are coming through. I'm excited to see where we end the year. We've got some lofty ambitions, but I think we've also got a team to match. Thank you, and have a great day.

Operator (participant)

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.