SS&C Technologies - Q2 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank you for standing by. My name is Bailey, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the SS&C Technologies Q2 2023 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star and the number one. I would now like to hand the call over to Head of Investor Relations, Justine Stone. You may begin.

Justine Stone (Head of Investor Relations)

Welcome, thank you for joining us for our Q2 2023 earnings call. I'm Justine Stone, Investor Relations for SS&C. With me today is Bill Stone, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rahul Kanwar, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Patrick Pedonti, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, we need to review the safe harbor statement. Please note that various remarks we make today about future expectations, plans, and prospects, including the financial outlook we provide, constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Actual, actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section of our most recent annual report, report on Form 10-K, which is on file with the SEC and can be accessed on our website. These forward-looking statements represent our expectations only as of today, July 27, 2023. While the company may elect to update these forward-looking statements, it specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. During today's call, we'll be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures is included in today's earnings release, which is located in the Investor Relations section of our website at www.ssctech.com. I will now turn the call over to Bill.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Justine, and thanks everyone for joining. Results for the Q2 are $1.363 billion in adjusted revenue, up 2.5%, and our adjusted diluted EPS were $1.08. An increase in interest expense, which was $118 million in Q2 2023, compared to $68 million in Q2 2022, and general expenses have put some pressure on our bottom line. Adjusted consolidated EBITDA was $502.4 million, and our EBITDA margin was 36.8%, up 140 basis points from Q2 2022. Our Q2 adjusted organic revenue was up 2.5%, driven by strength in our alternatives business, particularly private markets, which was up over 20%, Intralinks, and the retirement businesses.

SS&C generated cash from operating activities of $584.2 million for the six months ended June 30, up $137 million or 30.5% over the same period last year. We paid down $125 million in debt in Q2, bringing our consolidated net leverage ratio to 3.27x and our net secured leverage ratio to 2.28x consolidated EBITDA. In Q2, we bought back 2 million shares for $111.9 million at an average price of $56.17 per share. We will continue to target 50% of our cash flow to stock buybacks and 50% - debt paydown. Our M&A, M&A strategy remains disciplined. We have yet to see movement on any large assets.

We do think that there will be opportunity to do some tuck-in acquisitions in the near term. Expense management will be a priority for the remainder of the year. Our internal deployment of Blue Prism digital workers is well underway, and we are on track to achieve our full-year targets. We currently have over 500 digital workers deployed across all business units. We believe this is one of the fastest deployments of digital workers in Blue Prism's history. Currently, the largest usage of Blue Prism is in our GIDS and fund administration businesses, but we see significant opportunity in retirement, health, regulatory, and tax reporting. Operational functions in production with digital workers include reconciliation, break investigation and resolution, statement downloads, daily price files, investor contract notes, and statements and reporting.

We expect the FTE savings to accelerate in the back half of the year as these live processes are embedded in the business and the full benefits are realized. I'll now turn it over to Rahul.

Rahul Kanwar (President and COO)

Thanks, Bill. Our business continues to strengthen as we prioritize innovation and new product rollout across the company. Intralinks rebounded with 9% growth in Q2. Average deal size is up, price increases have been implemented. Deal Services, which offers redaction and NDA services, has become Intralinks' fastest-growing product. In our investor portal business, we launched InView, a purpose-built portal designed for investors to aggregate all of their fund reports into a single view and make data-driven decisions. Initial client feedback has been positive. As Bill mentioned, private markets continues to accelerate with strong growth in Q2. Private credit, in particular, is a big opportunity for us, and our offering has made significant advancements as we go live on the SS&C Private Cloud environment. GoCheck integration, loan platform integration, a robust data platform are all key functionalities to manage complex fund structures.

Retirement, which grew 7% in Q2, has several multimillion-dollar opportunities in the pipeline. We recently surpassed $1 billion on our Retirement Income Clearing & Calculation Platform, and have grown the number of participants 42% since January. Sales remain strong in Q2, with headline wins and fund services, Advent and GIDS. Some key attributes that our prospects cited were strong functionality, ability to purchase both software and services from a single vendor, and our commitment to innovation. Sales priorities remain disciplined execution, offering holistic and comprehensive solutions for customers, and paying close attention to their onboarding experience. As one example, we recently announced Blue Prism has partnered with the NHS Shared Business Services team to provide additional services to the NHS in England.

Using Blue Prism's intelligent automation platform, NHS organizations can improve patient care, expedite patient processing, and transform standardized services, contact center communications, HR, finance, and other corporate functions. We view the combination of our healthcare products and services, including DomaniRx, along with Blue Prism, to be a powerful solution. I will now turn it over to Patrick to run through the financials.

Patrick Pedonti (CFO)

Thanks. Results for the Q2 were GAAP revenues of $1,362.6 million, GAAP net income of $130.7 million, diluted GAAP EPS of $0.51. Adjusted revenues were $1,363.4 million. Adjusted revenues were up 2.5%. Adjusted operating income increased 6.7%, and adjusted diluted EPS was $1.08, a 1.8% decrease from Q2 '22, due to the impact of higher interest rates on our debt. Adjusted organic revenue increase on a constant currency basis was 2.5%. Acquisitions contributed $5.8 million. Foreign exchange had an unfavorable impact of $3.4 million. We had strength across several product lines, including alternatives, GIDS Transfer Agency Services, Blue Prism, and the Intralinks businesses.

Adjusted operating margins expanded in Q2 2023 as we managed expense growth. Adjusted operating income for the Q2 of 2023 increased $30.5 million, or 6.7% from the Q2 of 2022. Adjusted operating margins were 35.6% in the Q2, compared to 34.2% in the Q2 of 2022. Excluding acquisitions, expenses increased 0.6% on a constant currency basis. Acquisitions added $3.8 million of expenses, and foreign currency decreased costs by $6.2 million. Net interest expense in the Q2 was $118 million, an increase of $50.3 million, or 74% from Q2 2022. Q2 2023 net interest expense includes $3.4 million of non-cash amortized financing costs and OID.

The average interest rate in the quarter was 6.59%, compared to 3.45% in the Q2 of 2022. Adjusted Net income, as defined in Note 4, was $274.6 million, and Adjusted Diluted EPS was $1.08. The effective tax rate was 26%. Diluted shares decreased to 255 million from 257 million in Q1. Higher share repurchases during the first and Q2 led to the decrease. On the balance sheet and cash flow, we ended the Q2 with $439.7 million in cash and cash equivalents, and $7 billion of gross debt. SS&C's net debt, which excludes cash and cash equivalents of $114.4 million, held at DomaniRx, was $6.6 billion as of June 30.

Operating cash flow for the six months was $584.2 million, and $136.7 million, or a 30.5% increase compared to the same period in 2022. For the six months ended June 30, we purchased Treasury stock for a total of $246.6 million, or 4.3 million shares at an average price of $57.78. We declared and paid a dividend of $101 million common stock, compared to $102 million last year. Net debt payments for the six months was $169.8 million, and for the six months, we paid $226.9 million of interest, compared to $112.6 million in 2022.

In the six months, we paid income taxes of $159 million, comparable to $156.5 million in 2022. Our accounts receivable DSO was 53.1 days, compared to 55.9 days as of June 2022. Capital expenditures and capitalized software total $121.4 million, or 4.5% of revenue on a year-to-date basis.... Our LTM consolidated EBITDA, which we use for covenant compliance, was $2,031.6 million as of June 30. Based on net debt of $6.6 billion, our total leverage ratio was 3.27%, and our secured leverage ratio was 2.28%. On outlook for the remainder of the year, I'll cover a few assumptions. First, we'll, we'll continue to focus on client services.

Retention rates will continue to be in the range of our most recent results. We have assumed foreign currency exchange will be at current levels. Our outlook assumes software license business will have slower, lower growth in the second half of the year compared to previous expectations. Adjusted organic growth for the year will be between 2% and 4%. Adjusted organic growth for Q3 will be in the range of 1.5%-4.5%. We have assumed interest rates will stay consistent with current rates for the remainder of the year. We will manage expenses and personnel costs to improve our operating margins. We'll continue to invest in our business long term with capital expenditures in the range of 4% of revenues. I would expect our GAAP tax rate to be, continue to be approximately 26%.

For the Q3 of 2023, we expect revenues in the range of $1.355 billion-$1.395 billion. Adjusted Net income in the range of $287 million-$309 million, and diluted shares in the range of 254 million-256 million. For the full year, we expect revenues in the range of $5.469 billion-$5.575 billion. Adjusted Net income in a range of $1.160 billion-$1.225 billion, and diluted shares in a range of 254 million-257 million.

For the full year, we expect cash from operating activities to be in the range of $1.265 billion-$1.335 billion. The DST/ERISA 401 settlement, which we recently announced, is excluded from these cash flow estimates. If the court approves the settlement in 2023, we expect the impact on cash flow to be approximately $40 million, net of taxes. I'll turn it over to Bill for final comments.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Patrick. I, I want to congratulate you on your retirement. Patrick has been with SS&C since 1999. He has seen us through over 60 acquisitions, a go-private transaction, and our 2010 IPO. Thank you for your accomplishments and your dedication. I also want to welcome Brian Schell to SS&C as our newly appointed CFO. Brian will join SS&C on August 7th from his position as CFO of Chicago Board Options Exchange. Brian has an MBA from George Washington University and his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame. Finally, SS&C has spent the past 37 years developing and acquiring a broad range of market-leading technology. We have added world-class services around these products. Multiple times, we have aggressively and extensively defended our intellectual property against misappropriation. We have done it successfully multiple times.

On occasion, our professional fees will tick up as we hire expensive legal talent. Now I will open it up for questions.

Operator (participant)

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Please limit yourself to one initial and one follow-up question. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Kevin McVeigh with Credit Suisse.

Kevin McVeigh (Analyst)

Thanks so much, and let me add my congratulations to Patrick as well, and welcome to Brian. Hey, it looks like you continue to see real nice momentum in the organic growth, came in at about 2.5%, and the guide for Q3 in the full year is 3%. If I do the math, I think that implies 5% for Q4. I just want to confirm that, 1. Then, you know, that's a really nice acceleration from the beginning of the year. Maybe if I'm right on that 5, could maybe just help bridge, maybe from the 1 to the 5 or maybe the 2.5 that you just put up to the 5? Maybe start there.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well, I, I think that, you know, we did 2.5% in Q, in Q2, or 2.26%, maybe, Ed. I, I think in Q2 twenty-three, we're expecting somewhere between 1.5% and 4.5%. For Q4, I think... Patrick, what do we have for, for Q4 on...

Patrick Pedonti (CFO)

That's right.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

-organic revenue growth?

Patrick Pedonti (CFO)

Yeah, Q4 at the midpoint in Q4, it's about 4.8%, so close to 5.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Does that answer your question, Kevin?

Kevin McVeigh (Analyst)

It does, Bill. Then just any sense of the professional fees on the IP? Just any, any additional just thoughts around that? Because it, you know, it seems like... The delta on the EPS was interest. It sounded like some medical and then I think those professional services that you just alluded to. Is that right?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

That's right. We had medical claims, but obviously, interest expense is by far the biggest thing to impact EPS. On an operating basis, the medical claims and professional fees were more than expected in Q2. You know, you have no choice but to see these things through to the end. If you don't protect your IP, you know, then we're not protecting the shareholders' assets. So we will continue to do that. You know, like I said, we've been successful a number of times.

Kevin McVeigh (Analyst)

Makes sense. Thanks so much.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Dan Perlin with RBC Capital Markets.

Dan Perlin (Analyst)

Thanks. Bill, maybe you could just spend a moment talking about some of the prioritizations you've got for these investments that you mentioned in the release. you know, you sound pretty adamant that they're gonna drive, you know, incremental revenue growth. obviously, just talking about the organic growth.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well, I think, Dan, what, what we've done is, is, you know, we've spent a lot of money building out a, a number of new systems. Even in, in what has been a, a pretty tough financial market, even though it's gotten a little stronger the last quarter. You, you know, you can see on our, on our AUA that that ticked up about $15 billion in Q2. That, that's a good harbinger of, you know, some of the things that we've done for our clients that, that, that separates us from our competitors, you know?

I think what we've done with the technology in our services business is to make it that it's a compelling offering for our clients and our prospects, and we continue to take business from our competitors. They, you know, the... It's still lumpy, though, right? Particularly with the biggest, the biggest funds. You know, we have deals we think we would've, would've closed, you know, months ago that, that literally drag. There's, there's really, at least as far as we think, there's, there's nothing we can do to, you know, to make the biggest funds go faster, you know? That's one thing. Then, you know, on the technology, you know, the Aloha product has been pretty strong. We've done pretty well with Singularity.

We've got some real momentum in the, you know, in all the additional products that we've done with Black Diamond. You know, we've combined Black Diamond with our trust accounting, so that RIAs can continue to keep, keep the assets that they've gathered when, when it goes generational and, you know, and the, and the generation puts it in trust for the kids. You know, oftentimes they lose that business because they don't have trust accounting capabilities. That, that's been pretty popular for us. You know, Geneva continues to dominate in the, in the large-scale hedge fund business. We have a number of those private markets, as we've said, was up over 20% in Q2. There's any number of pockets of, of strength.

It's just getting all the pockets to be at strength in the same quarter, right? So I think it is, it's just a constant. It's, it's, it's making sure we're executing at a very high level and, and that, that, you know, we, we, we go for the wins. That's, that's, that's where we're at. We're still a very profitable company. We generate tremendous amounts of cash. We're not going anywhere. We're still very competitive, and it's just a question of, of, of really getting the entire orchestra perfectly in tune. Are we still on? Yeah. Dan, you have a follow-up?

Justine Stone (Head of Investor Relations)

Sounds like maybe we lost the operator. Let me.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

I think we lost the operator, yeah.

Justine Stone (Head of Investor Relations)

Hold on.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

I thought it was a really good answer, but.

Justine Stone (Head of Investor Relations)

I believe we have Andrew Schmidt from Citi as our next question. The operator should be joining again soon, but-

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Go ahead, Andrew. Christine, we must not be connecting with the.

Justine Stone (Head of Investor Relations)

No, they can still hear us. No, they can still hear us.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Can Andrew hear us?

Justine Stone (Head of Investor Relations)

I think so. I just can't open his line from where I am.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah.

Justine Stone (Head of Investor Relations)

Oh, I just got word. Andrew, your line should be open, if you can hear us.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well, some other things that we're working on as we have this lull in our in our conference call. You know, we, we, you know, we're, we're excited about bringing Brian Schell on, and, and he brings a lot of experience and, and, and expertise. You know, he obviously has big shoes to fill with Patrick, but, but I, I think, you know, our opportunity to continue to grow is going to be tied to continuing to develop our talent and, and execute against that. You know, we have, we have full pipelines. You know, we have leading positions in, in lots of segments of financial services. We, we have a real opportunity in, in DomaniRx, and, and it's, it's really bringing all that to fruition.

I, I think that's the, that's the challenge that we have, and, and I think we're up for that challenge. You know, generating $502 million in EBITDA, that kind of gives you a feeling that you have enough resources to, to get it done.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Heckmann with D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

Peter Heckmann (Analyst)

Okay, glad to have us back online here. Bill, can you talk a little bit, you know, this, trade settlement, shortening the trade settlement cycle to 1 day, T plus one, and then eventually to T plus 0? That's been talked about for a very long period of time. Do you view that as, as a catalyst at all, for some of your clients, to consider upgrading older systems?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

You know, I, I think, I think that, that if they have to, then, then they will. If, if they can continue to, to, to band-aid it, like they like a lot of them have done so far, I, I think they'll continue to do that. You know, for it to be a, a mad dash to, to, to get new technologies in, I, I don't, I don't foresee that. There will be some that, that want to, want to take advantage of, of, of the increased, you know, capability of the newer systems, the security, the speed, and, and then also the, the, the reconciliation parts of that stuff and, and making sure that everything gets, gets processed in a, in a very timely fashion.

There'll be some disruption, but I, I don't think there'll be a tremendous amount of incremental revenue. Like, I don't think there's a few $100 million or something like that, right? You know, to move the bar on SS&C, you got to do, you know, $100 million or $200 million.

Peter Heckmann (Analyst)

Right. Okay, okay. Then, you know, Intralinks, up 9% is particularly impressive, given that M&A continues to be down, 25%-30% year-over-year. I know you mentioned one area, I, I didn't quite catch it, but can you talk about some of the areas outside of M&A where Intralinks is outperforming and allowing that business to continue to grow?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

You want to take that, Rahul?

Rahul Kanwar (President and COO)

Sure. I, I think the, the biggest area outside of M&A is the, the alternatives area. That's the InView portal that I mentioned in my comments. It's the LP communication, capital call distribution, statement distribution, those kinds of things. You know, as we continue to bring our businesses closer together and develop joint solutions, we're, we're finding lots of opportunities to sell that web and LP communication system to our fund administration clients and going to market as sort of a joint package, and that's been attractive. That's, that's another area where that alternatives growing business is growing even faster than the M&A business right now.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

I think we have, like, redaction services and other enhancements to the core offerings that have also been pretty attractive.

Peter Heckmann (Analyst)

... helpful. Then just last question, just in, in terms of the way you report, you know, in this quarter, you talked about a couple tough comps from, from software license fees. You know, on an annual basis, I, you know, I don't believe you're still disclosing this as a separate line item, but, but, you know, software license fees are, are, are we kind of talking around $65 million-$80 million a year? Is, is that about the right level if we just isolate the, the perpetual licenses?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

I, you know, I don't really have that off the top of my head, Pete. I, I would, I would guess that we sell, yeah, probably something $20 million-$25 million a quarter.

Peter Heckmann (Analyst)

Okay. All right. I appreciate it. I will get back to the queue.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Schmidt of Citi. Please go ahead.

Andrew Schmidt (Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions, and let me extend my congratulations to Patrick and look forward to working with Brian when he comes aboard. I wanted to ask on the operating expense base. Obviously, it's been evolved a couple of years, and there's been, you know, more variability there than historically. Maybe just talk about just your visibility when it comes to the expense base, in terms of just, you know, what to expect. On one hand, you know, you've had a few things, labor costs for the past year. Now you have these legal fees, you know, ticking up a little bit. On the other side of this, we also have Blue Prism benefits. Just wondering, just how all this balances out in terms of your overall margin structure or visibility going forward.

Thanks a lot, guys.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

I, I think our expenses, you know, if you look at it, our expenses on a currency basis, excluding acquisitions in Q2, I think it was up 0.6%. You know, as a, as an overall marker, you know, to keep, keep your expense growth, you know, at, at less than 1% is, is I, I think, pretty impressive. As much as we've been deploying and getting some of the benefits of Blue Prism, you know, it's like it's a little bit like we're in spring training, you know, for, for baseball. We're not gonna get really in our stride maybe until the middle of summer. I, I think we have a, a lot of opportunities to further our, our, our cost management, our expense management with, with the deployment of digital workers.

st give our workers, current human workers, better jobs, you know, with more interesting work, and let the digital workers, you know, do the repetitive stuff that computers are great at. We think we have a tremendous opportunity there. And, you know, occasionally, you know, you'll have a situation where, where, you know, you, you think your IP's been misappropriated, and then you gotta go defend it. And that's not a cheap process, but it's a necessary process. And so that happens, and we had some, you know, some excess medical claims in the Q2, and, you know, that's gonna happen. You know, we have a big population, and we wanna make sure they have great, great healthcare

Whatever that is, you know, we're happy to pay it.

Andrew Schmidt (Analyst)

Got it. Thank you for that. To be clear, you're still, it looks like, correct me if I'm wrong, you're still expecting operating marginal in the back half. Is that correct?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

We are.

Andrew Schmidt (Analyst)

Okay, fantastic.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

That's correct.

Andrew Schmidt (Analyst)

Maybe just, just-- Thanks, Patrick. Just, just lastly, it sounds like just growth, you know, sort of expected some slowness in terms of licensed revenues. What's the expectation for just licensed revenue pull-through in the back half, just given that that can be more variable relative to kind of the other, the other, you know, sources of revenue? Just curious to get your visibility around that. Thanks a lot, guys.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well, you know, license revenues are, you know, kind of capital expenditures for our customers. You know, more and more, they're, they're, they're going for, you know, outsourced services, you know, longer-term contracts and, and less, less large-scale capital commitments. You know, I, I would, I would suggest that, you know, the, the, the license business will continue to evolve, you know, more term licenses, probably, perhaps longer terms, which might offset some of the move towards outsourcing. You know, because on longer-term licenses, you get six oh six recognition. There's a lot of moving parts, and, you know, some of this stuff with, with, with the accounting and the reporting, you know, GAAP and then adjusted GAAP and all that, it, it gets a little, a little arcane, you know? For, for me, I watch cash.

How much cash do we get coming in here? You know, and, you know, cash doesn't lie. I, I think that's, that, that, that's kind of my focus. And, you know, how people interpret accounting rules is, is a, is a difficult process.

Andrew Schmidt (Analyst)

Got it. Thank you, Bill.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of James Fassett with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Michael Enfontaine (Analyst)

Hi, it's Michael Enfontaine for James. Thanks for taking our question. Bill, I, I think at a conference in, in late May, you were talking to buyback potential in the $700 million range. Then we have the buyback announcement for roughly $1 billion. Is there anything we should be reading into in terms of the higher quantum there, just in terms of your use of free cash flow?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

I mean, I don't think so. I think if we find acquisitions that we want to buy, that we can get, you know, at, at, at a price where we feel like we can, we can make some money, then, then I think we will go after acquisitions first. You know, after that, we're gonna pretty much split it between stock buybacks and debt repayment. You know, if interest rates alleviate, you know, we'll probably allocate more to stock buybacks than we would to debt pay down. You know, we're not going to go 100% either way. You know, we view it as art more than we view it as science, and we're gonna try to be wise.

Michael Enfontaine (Analyst)

Makes sense. Appreciate that. Maybe just a follow-up on the organic rev cadence throughout the rest of the year. Seems like you're gradually scaling on the organic revenue side with exit rates close to 5% in 4Q. Is there anything in the pipeline and/or what you guys are planning on doing from a pricing perspective that gives you the visibility into that 5% number in 4Q?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

It's a whole combination of things, right? Including price increases, including, you know, getting the large-scale deals that are already in, that, that have revenue, have that revenue flush through in Q4. Then it's selling new business. I think it's a combination of things, and, you know, there's work to be done, of course. You know, it's still July. We've got a lot of time. We have a lot of really talented people, and, you know, we expect results, and, you know, on balance, they deliver them.

Michael Enfontaine (Analyst)

Thanks, Bill.

Operator (participant)

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question, it is star one. Your next question comes from the line of Terry Tillman with Truist. Please go ahead.

Joseph Vafi (Analyst)

Hey, guys. This is Joseph Vafi for Terry. I want to extend my congrats to Patrick and to Brian. It's always nice to see a fellow Domer climbing the corporate ladder. I have a question about Blue Prism. I think at the end of last year, you'd expected about 100 digital workers. You're at 500 now. Do you still expect to get to 1,000 by the end of 2023?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

I think the numbers we gave at the last conference call was between 1,350 and 2,700. I think, and Rahul can correct me if I'm wrong, but we would expect to have close to 2,000 by the end of the year.

Joseph Vafi (Analyst)

helpful.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

I think that's right.

Joseph Vafi (Analyst)

Thanks. Just as a follow-up, I think in the past, you've noted, about a $50,000 savings per role that's migrated to Blue Prism. Is that still accurate, or, are you seeing, you know, better or worse savings as you've implemented more of these workers?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

You know, I would say that that's still the, you know, kind of rough estimate of where we are. You know, we. You know, as we automate different processes, you know, it, there's more of a, you know, it might be a little bit wider of a range of what we say by digital worker. I think we would still say the average is, you know, somewhere around 50 with ±10%.

Joseph Vafi (Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much, guys.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Patrick O'Shaughnessy with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy (Analyst)

Hey, good evening. Can you speak to which part of the company where your intellectual property litigation is targeted? Has the potential theft of your IP had any impact on that business at this point?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, it's, it's primarily in our fund services business. I would say that we think it has had impact on our business. You know, so, you know, that's, that's why we fight these things, Patrick, is, is that you know, they're. You don't want to compete against people that are competing against you with your technology. You know, that, that doesn't seem particularly fair.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy (Analyst)

Got it. Makes sense. Then what are you seeing out there in terms of deal multiples? Obviously, SimCorp sold recently at a pretty lofty multiple, as did Adenza. Are there pockets where multiples are starting to come in, or is it all still pretty frothy?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

I, you know, I, I don't quite understand either one of those deals, frankly. Obviously, you know, those are smart people that do those things, and so they do. You know, I, I just look at it that, you know, we make a whole lot of money, you know, and if we keep our eye on the ball, you know, we're gonna get some nice pitches, and we're gonna knock them out of the park. You know, and there's no reason to... you know, I, I understand, right? I mean, we, we want total shareholder value, and, you know, we always want our stock to go up rather than go down, and, but we live in a 90-day world on that stuff. Technology and, and big-time customers and all that, you know, they don't really live on a 90-day world.

You know, sometimes they wait six months before they, they sign a contract, and the contract doesn't change at all in those six months. You know, it's getting in the cadence of, of your customers and making sure that you have enough pipeline, that when people delay, you got other ones that you can accelerate. I think that's our, our real challenge is, is, you know, at $5.5 billion, if, if you wanna grow 10%, you know, if you didn't have any attrition, you still have to sell $550 million. We have 4% attrition, so we have to sell $750 million. That's, that's a lot of revenue. That's a lot bigger than most of the people that we get compared to. Understood. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Kramm with UBS. Please go ahead.

Alex Kramm (Analyst)

Yes. Hey, good evening, everyone. Just wanted to come back to organic growth for a second here because I don't think that's been asked on the, on the actually, the guide down. I mean, you were at, I think the midpoint was 3% before, sorry, for, yeah, 3% before.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Four.

Alex Kramm (Analyst)

No, no, it's 4% before. Thank you. 3 now. You talked about the software licenses, so that makes sense. Is that, is that all, or is there something else that you would highlight, why the reduction? I mean, you did come in better in the, in the Q2 here as well.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well.

Patrick Pedonti (CFO)

No, I, I think it-

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

No, go ahead, Patrick.

Patrick Pedonti (CFO)

Yeah, I think it's all. I mean, when you compare the outlook we provided a quarter ago to this outlook, it's pretty much the software business. You know, like, Advent and as an institutional asset management, and we're seeing improvements in some of the other outsourcing business, like alternatives, Intralinks, and our health business from where we expect it to be. It's mostly the software business.

Alex Kramm (Analyst)

Okay.

Patrick Pedonti (CFO)

It's still growing in the back half of the year. It's still growing in the back half of the year, but not as much as we expected.

Alex Kramm (Analyst)

Okay. No, thanks for clarifying. Then maybe, on a, on a more positive note, the GIDS business, I don't think it's kind of on this call at all, two, two pretty solid back-to-back quarters. I mean, solid in the context of the normal growth in that business, 3.5%, but, but seems stable. Just wondering, if there's any incremental color, if, if that's a good growth rate for the time being, or if you're hopeful that, you know, it's not only stabilized, but we can actually accelerate from here?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well, I think we've done a pretty good job of, you know, repositioning that entire business business. I think that we have some optimism about being able to close big deals. You know, in the transfer agency business, they're very large, you know, tens of millions annually, so it's a, it's a long sales process. So it is fraught with delay. While we have some optimism, I would say that, you know, we're watching that very closely. Rahul, do you have more color?

Operator (participant)

Well, I think, I think, you know, agree with, agree with everything you said. I think the other thing that I would highlight is some of our largest opportunities in the company, globally, are in this business, right? To Bill's point, their sales cycle are a little bit longer. We have to keep our eye on it at all times. You know, in terms of a medium-term outlook, if you kinda look out even a couple of years, we do think that this business is capable of growing a lot faster than, you know, kinda low single digits that it is right now.

Alex Kramm (Analyst)

All right. Very good. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call to Bill Stone.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Bailey. Thanks, everybody, for being on the call. I can assure you that we are pretty focused, and we look forward to talking to you at the end of October. Patrick, thanks again. See ya.

Patrick Pedonti (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your line.