SS&C Technologies - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the SS&C Technologies Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and please be advised that this call is being recorded. After the speaker's prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star one on your telephone keypad, and if you do find that your question has been addressed, you can withdraw your question by pressing star one again. And we do ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. Now, at this time, I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Justine Stone, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Justine Stone (Head of Investor Relations)

Welcome, and thank you for joining us for our Q3 2023 earnings call. I'm Justine Stone, Investor Relations for SS&C Technologies. With me today is Bill Stone, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Rahul Kanwar, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Brian Schell, 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 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 on Form 10-K, which is on file with the SEC and can also be accessed on our website. These forward-looking statements represent our expectations only as of today, October 26, 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 will 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 to everyone for joining. Let's all welcome Brian to his first SS&C earnings call. He's been with us for two months and has found his bearings. We're excited about his ideas and intellect he brings to the organization, and I encourage all of you to get to know him. Results for the third quarter are record adjusted revenue of $1,366.7 million, up 3.4%, and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.17. We also achieved our second highest adjusted consolidated EBITDA in our history at $533.9 million. Our EBITDA margin was 39.1%, a 230 basis point increase from Q2 2023.

Our third quarter adjusted organic revenue was up 2.3%, driven by strength in our alternatives, particularly private markets, Intralinks, retirement, and Blue Prism. Our recurring revenue growth, which omits the license and professional service revenue streams, was up over 5%, which we think is an indicator of our underlying business's strength. Financial services retention rate for Q3 2023 was 97.3%, the highest level in SS&C history. SS&C generated cash from operating activities of $826.7 million for the nine months ended September 30, up 8.1% over the same period last year. In Q3 2023, we bought back 1.7 million shares for $96.9 million at an average price of $55.82.

We also raised our common stock quarterly dividend 20% to $0.24 per share, delivering $156.6 million in total cash return to shareholders in the quarter and $501.9 million year to date. SS&C paid down $54.7 million in debt in Q3 2023, bringing our net leverage ratio to 3.18 times consolidated EBITDA attributable to SS&C. In the near term, we believe SS&C's common stock is undervalued, and we expect to maintain a higher level of stock repurchases versus debt paydown. We've made a lot of progress within the firm-wide Blue Prism digital worker deployment. We have a 2,000 full-time equivalent headcount savings year to date, which is 7% of our January 1, 2023 employee base. Conservatively, at $50,000 per FTE, this is $100 million in run rate savings.

So far, the biggest successes have been within our large outsourcing businesses, GIDS and Alternative Fund Services. One example is a GIDS client asked us to run a campaign to contact over 20,000 customers to clear their small cash balances. We programmed 25 Blue Prism digital workers to perform the follow-on processing, saving about $140,000 on contractors that would have been required to process the responses manually. Within alternatives, operational functions such as manual statement downloads, reconciliation and break investigation and resolution, investor statement and contract notes, and loan closing and compliance have benefited from digital workers. We believe we have just begun to reap the benefits from this initiative. I'll now turn the call over to Rahul to discuss the quarter in more detail.

Rahul Kanwar (President and COO)

Thanks, Bill. Our core businesses continue to grow nicely with alternatives, Intralinks, and retirement accelerating from last quarter. Our alternatives business grew 8.4% in the quarter, boosted by the strength of our private markets business. We signed a very significant private credit client in Q3 and see opportunities to sustain and accelerate growth for the foreseeable future. Intralinks also accelerated in the quarter, growing over 10%, despite M&A deal volume remaining low.

The growth can be attributed to increase in contract values, longer due diligence timelines, and more large deals won. We've released new tools to help us drive these large deals and contract values. Intralinks DocuAI uses generative AI to proactively deliver document summaries, suggested document classification, document translation, and identify potential risks. SS&C Intralinks DealVault, a cloud-based storage solution designed for streamlined access to archives and efficient deal data management, recently launched and has attracted interest from corporate clients. In Q3, the largest new Black Diamond sale to date was closed. This client chose the Black Diamond Wealth Platform to power their newly launched wealth management business, created through the acquisition of multiple RIAs and broker-dealers. We continue to invest in R&D and support our customers. We've won four awards from Waters Technology, including Best Buy-Side Order Management System, Best Execution Management System, Best Portfolio Management System, and Best Accounting Provider.

SS&C Blue Prism was also recognized by Gartner as a leader in the 2023 Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation for the 5th year in a row. We believe these recognitions are indicative of our market-centric approach to R&D. I'll join Bill and the rest of our management team in welcoming Brian to SS&C, and now turn the call over to him to run through the financials.

Brian Schell (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Rahul, and thank you, Bill, for those kind remarks. I'd like to start by saying I'm excited to be part of the SS&C leadership team and looking forward to help build on the strength of SS&C today, with the ultimate goal of delivering long-term shareholder value. As noted in our press release, our Q3 2023 GAAP results reflect revenues of $1,365.9 million, net income of $156 million, and diluted earnings per share of $0.61. As Bill noted earlier in the call, our adjusted revenues were $1,366.7 million, up 3.4%. Adjusted operating income increased 6.4%, and adjusted diluted EPS was $1.17, a 1.7% increase over Q3 2022.

Adjusted revenue increased $44.7 million or 3.4% over Q3 2022. Our acquisitions contributed $2.4 million or approximately 20 basis points. Foreign exchange had a favorable impact of $13.2 million or 1%. As a result, adjusted organic revenue growth in a constant currency basis was 2.3%. Adjusted operating income for the third quarter of 2023 was $517.4 million, an increase of $31.3 million, or 6.4% from third quarter of 2022. Adjusted operating margins were 37.9% in the third quarter of 2023, as compared to 36.8% in the third quarter of 2022. The 110 basis point margin expansion reflects the positive impact of both revenue growth and disciplined expense management.

While our cost structure has been impacted by general inflation, higher personnel costs, and increased professional fees compared to 2022, our core expenses only increased 30 basis points or $2.6 million, excluding acquisitions and on a constant currency basis. Acquisitions added $2 million in expenses, and foreign currency increased costs by $8.4 million. Note that our expenses calculated on a similar basis is down $28.6 million, or 3.3% sequentially. Adjusted consolidated EBITDA attributable to SS&C, defined in note three in the earnings release, was $533.9 million or 39.1% of adjusted revenue, an increase of $32.2 million or 6.4% from Q3 last year.

The 39.1% EBITDA margin reflects both a sequential and year-over-year improvement of 230 and 110 basis points, respectively. Net interest expense for the third quarter of 2023 was $117.3 million, an increase of $35.1 million from Q3 2022. The Q3 2023 net interest expense excludes $3.4 million of non-cash amortized financing costs and OID. The average interest rate in the quarter for the amended credit facility, including the senior notes, was 6.87%, compared to 4.55% in the third quarter of 2022. Adjusted net income, as defined in note four in the earnings release, was $295.9 million, and adjusted diluted EPS was $1.17.

The effective tax rate used for adjusted net income was 26%. Share repurchases of 1.7 million drove the diluted share count down to 253.9 million from 255 million in Q2. SS&C ended the third quarter with $447.6 million in cash and cash equivalents and $6.9 billion in gross debt. SS&C's net debt, as defined in our credit agreement, which excludes cash and cash equivalents of $106.1 million held at DomaniRx LLC, was $6.6 billion as of September 30. Our LTM consolidated EBITDA used for covenant compliance was $2,063.8 million as of September 2023. Based on net debt of approximately $6.6 billion, our total leverage ratio was 3.18 times.

Our secured leverage ratio was 2.21 times as of September 30th. As we look forward to the fourth quarter in establishing our guidance, note that we will continue to focus on client service and assume that our retention rates will continue to be in the range of our most recent results. We will continue to manage our expenses with a cost discipline approach by controlling and aligning variable expenses to ensure efficiency, increasing productivity to improve our operating margins to leverage our scale, and effectively investing in the business, in marketing, sales, and R&D, to take advantage of future growth opportunities. Specifically, we have assumed adjusted organic growth for Q4 in the range of 1.8%-4.8%, resulting in adjusted organic growth for the year in the range of 2.1%-2.9%.

FX rates will be at current levels, interest rates to remain flat through the end of the year compared to the ending rate in the third quarter, GAAP tax rate of approximately 26% on an adjusted basis, which is unchanged from prior guidance. Capital expenditures to remain at 3.9%-4.1% of revenues, which is unchanged from prior guidance, and a more weighted emphasis to share repurchases, similar to what we did in Q3. For the fourth quarter of 2023, we expect revenue to be in the range of $1.37 billion-$1.41 billion. Adjusted net income in the range of $305 million-$327 million.

Interest expense, excluding amortization of deferred financing costs and original issue discount, in the range of $116 million-$119 million. Diluted shares in the range of 252 million-254 million, and adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $1.21-$1.29. For the full year 2023, we expect revenue to be in the range of $5,463.5 million-$5,503.5 million. Adjusted net income in the range of $1,159.9 million-$1,181.9 million. Diluted shares in the range of 254.5 million-255 million.

Adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $4.55-$4.64. Cash from operating activities to be in the range of $1.18 billion-$1.23 billion. Now, I'd like to turn it back over to Bill for final comments.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks, Brian. Earlier this week, we hosted nearly 1,000 clients and prospects at our SS&C Deliver Conference in Austin, Texas. Delivering the Future was the theme of the conference, with a big emphasis on the power of AI and robotic process automation. We showcased over 40 solutions across the key market segments we serve, and initial feedback has been positive. I'll now open it up for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Mr. Stone. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, just a reminder, any questions, please press star one, and also please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question, and we'll pause for just a moment. We'll go first this afternoon to Dan Perlin at RBC Capital Markets.

Dan Perlin (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks. Good evening. I just had a question on the, you know, the revenue retention rates. As we kind of went back and looked at them, I mean, I know it's a modest uptick. It's actually pretty reasonable, but it looks like to be maybe the highest level we've certainly seen back to 2019, maybe ever, quite frankly. So can you just talk about some of the metrics that are driving that and, and how that might play into your thinking as we go into next year around organic growth? Thanks. One follow-up.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

You know, Dan, I think the retention rates really reflects to the concentration we put on customer service and making sure that, you know, we run these customer satisfaction calls every month, and we keep track of them, and we're really putting a tremendous amount of emphasis. And we also believe that the ability for us to cross-sell and upsell into our current client base is much stronger than we may have looked at it before. And so I think the renewed emphasis on that and our customer relationship management programs is starting to pay off.

Dan Perlin (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah. You know, on that same vein, Bill, could you talk a little bit about the deal pipeline and conversion cycles you're seeing? I know Rahul called out specifically, you know, wins within private markets, which has obviously been very strong, and then obviously with Black Diamond. I'm just wondering how things are kind of setting up, how those conversations are going today, and are you feeling better about conversion cycles as we sit here now, or, you know, pretty much the same as maybe it's, I don't know, six, nine months ago? Thank you.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I would say that, you know, I think our pipeline in our fund administration businesses is over $400 million, you know, so that's a lot of revenue. Now you got to close it, right? And then you got to get them live, and so it's not a—not just a walk in the park. But it does indicate you know, kind of the lead we have in a number of our areas. Intralinks is seeing ticks up in their lead generation and our ability to close on additional M&A that's happened in that marketplace. And I think, you know, the private markets looks like it's gonna remain strong through the end of the year.

We have, you know, we were a little light on, on license revenue, but, you know, 606 and renewals is always a, you know, kind of a crapshoot. I think that, you know, Q3 was particularly soft, but that ought to rebound a little bit in Q4 and also in 2024.

Dan Perlin (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

That's great. Thank you, Bill.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We go next now to Peter Heckmann at D.A. Davidson.

Peter Heckmann (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I wanted to follow up on a couple pieces. Now, you noted that a little bit light on software revenue. I assume that was primarily the legacy software businesses, and just trying to clarify if there was a particularly tough comparison there. And you know, I know you don't do it in your filings, but if you could quantify roughly the amount of software license revenue in the quarter, that'd be helpful.

Brian Schell (EVP and CFO)

You know, I think the difference in what we expected versus where we ended up from a software license revenue was in the order of magnitude of about $20 million-$25 million in the quarter.

Peter Heckmann (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. It does, it does appear that it was concentrated within the legacy software businesses.

Brian Schell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Primarily institutional and investment management business, and some impact in Advent as well.

Peter Heckmann (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Okay, and then just on the retirement side, you know, 15% up in the quarter, sequential acceleration. I'm sorry if I missed it, but does that reflect the go live of, of some of the large clients in the conversion pipeline?

Brian Schell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, it, it, it does. You know, we're, we're continuing to make progress, as, as you know, we, we did win, you know, a few large deals. I was gonna say about 18-24 months ago, that we've been working hard on implementing. Where we are right now is, we have one of them fully live and another one scheduled to go live in early 2024, and you're starting to see, you know, really the revenue benefit of that happening.

Peter Heckmann (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We go next now to Andrew Schmidt at Citi.

Andrew Schmidt (BP&A Lead Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions, and welcome, Brian. Brian, maybe I can put you on the spot for a second. I know it's a little bit early, but talk about just initial observations and maybe some early priorities you have as you hit the ground here. That'd be helpful. Thanks a lot.

Brian Schell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, no, thanks for the question, and I would say, you know, the priorities that we have are, you know, continuing to try and build on the momentum here, as I said in my opening comments. I think that one of the things the finance group and our leadership is looking to do is continue to enhance some of the tools that the leaders at the front lines are actually using with respect to the contracts to help make better decisions, more timely decisions. What they're looking at around pricing, what they're looking around implementing, investment and expenses to drive future revenue growth, I think has been important.

I think the team has already has always been focused on looking at expenses and trying to make sure that the expense level and spend, the variable and fixed, you know, adjusts in accordance with, I'll call it, revenue outlook. So that you know, revenue growth is obviously very important, but so is making sure that we have an appropriate margin that we're bringing to our shareholders. So I would say continuation along those lines, I think we'll continue to try and drive some incremental metrics to give increasing visibility to. You know, again, to continue to help understand what's driving the business and the strength that we see in it that sometimes may be masked by the aggregate numbers and some of those trends. So we'll continue to try and highlight those.

Lastly, I would say on the capital allocation piece, again, putting that in perspective of how we view and how we're going to maybe be a little bit more proactive around what we're doing with respect to that cash flow. I think we've indicated, like I said, a more heavier lean and allocation towards share buyback, and continuing to be transparent about where we think we're gonna put the capital to work.

Andrew Schmidt (BP&A Lead Analyst)

Got it. Appreciate that, Brian. Very helpful. And then if I could pick up on the margin comment, you know, the implied fourth quarter margin, you know, pretty good progress there. It looks like it's, if my math is right, up at least 200 basis points year-over-year. You know, as we look ahead, you talk about an opportunity for maybe above trend margin expansion, just given all the opportunities you have in front of you, whether it's digital workers, cost efficiency, obviously, you know, some top-line scale, hopefully, anything around that would be helpful. Thanks a lot.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, Andrew, I think that as we've said on a number of these calls, that you know, driving our margins up is we don't find to be particularly difficult. You know, we have great clients, we have great people, and we continually look at productivity enhancements. And you know, Blue Prism has been a great addition to that. You know, not only in you know, us deploying you know, 1,700 or 1,600 digital workers, and you know, by the end of this year, and then also having allowed us to grow and not add FTEs into our workforce. So you know, we're pretty excited about that opportunity.

Even as a business itself, you know, we have some talented people running that business, and they have driven margins, you know, from a little bit negative when we acquired them in the second quarter of 2022 to probably gonna end the fourth quarter at above 30% margins at Blue Prism, which is kind of a hallmark of SS&C, that you know, we manage our businesses, we drive high EBITDA, we pay down debt quickly, we're buying back stock. You know, we're pretty bullish. You know, Wall Street's not particularly bullish, but we're pretty bullish.

Andrew Schmidt (BP&A Lead Analyst)

Got it. Thank you very much, Bill.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We go next now to Alex Kramm at UBS.

Alex Kramm (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yes. Hey, good evening, everyone. Just wanted to go and look at the fourth quarter organic growth guidance. If my memory serves me right, I think last quarter, the cadence that was implied was something more in the mid-single digits for the fourth quarter. A little bit of a, I guess, down draft in your expectation here by a point and a half or so. Can you just maybe help us understand what has changed relative, in the last three months, relative to prior expectations, and what the swing factors could be still into year-end?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, Alex, I think primarily the swings are, there's a lot of stuff going on in the world, right? And just like the licensed businesses get—you know, people get skittish about major capital allocations. And so that was a little soft in Q3, and we're hoping it rebounds in Q4, but we're not trying to stick our neck out on licensed revenue. You know, like we said at beginning, you know, our recurring revenue growth in the third quarter, you know, was over 5% up. So, you know, that's primarily all of our fund administration businesses and other recurring revenue businesses.

And so, you know, we got maybe a little conservative here in Q4, but, you know, we're trying to give you our best guess, and then we're trying to go out and continue to build the business.

Alex Kramm (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Fair enough. Then maybe just more specifically, I don't think the GIDS business has come up, but obviously, that's a very sizable business for you and an area of pain in the last few years, but seems to really be stable here in this 3% or so range. Do you feel pretty good about the outlook there and continue in this kind of environment at that range? Or is there still the ability to maybe even accelerate that into maybe something more in the mid-single digits, or is that business just too mature and maybe the end markets are too tough that, you know, you're happy with what you're seeing?

Rahul Kanwar (President and COO)

You know, I think that we're happy with the progress, right? At the same time, we do believe there's more opportunity. You know, if you kind of think about the end markets, the end markets include wealth managers in Europe, wealth managers in Australia. We're selling a comprehensive array of services and software. And as we think through our pipeline, you know, that GIDS business has some of the biggest deals that we have as a company. So we're, I think, reasonably optimistic that we can, you know, accelerate the growth rate from where we are currently.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

And I, I would just add a little bit, Alex, that, you know, we're a technology company, right? So we, we need to make these products better, you know, and we compete against big, gigantic financial institutions, you know, that you guys are very familiar with. And, you know, we, we think our ability to out-innovate, our ability to deliver more product, our ability to have more intuitive systems, is one of our greatest strengths. And so some of my GIDS, as you're, as you're well aware, is in a pretty mature business. But at the same time, if we can continue to innovate, then when we go up against our competitors, there's, there's, there's really. They don't have a chance, you know? And I, I think that's our real opportunity, and that's why we've stuck with the knitting, and that's what we're doing, you know, both in GIDS.

That's what we're going to do with DomaniRx. That's what we're doing across everything we're doing. That's why we remain reasonably bullish.

Alex Kramm (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Fair enough. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We go next now to Ella Smith at JPMorgan.

Ella Smith (Analyst)

Hi, this is Ella Smith on for Alexei Gogolev from JPMorgan. My first question is for you, Bill, surrounding M&A. Are you seeing anything for sale in the market? And if you were to pursue a tuck-in acquisition in the next 6-12 months, what products or businesses do you think could enhance or complement SS&C's existing offerings?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well, you know, we're constantly in the marketplace, and it all depends on, you know, what's for sale, at what price, and, you know, can we sell our stuff to their client base, and can we take what we buy and sell it into our client base? So I would imagine, you know, just like Iress that we did here a couple of months ago, and we have a few other small tuck-ins that we'll probably do. We really like the Australian market. We really like the Canadian market, as well as the US market. And there are some things that we like in the U.K. that we think are pretty interesting.

So I, you know, I think we might deploy $100 million in the next three to six months on acquisitions, but we don't have anything right now that we would be closing on in that range. So, you know, we like M&A. We think we're good at it. We think we can drive margins and give the people a good place to work. But, you know, you got to get them at the right price, and you got to be disciplined about it. And so that's how we operate.

Ella Smith (Analyst)

Great. Thank you very much, Bill. I think this next question would be for Rahul or whoever wants to take it, but—

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

You've alluded to this, but retirement did quite well in the third quarter, growing 15%, much higher than in the first and second quarters. I was hoping you could speak more to what's driving the growth there.

Rahul Kanwar (President and COO)

I think it's primarily, you know, we've been working on a number of large deals and bringing them live, and as they come live, we see our revenue tick up. So that's. There was some backlog on that revenue that kind of showed up in the quarter, which we were happy to see. And we do think that we have some more opportunity to have, you know, these kinds of step changes in 2024 as well.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Great. Thank you all so much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, and just a quick reminder, ladies and gentlemen, star one for questions today. We go next now to James Faucette at Morgan Stanley.

James Faucette (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you very much. Just a quick question on, on Eze. It was great to see the press release on, on Eze Eclipse earlier today. Any sense, as to how the new client figure of 60 compares to, to last year that you can share with us? Or maybe what a more normalized hedge fund formation market might look like? Just trying to get a sense on what growth trajectory and potential is, for, for Eze, especially on Eze Eclipse.

Rahul Kanwar (President and COO)

You know, yeah, I, I think it, it—there's kind of, you know, Eze is kind of a little bit two things going on in that business. I think as it relates to Eclipse, the, the number of new clients we have this year is, you know, maybe 1.5 times what we had in kind of a similar period last year. We are accelerating. We're seeing kind of a lot of acceptance, and it's not just new, new hedge funds, right? It also is, we continue to add fixed income workflows, derivative workflows, other operational workflows. The kinds of organizations that this kind of suite of software and services, whether that's Eze or Eclipse, appeal to, you know, they keep getting bigger.

Our markets are expanding, and, you know, our sales progress is. We're making progress there. There is a little bit of an impact of the kind of market volatility and equity volumes and things like that, which shows up in the numbers, but underlying that sales performance is very strong.

James Faucette (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Got it. And then, you know, I think in the last couple of years, pricing has been an issue across the industry. How should we think about, like, what the contribution of price has been to the growth this year, or at least your outlook for this year, and how should we anticipate that as a contributor for next year?

Brian Schell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, so we've, as we look at this, and we've kind of factored this in, and this, again, this is a kind of a mix relative to the flows, inflows, and outflows. I think we've kind of talked about the, I'll call it the $130 million-$150 million range. Again, that's it sometimes it's hard to disaggregate to a single factor, and that kind of, kind of builds over time, right? Through, you know, and that could, I'll call it, accelerate in the 4Q to have incrementally more versus the third quarter. So we're seeing, you know, nice price increases. We're building in more and more contracts, and a lot of them already have this in here for CPI adjustments or automatic adjustments, so they kick in. So we're seeing adoption.

We're seeing it going in place. It's not been significantly a contributor to incremental revenue growth. So I would expect to see more of that on a go-forward basis.

Rahul Kanwar (President and COO)

Yeah, and maybe I just add on the back of that. You know, we're still what you're seeing in price, the numbers Brian just talked about, really still only represents, you know, in a given year, maybe a third to half of our client base, right? So as we get more automatic on these escalators, and there are still conversations that we need to have in 2024, we do expect that it'll continue to help.

James Faucette (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Sure. Sure, that makes sense.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

And, James, we also will continue to innovate. It allows our clients, when we do raise prices, to feel good about what we're spending their money on, right? So if you look at our R&D spend, it goes up every quarter, it goes up every year, that this year we'll spend, you know, close to $500 million. And that's besides spending, like, $1.7 billion on Blue Prism or what we spend on Iress or what we spend on other things, that gives our clients a more robust offering across all the different segments we serve.

James Faucette (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yep, got it. Appreciate that. Thank you, guys.

Operator (participant)

We'll go next now to Surinder Thind at Jefferies.

Surinder Thind (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. So just one big picture question here. Just in terms of what—how are you thinking about just automation technologies in general, such as RPA here and maybe the, the grander scheme of productivity enhancements? And I guess what I'm getting at is that obviously there's a lot of hype around generative AI. So is there, you know, complementary stuff here? Is there competition here between the newer technologies or different technologies? How should we think about the market opportunity?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well, I think the whole key to this kind of a business is how efficient can you be, right? There's no glamour here, right? You know, you need to be in balance, right? If you need to be in balance and you, you know, some of our customers do millions of trades a day, right? What they want us to do is make sure we process them, balance them, get you ready to trade the next day, right? And so that's a big part of what we do, and that's a big part of how we're using the new technologies to allow us to spot problems before it becomes a crisis, and to be able to always be there for our clients. And, you know, like, when COVID hit and things like that, we had all kinds of clients coming to us, right?

Because we stood up, we kept processing all through that stuff, and people learned that, wow, they don't really have failover. They don't really have the infrastructure that we have and what we've spent to have it. And so I think some of those kinds of things are what these new technologies are allowing you to do somewhat easier, somewhat faster. But then you gotta be careful that, you know, you know, you have to still be in balance. You have to still be able to reconcile. You have to still be able to understand what that means, right? The humans have to be in charge. Otherwise, you start looking at this technology and decide it's always right, and it's not always right.

So it's important to have the right controls, the right processes, the right procedures as you add sophisticated technology that you know, artificial intelligence stuff and stuff like that that can, you know, sometimes be a little bit too artificial. So, you know, I think it's important for us to stay awake and put in the proper processes and controls to make sure that our customers are served well.

Surinder Thind (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)

That's helpful. Then just kind of turning to the healthcare business here, just as we kind of look over the next year in DomaniRx and the investments that you've made, just any kind of an update there in terms of progress, how we should be thinking about the cadence? And then obviously, just in terms of just understanding near-term dynamics on it, looks like the healthcare business has started to stabilize, you know, in its current format. So just any color there, please.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well, I think it is stabilizing. I think we've, we've, we've done a good job. We've, we have, really improved our relationships with our clients. We have some big opportunities, even outside of DomaniRx, and we have huge opportunities with DomaniRx. You know, we're on schedule to put, you know, upwards tens of millions of lives on DomaniRx in the first quarter of 2024, you know, and, and, we're poised to do that. You know, we're optimistic, and, and we think healthcare is, is an excellent segment to be in with, with a lot of, a lot of opportunity and, and, and similar aging technology where our innovation capabilities and, and, technology capabilities will be very well received.

Surinder Thind (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. And then just in terms of, as you think about the investments you've made, like, does healthcare operate relatively independently of everybody else within the organization? Or how should we think about that business in terms of, you know, the, what I would call the amount of investment that's, that's going on there and it, and your ability to kind of leverage internal resources?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well, you know, again, remember, most of these healthcare organizations also have insurance backgrounds in them. And so, you know, a big Singularity client is Aetna, CVS Health, and The Cigna Group, and we're also pitching other big healthcare and insurance organizations like Anthem. And so, you know, we think that, you know, the health and wealth process is also pretty important.

You know, as you have an aging population, you know, all of us that are working might have a relative or someone that gets ill or something, and you need to be able to take care of them, and really understanding the provider networks and being able to add value to all of our clients across all of our segments, I think it's symbiotic, and that's something that we've stayed with, and we've made the investment. Yep, we took a couple of whacks on the chin, but, hey, you know what? You don't get anywhere unless you, as one of our great clients said to me once, "You got to have perseverance to get through these large system developments.

Brian Schell (EVP and CFO)

There's, you know, just to, just to add to kind of the second part of that, there is a fair amount of overlap internally on the compute that we're using and the data centers and operational processes. So, so the businesses are helping each other.

Surinder Thind (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Okay, that's it for me. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We'll take a follow-up question now from Peter Heckmann at D.A. Davidson.

Peter Heckmann (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. I apologize if I missed it. Did you provide an updated target date for the first big conversion on DomaniRx?

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, we're gonna convert. We have a big drug discount card business that we're gonna convert beginning in the first quarter of 2024, and that's tens of millions of lives.

Peter Heckmann (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. 24. Okay. And then just in regards to some of the carryover investments from DST, can you just remind us what's left in the unconsolidated affiliates, and as well, some of the investments? I think I would have expected that investment number to be falling a little bit and moving into the cash column, but still have a number of fairly illiquid investments in that category.

Brian Schell (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, there is definitely, there's still more there. I would say the most illiquid is a lot of real estate that we are continuing to market and take a look at. That's a tough market right now, and particularly in some of the properties with respect to office buildings located in downtown centers. There's still some investments that are actually yielding positive results, but we're not pulling those into earnings on an active basis, even though it is a positive number. So, I would say there's still a bit of balance sheet hang that we are doing a reasonably good job of keeping cash flow neutral. But, you know, is it quite covering everything that's out there? You know, maybe not, but it's getting close.

So we are winding it down. Those real estate assets are probably gonna take some time, that are still sitting out there.

Peter Heckmann (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Mm-hmm. Okay, I appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Gentlemen, it appears we have no further questions this afternoon. Mr. Stone, I'd like to turn things back to you, sir, for any closing comments.

Bill Stone (Chairman and CEO)

Well, again, we appreciate all of you being on. We appreciate the questions we got, and we appreciate where we stand, and we look forward to talking to you after the end of the year. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Mr. Stone. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude the SS&C Technologies Q3 2023 earnings call. Again, we'd like to thank you all so much for joining us and wish you all a great day. Goodbye.