Pros Holdings Inc
NYSE:PRO
Earnings Call Analysis
Q3-2023 Analysis
Pros Holdings Inc
In a display of resilient performance and strategic execution, the company proudly surpassed its guidance metrics in the third quarter. Notably, it expanded subscription revenue by an impressive 16% year-over-year while also achieving a 10% total revenue growth compared to the same period last year. This growth translated into a commendable $5.6 million in positive adjusted EBITDA, marking a significant year-over-year improvement of $7.8 million. These achievements are milestones along the company's deliberate path toward becoming a 'Rule of 40' company by 2026, a goal that underscores a balance between growth and profitability.
The company's 'land and expand' strategy is evidently proving successful, as seen through the acceleration of subscription revenue growth and augmentations in profitability. The strategy is highlighted by acquiring new customers and deepening existing relationships, leading to expanded use of the company's platform. For instance, new customers like Genesis Energy and Trivium Packaging have been onboarded for seamless customer experiences and dynamic pricing solutions, respectively. Even the aviation sector witnessed the adoption of the platform by airlines like JetSMART and GOL Airlines for enhanced digital offer marketing, indicating a broad appeal of the company's solutions across various industries.
The financial health of the company remains robust, with prudent capital management and a bright outlook. The company anticipates heightened subscription revenues forecasted to fall in the range of $233.3 million to $233.8 million for the full year, with total revenues expected between $302.2 million and $303.2 million. On the profitability front, the adjusted EBITDA is projected to lie between $6.5 million and $7.5 million, with free cash flow estimates ranging from $3.5 million to $6.5 million. For the fourth quarter particularly, subscription revenue is estimated to be between $60 million to $60.5 million, and total revenue is forecasted to reach $76 million to $77 million, hence maintaining a crescendo in financial performance as the fiscal year draws to a close.
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Greetings. Welcome to the PROS Holdings Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Belinda Overdeput, Director of Investor Relations.
Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Our earnings press release, SEC filings and a replay of today's call can be found on the Investor Relations section of our website at pros.com. Our prepared remarks will be available on our website immediately following the call and will be replaced by the official transcript, which includes participant questions once available.
With me on today's call is Andres Reiner, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Stefan Schulz, Chief Financial Officer. Please note that some of the commentary today will include forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, those about our strategy, future business prospects and market opportunities and our financial projections and guidance. Actual results could differ materially from such statements in our forecast.
For more information, please refer to the risk factors described in our SEC filings. PROS assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances. As a reminder, during the call, we will discuss non-GAAP metrics. Reconciliations between each non-GAAP measure and the most directly comparable GAAP measure to the extent to which available without unreasonable effort, are available in our earnings press release. With that, I'll turn the call over to you, Andres.
Thank you, Belinda. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. I'm proud to share we delivered a strong third quarter, exceeding our guidance ranges across all metrics. We grew subscription revenue by 16% year-over-year, total revenue by 10% year-over-year and delivered $5.6 million in positive adjusted EBITDA, an improvement of $7.8 million year-over-year.
Results are a testament to our team's relentless focus on driving profitable growth to achieve our goal of being a Rule of 40 company by 2026. As the market increasingly embraces AI, PROS' long-term trajectory continues to strengthen. C-suite leaders across industries are encouraging their teams to infuse AI into their operations and PROS is a clear choice given our enterprise AI is proven to fuel profitable revenue growth.
When it comes to enterprise AI, accuracy, trust and speed are critical, and this is what sets PROS apart. We ensure accuracy and trust by using an ensemble approach to combine multiple AI algorithms together. For example, we ensemble our price prediction algorithms with outlier detection and explainable AI algorithms to deliver the most optimal and transparent results possible.
Our models are adaptive. They self-learn and recalibrate based on user interaction and real-time data signals to provide the most up-to-date predictions. We offer unparalleled solution performance with response times that are guaranteed within milliseconds for real-time solutions. Through greater accuracy, trust and speed, PROS delivers the promise of AI today. Our mission is to help people and companies outperform.
Our enterprise AI generates significant revenue, margin and efficiency improvement for our customers. As shown in our published ROI study. Recently, we ran an analysis to see how this business outcomes translate into shareholder returns for our customers. We found that PROS publicly traded customers outperformed the Dow and S&P 500 by more than 15 percentage points, between the beginning of 2022 and the end of Q3 2023.
I'm proud that we're helping such amazing customers drive these incredible returns. I encourage you to check out this chart in our Q3 investor presentation. Our land and expand strategy is working, demonstrated by our accelerating subscription revenue growth. Significant improvements to profitability and the pace at which we're continuing to land new customers and expand their use of our platform.
In Q3, we continued to welcome new logos across our target industries. And now I'll share a few examples. Genesis Energy, a New Zealand-based electricity and gas supplier, selected the PROS Platform to provide a seamless customer experience with a harmonized omnichannel strategy. Trivium Packaging, a leading global manufacturer of metal packaging selected the PROS Platform in Q3 to fuel profitable growth. Trivium will improve their responsiveness to shifting raw material costs with dynamic pricing and drive accelerated time to quote with CPQ.
JetSMART and GOL Airlines selected the PROS Platform to use our digital offer marketing solutions to increase online traffic and drive higher conversion of sales through digital channels. SKS Airways, a new Malaysian carrier planning to launch at the beginning of 2024, selected PROS a strategic partner in driving their growth strategy. SKS Airways will use PROS revenue management platform to help them predict demand scale their operations and maximize revenue.
Now I'm excited to share a few of the incredible expansions, we saw with our customers in Q3. Ingredion, a leading global ingredient solution provider began their journey with PROS to drive a digitally-connected sales motion and optimize pricing. Since implementing our platform, Ingredion is driving more accurate pricing by leveraging real-time cost changes, resulting in faster time to quote and an improved customer experience.
Ingredion has expanded margins using PROS AI powered pricing to optimize product and customer mix and even highlighted this on the recent earnings call. Ingredion's CEO, James Zallie said on the call, "Our results demonstrate our ability to be responsive to shifting market dynamics and deliver continued profit growth." We're proud of Ingredion's success and pleased to share they expanded their use of the PROS Platform to a new region, each of the last 2 quarters.
Air New Zealand expanded their use of the PROS Platform with the adoption of Dynamic Offers solution. With PROS Dynamic Offers, Air New Zealand will modernize their retailing strategy with our leading capabilities in airfare shopping and pricing, enabling them to design, distribute and manage price fares across direct, indirect and digital sales channels.
Turkish Airlines expanded their use of our platform with their adoption of our digital offer marketing solution and their recent go-live of our latest generation of solutions for revenue management, Real-Time Dynamic Pricing and Group Sales. Turkish Airlines has been a PROS customer since 2009, and it's been amazing to be part of their stunning breakthrough during this time. Turkish Airlines has more than doubled the number of destinations it flies to since the beginning of our partnership. And today, it flies to more countries than any other airline in the world.
Our platform innovations enabled the next generation of modern retailing for Turkish Airlines on a massive global scale. Real-Time Dynamic Pricing is the key to fueling revenue growth, managing availability and intelligently controlling each offer. With the PROS Platform, Turkish Airlines can increase online traffic and drive higher conversion rates of optimized offers, across our global passengers and group business. Driving their growth strategy.
In closing, I would like to thank our global team for making PROS an incredible company in delivering on our mission of helping people and companies outperform. Also, I would like to thank our customers, partners and shareholders for their ongoing support of PROS. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Stefan to cover financial performance and outlook.
Thank you, Andres, and good afternoon, everyone. We delivered another strong quarter, which puts us in a position to raise our outlook once again for the year. Year-to-date, we have grown our subscription revenue by 15% and total revenue by 10%, while delivering over $20 million in improvements to both adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. We have now generated positive adjusted EBITDA on a year-to-date basis and expect positive free cash flow for the full year, after an expected seasonally strong fourth quarter. These profitability improvements have been made while also executing to our revenue growth plan. We are off to a good start towards reaching our goal of achieving Rule of 40 by 2026, and I am pleased with our progress towards these objectives.
Now for our third quarter results. Subscription revenue in the third quarter was $60 million, up 16% year-over-year, and total revenue was $77.3 million, up 10% year-over-year. Both exceeding the high end of our guidance ranges. Our third quarter recurring revenue was 84% of total revenue. As expected, our third quarter calculated billings were relatively flat year-over-year and increased 5% for the trailing 12 months.
As a reminder, the size and timing of our billings have an impact on our quarterly growth rate. Our trailing 12-month gross revenue retention rate in the third quarter remained above 93%. Non-GAAP subscription gross margin was 78% for the quarter, improving from 77% a year ago. Our non-GAAP services margin was 9% in the third quarter, improving from 4% a year ago.
Our overall profitability improvements start with gross margins. And year-to-date, we have delivered over 145 basis points of improvement to subscription gross margins and over 800 basis points of improvement to services gross margins compared to last year. Driving greater efficiencies in how we deliver our solutions has been an area of focus for our professional services and product teams. And I want to congratulate them for their achievements in this area.
Adjusted EBITDA was $5.6 million in the third quarter, exceeding guidance. We also generated $8.5 million of free cash flow in the third quarter, a $17.6 million improvement compared to last year. From a balance sheet perspective, we exited the third quarter with $169.1 million of cash and cash equivalents and have access to our $50 million revolving line of credit. Additionally, we exchanged approximately $122 million of our convertible notes due in May 2024, for approximately $117 million of additional notes under our 2027 indenture.
The new notes under the 2027 indenture are recorded on our balance sheet at fair value because our 2027 notes were trading at a premium to par. So even though the exchange resulted in a lower level of debt at par value, our balance sheet will reflect a higher amount of debt. This noncash premium will be amortized down to the debt's par value over the next 4 years.
As a result of this exchange, we have reduced our debt due in May of 2024 to approximately $22 million. Our non-GAAP earnings per share was $0.09 per share. Now turning to guidance. For the full year, we are raising our subscription and total revenue guidance. We expect subscription revenue to be in the range of $233.3 million to $233.8 million. And total revenue to be in the range of $302.2 million to $303.2 million.
We are also raising the midpoint of our EBITDA and free cash flow guidance. We expect adjusted EBITDA profit for the full year of between $6.5 million and $7.5 million. And free cash flow of between $3.5 million and $6.5 million. We're maintaining our guidance for subscription ARR at $251 million to $254 million. And for the fourth quarter, we expect subscription revenue to be in the range of $60 million to $60.5 million and total revenue to be in the range of $76 million to $77 million. We are anticipating a sequential decline in services revenue due to the holidays.
We expect fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA profit of between $3 million and $4 million. And using an estimated non-GAAP tax rate of 22%, we anticipate fourth quarter non-GAAP earnings per share of between $0.03 and $0.05 per share based on an estimated 47.5 million diluted weighted average shares outstanding.
In closing, I would like to thank our employees and customers for their continued passion and support. We also thank our shareholders for their continued support of PROS, and we look forward to speaking with you at our upcoming events. I will now turn the call back over to the operator for questions. Operator?
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Chad Bennett with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.
Great. Nice job again on great execution in the quarter. It's great seeing the reacceleration in subscription revenue growth to 16%, pretty material, year-to-date. And then also that flowing down to a very nice EBITDA and earnings beat. I guess, question I have is I kind of marked down, Andres, all the logos you talk about and expansions every quarter.
And I could be wrong, but I think there are a fair amount of travel-related transactions this quarter. Can you give us a sense of where we are in that recovery and maybe into the fourth quarter here and how we should think about the travel business and bookings there?
Yes, Chad, great question. Yes, I would say travel had a good quarter, a very strong quarter, and we're very pleased both on the land with GOL Airlines, JetSMART, and SKS Airways as examples. And also on the expansion side as well, Air New Zealand expanding to Dynamic Offers, a huge win for us in continuing to broaden our reach within Air New Zealand and also Turkish Airlines continue to expand now with our digital offer marketing.
What I would tell you is that where we innovated during the pandemic is areas that airlines, we knew when they started investing they would want to adopt these solutions. And definitely, they're resonating in the market is improving, as we expected into Q3 and Q4.
Okay. So we are seeing demand recovery into the second half here?
Yes. I would tell you, it's pretty consistent with what we expected in a good way. We said we expect that in the back half of the year for demand to pick up, and we're seeing it.
Okay. And then maybe just on the other side -- or the B2B side of the business. Just in terms of how to characterize, I think you talked about last quarter a pretty significant reduction in sales cycles. I think you said 30% and an improvement in new logo activity, that you saw last quarter, is that business, I assume it's driving the reacceleration or a decent amount of it. But, is there any characterization of how much that business has accelerated year-to-date and how to think about that going forward?
Yes. Chad, great question. We're seeing the same improvement in the B2B new logo velocity, that we talked about last quarter. We're seeing about a 30% improvement in those sales cycle times. And we're continuing to drive deal growth there. We're always proud to talk about the land site, Genesis Energy and Trivium Packaging. As well as I would tell you, the land, realize and expand strategy that we started at the beginning of the year, we're seeing it working. Ingredion is a perfect example. They're seeing significant value in each of the last 2 quarters, Q2 and Q3. They expanded into new regions. And I believe that motion, while we're not fully to our potential, we're executing very well.
Our next question comes from the line of Rob Oliver with Baird.
I had 2. My first, Andres was just around -- and I recognize that it's still early, but a question around the Microsoft partnership. Obviously, some excitement around Azure, with the recent report and seeing some interest in AI solutions. And I know it's early for you guys, but would be curious to hear how you characterize that sort of progress and what constitutes early success for the Microsoft partnership? And then I had a quick follow-up as well.
Yes. I would tell you, look, the Microsoft partnership continues to strengthen in all areas. I think from an innovation, we're continuing to drive innovation on the front of OpenAI and some generative AI capabilities around their next-generation Viva Sales platform in PROS. But on a go-to-market, I would tell you there is very strong collaboration across all of our geographies between Microsoft and PROS. We can now resell our solutions in their marketplace, and we're working very well. Still early phases, but I would tell you the partnership is as strong as it's ever been.
Great. Okay. Excellent to hear. And then just -- it looks like a really strong quarter for you guys in Europe, and I just wanted to parse that a little bit and understand, was it more on the B2B side, more on the air travel side? And then be curious for any color around those deals, partner-led or sort of the new more modular sales model, what's driving that strength?
Yes. No, great question. I would tell you, look, in general, we're seeing -- we are focused on this land, realize and expand strategy. So I would say, in general, we're trying to land these smaller deals and drive acceleration.
As we know, it is a complex market, and we knew coming into this year that was more important than ever that we land in a fast time to value be able to measure uplift and drive quick expansion because companies are very focused on where they invest. And I think we've executed on that strategy well both in travel and B2B.
With respect to EMEA, we saw good demand on the travel front, with expansions, and we talked about some of those and also on the B2B front. So across both sides. But I would say both teams are very, very focused on how we land an account. And what is the best next offer that we can offer for existing customers to drive those rapid expansions.
Our next question comes from the line of Jason Celino with KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.
One on sales capacity, next year is just around the corner at this point. I wanted to get an update on how you're thinking about, sales capacity heading into next year. Do you feel comfortable with your coverage, any thoughts there?
Yes. Great question, Jason. I would tell you we're in a good place from a sales capacity. We've continued to add the reps that we need, to onboard and get them productive for next year. So I feel like we're in a good place. We'll continue to execute through this quarter, we'll continue to add reps in preparation, but I feel we're in a really good place with the team.
We're also continuing to focus on driving higher rep productivity. This is an area that we started. And I would tell you, we've made improvement to our CAC ratios and we feel we can get to best-in-class, and we're going to continue also to focus on driving higher productivity, as we look into next year. But we feel from a capacity, we're in a good place.
Perfect. And then, just a quick one for Stefan on the EBITDA beat, nice leverage there. It looks like you're raising the full year by only a little bit, any expenses or investments that we should be aware of, for Q4?
No, Jason. We did, in our forecast, assuming we deliver based on anticipation and how we're seeing the plan come in, there will be some variable compensation components that come into play in the fourth quarter. That's the only reason you see that number sequentially come down slightly from Q3 to Q4. And is that potential variable incentive component, that's it.
Our next question comes from the line of Scott Berg with Needham.
Congrats on good quarter. I guess a couple of things -- it's probably just 1, last to me. There is a rumor at the end of the quarter that you've hired another investment bank potentially, I guess, evaluate maybe some sort incoming inquiries in the company. Not that I expect you to comment on any acquisition activity on the company here publicly. But I guess any thoughts on what the criteria or scenario would be that maybe potentially, actually go through with the sale of the company? Because I think you guys are at a fantastic point right now with AI, with the rebound and travel. I would think the future looks really strong and you probably have some interest in maintaining this as a public entity for a while.
Yes, Scott, great question. And obviously, look, we don't comment on rumors or market speculation, but what we can tell you is that we are laser-focused on executing our goal of being a Rule of 40 company by 2026. We believe we're in a very strong market position, a leader in our space, $38 billion TAM, and we've proven that we're executing really well on our land, realize and expand strategy. So we feel we have a great opportunity to drive pretty significant shareholder returns. So I think we feel we're in a great place and we're just focused on executing.
Great. And then from a follow-up perspective, Stefan, you beat all profitability metrics pretty handily in the quarter. It looks like your sales and marketing expense is down quarter-over-quarter, more than kind of the historical seasonal nature. I guess anything driving that, in particular? And my guess is we should probably be thinking of sales and marketing being at a higher rate here starting in Q4 going forward?
Yes, Scott, I think your assumption about it going up again is a good one. The reason for the sequential decline from Q2 to Q3, had really to do with our Outperform event. So a lot of resources go towards that event, not only just the third-party fees and the direct fees associated with it, but there's a lot of indirect fees that go to support that event.
And so you saw that plus a couple of other events that occurred in the second quarter, and we didn't have as much in the third quarter. So that's the real big reason behind seeing that type of a movement. So again, to your point, I think going forward, you'll see that number start to rebound a bit.
Our next question comes from the line of Parker Lane with Stifel.
First one's for you, Andres, you're exposed to a lot of different industries out there. I'd be really curious to hear with the prioritization of AI and being the subject that everyone is really concerned about, are there any particular verticals where you're seeing the greatest prioritization of AI or the budgets actually being a little bit more substantial than average?
Yes, Parker, great question. What I would tell you is, while we're seeing industries that are being impacted, that maybe their performance not well, we're not seeing this deprioritization of our initiatives. So broadly, we're seeing very strong industry interest across. And I think the importance of AI and digitization of sales in driving the right price guidance in this high volatility environment is continuing to resonate. And I think -- I said it all along at the beginning, I think it was very important for us to be able to land small, be able to measure the uplift in ROI, get to value quickly and us executing to that has clearly demonstrated.
I think the visibility of AI and the importance of AI has only increased. And I would say we're seeing that more and more interest of adopting our Gen 4 dynamic pricing algorithms or next generation of dynamic pricing for -- or revenue management and travel solutions. The digitization of the customer experience and travel in those areas. So overall, I would tell you we feel pretty good about the market environment right now.
Understood. Yes, I appreciate that. And then Stefan, for you, I know you've oriented investors and us on the sell-side around, ARR as the core metric. But wanted you to touch on RPO, if you could, a little bit. And when should we expect sort of a normalization in that metric? I saw it's declined here a couple of quarters?
Yes. Parker, that is a function of the things that we've been talking about, to Andres' point about the land, realize and expand strategy. We're -- our typical contracts are going to be quite a bit smaller than they have been historically. And so as that unwinds throughout the RPO disclosure, you're seeing an inconsistent way, in which we used to run the business versus how we're running the business today, and it's showing itself in RPO.
So to your point, I think as we get towards the middle part of next year, I think we should have that anniversaried out. And so we should be starting to see the real impact of our -- of the momentum in our business start to be reflective in more of those RPO metrics.
Now, having said that, there are still anomalies that go into that metric just like there are with calculated billings from a timing of renewal and when that occurs to regenerate that contractual obligation. But I think, generally speaking, we should see a more -- an outcome that's more representative of the momentum in the business starting in the middle part of next year.
Our next question comes from the line of Camden Levy with Oppenheimer.
This is Camden Levy sitting in for Brian Schwartz. Just one here. given your guys' exposure to the travel industry and just thinking about Q3 moving into Q4, specifically just this first month of October, have you guys seen any like sequential softening in consumer demand from the ongoing conflict in the Middle East as it relates to EMEA and just some of the strength that you saw in that market this quarter?
Yes, Camden, great question. I would tell you, we're watching that very carefully. So far, we haven't seen any impact to demand or big impact to our customers. So -- but we are actively monitoring the situation. But so far, we have not seen any impact, and we're not seeing our customers be impacted by that currently.
Okay. And then maybe just by following up on it. I know you like [indiscernible] the customer conversations or just ongoing pipeline that you had with travel partners or suppliers in, I guess, like EMEA and like Middle East, have any of those conversations maybe perhaps stalled or elongated as a result of October per se?
Yes. Great question. I would tell you no, no stalls. It's continuing. And I would say, we are actively engaging in both of those regions, EMEA and Middle East. And we're continuing to see the focus on their strategy. And I think they've seen the importance of innovating and the value that it can drive. So, so far, we haven't seen any instances of them slowing down.
Our next question comes from the line of Victor Cheng with Bank of America.
Congrats on the solid quarter again. Just 2 from my side. Obviously, you mentioned you continue to see a faster sales cycle. But can you give us some more color maybe on the pipeline and what you're seeing at the top of the funnel. Whether there's more happening at the top. And maybe if you could split it by geography as well, maybe a bit more color on the U.S. as well as it appears to be a bit softer in Q2 -- in Q3.
Yes, Victor. Great question. So we didn't see any softness in the U.S. in Q3. And overall, top of the funnel continues to grow well. It puts us in a -- we feel in a good position to continue to drive growth.
So overall, I would tell you, whether we look at industries or geographies, we're seeing good demand across. There's not an area that we're seeing decline, whether it be at the top end of the funnel or within, say, Q3. So we saw pretty good demand across the U.S., Europe and other regions. As well as across industries. One other thing I will note is the mix continues to be between new and existing in that 50-50 mix as well.
Got it. And then the other one is maybe on travel. Obviously, you mentioned that demand is coming back. But I just wanted to check, is kind of the airline IT spend still below that prepandemic level. And as we think about '24 with a lot of the volumes broadly normalized, and when I think about airline industry in general, they're going through once-in-a-generation change, both on distribution, on software side, with offer orders management. Should we expect a much bigger appetite in '24, '25, when should we see that coming in?
Yes. Great question, Victor. I would tell you that Q3 was a big progress quarter for us to see travel trend more towards 2019 volumes. And I think we feel very good about Q4 and as we look into next year of that continuing. So I think it's a little premature to call '24, but I feel all the ingredients are there. Airlines are starting to invest, and they're investing in the areas that we innovated as we talked about.
So I think our market position is continuing to strengthen. And I think all the areas where we expanded our portfolio are resonating really, really well. I mean, just recently, there was an article about Lufthansa and our continuous pricing as an example, that they've had very significant success this year, and they attribute to the investments, they did with PROS during the pandemic and now reaping those benefits.
Those are great proof points that the innovations that we did are paying off, and I believe that customers will continue to follow to do those latest generations of revenue management and our full solution from the digital fare marketing, all the way into revenue management to drive better returns for their business. So overall, I feel very good about travel, as we look into '24, but it's a little premature to call next year.
At this time, ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the call back to Belinda Overdeput for closing remarks.
Thank you for listening to today's call. We look forward to speaking with you at conferences and events this quarter. We will be attending the Stifel Midwest One-on-One Growth Conference in Chicago on November 9, the Craig-Hallum Alpha Select Conference in New York City on November 16. The Needham Virtual SaaS 101 Conference also on November 16 and the UBS Global Tech Conference in Scottsdale on November 29 and 30. If you have any questions following today's call, please contact us at ir@pros.com. Thank you, and goodbye.
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.