Quorum Information Technologies Inc

XTSX:QIS

Earnings Call Transcript

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Quorum Information Technologies First Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's program is being recorded.

And now I'd like to introduce your host for today's program, Maury Marks, President and CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

[Maury Marks, executive]

Thank you, Jonathan. Hello, everybody, and thank you for attending Quorum Information Technologies Q1 2025 Results Conference Call and Concurrent Webcast. Joining me is our Chief Financial Officer, Marilyn Bown.

Quorum offers innovative and robust technology solutions and services to vehicle dealerships and original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, across North America. With a uniquely integrated product suite of 13 essential software solutions that are used in whole or in part by over 1,400 dealership customers across North America, there is at least one Quorum software solution installed in 40% of the franchise automotive dealerships in Canada.

Offering 13 of the 25 most common categories of software solutions that automotive dealerships utilize, Quorum is well positioned to develop, partner or acquire software solutions for the remaining 12 categories. With many of Quorum's customers leveraging only 1 solution out of our 13 available solutions, Quorum has a $54 million annual SaaS revenue cross-selling opportunity within its existing customer base, which is approximately 2x our reoccurring annual SaaS revenue of $28.9 million based on Q1 2025 results.

Looking to our Q1 2025 results. While Quorum continued with its profitable growth strategy, our SaaS revenue increased by 1% and BDC revenue increased by 4%. We are experiencing demand in the market for our Service CRM and BDC services as dealerships look to improve their service and parts or fixed operations results as vehicle tariffs and possibly recessionary headwinds may impact vehicle sales.

Quorum also reported an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15% in Q1 2025 and a cash EBITDA margin of 10%. For comparative purposes to Q1 2024, 2% of the adjusted EBITDA decrease is due to our decision to more conservatively expense versus capitalize more software development costs. Marilyn will talk more about both our adjusted EBITDA and cash EBITDA margins.

What I want to discuss is that Quorum has already implemented changes that will result in $1.3 million in annual savings that will be fully realized in Q3 2025, including: number one, a gross margin improvement plan; number two, office lease cost savings; number three, third-party service provider savings; and number four, other cost improvements.

Marilyn will now review our Q1 2025 financial results in more detail and I will follow up with some additional comments. After our prepared remarks, we will open the floor to your questions. Marilyn, please go ahead.

[Marilyn Bown, executive]

Thank you, Maury, and hello, everybody. Thank you for being here with us today. I would like to remind everyone that certain statements in this presentation are forward-looking in nature. These include statements involving known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors outside of management control that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. Quorum is not assuming responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of the forward-looking statements and does not undertake any obligation to publicly revise these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. For additional information on possible risks, please refer to our annual MD&A dated December 31, 2024, on the sedarplus.ca website.

As Maury mentioned, during Q1 2025, while Quorum continued with its profitable growth strategy and company-wide cost management, our profitability decreased mainly due to external inflationary factors, the expense of a key new hire and annual merit-based increases, while we continued to make prepayments on our BDC Capital Loan Facility.

In the first quarter of 2025 as compared to the first quarter of 2024, total revenue increased by 1% to $10.2 million. SaaS revenue increased by 1% to $7.2 million. The increase in SaaS revenue is due to a combination of price increases, cross-selling and new customer revenue. BDC revenue increased by 4% to $2.6 million due to new customer revenue.

SaaS gross margin decreased to 66% from 68% primarily due to an increase in third-party costs. BDC gross margin decreased to 15% from 20% primarily due to a buildup of staffing resources required to meet anticipated new customer revenue demand. Overall, gross margin decreased to $4.8 million or 48% compared to $5.1 million or 51%.

Adjusted EBITDA decreased by 29% to $1.5 million or a 15% margin compared to $2.1 million or a 21% margin. As Maury mentioned, 2% of the adjusted EBITDA margin decrease is due to expensing more software development costs. The remaining 4% year-over-year decrease for adjusted EBITDA margin is primarily attributable to a decrease in overall gross margin and increases in research and development expenses and general and administrative expenses, offset by a decrease in sales and marketing expenses.

Cash EBITDA decreased by 27% to $1 million or a 10% margin compared to $1.4 million or a 14% margin. In Q1 2025, Quorum paid down $0.3 million against its BDC Capital Loan Facility, which included $0.1 million of required principal payments compared with $0.9 million paid down in Q1 2024. This has further reduced our BDC Capital Loan Facility to $3.7 million at quarter end Q1 2025 from $4 million at year-end 2024. Subsequent to the end of the quarter, Quorum made another prepayment of $0.5 million on the BDC Capital Loan Facility on May 8, 2025.

As mentioned on our last quarter earnings call, Quorum plans to pay down the BDC Capital cash flow loan balance of $0.9 million as of March 31, 2025, in full by the end of 2025. And we'll continue to prepay 15% of the BDC Capital mezzanine loan balance of $2.8 million at March 31, 2025, on an annual basis until maturity in August 2027. Note that paying more than 15% on an annual basis would result in significant penalties to Quorum. As of March 31, 2025, Quorum had net working capital of $30.7 million, cash and cash equivalents of $3.7 million and total debt to cash EBITDA of 1x compared to 2.5x at March 31, 2024.

With that, I'd like to pass it back to Maury.

[Maury Marks, executive]

Thank you, Marilyn. As I mentioned earlier, Quorum has already implemented $1.3 million in annual savings that will be fully realized in Q3 2025. In addition to these savings, we are investigating and implementing other strategies. The area with the most potential is our BDC gross margin improvement plan, and some changes under this plan are already contributing to the $1.3 million mentioned above, but there are additional savings opportunities.

Our vision for the BDC is to use AI to drive outreach to dealership consumers, while our BDC agents work with engaged consumers to book service appointments and maximize sales of additional services. We are also deploying other technologies to increase the efficiency of our BDC agents. These changes come at a time of high demand from dealerships for our BDC services and related Service CRM software.

Turning to our strengthening balance sheet. Our total debt to cash EBITDA ratio of 1x as of March 31, 2025, represents substantial progress from 3.7x at the end of 2023. If you remove our unsecured debt, our debt to cash EBITDA ratio is even a more impressive 0.7x as of March 31, 2025. Our improved profitability and significantly reduced debt provides Quorum latitude to make strategic future capital allocation decisions moving forward.

As I mentioned on our last earnings call, Quorum has multiple diverse capital allocation options, including: one, investing in organic sales growth to pursue new dealerships or logos in Canada and/or the U.S.; two, pursuing inorganic growth through accretive acquisitions that enhance our product suite and provide opportunities to improve our organic growth; three, allocating capital to initiatives such as a normal course issuer bid to repurchase shares or the payment of dividends.

However, the automotive tariffs introduced by both the U.S. and Canadian governments continue to cast uncertainty on Quorum's future capital allocation decisions. The tariff levels remain fluid, and the current government path suggests that tariffs will result in reduced vehicle sales on both sides of the border. Dealerships and OEMs will face challenges in raising prices or potentially losing market share and/or experiencing contracted gross margins.

We are confident that our dealerships are resilient and creative, and they will seek ways to improve sales and find gross margin improvements in their operations. The fixed operations business provides dealerships with a consistent and profitable revenue stream, which becomes even more critical if customers keep their vehicles longer.

In recent years, Quorum and our dealerships have navigated the initial and subsequent outbreaks of COVID-19 and the resulting vehicle and parts services. We are also confident in our ability to navigate the tariff headwinds. Our broad product suite helps dealerships, number one, drive more sales demand through vehicle sales appointments and service appointments; two, improve their closing percentages; and three, enhance gross -- their gross margins on both vehicle sales deals and service appointment business -- visits. This allows us to help dealerships meet the challenges presented by tariffs.

I'd like to conclude by sincerely expressing my appreciation to our employees. Their commitment to Quorum is crucial to achieving our 2025 plan. The hard work of our employees is enhanced by our integrated suite of 13 essential software solutions and services. This product suite is fundamental to our profitable growth strategy as it facilitates product cross-selling and plays a vital role in driving the success of our dealerships, thereby increasing value for both Quorum and its customers.

Operator, I'd now like to open this conference call to any questions from our audience.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And this does conclude the question-and-answer session of today's program. I'd like to hand the program back to Maury Marks for any further remarks.

[Maury Marks, executive]

All right. Well, we appreciate your support and thanks so much for attending today's call, and we look forward to talking to you when we release our Q2 results.

[Operator]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Good day.