WNS (Holdings) Ltd

NYSE:WNS

Earnings Call Analysis

WNS Sees Revenue Dip and Continued Investments Amid Healthy Demand

In Q1 2025, WNS posted net revenue of $312.4 million, a year-over-year decrease of 1.6%. Adjusted operating margin fell to 18.4% from 20.1%. Despite revenue declines, the company remains optimistic, citing healthy demand for digital and analytics initiatives. WNS added eight new logos and expanded 36 existing relationships. Full-year 2025 revenue is expected to range between $1.290 billion and $1.354 billion, reflecting 0% to 5% growth. The company continues to invest in AI and expects 5% or more of 2025 revenue to include AI components. WNS also plans to conclude a share buyback program by Q2 and anticipates capital expenditures of up to $65 million for the fiscal year.

Navigating the Current Landscape: A Q1 Overview

WNS reported its fiscal first quarter results, revealing a net revenue of $312.4 million. However, this marks a year-over-year decline of 1.6% and a sequential decrease of 4.1%. The softening demand for project-based work, especially in the online travel sector, contributed to this decline. Despite these challenges, WNS secured eight new clients, including a significant transformational deal, affirming their strategy of expanding within existing relationships.

Metric Insights: Margins, Revenue, and Net Income

The adjusted operating margin for the quarter was 18.4%, which is down from 20.1% a year ago. This contraction is attributed to lower revenue, less employee utilization, and higher selling, general, and administrative expenses. The adjusted net income stood at $44 million, again lower than $51.1 million from the previous year. These numbers spotlight a need for the company to realign its productivity as it heads into the next fiscal quarters.

Understanding Guidance: Fiscal Year Outlook

WNS provided a revised full-year revenue guidance set between $1.290 billion and $1.354 billion, indicating a growth of 0% to 5% year-over-year. This cautious outlook considers known client ramp-downs and a challenging macro environment, particularly affecting discretionary projects. They project an adjusted net income between $203 million and $215 million, translating to an adjusted EPS of $4.42 to $4.68, implying a potential increase of 8% in adjusted EPS year-over-year.

Client Dynamics: Sector Variations and Future Projections

The healthcare space is expected to see a revenue decline due to client ramp-downs whereas the insurance vertical is anticipated to stabilize and grow as discussions with key clients progress. WNS relies on a strong pipeline of large deals, now exceeding 20 with an annual contract value of over $10 million, aimed at boosting revenue in the latter half of the fiscal year. The confidence in closing these large deals remains pivotal for WNS's forecast.

Strategic Initiatives: AI and Technology Investments

AI remains at the forefront of WNS's strategy, with expectations that over 5% of revenue will derive from generative AI initiatives by 2025. This focus underscores their aim to enhance efficiency and drive results across client engagements. Continued investments in AI not only bolster client offerings but are also expected to create a more adaptable business model moving forward.

Share Buybacks: A Strategic Move for Value Creation

Recognizing the imperative for stabilizing the share price and enhancing shareholder value, WNS has initiated a share repurchase program with authorization to buy back 4.1 million ordinary shares. They have already purchased 1.644 million shares at an average price of $51.24, with intentions to continue this initiative through the fiscal year.

Challenges Ahead: Market Volatility and Operational Adjustments

WNS faces market volatility particularly affecting the travel and healthcare sectors. The company anticipates fluctuations in revenue as client volumes remain unpredictable. Additionally, the attrition rate of 34% reflects ongoing challenges in employee retention, influenced by the broader labor environment. They expect to manage headcount more dynamically in response to workload adjustments.

Conclusion: Positioning for Future Growth

Despite current headwinds, WNS displays a strategic commitment to leveraging its technological investments and large deal pipeline for future growth. With insights gained from the latest earnings call, investors should gauge WNS's capacity to navigate these challenges and capitalize on emerging opportunities particularly through digital transformation and AI. Monitoring the execution of their strategic initiatives will be key to understanding WNS's trajectory in the coming quarters.

Earnings Call Transcript 2025-Q1

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to the WNS Holdings Fiscal 2025 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

As a reminder, this call is being recorded for replay purposes. Now I would like to turn the call over to David Mackey, WNS' Executive Vice President of Finance and Head of Investor Relations. David, please go ahead.

[David Mackey, executive]

Thank you, and welcome to our fiscal 2025 first quarter earnings call. With me today on the call, I have WNS' CEO, Keshav Murugesh; WNS' CFO, Sanjay Puria; and our Corporate Financial Controller, Arijit Sen. A press release detailing our financial results was issued earlier today. This release is also available on the Investor Relations section of our website at www.wns.com.

Today's remarks will focus on the results for the fiscal first quarter ended June 30, 2024. Some of the matters that will be discussed on today's call are forward-looking. Please keep in mind that these forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors set forth in the company's Form 20-F. This document is also available on the company website.

During this call, management will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide useful information for investors. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP results can be found in the press release issued earlier today. Some of the non-GAAP financial measures management will discuss are defined as follows: Net revenue is defined as revenue less repair payments. Adjusted operating margin is defined as operating margin excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation, acquisition-related expenses or benefits, and impairment of goodwill and intangible assets.

We are also excluding costs related to our ADS program termination and costs associated with the transition to voluntarily reporting on U.S. domestic issuer forms. Adjusted net income, or ANI, is defined as profit excluding amortization of intangible assets, share-based compensation, acquisition-related expenses or benefits, goodwill and intangible asset impairment, ADS program termination costs, the transition to voluntarily reporting on U.S. domestic issuer forms and all associated taxes. These terms will be used throughout the call today.

I would now like to turn the call over to WNS' CEO, Keshav Murugesh. Keshav?

[Keshav Murugesh, executive]

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. In the fiscal first quarter, WNS' financial results were in line with company expectations, posting net revenue of $312.4 million. Now this represents a year-over-year decrease of 1.6% on a reported basis and a 1.8% reduction on a constant currency basis. Sequentially, net revenue decreased by 4.1% on a reported basis and by 3.9% on a constant currency basis after adjusting for ForEx.

Demand continues to be healthy for business transformation initiatives, leveraging digital and analytics while certain client volumes and project-based work remain pressured. During the first quarter, we added eight new logos, including one large transformational deal and expanded 36 existing relationships.

In the fiscal first quarter, our ongoing efforts to improve access to capital and increase share price stability made significant progress. As discussed last quarter, on March 28, the company reached its first major milestone exchanging our ADSs for ordinary shares. This change helped facilitate WNS' addition to the Russell 2000 Index on June 28. In addition, effective this quarter, we have voluntarily transitioned to domestic filer status and are reporting our financials under U.S. GAAP. This transition should enable WNS to access additional index fund complexes, improve ESG visibility, and make our financials more consistent with peers.

With respect to capital allocation, on May 30, WNS held an extraordinary general meeting, where our shareholders overwhelmingly approved repurchases of up to 4.1 million ordinary shares. The company began executing against these plans in early June, buying back over 1.6 million shares in fiscal first quarter at a total cost of $84.2 million and we will be continuing our repurchase programs in Q2.

As AI and Gen AI continue to be important themes for our clients, shareholders as well as employees, we wanted to provide some additional color on our efforts in these areas. We continue to see that WNS' ability to combine domain, data and digital is resonating well with clients and that our industry-specific and process-specific knowledge remains the key to unlocking the power of data and technology.

From a technology perspective, as we have discussed, WNS has significant experience and a proven track record of leveraging artificial intelligence in our services as well as solutions. In fact, the company has now been delivering AI projects for more than 15 years, utilizing quantitative analytics as well as machine learning algorithms to help improve outcomes. Later, the company introduced the WNS Analytics and Decision Engine framework or WADE, which combines multiple components of an AI solution including data sourcing, data correlation and virtualization, data analysis and machine learning modeling and a presentation layer into a single compact structure.

Since then, the breadth and depth of our AI capabilities have continued to progress embedding the power of deep learning and big data into our offerings. WNS has been invested in employee training as well as reskilling, launched AI co-creation labs to drive innovation and form strategic partnerships with leading technology firms, including the three major hyperscalers.

We have also now created best practice consulting frameworks for leveraging ethical AI across strategy, data management, governance as well as business outcomes. As a result of all these efforts in fiscal 2024, approximately 1/3 of company revenue was delivered with AI as a component of the solution. Today, WNS's AI practice has approximately 7,000 resources globally, and we have created over 70 industry-specific AI models.

Our extensive experience with AI has provided the foundation for our ability to develop and deploy Gen AI use cases as well as solutions, which leverage the power of large language models. To date, we have developed over 100 unique Gen AI use cases with more than 30 ready for deployment and have integrated Gen AI into 8 of our WNS proprietary digital assets. We have now successfully implemented Gen AI solutions for 6 of our clients and currently have an additional 11 installations in progress.

Several of our recent client wins include Gen AI as a key element of the overall solution and we estimate that in fiscal 2025, 5% or more of total company revenue will have a Gen AI component. Increasingly, clients are looking for partners who can help them drive technology-led process transformation to deliver superior outcome, great customer experiences and maximize business impact. These initiatives are larger in size, strategic, complex and disruptive in nature and require executive level support.

To capitalize on this evolving trend. Over the past 18 months, WNS has increased our organizational focus on elevating our relationships to the highest levels of client organizations and properly positioning our end-to-end transformational capabilities.

Some of the key investments include the addition of six senior level vertically aligned Chief Growth Officers focused on driving large deals, the expansion of our regional sales model into Continental Europe and Canada to help build in-country relationships and the hiring of a global head of advisory to drive WNS' positioning with the analyst and adviser community and help identify captive carve-out opportunities.

We have also updated the sales team, including strategic hires for consultative selling across technology enablement and domain expertise. And as a result, over the past 5 quarters, the WNS' sales force has grown by 16%. In addition, WNS announced last month that we have added a new head of strategic growth initiatives responsible for establishing CXO-level relationships for WNS and expanding our geographic reach. This executive position is working closely with our Chief Growth Officer, business unit heads and myself to engage directly with CXOs, understand and address their critical business challenges and create new and exciting opportunities for WNS.

Our focused approach is already bearing fruit in the form of large deal signings and a material increase in our large deal pipeline. As discussed last quarter, the company closed four large deals in fiscal Q4. And in the fiscal first quarter, we added one more large deal and made good progress on several others. Our pipeline now includes more than 20 large deals, each over $10 million in ACV, which have the potential to close this fiscal year. These deals totaled more than $400 million in ACV, and we believe WNS is well positioned for success in many of these opportunities.

In summary, demand for digital transformation and cost reduction initiatives remain healthy, and our new business pipeline has expanded to record levels. At the time -- at the same time, fiscal full-year 2025 visibility continues to be challenged by the timing of large deals and the macro uncertainty, which is impacting business volumes and project-based work.

WNS remains focused on accelerating profitable growth and investing in AI as well as Gen AI. We are confident that these strategic initiatives are well underway and that successful execution through the remainder of this year will position the company well entering fiscal 2026. In addition, we remain committed to investing ahead of the curve in technology-enabled offerings, leveraging AI as well as Gen AI, improving our access to capital and opportunistically repurchasing stock.

I would now like to turn the call over to our CFO, Sanjay Puria, to further discuss our results as well as outlook. Sanjay?

[Sanjay Puria, executive]

Thank you, Keshav. As mentioned earlier, in fiscal quarter 1, we have voluntarily shifted from foreign private issuer status reporting under IFRS to domestic filer status reporting under U.S. GAAP, and we'll be filing our first Form 10-Q in the coming weeks. In a press release issued on July 9, WNS provided U.S. GAAP historical financials and reconciliations to previously reported IFRS numbers for fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2024.

We have also provided additional details, including restated fiscal 2022 financials in our quarterly metrics FY, posted on the company's website this morning. All of the numbers discussed today will be on a U.S. GAAP basis. In the fiscal first quarter, WNS net revenue came in at $312.4 million, down 1.6% from $317.5 million posted in the same quarter of last year and down 1.8% on a constant currency basis.

Sequentially, net revenue decreased by 4.1% on a reported basis and 3.9% on a constant currency basis. The sequential revenue decline was driven by volume reductions with certain clients, continued weakness in discretionary project-based revenues, the impact of our annual productivity improvements and unfavorable currency movements.

Quarter 1, volume reductions were primarily in the OTA or online travel sector and was greater than expected in our April guidance. In this space, we must continue to expect transaction volumes and client forecast to be highly volatile given macro exposure. Company-specific challenges and the potential risks and opportunities from automation. This headwind were partially offset by healthy demand for digitization and cost reduction focus initiatives.

In the first quarter, WNS recorded $0.6 million of short-term high-margin revenue. Adjusted operating margin in quarter 1 was 18.4% as compared to 20.1% last year and 20.9% last quarter. Year-over-year, adjusted operating margin decreased as a result of lower revenue and employee utilization and higher SG&A levels associated with marketing programs, sales hiring, large health care client ramp down costs and bad debt. This headwinds were partially offset by improved productivity and favorable currency movements.

Sequentially, margin reduced as a result of lower volume, the impact of annual productivity commitments, the higher quarter 1 SG&A levels and unfavorable currency movements. The company's net other income expense was $0.3 million of net expense in the first quarter as compared to $1.5 million of net income in quarter 1 of fiscal 2024 and $0.8 million of net income last quarter.

Both year-over-year and sequentially, the unfavorable variance, the result of higher debt levels and lower cash balances driven primarily by our share repurchase. In addition, year-over-year results were adversely impacted by $0.8 million of nonrecurring interest income on tax returns recorded last year. WNS' effective tax rate for quarter 1 came in at 23.1% as compared to 21.7% last year and in the prior quarter. Both year-over-year and sequentially, changes in the effective tax rate were driven by our geographical profit mix and the percentage of work delivered from tax incentive facilities.

The company's adjusted net income for quarter 1 was $44 million compared with $51.1 million in the same quarter of fiscal 2024 and $53.9 million last quarter. Adjusted diluted earnings were $0.93 per share in quarter 1, down from $1.02 in the first quarter of last year, and from $1.12 last quarter. As of June 30, 2024, WNS balances in cash and investments totaled $301.5 million and the company had $301.5 million in debt. In the first quarter, WNS generated $21.4 million of cash from operating activities, incurred $10.7 million in capital expenditures and made debt repayments of $10.5 million. The company also repurchased 1,644,000 shares of stock at an average price of $51.24 which impacted quarter 1 cash by $78 million.

DSO in the first quarter came in at 36 days as compared to 34 days reported in quarter 1 of last year and 33 days last quarter.

With respect to other key operating metrics, total head count at the end of the first quarter was 60,513, and our attrition rate was 34% as compared to 32% reported in quarter 1 of last year and 33% in the previous quarter.

We expect attrition to average in the low to mid-30% range but the rate could remain volatile quarter-to-quarter in the current labor environment. Build seat capacity at the end of the quarter 1 increased to 41,676 and WNS average 71% work from office during the quarter.

In our press release issued earlier today, WNS provided our revised full-year guidance for fiscal 2025. Based on the company's current visibility levels, we expect net revenue to be in the range of $1.290 billion to $1.354 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 0% to 5% on both a reported basis and constant currency basis.

As Keshav mentioned, guidance factors in known client ramp-downs and reduced visibility to client volumes and discretionary projects. Guidance does not include short-term revenues, incremental revenue from our large insurance captives or an improvement in the macro environment. Top line projection assumes an average British pound to U.S. dollar exchange rate of 1.28 for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Full-year adjusted net income for fiscal 2025 is expected to be in the range of $203 million to $215 million based on a INR 83.4 to U.S. dollar exchange rate for the remainder of fiscal 2025. This implies adjusted EPS of $4.42 to $4.68 assuming a diluted share count of approximately 45.9 million shares. Excluding the $0.21 of onetime benefits to tax and interest income in fiscal 2024, the midpoint of guidance represents an 8% increase in adjusted EPS.

With respect to capital expenditures, WNS currently expects our requirement for fiscal 2025 to be up to $65 million. We'll now open the call for questions. Operator?

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Ryan Potter with Citi.

[Ryan Potter, analyst]

I just wanted to start on the kind of large deal execution. I know last quarter, you mentioned that you signed four large deals, and this quarter, you've already signed one. Could you give us some color on how those ramps of these large deals have progressed so far? Was there any revenue contribution from these deals in 1Q? And how much of a revenue contribution from the ramps do you expect in 2Q. And then on the one large deal you signed in 1Q, how does that compare versus your initial kind of pipeline conversion expectations?

[Unknown Executive]

Yes, I'll answer that question, Ryan. The four large deals that we signed in Q4 had minimal revenue contribution in Q1, insignificant, which is what we expected. These deals, though, are staffed, they are ramping. They're a big part of the story in terms of the offset in our fiscal second quarter to the large health care ramp down that we see coming. And the expectation is that those four large deals should be reaching steady state, if not early than towards the end of fiscal Q3.

Relative to the one large deal that we signed in the first quarter, no contribution in Q1 and minimal contribution expected in Q2.

I think we continue to see good progress, as Keshav mentioned in his prepared remarks on these large deals. Given the complexity and the business impact and the level of disruptions that they create, obviously, the timing is something that we don't have a ton of visibility to. But having the large number of large deals that we have now in the pipeline and the expanding number of large deals that we have in the pipeline gives us good confidence about our ability to close some of these deals here in Q2 and again in Q3.

[Ryan Potter, analyst]

Got it. I guess maybe kind of following up on that and the visibility comment. It seems like the second half kind of assumes a relatively sharp kind of revenue growth acceleration. I mean that's based on my math, maybe it's a little bit off. But what gives you confidence in this implied second half? Is it continuing to close these large deals? Is it some improvement in kind of client volumes? I guess what needs to happen to hit the low end of the outlook versus the top end for the full-year?

[Unknown Executive]

Sure. So I think, first and foremost, it's important to understand that when you look at our guidance for fiscal '25, the assumption for Q2 is that revenue will be relatively flat. We're looking at roughly $13.5 million sequential ramp down because of the loss of the large health care client that we need to make up. So if you look at the underlying growth and momentum in the business, even in fiscal Q2, it's extremely healthy.

As I mentioned, we don't expect to see a full quarter's worth of revenue from the four large deals that were signed in Q4 in Q2. So that ramp continues into Q3 plus everything that we've sold in Q1 and Q2. So I think we're pretty comfortable with the build. There is nothing assumed in terms of incremental volume from existing clients in Q3 and Q4. As a matter of fact, we have assumed continued weakness in those volumes, particularly in the travel space in Q3 and Q4. So our goal here, obviously, is to try and provide a forecast that's realistic, but also somewhat derisked from that perspective.

As we said last quarter, we expected volume declines in the travel space. They actually came in worse than what we expected. But to the extent that we can, we've tried to derisk this. We've looked at the client forecast. We've tried to be conservative about what they provided us. But essentially, it's the expansion of existing relationships in terms of new process additions. It's the sale of small and medium-sized deals, which remains healthy, that gives us confidence in the back half of the year.

And then obviously, we need to close some of these large deals to meet those numbers. But our expectation is, given the large number of these deals and the size of these deals that we should be able to do that here in Q2 and Q3.

[Operator]

The next question will come from Surinder Thind with Jefferies.

[Surinder Thind, analyst]

I'd like to start with a question on the Gen AI implementations that you guys have done or deployed to date. Are you able to provide any color on the relative benefit that the client is seeing or put another way, the impact of revenue that you guys are experiencing in terms of the productivity improvement and how those are being made up?

[David Mackey, executive]

Sure, Surinder. So I think when you look at the breadth of the Gen AI use cases that we've implemented and the deals where we've put Gen AI to use at this point, we have not seen any revenue pressure. The reality is the goals of the deals that we've signed and the goals of the existing clients where we've leveraged these tools to date has been more about expanded benefits than it has been looking for clients to take out cost.

Overall, the -- while there's been productivity on some of these, the goals from our clients are more about customer satisfaction, new revenue streams, looking at ways for them to retain and attract new clients. So I don't think when you look at the revenue impacts from these today, they've all been additive for us. They haven't been negative to date.

Now again, it's not to say that we don't expect to see some level of pressure over time as Gen AI implementations at scale start to get put in. But the niche solutions that we're leveraging today tend to be more additive to WNS's revenues and capabilities than negative.

[Surinder Thind, analyst]

That's helpful. And then a question about just attrition and the commentary around maybe being a bit more volatile. Any color that you can provide there that helps us understand the dynamics?

[David Mackey, executive]

I think just more, Surinder, about the overall environment and the fact that quarter-to-quarter, those numbers do tend to move. When we came out of COVID, we obviously had a significantly elevated attrition rate. We were running in the low 40s. And we knew that was not going to be a sustainable attrition rate for the company.

We've gotten down to kind of more normal levels over time. We've been as low as 28%. We've been as high as 35%, 36%. I think it's more just to set the expectation that putting up a 34% attrition rate like we did this quarter versus 33% or 32% or 35%. It's not something that's unusual. So we do, as Keshav said, in his prepared remarks, I'm sorry, as Sanjay said in the prepared remarks, we do expect that attrition rate to be relatively stable in the low to mid-30s. But overall, on a quarter-to-quarter basis, that number can move around.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Bryan Bergin with TD Cowen.

[Bryan Bergin, analyst]

I wanted to ask on the large deals. So just curious if there is some reliance on winning a handful of those still as you forecast to '25 growth outlook and then just more broadly, there seems to be more large deals here that we're talking about, is this an overall expansion of the market or really the company-specific benefits that you see based on that strong sales head count growth?

[Keshav Murugesh, executive]

Yes, Bryan, thank you. That's a good question. So I think what's exciting about some of these large deals is they are essentially a result of the investments that WNS has now been making over the past few quarters in particular. The focus that we brought into this area over the last year or 1.5 years or so. And the fact that we hired and invested significantly behind some real solid talent across each of our sales functions as well as the business units.

And I think what is interesting is that the change that we are seeing is we are now interacting with first and foremost, CXO-level community and people who do not have budgets to provide, but more importantly, who have to deliver impact to the street. So these are CEO, CFOs, and Chief Operating Officers and that profile, one.

Second thing is, in most cases, these are deals being created, where there was no deal when the discussion started. So these are not the traditional kind of deals that come through the adviser networks or through the analyst community. And obviously, with this high-impact sales team, and the investments we made on the vertical side, we continue to invest very strongly in those channels. But the reality is a lot of these large deals are new creations being created directly by some of these new leaders that we have brought in as well as this new exciting journey that we have embarked on. So that's one.

The second thing I would say is, from our point of view, exciting to see a scale up in a number of these deals. We are happy with the five deals that we won between last quarter as well as this quarter. We are also delighted to see a lot of the other deals, making good progress at this point in time. In fact, of those 20 deals, a few of those deals are at very advanced stages. So our expectation is over the next quarter and the following quarters, we'll start seeing more of these wins, which will result in not just momentum for '25. But more importantly, position the company strongly for 2026.

So I'm really excited about this initiative. And while all this is happening, the bread and butter in terms of hunting and farming the traditional revenue sources is not at all flagging.

[David Mackey, executive]

And I think just to add to that, to your specific question, Bryan, about the need for large deals to meet the guidance. The answer is obviously, yes. We do need a couple of these deals to come through. But again, I think the comfort and the confidence in being able to do that lies in to Keshav's point, the size of the large deal pipeline, right? I mean, to convert two or three large deals out of a pipeline of more than 20 is not exactly a hit rate that we would be proud of as an organization. So we think the opportunity is clearly there for that to happen.

[Bryan Bergin, analyst]

All right. Understood. And then on the travel vertical. So just can we talk a little bit more on the volume pressure? Is it broad-based across the portfolio more concentrated in the kind of cohort of larger travel clients? I know you've talked about a larger OTA client. Just curious if there's signs of relief in any of the larger cohort here.

[David Mackey, executive]

Yes. So I'll take a first cut at that. And Arijit can join in here as well and give some color on the travel space. I think overall, Bryan, we're dealing with multiple, multiple headwinds that are affecting the revenue portfolio in the travel space. And particularly, I think it's important to note that where we're seeing the pressure is fundamentally in the OTA or the online travel space where we have a high degree of customer service or CX exposure.

So we know that business is always going to be more volatile than, for example, our airline business where we do a lot of operations management or a lot of finance and accounting related activities. That being said, we're seeing that the pressure is across the entire OTA portfolio. And it's driven by a number of different things. Some of it is macro related. Some of it is client strategy change. Some of it is mix of business. And some of it is we're starting to see clients get a little bit more aggressive about pushing certain types of transactions to automated channels.

Now again, that's not to be confused with Gen AI. This is more about clients redirecting certain types of services to chatbots and automated channels that historically have been done through voice-based channels. In terms of the volume reductions that we've seen, I think the expectation is that we have to continue to see pressure in this space until something happens differently, right?

We also know that coming out of the pandemic, there was a rightsizing that needed to take place for the OTA business. So lots of things going on here. It's been a consistent pressure across the last 1.5 years in this space. The good news is, I think, at this point, we've meaningfully derisked it. I mean our OTA revenues in the first quarter were less than 5% of total company revenue. So the hope is here that while we may continue to see some pressure throughout the rest of the year, the bottom line is the ability to impact us in fiscal '25 and the ability to impact us potentially going forward as things like productivity and AI and Gen AI continue to infuse themselves is also reducing.

[Arijit Sen, executive]

Having said that, just the good part also is that some of the large deals that Keshav talked about, we are seeing a lot of traction amongst clients in travel. And as we go forward, we'll be -- we're trying to see -- we believe that the mix of business has moved from OTA into other areas of travel, which also will make this revenue a lot more stickier. And therefore, that's what we're working on as well.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Nate Stephenson with Deutsche Bank.

[Unknown Analyst]

I had a two-parter on the insurance vertical. So I think previously, you talked about the volume impact from a couple of insurance clients who are exiting a few key geographies, and it looks like insurance revenues decelerated pretty materially in the quarter. So just wondering if you can give an update on the volumes in the insurance vertical more generally and kind of what you expect from that business through the remainder of the year?

And then the follow-up there is just any update on the insurance captive. I think last time you spoke, you talked about something like I don't know, 25% of the phase 2 revenues with 75% of that opportunity outstanding. So how are things progressing on the capital front as well.

[David Mackey, executive]

Sure. So when you look at the insurance revenues in the first quarter. A couple of things. Clearly, as we had alluded to and as we saw in the first quarter, volumes were impacted for specifically three or four of our larger clients as they look to exit what I would call lower-profit businesses. So for U.S. insurers, this is the impact of having fewer claims and fewer policies in force as they've gotten out of states like Florida, California and Louisiana based on the number of disasters and the inability to charge premiums.

Now again, our hope here is that over the next 3 to 6 months, we'll see some relief there. I do believe that there is now more of an ability for them to charge in those areas. So hopefully, we start to see some of those volumes come back. But the expectation is that at least at this point, the volumes in that space should be fairly stable.

The issue in the U.K. that we have on the insurance side was a proactive decision that one of our clients made from a strategic perspective to get out of kind of the low-end regional broker channels and focus on high net worth types of activities. So we should have also seen that impact already in the numbers and have anniversaried it. But overall, I think we expect the insurance space will -- will be a good growth engine kind of as we move throughout the rest of the year, but let Arijit give you some color on that.

[Arijit Sen, executive]

Yes. Thanks, Dave. So like Dave said, I think we are very focused in terms of growing the insurance business. If you recall, one of the large clients who worked in Q4 was actually in the space. And again, a lot of -- we're seeing a lot of traction in the sales pipeline related to insurance clients. And that's why we are quite confident that going forward, this sector for us will grow [indiscernible].

[David Mackey, executive]

Yes. And that being said to the second part of your question, we have not included anything new relative to the large insurance captive. We continue to have good healthy discussions with them, not only about the rest of the phase 2 of our relationship that still has yet to ramp up, but also about new opportunities that we can take over within their portfolio. So I'd say that remains an opportunity. Obviously, not one that would be included in the large deal pipeline and not one that's included in guidance either. So the sooner we can get some closure on some of those pieces of business and get them ramping that has the ability to materially impact fiscal '25 and fiscal '26.

[Unknown Analyst]

Got it. I appreciate the color there. So for my follow-up question, it's great to see the increased buyback authorization and sort of lower share count assumptions. I guess can you give color on the cadence of that expected buyback through the remainder of the year? Is that going to be maybe more weighted to 2Q or the back half? Or is it just you're going to be more opportunistic?

And then I guess the more general follow-up on capital allocation more generally is, I guess, what are your thoughts on M&A given the new buyback assumptions, we've lapped the acquisitions a couple of quarters ago at this point. So just thoughts on buybacks, thoughts on M&A and other capital allocation more generally going forward.

[Unknown Executive]

Yes. So our buyback program, as you recall in the prepared remarks, this issue was already signed in Q1. And the program continues -- will continue into Q2. We think currently our entire buyback should be concluded by quarter 2. We have a plan that's out, and we're looking to buy back almost 2.5 million shares by the end of quarter 2.

From a capital allocation program, M&A continues to be a focus area for us. We are on the lookout for strategic tuck-in M&As that we think will give us a capability addition to our portfolio. Having said that, our capital allocation, as you recall, is on four pillars. So M&A continues to be our core pillar, share repurchases, which were anywhere which is underway. We have capital allocation -- CapEx expenditure is almost $65 million for this year, we plan and we have scheduled debt repayment that's also planned for this year.

[Keshav Murugesh, executive]

Yes. And I'll just add here that we continue to be very confident about our business. We continue to make all the investments in each one of the core areas that we have to be investing in at this point in time. We realize that there are a few nonrecurring kind of headwinds, but nothing that is underlying the growth themes that the company is after at this point in time. And therefore, if you leave out those one-timers, which are headwinds that we spoke about earlier, both for 2024 as well as 2025, growth is more or less in double digits.

And therefore, from our point of view, as far as capital allocation goes, we believe that our stock is underpriced, and therefore, we will continue to progress with our buybacks.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Maggie Nolan with William Blair.

[Margaret Nolan, analyst]

What are your expectations for the cadence of operating margin over the course of the year, given some of the moving parts on revenue and some of the cost considerations you discussed?

[David Mackey, executive]

Yes. So I'll take that one, Maggie. I think the expectation in Q2 at this point in time as we have the ramp down in the large health care clients and the ramp-up of the large deals from Q4, particularly, right? As I mentioned earlier, the expectation is that revenue sequentially will be relatively flat. I think the expectation on the margin side is also that we will be relatively flat from Q1 to Q2.

So I think overall, Q1 and Q2 are going to look a lot alike. The opportunity for margin expansion as we move into Q3 and Q4 is leveraging those investments that Keshav spoke about, rightsizing the head count based on the ramp-ups and the ramp downs that we have taken place in Q2. And then the normal productivity that tends to work its way through our P&L across the 4 quarters of the year based on our ability to digest the annual productivity improvements and the wage increases.

So kind of a normal cadence other than the fact -- I think Q1 came in a little bit higher than we had expected, which is a good thing. The expectation is that it will be flattish to Q2, but then we should see, as we move through the back half of the year and revenue starts to reaccelerate, we should be able to see operating leverage and margins to improve.

[Margaret Nolan, analyst]

And I believe in the prepared remarks, you said in 2025, you're expecting 5% or more of revenue will have a generative AI component to it. Are those types of engagements going to be structured differently than your typical engagement in the past that did not have a generative AI component? Or is there anything else unique about those contracts that we should be considering?

[David Mackey, executive]

I think it's a combination of things, Maggie. I think in some cases, we're putting generative AI capabilities into existing processes that we manage to help make them more efficient, to help drive different kinds of results and different kinds of behaviors. And in those cases, I don't expect a material change to how we're going to charge or how the relationship is going to be in the short run. I think for some of the newer deals where we're seeing meaningful components of Gen AI as part of the service and solution, we are seeing more non-FTE types of relationships put into place, whether that's transaction-based or outcome-based, or gain sharing kind of base.

But I think as we've spoken about in the past, as the Gen AI services and solutions go more mainstream, as we implement them more at scale across a customer base and start relationships with Gen AI types of capabilities. The expectation is that our portfolio of work should shift more towards non-FTE structures than what we've historically seen. So our expectation is that while, again, that creates some risk that comes with gain sharing. It also creates margin opportunity for us.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Puneet Jain with JPMorgan.

[Puneet Jain, analyst]

Are you seeing any changes in client behavior, specifically a pause as they try and understand, assess how Gen AI impact their business processes. I'm assuming the large deals you are signing, like they do not include any benefits from Gen AI or any potential applications of Gen AI at this point?

[Keshav Murugesh, executive]

So, Puneet, thanks for the question. So I think the first thing is clients continue to be focused on whatever is strategic for themselves. So whether it is cost leadership, whether it is the transformation kind of areas, whether it is, which is the right partner for them to help them navigate the opportunity, and potentially whatever steps that they see through Gen AI that's really their focus.

One of the things that we have seen over the past few quarters is the general hike that we saw around generative AI, at least from a client point of view, has subsided, has given the way to much more focus around the ecosystem outside, the economic situation, the challenges they're facing with their business and how they can leverage strategic partners like us in terms of just delivering what they need to deliver to their shareholders, right?

So we're back to cost impact, digital transformation as well as safety of the right partner who brings digital domain and data all together to deliver the outcomes. Now obviously, AI and generative AI continue to be a very important team in that. And therefore, we are seeking their partners in terms of who are the right people who understand their business, who understand data better, and who can as when the time is right, provide the right solutions and outcomes for them.

And in the scheme of things, as we look at some of the large deal pipeline that we're talking about, Obviously, we are looking at leveraging some of the generative AI infused solutions that we anyway have, right? And that is what gives us confidence that while the client is still figuring out how they want to deal with some of this, they also have a lot of comfort and confidence that WNS has through its offering program, infused all of these solutions into the outcome-based kind of solutions that we are providing for them.

So you have to assume that all of these solutions are digital-led, technology-led, transformation-led, very heavy on domain, but also have a mix of generative AI as a result of which we're able to provide them outstanding pricing and outcome-based models.

[David Mackey, executive]

Yes. And just to add a little color to Keshav's comment, Puneet. Two of the four large deals that we signed in Q4 have a Gen AI component, one in the insurance space, one in the shipping and logistics space. But to Keshav's point, I think what's most important is to understand that clients don't come to us and say, they want an AI or a Gen AI solution. What they're doing is they're coming to us saying they want a solution to a business problem. How we deliver that for them is far less important than the business results we're capable of delivering.

[Puneet Jain, analyst]

Understood. Understood. No, that's good to know and thanks for that detailed answer. I'd like to follow up on Maggie's questions on margins. Like with this GAAP reporting from here on, like, I guess, like some of the lease expenses will move above the line. So how should we think about margins like for this year, for the entire year, adjusted operating margin levels as well as beyond this year?

[Unknown Executive]

Yes. So let me take that. So if you look at from an IFRS to U.S. GAAP perspective, adjusted operating margin would trend about 1% lower. However, having said that, the interest cost that we also see would be lower by almost 1.1%. So at the ANI level, we are seeing a very marginal increase of 10 basis points. And some of that will flow into the EPS to about $0.03 to $0.04 impact from IFRS to U.S. GAAP.

[David Mackey, executive]

Yes. So in general, I think the expectation now would be that overall adjusted operating margin will run 100 basis points lower than it used to, right? I think we're still 20% plus in terms of adjusted operating margins, which keeps us in an industry-leading position. But the reality is, instead of running, for example, this year in a 21% to 22% range, we're going to be running in a 20% to 21% range.

[Sanjay Puria, executive]

And maybe, Puneet I'll just add. It's just a reclassification. Overall, ANI is just neutral or in fact, positive. It has just moved from operating margin before interest line, which is like there is always an operating margin after interest, just [indiscernible] specifically the lease charges from bottom to the top. So overall, net to net, it's neutral. But yes, on the operating margin, it's 100% impact at this stage.

[Puneet Jain, analyst]

Got it. No, I understand like the reclassification. So quickly, if I can quickly ask like about this year's margin. So the first half, you will be 18.5 devoted. So do you feel confident that like with revenue growth with everything like you can get to 20% plus margins for the entire year?

[David Mackey, executive]

Yes. Yes.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Dave Koning with Baird.

[David Koning, analyst]

And just to kind of review the obviously, 4 verticals, health care will step down next quarter and be down pretty significantly year-over-year, the rest of the year, which verticals are going to make up for it and see what seems like a pretty big sequential step-ups in the next couple of quarters and year-over-year as well. Like where should we really see that from a vertical basis?

[David Mackey, executive]

Sure. So I think as you rightly say, Dave, obviously, Q2 is going to be a challenge for us, primarily because of the health care vertical ramp down and the ongoing challenges that we see in the travel space. So with that kind of in mind, when you look at where the opportunities are, we talked about the ramp-up in insurance in Q2 based on the large deal that we signed in Q4. We're going to talk about a ramp-up in Q2 and into Q3 in the shipping and logistics space, which we believe will be one of our leading verticals for this fiscal year.

When you look at the high-tech professional services vertical. That should be a growth engine for us as well as utilities, which has been on a really nice trend over the last 4, 5 quarters. So I think overall, the business should be very, very healthy across most of our verticals with the exception of travel and health care.

[David Koning, analyst]

Got you. Okay. That's helpful. And then one other thing I just noticed the largest client was up pretty substantially year-over-year. I know it's not huge, it's maybe 5%, 6% of total revs, but it was up mid-20s percent or so year-over-year. What was that? And is that sustainable?

[David Mackey, executive]

Yes, I think it is, right? So we've got a client who is expanding their relationship with us. They've been a client and a really good client and a top five client for an extended period of time, but we found new ways to engage with them. We found other things to do with them. We're seeing volume increases with this customer. So overall, the relationship is healthy, and it's helping you see it largely impacting our utility space.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington Research.

[Vincent Colicchio, analyst]

Yes. I think your, Keshav, your head count increased 1% sequentially. Could you help us understand how your head count may grow relative to revenue growth for the balance of the year?

[Keshav Murugesh, executive]

Yes. So from a head count perspective, the reason why head count grew was we've had some -- because the Q4 wins, we've had to ramp up some head count to account for the increase in Q2. They've also mentioned that in Q2, we will have the reduction in the health care client. And therefore, utilization of head count would -- has been low in Q1, and we expect that to improve as we go into Q2 and Q3 onwards.

And as we start ramping up other deals as well. So from a head count perspective, I think that's the reason why Q1 came in slightly higher versus Q4. But as we go forward in the year and as the health care client ramps down, I think you will see a more steady increase in head count versus revenue.

[David Mackey, executive]

Yes. I think the other thing that's important, Vincent, and I'm glad you brought it up. The ramp down that we're going to see in Q2 relative to the health care client, was a heavily technology-enabled set of services. So the reality is what you're going to see is a disproportionate ramp-down in revenue relative to a ramp down in headcount. This is going to affect for the full year, it's going to affect our revenue per employee metrics. But essentially to reaccelerate that growth and to reaccelerate it based on the four deals that we signed in Q4, the one we signed in Q1 and the deals that are in the large deal pipeline, we're going to need to be aggressively hiring through the rest of the year.

[Vincent Colicchio, analyst]

And Keshav, kudos to your investments in the sales side, I mean the increase in transformational deals in the pipeline looks fairly impressive. Are you expecting that pipeline to continue to expand for transformational deals as the year progresses?

[Keshav Murugesh, executive]

Yes, Vincent, first of all, thank you for the compliment [indiscernible] because of the new restructuring that we did in terms of our corporate kind of structure as well as that goes to all the people managing each of the strategic business units and sales of this company. So it's all in their credit.

But having said that, I must tell you this is the new way of business for WNS for the long term. So not only will -- we will continue to focus on building new large transformational deal impact. But I think over a period of time, as each of these deals come to fruition, I think there's a new discipline and there's a new excitement of creating this pipeline, which I think will carry well into 2026 and '27. I think that's what is the most exciting area of growth for WNS.

And again, I just want to underline the fact that these are deals being created where there is no deal that is coming in the market. It is actually coming as a result of our senior people interacting with decision makers on the other side understanding their pain points, understanding the value proposition that they would like to have and then crafting its solution on a win-win basis, leveraging the best of WNS digital, domain, data, AI, generative AI and outcome-based impact of pricing.

[David Mackey, executive]

And one other point I'd like to make, Vincent, and it's subtle, but I think it's important. We've historically, as a company, talked about large deals as being $5 million plus in ACV or annual contract value. The 20-plus deals that Keshav spoke about in his prepared remarks are all more than $10 million in ACV. So the reality is we still have what we consider historically to be large deals in the pipeline. We still have expansion opportunities in the pipeline. But this very large deal pipeline and several of them having moved down a path over the last couple of quarters here, last several quarters. It's something that's very new for us. And it's really in addition to what we've historically seen as opposed to in place of.

[Operator]

At this time, we have no further questions in the queue. This will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.