Link and Motivation Inc

TSE:2170

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q2

[Yoshihisa Ozasa, executive]

I am Ozasa, Chairman of Link and Motivation Inc. I'll explain consolidated financial information for the 6 months ended June 30, 2021.

These are 7 agenda points for today: first, company overview; second, business report about consolidated results for the 6 months ended June 30, 2021; third, upward revision of results forecast; fourth, announcement of dividend increase; fifth, announcement of enhanced shareholder benefits; sixth, growth forecast and prioritized strategies will be explained; and seventh is report on conditions by organization, which is to disclose engagement ratings of us and our group companies every 6 months.

Now let me start the first item, company overview. This slide shows operating structure of the Link and Motivation Group. There are 3 circles. And the upper left one is the Organizational Development Division, which supports creating motivation companies that individuals choose. It includes Consulting & Cloud business as well as Event & Media business. At upper right, the Individual Development Division, which supports creating individuals that organizations choose. And we call them i-Companies. It includes Career School business and Cram School business. And below that, at the center, the Matching Division to link organizations and individuals. To be more specific, it covers 2 businesses: Global Personnel Placement & Temp Staff business and Domestic Personnel Placement & Temp Staff business. In addition, we also have Venture Incubation.

Let me move on to business report about consolidated results for the 6 months ended June 30, 2021. Revenues were JPY 18.370 billion, up 5.6% Y-o-Y. Adjusted operating income was JPY 1.599 billion, up 112.7% Y-o-Y. Operating income was JPY 1.484 billion, up 97.7% Y-o-Y. Net income increased substantially Y-o-Y to JPY 905 million. We avoided the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the previous year and shifted to a growth track with faster-than-expected growth in the Organizational Development Division in particular.

This page shows revenues and gross profit by segment. The Consulting & Cloud business drove growth in the Organizational Development division. Revenues increased by 9.0% Y-o-Y and gross profit was up 12.0% Y-o-Y. The Individual Development Division in the middle was affected significantly by COVID-19 last year, but it finally started to recover and recorded substantial increase Y-o-Y in revenues by 21.7% and in gross profit by 70.8%. The Global Personnel Placement & Temp Staff business in the Matching Division has been generating stable profits even during the pandemic. And while it booked a year-on-year decrease by 1.5% for revenues, gross profit was up 3.5% Y-o-Y.

This page is about SG&A expenses. Total SG&A expenses increased by 4.2% Y-o-Y. Continuing from the first quarter, expenses increased mainly due to investment in personnel expenses and onetime accelerated depreciation and relocation costs associated with office relocation indicated at office and system expenses.

This page shows statements of financial position. Assets and liabilities decreased substantially because of a significant decline in right-of-use assets and lease liabilities due to head office relocation. Total equity increased from recording net income of JPY 312 million.

Let me move to the next item, upward revision of results forecast. Due to greater-than-expected growth of the Consulting & Cloud business in the Organizational Development Division, the forecast of results has been substantially revised upward. Numbers indicated in the column second from the right are Y-o-Y changes after the revision. Revenues are expected to grow 8.3% Y-o-Y. Adjusted operating income increase is 45.8% Y-o-Y, and operating income is estimated with a significant growth of 732.2% Y-o-Y. For your reference, comparison with 2019 results is provided in the rightmost column. We can say that the overall performance is recovering to the level of 2019 before we were impacted by COVID-19.

This page explains the background of the upward revision. Among Organizational Development Division customers, the Consulting & Cloud business for major companies has grown significantly. Please refer to the chart on the left for Consulting & Cloud business sales to major companies. It recorded 10.0% increase versus 2019 and even more significant increase of 27.0% from 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought organizational issues to the fore, and this situation is expected to continue. As described on the right, due to the impact by teleworking and the pandemic, we expect further expansion of needs to improve employee engagement among companies going forward.

Fourth item is announcement of dividend increase. Second quarter dividend of JPY 1.8 per share is scheduled to be paid on Friday, September 24. Dividends will increase by JPY 0.1 from the third quarter onward to JPY 1.9 per share. Since 2011, we had increased dividend 8 years in a row. However, dividend increase was deferred in 2020 due to the pandemic. However, the annual dividend for 2021 will be JPY 7.4 and we will maintain our policy of a continuing high return on profits. Fifth item is announcement of enhanced shareholder benefits. We present QUO Card to our shareholders, and we decided to increase the base amounts of shareholder benefit by 25% to promote greater medium-to-long-term holdings of LMI stock. Values in yen after the increase are provided at the bottom. I'd like you to understand that this is a shareholder special benefit plan with a message that we expect shareholders to hold more LMI stock for a longer period.

Next, sixth item is growth forecast. We have avoided the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and put business back on a growth track, and we expect to complete cost reforms associated with relocation to smaller offices by the end of 2021. We will accelerate investment in 3 businesses where we expect growth with the aim of record high profit in next year, 2022. Regarding 3 growth businesses. Number 1 is Motivation Cloud series. We will drive the expansion of the employee engagement market through more introductions at major companies. Number 2 is OpenWork. We will aim at accelerating direct recruiting and demand for the Organizational Development Division by increasing the number of reviews and registered users. Number 3 is ALT Placement business to further expand market share with strong needs for learning English, including reform of English Education by MEXT, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Turning to the right, substantial decrease in office rent will be achieved next year. Also for accelerated investment in business growth, we will mainly invest in personnel, IT, and sales promotion marketing.

Let me explain one by one. First one is Motivation Cloud series. Motivation Cloud is a product and it has captured over half of the employee engagement market, boosting its top share of sales in Japan for 4 years in a row. While the scale of the engagement market in HR tech is still less than JPY 10 billion. The importance of employee engagement is expected to be recognized by companies going forward. And we expect this market is going to grow to JPY 50 billion, JPY 100 billion or more in the future. We are stepping up introductions in a wide range of industries centered on major companies, including companies with 10,000 or more employees. We shared logos of companies that gave us a permission to be listed on this page.

In order to be a winner in the world of HR tech, it is inevitable to promote introductions to major companies. For this purpose, we have been focusing on sales promotion to major companies since 2 years ago. The proportion of major companies in monthly fee revenue has increased to nearly 60%. It is 56.7% or up 11.9 points Y-o-Y. The proportion of major companies is increasing in new memberships as well. As shown by the pie chart on the right, in monetary basis, the proportion of major companies accounts for 71.3%, indicating a significant progress over SMEs and venture companies at 28.7%.

Promoting introductions at major companies has steadily increased monthly fee revenue per customer, even during the pandemic. Please refer to the graph below. And the second and third quarters in 2020, while we faced suspension or cancellation of membership mainly by SMEs and venture companies affected by COVID-19, our sales activities for major companies continued. And monthly fee revenue has increased to JPY 218,928,000 in the end of the second quarter of 2021. Reference on the right is about consulting sales to the cloud customers. Cross-selling or synergy effect between cloud and consultation has become obvious and consulting sales increased 20.1% Y-o-Y.

There is a global trend toward more robust human capital disclosure. To be more specific, many institutional investors request a disclosure of not only financial information, but also nonfinancial information, especially human capital related information. To address this trend, we will promote disclosure of engagement ratings as a driving force in the employee engagement market. Producing IR media is operated as one of our businesses. With collaboration with this business, we will promote disclosure of engagement ratings and accelerate the rollout of Motivation Cloud. Logos of engagement ratings are shown on the right. And examples of disclosing companies are Tokyu Construction Co., Ltd. and Sakai Moving Service Co., Ltd. And they have incorporated engagement ratings in their long-term management plan or include them as a management indicator in the medium-term management plan. Going forward, we will raise awareness and promote the disclosure or usage as a management indicator.

Next is about the second point, OpenWork. It is a company that operates an employee online review platform for job seekers. The number of employee reviews is one of the largest in Japan with 11.5 million employee reviews and evaluation scores, and its number of registered users are steadily increasing with the latest number of 4.3 million users. This slide illustrates that revenue model of OpenWork. Job seekers are shown on the right. They become members and pay membership fee to browse reviews. This is a subscription model with the individuals. At the center bottom, the second revenue source is described. This is a customer dispatch model to send resumes of members of OpenWork to recruiting companies.

And the growing model we are focusing on recently is the one on the left. That is a direct recruiting model, which enables companies seeking capable personnel to approach job seekers directly through OpenWork platform. This model has significantly grown by 26% Y-o-Y. The number of registered users of OpenWork is increasing rapidly, and about 60% of new graduates who seek jobs is browsing information on OpenWork platform. Going forward, corporate organizations are becoming more open and transparent. Therefore, companies are required to adapt to the labor market. This will lead to accelerated demand for the Organizational Development Division and further energize the employee engagement market.

Focusing on OpenWork makes corporate organizations more open. And as a result, necessity of adaptation to the labor market will increase, and it will accelerate the demand for the Consulting & Cloud business as described on the slide. Also, necessity to disclose adaptation to the labor market will increase. This means disclosure of nonfinancial information. Disclosure of corporate information so far was limited to the number of employees or average age of employees. But what is important for investors are nonfinancial information about corporate organizations that is status of engagement. We expect this will accelerate demand for the event and the media business of our group, especially in the area of Investor Relations.

Third one is ALT Placement business. We boost the overwhelming top share among private companies in the business of placing ALTs in elementary, junior high and high schools throughout Japan. Please refer to the pie chart on the left, which show the market share of LM Group. The left chart indicates the share in the total market that is 24.3%. Other players are other private companies and a JET Program conducted by MEXT and direct employment by schools. The chart on the right focuses on the market for private companies. We have an overwhelming market share of 51.6% in this market. And we expect there is room to expand our share by more than 4x in this quite promising market. On the right, percentages of class hours using ALTs for instruction are provided. The percentage of schools using ALTs for more than 40% of class hours is over 70% in elementary schools, but only about 30% in junior high schools and about 10% in high schools.

Going forward, we expect further growth in demand to improve practical English proficiency. Also, amid accelerating digitalization of education, we launched teachers cloud, a cloud service for English teachers that utilizes our know-how from Motivation Cloud. We will use our predominant brand power to further expand market share. To be more specific, as described on the right, it post extensive content for elementary, junior high and high school students and practical sample lessons using ALTs nationwide, and English teachers can use them. In addition, we expect them to use it to improve efficiency of preparation for classes and teaching skills. With teachers cloud, we will expand ALT Placement business further.

Although there will be a onetime increase in expenses in 2021, the significant reduction in office expenses from 2022 onward will be allocated to accelerating growth investment. Let's look into individual items. Regarding investment in offices, we recognized onetime expenses of JPY 1 billion for the year due to relocation to smaller offices nationwide by October 2021. However, in 2022, in addition to the absence of the onetime expenses, we plan to allocate rent reduction of about JPY 800 million to other investments. For the second point, investment in personnel, we revised the personnel system and raised salary levels to strengthen competitiveness in the labor market and enhance employee engagement this year. And next year, we plan to increase the number of new university graduates hired in core businesses and step up hiring of engineers. The third point is investment in IT. We have promoted investment in development of Motivation Cloud and other products. And next year, we'll accelerate investment in development and add a new product to Motivation Cloud series to be released in the beginning of next year. Lastly, in investment in sales promotion, we have made cost reductions from improving advertising efficiency this year. Next year, we will enhance marketing to further strengthen the brand power of Motivation Cloud and OpenWork.

Seventh item is report on conditions by organization announced at every 6 months to report engagement ratings of ourselves and our group. It is critical for companies to adapt to the labor market as well as the product market, and financial information, such as income statement and balance sheet is a report card for product market. And we use engagement score as a management indicator to measure adaptation to the labor market.

This slide shows the logic to calculate the engagement score. It is an indicator that provides a standard deviation value for employee engagement. In other words, it indicates the level of mutual understanding, empathy and commitment between companies and employees. This is an evaluation based on the results of an original organizational diagnostic survey developed by Link and Motivation. There are 16 areas for measuring employee engagement: 8 for company, 4 for boss and 4 for workplace. Engagement score or a standard deviation value is calculated based on our database on 2.03 million employees at 8,010 companies.

Engagement scores are grouped into 11 ranks to provide engagement ratings. 11 ranks are from AAA at the top and BB at the bottom. This shows the engagement ratings of our group and 12 out of 13 companies with AAA to indicate we are able to maintain high employee engagement. As it is already proven that higher employee engagement improves operating profit margin or productivity and we will continue to use engagement scores and engagement ratings as management indices for the entire group as important as PL or BS.

Let me revisit this slide about our operating structure. Overall, we could transform ourselves with agility despite impact by COVID-19 pandemic last year, mainly by switching to online operations and promoting remote work. The fastest recovery is coming from the Organizational Development Division with active needs, especially coming from major companies. We expect Consulting & Cloud business in our group will expand with the growth of market for employee engagement. Matching Division has businesses with focus like OpenWork that we will accelerate further.

I appreciate your continuous attention to the progress and the development of businesses in our group. Following pages are reference materials. That is all for the financial results briefing for the first half 2021 of Link and Motivation Inc. Thank you.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]