Altus Group Ltd

TSX:AIF

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Altus Group's Q1 2024 Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. This call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to hand the call over to Ms. Camilla Bartosiewicz. Please go ahead, ma'am.

[Camilla Bartosiewicz, executive]

Thank you, Lisa. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the conference call and webcast discussing Altus Group's first quarter results for the period ended March 31, 2024.Our disclosure materials, notably the press release, MD&A and financial statements and the slides accompanying our prepared remarks are all available on our website and as required have been filed with SEDAR+ after market close this afternoon.I'm joined today by our CEO, Jim Hannon, and our CFO, Pawan Chhabra.Some of our remarks on this call and in our disclosure may contain forward-looking information that is based on certain assumptions and therefore subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Please refer to our forward-looking information disclaimer in today's materials.Please be reminded that Altus Group uses certain non-GAAP financial measures, ratios, total of segment measures, capital management measures, and supplementary and other financial measures as defined in National Instrument 52-112. We believe that these measures may assist investors in assessing an investment in our shares as they provide additional insight into our performance. Readers and listeners are cautioned that they are not defined performance measures and do not have standardized meaning under IFRS and may differ from similar computations as reported by other entities, and accordingly may not be comparable to financial measures as reported by those entities. Those measures should not be considered in isolation or as substitutes for financial measures prepared in accordance with IFRS. An explanation of these measures is detailed in today's IR materials.I would also like to point out that unless otherwise specified, all the percentage and basis point growth rates we refer to on today's call will be on a constant currency basis over the same period in [ 2023 ].Okay, over to you Pawan.

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

Thanks, Camilla, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today.Altus delivered solid results in the first quarter with improvements across our key financial metrics. Our team stayed on task, growing revenue and expanding margins. Our results in both Analytics and Property Tax came in ahead of our expectations. Recapping our consolidated metrics, revenue was up 4.3%, profit improved by 93.7% on an as-reported basis. Adjusted EBITDA was up 12.9%, driving 100 basis point margin expansion on an as-reported basis. And notably, free cash flow was up 83.5% on an as-reported basis over last year, which included the impact of our ERP chain transition or up 41.4% if we compare it to Q1 of 2022.As you're likely aware, there is some seasonality to this metric, primarily relating to the benefits of compensation with our employee bonus payout which occurs in Q1. Additionally, I'd like to highlight that in Q1 we recorded $5.4 million of restructuring costs, primarily impacting our Analytics business segment as well as some of our corporate functions. This reflects our ongoing efforts to operate more efficiently and rebalance investments towards future growth initiatives.Turning to our business segment performance, Analytics continues to drive top line growth and margin expansion. Revenue growth is driven by our ongoing transition to the cloud subscriptions, new sales, a higher number of assets on our Valuation Management Solutions platform and contribution from the Forbury acquisition.The combination of Forbury's innovative culture and Altus' global go-to market reach provides us with growth opportunities with a fit-for-purpose software offering in the APAC and U.K. markets and with emerging opportunity in the U.S. banking sector. Adjusting EBITDA benefited from higher revenues, operating efficiencies and our ongoing cost optimization efforts.Recurring revenue represents 93% of our Analytics revenues in the quarter compared to 90% in the prior year. These revenues comprised of solutions embedded in our customers' most critical processes, and therefore represent resilient revenue streams with low churn.As a reminder in Q4 VMS recurring revenue is seasonally our high point and the high volumes of annual valuations. Our Q1 recurring revenue came slightly ahead of our expectations. The market environment remains consistent to Q4 of FY '23 and expect it to continue through the first half of the year. There are several encouraging signs emerging for a second half recovery, relatively stabilized interest rates, a growing economy, increased activity resulting from distressed sellers and lenders. Many of our clients have expressed their belief that markets have bottomed and volumes will begin to recover in the second half of the year. Our margins continue to expand up 210 basis points in the quarter. We initiated our cost optimization efforts midway through the first quarter, and with recurring revenue growth expected to pick up in the second half of the year, we expect margins to ramp in subsequent quarters this year. We remain confident in our ability to drive 400 to 500 basis points of margin expansion for the full year, which we expect we can do even on the low end of our guidance revenue range. We are increasingly benefiting from higher efficiencies from our global service center in India. And as you saw through our restructuring activities in the first quarter, we have taken action to further refine our operating model.We ended the quarter with 75% of our AE users contracted on the cloud. Our transition to ARGUS Cloud continues creating more revenue growth opportunities in 2024. Now with 75% of our AE users on the cloud, our churn from on-prem maintenance represents 0.15% of our annual revenue. Our maintenance gross retention rate of 89% is no longer a relevant metric, and we plan to retire that going forward.Our new bookings performance was steady and continues to be impacted by current macroeconomic conditions. Now the timing of bookings tends to fluctuate. We're encouraged by the healthy recurring new bookings performance in the quarter, which was up 14.2%. As the market stabilizes, we are well-positioned to capitalize on the recovery and convert our growing backlog into revenue.Turning to Property Tax. The team had a very strong start to the year. Revenue was up 10.2% and adjusted EBITDA was up 24.9% with margins up 300 basis points. The growth was driven by a strong performance in the U.S., offset by a decline in Canada and the U.K. In the U.S., several of our large settlements were pulled forward from Q2 to Q1. In Canada, the cycle timelines in Western Canada and the impact of the ongoing Ontario cycle extension have impacted our growth. The U.K. continues to be constrained with slower-than-anticipated VOA throughput, but the backlog of opportunities is growing.The increase in adjusted EBITDA reflects higher revenues offset by higher compensation costs, as well as geographic variances of our revenue and related cost base on a year-over-year view. Going forward with the Ontario cycle extension and the VOA constraints, this year's geographic mix is expected to be weighted towards the U.S., which runs at a lower margin profile. Our outlook, however, for the year remains unchanged.I would also point out that the Ontario government's latest budget release, which was released in late March, indicates that the province-wide reassessment will continue to be deferred until the province completes its review of the property assessment and taxation system. We continue to constructively engage with the government, so it's becoming unlikely that we'll have a reassessment in 2025.Finally, Appraisals and Development Advisory revenue and adjusted EBITDA were down in the quarter. The performance reflects muted market activity in the current economic environment as the business segment has some exposure to reduced transaction volumes and higher interest rates, which result in fewer appraisals and fewer new project starts.Turning to our balance sheet, we finished the quarter with a cash position of $44.3 million and with $328.6 million in bank debt. The funded debt to EBITDA leverage ratio as defined in our credit agreement is 2.15x. [Indiscernible] the net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio was 2.06x. Total liquidity stands at $265.7 million.We have a healthy balance sheet that enables continued investment in growth and opportunistically repurchase shares. With respect to the planned REVS acquisition, the regulatory review continues, so we're limited in what we can share at this time.With that, Jim, I'll turn it over to you.

[Jim Hannon, executive]

Okay, thanks, Pawan. We're pleased with the consistent execution of our long-term value creation strategy, which is built upon 4 pillars, delivering innovation, driving long-term profitable growth, maximizing our operating leverage, and optimizing our capital allocation. And of course, none of that happens without having the best players in the right job with clarity in their objectives, and that is the Altus team.We expect that the successful execution of this strategy will significantly enhance our cash generation and deliver attractive shareholder returns. Meaningful cash generation affords us flexibility and capital allocation to keep growing our business and enhancing value for our clients, colleagues, and shareholders.Our first quarter results reinforce the progress against this strategy. We have new performance analytics capabilities launching this year that will help our clients drive better performance and equip our teams with faster access to information. With the technical foundation of the Altus performance platform, and by connecting disparate data sets under an Altus ID, we're delivering deep asset and fund level insights. As Pawan discussed, we're making steady progress, maximizing our operating leverage.At the Analytics, we continue to put up healthy recurring revenue growth and plan to drive 400 to 500 basis points of margin expansion this year. We're listening to our clients and continue to anticipate an improved selling environment in the second half. The Property Tax team delivered a very strong Q1 in the U.S. We continue to invest in growing our team in the global service center in India, which will fuel further growth.Additionally, our U.S. Tax business is now running on itamlink, the core products from the Rethink acquisition. As a reminder, itamlink is a purpose-built property tax management software solution, enabling tax professionals to better manage their property tax liabilities and assessments across their property portfolio.Turning to Appraisals and Development Advisory as well as corporate, we continue to deploy technologies and process improvements that will yield higher margins in corporate efficiencies. As Pawan covered, Q1 margins for Appraisals were impacted by lower-than-expected transactions volumes across the general market in Canada. Again, here we expect an improvement in the second half. From a capital allocation perspective, our core focus is to prioritize our investments and our highest growth, highest margin opportunities.We will adapt our capital allocation strategy, as required, to ensure that our balance sheet is strongly positioned for the long term. In summary, at a macro level, many of our clients have expressed the beliefs that markets have bottomed. The industry continues to raise fresh capital in anticipation of a recovery. Interest rates, if not declining in the near future, appear to have at least stabilized. New debt funds have increased the availability of capital. These factors, combined with some large portfolios beginning to transact may indicate that we're nearing the end of the price discovery phase we witnessed over the last several quarters. This bodes well for Altus and gives us confidence in our full year outlook.We enable our clients to make faster and better decisions. We've worked closely with our largest clients to build their requirements into our Altus performance platform, and we've been in the market demonstrating that innovation. Our experts in tax valuation and development advisory are excited and ready to deliver what we call intelligence as a service. In other words, we're here to help our clients grow their portfolios, optimize returns and reduce risk.And with that, let's open up the line now for questions. So back to you, Lisa.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And we'll take the first question from Yuri Lynk at Canaccord Genuity.

[Yuri Lynk, analyst]

Good quarter. Just wondering if -- just on the guidance, can you remind me the low end there, is that assuming that the back half pickup that you're expecting doesn't happen?

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

Yuri, great hearing from you. I'm assuming you're referring to the Analytics guidance.

[Yuri Lynk, analyst]

Yes.

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

Yes. Yes. So if you recall, we said 8% to 12%, and we have predicated the fact that Q1 and Q2 would look very similar to what we saw in Q4 of FY '23. And then the higher end of the guidance range was tied to potentially seeing more assets being deployed on the VMS side, which would get us to the higher end of the range, but the lower end of the range assumes that the market environment continues the way we've been seeing it in Q1 and anticipate in Q2.

[Yuri Lynk, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. I think it was 9, 10 months ago, we heard a lot about Altus Market Insights and the benefits to the clients there in terms of risk-adjusted returns. Can you give us an update on your conversations with clients on that new product launch?

[Jim Hannon, executive]

Yes, Gary, this is Jim. Market Insights, we showed at Connect to prove to clients that the office performance platform was here. We have several of the largest investors in commercial real estate are clients Market Insights and Market Insights is -- it's a piece of what will be a larger offering that many of our clients have now seen and that will be generally available at the next Altus Connect in September. So it was a taste of what the capabilities of the platform were, pulling together Reonomy, StratoDem on top of ARGUS data, and we are demonstrating the power of all 3.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Gavin Fairweather of Cormark.

[Gavin Fairweather, analyst]

Just on Analytics, you've talked in the past about exploring AUM-based pricing with some of your larger clients, curious if there's any update on that front and whether perhaps penetrating these clients with market insights or performance management would be perhaps a catalyst for an evolving revenue model?

[Jim Hannon, executive]

Gavin, absolutely. We have had many large client conversations about that as they -- as we're walking them through the new performance offers. We break pricing down into 2 core areas. We're always going to have the trends -- well, you know our revenues are not transaction-driven, but there are -- there's the Argus use case where Argus is used on a DCF basis to evaluate a transaction. And those we foresee there will be a large amount of per user requests for core ARGUS functionality. It's the advanced functionality where we get to a per asset, which represents an enterprise license type approach, and that is how we're engaging with all of the clients on the new offers today.

[Gavin Fairweather, analyst]

Okay. Great to hear. And then also on ARGUS around renewals and you spoke about the maintenance renewal rate is no longer really a relevant metric. So I guess that begs the question, if you could speak to the subscription renewal rates you've been seeing with some of the early adopters and whether you've seen any kind of macro impact on that KPI.

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

Yes. As it relates to the maintenance renewal rate, it's no longer a material factor in our calculus when you look at it from a sort of what's the nonrenewing portion of the on-prem clients, which, as you know, were majority on the cloud now represents in relation to the renewing base. And I believe I mentioned in the opening remarks, it's like 0.15% of our Analytics annual revenue number. And so we didn't find it to be useful going forward, which we're deciding to retire that number. So I just wanted to provide some macro context on the print that you all are seeing in the MD&A and our intentions of that metric going forward.

[Jim Hannon, executive]

Let me take the second half of that question. q Gavin, you know that when we changed out the systems that we suggested we would be moving towards new disclosures in the future. We're still on that path. I think you're effectively asking us what does net retention look like. And for the clients who purchased the suite of products across ARGUS, VMS and Market Insights, which is now, those offers are now, you think of them -- the loose term of bundles, but our net retention on those client's bases are both north of 100%, but we're not ready to change our full disclosures on that at this point.

[Gavin Fairweather, analyst]

Great. Appreciate the sneak preview there. And then maybe just on the Appraisal and Development Services division. Obviously you saw the profitability get hit in Q1 with some lower volume, but it looks like you maintained the guidance for double-digit EBITDA growth. So do you have visibility on improving billings coming out of that business? Or perhaps are you planning to take some cost actions? Maybe just help us reconcile that.

[Jim Hannon, executive]

Yes. So as Pawan alluded to, he said and I said in my comments that general market volumes are down. Our data is demonstrating to us that transaction volumes, which does impact the Appraisals business, which rolled into that number, Canadian -- so our Appraisal business is a Canadian business only. And our transaction volumes at this point suggest that the Canadian market is down approximately 30% year-over-year. That's steeper than we had anticipated at the beginning of the year, but we are -- we have multiple paths to our full year view of -- yes. So we said low single-digit growth for that business. So consistent with what our clients are telling us, second half will pick up. So we do need a pickup in transaction volumes, but we -- right now, everything is telling us that we're going to see that.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Scott Fletcher, CIBC.

[Scott Fletcher, analyst]

A question for me on the license revenue in the Analytics business. We saw that sort of pace of decline be pretty volatile quarter-over-quarter last year. Is there any sort of -- there was another downdraft this year in Q1. Is there any sort of visibility into how that might perform over the course of the year going forward?

[Jim Hannon, executive]

Scott, you said the license revenue down --

[Scott Fletcher, analyst]

Sorry, the onetime revenue, sorry, in the Analytics, yes.

[Jim Hannon, executive]

Onetime revenue, Okay. I was like I thought we put out a bad disclosure then [indiscernible] prices in all of that is up. On the onetime, this is where you do feel the pressure of the macro market because the onetime projects, things like large system deployments, which if you recall, a big part of our onetime revenue is that we deploy OEM systems. And we like that business because it keeps us very close with the Chief Information Officers at our largest clients. Those projects become more discretionary for them in a tough market environment. So our pipeline is actually -- has some very large onetime opportunities in it. The clients are -- they're watching the same number as we are, which is -- are they expecting a pick up in the second half and will their P&L support large system deployments.

[Scott Fletcher, analyst]

Okay. And then a question probably for Pawan. On the cash flow and the working capital in particular, last year, obviously a lot of noise with the ERP system implementation. Do you have a sort of line of sight into what the rest of the year looks like from a working capital perspective? Just trying to get a sense of how the cash flow should look.

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

Yes. It's a great question. We actually have really good line of sight in regards to just our overall cash flow transition. [indiscernible] just as a function of the fact that we've got a great ERP system now that gives us visibility and ability to look at multiple different scenarios associated with that. As you know, we do face pressure in Q1 as a result of the compensation and bonus payouts that we have in Q1, but we've mapped out against what we're planning -- what we plan for, for Q2, Q3, Q4, and we continue to remain very optimistic in regards to achieving our [indiscernible] for the full year. And just a proxy for you to think about it as just, think about it from an EBITDA and even a [ conversion model ]. We've given some reference points in regards to how we get to try to drive that to a higher level.

[Operator]

We'll go next to Christian Sgro, Eight Capital.

[Christian Sgro, analyst]

The recurring new bookings metric at $16 million, up 14% year-on-year. I was just wondering if there is any way for Q1 you could decompose some of the strength in there. You talk about between those VMS or software where you saw some growth, some of the drivers for this quarter.

[Jim Hannon, executive]

Yes. Christian, it's Jim. We don't break out that metric. I understand why you're looking for it. Each quarter, you have -- because it's bookings and not just our recurring ratable revenue model, it looks like the old world of software where you have you have bookings are timed with contract renewals. So sometimes it's the ARGUS -- the timing of large ARGUS renewal contracts and sometimes it's VMS. And we're now breaking it out. But each quarter, that mix can change significantly.

[Christian Sgro, analyst]

Okay. Understood. And then the second question will be more broad. Just wondering, geographically, you're seeing traction in international markets, maybe in Asia, what the market opportunity and strategy is in those geographies.

[Jim Hannon, executive]

Yes. So we continue -- Forbury is at the key part of our international strategy based on the valuation methodologies that you see in the U.K. and you see in the APAC region. And Forbury is, as Pawan said, fit for purpose for those markets. So that's a key element of our strategy. And then we are following our largest clients as they expand their portfolios. In Asia, they are pulling us in there as many of those portfolios are U.S. VMS clients, and they want that same level of transparency on their APAC portfolios.

[Operator]

Next up we'll hear from Nevan Yochim, BMO Capital Markets.

[Nevan Yochim, analyst]

Hopefully we can start on the Property Tax where you called out some pull forward of U.S. appeals. Are you able to talk about what led to the change in expected timing and then what this could mean for Property Tax growth in Q2 and then the rest of the year?

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

Yes. So the settlement appeals are largely dictated by the various different jurisdictions and the regulators. So, it becomes difficult to ultimately understand if something is going to close in March or April. The team worked very aggressively to try to have a strong finish. And so they were able to pull in some of these large settlement appeals in the U.S. from Q2 into Q1. I guess we're being purposeful here in regards to calling it a pull forward in the sense that it was a pull forward from Q2 into Q1. So we will see some degree of offset in Q2 as a result of that. Again, these large appeals are something that we have visibility to that we track very carefully. And when it swings from one quarter to the next, it becomes difficult to replace those large appeals in the following quarters. With that said, we're seeing great momentum in the business. The teams are leveraging the technology. They're being able to work faster and smarter. And we're very bullish in regards to our ability to continue to maintain our full year outlook for that. So this is really just a degree of a shift between Q1 and Q2 in terms of revenue. And I also like to underscore the fact that we are seeing a lot of strength in the U.S. And as I mentioned in the opening remarks, the U.S., we think you need to drive greater operating efficiencies. We're pushing more of that business to India. And so it's a growing margin profile business. But in the current year, it does represent a lower mix of -- it does represent a lower mix of margin for us. And so that's just something to be cognizant of as we model the number. So we're, again, the strength in Q1 is great news. We're extremely pleased about it. It gives us a lot of confidence for the full year, but we're not in a position to call out the full year.

[Nevan Yochim, analyst]

Okay. That's great to hear. And then just on the restructuring program that you guys put in this quarter, are you able to provide an estimate on what the magnitude of potential benefits might be either as a dollar amount or maybe as margin points. And then as an extension, is that all going to be in the Analytics and Corporate Costs? Or would it fall into some of the other segments as well?

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

Yes. So again, just when we gave guidance on the 400 to 500 basis point margin expansion, that does include the fact that we were planning on doing the restructuring. Again, keep in mind, this restructuring is really moving us from one phase of the Altus journey to another. We spent a lot of time on the development of our APP platform. We're now focused on data science and data analytics. That gives us an opportunity to rebalance our resources and our investments. And so as you think about the lift, it's part of the calculus in terms of how it gets us to the 400 to 500 basis points margin expansion. Even in the lower end of the guidance range scenario, we feel confident in regards to the margin expansion as well too. There is a little bit of other [indiscernible] that it does impact, but there is some that flows into corporate as well too. As we on as we continue to design to our target operating model as we've referred, and there is an expectation that, that will continue to potentially do a bit more restructuring that to come that [indiscernible] 400 to 500 basis point margin. But again, this is really about rebalancing investments to make sure that we're well-positioned.

[Nevan Yochim, analyst]

Okay. Understood.

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

The other point to keep in mind, again, as you guys are modeling this out, is we plan these actions to happen in the middle of the quarter. So you're only getting a partial quarter benefit in Q1 as a result of that. So it was designed exactly as we had planned it out. But so in terms of your modeling, just think about the fact that we didn't get a full quarter's benefit of the actions that we've already taken.

[Nevan Yochim, analyst]

Okay. And so is it fair to say then that you'll be at the full run rate beginning in Q2? Like would it ramp up in Q3 and Q4 as well? Or sort of is Q2 the full run rate?

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

So it would be your latter comment. As I mentioned, there are additional opportunities that we're exploring as we continue to rebalance our resources to get us more geared towards the commercial invasion of our offers away from the development of our platform.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] We'll go next to Richard Tse, National Bank Financial.

[Richard Tse, analyst]

Can you maybe talk about any operational investments you're currently making beyond acquisitions to open up those markets given that you've broadened the portfolio? And I guess related, how do you see the geographic mix of this business sort of changing over the next 2 to 3 years out from kind of, let's say, a North American versus, I don't know if you want to say Europe or international? Just kind of trying to understand how that's going to roll out.

[Jim Hannon, executive]

And so, Richard, our operations focus has been -- so when you're in this type of market, and we plan our cost and expense to the lower end of the guidance range, right? So and we'll release investment as we see pipeline build and conversion of bookings to revenue. Our operating focus has been on taking many of our processes across both the Analytics business as well as the Tax business and taking our best-in-class processes from our teams and concentrating them into one team in our global service center. So not only do we get wage arbitrage, but we're getting really talented folks in that organization who are also bringing process discipline to the whole business. As we do that, it also gives us data synergies across all of our business units. So we get operating efficiencies and we expand our data sets as they all land into the common platform of the office performance platform. So that has been our focus, that will pay dividends in the quality of the advanced analytics, and it improves the operations and the service delivery of both Analytics as well as the Tax business. As far as North America and international, we expect our international growth to pick up again with Forbury at the center of our strategy there. From a VMS perspective, we're following our clients. However, we expect that our bookings backlog in VMS is going to deploy. We think that assets are -- when portfolios transactions come back to speed, that assets are going to accrue to our client base at a faster pace than any other buyers, and that is going to drive significant growth in the U.S. So the U.S. or North America versus international mix may not change, even though we're driving growth strategies internationally predicated on Forbury.

[Richard Tse, analyst]

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And I guess this is maybe a development question. How do you make a decision as to when you go out and acquire this technology versus develop it internally?

[Jim Hannon, executive]

That's a fantastic question. Forbury is a great example of that. So as we looked at the U.K. market and the Australian market in particular, for several years we teed up the investment to bring the alternative valuation methodology into ARGUS. And each time I went through that with the team, we determined that the development investment combined with the go-to-market and the branding and the displacement of a really great company like Forbury didn't lend itself to organic pursuit and led us to the acquisition. So speed to market, Reonomy is another -- and StratoDem are both great examples of that. We had our data strategy and our benchmarking indexing and scoring strategies in place. And those 2 acquisitions accelerated the development in both cases. And then at the heart of it is we are -- we look at this from a time to cash flow breakeven and an IRR analysis. So putting all of those together is how we get to that decision. And then of course there's the -- our target leverage on the balance sheet, which is a giant factor in our decision making.

[Operator]

We'll take the next question from John Shuter, RBC Capital Markets.

[John Shuter, analyst]

This is John on for Paul Treiber. Just firstly, on the U.K. annuity billings, we're in Q2 now and wondering if you could just remind us again in set expectations regarding the additional revenue to be expected from that in Q2.

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

We don't necessarily disclose the specific annuity revenue, but as you know, our progress on the 2023 list as compared to the 2017 list is pretty robust. And so just from an absolute dollar perspective, we would expect that 2023 list would generate more annuity than we did in 2017. With that said, we continue to watch the throughput from the VOA as it relates to the U.K. in general. If the VOA had a very heavy influx of 2017 list items, that most of our 2017 settlements had already been approved because they were high-quality appeals, but the VOA still has a very heavy backlog of 2017 appeals that they're still processing through, which is impacting their ability to appropriately work their way through the 2023 list. And so again, that is something that we're staying very close contact with the VOA, that agency to make sure in regards to just their general progress. So that is a gating factor for us as we think about the U.K. performance in general. But I would say, in general, we're seeing great pipeline build. We're seeing great backlog building for the 2023 list, and we're going to continue to see the VOA work their way through the Q3, Q4 2017 settlement that they've received a heavy influx for.

[Jim Hannon, executive]

So the normal Q2 seasonality will push more to Q3 and Q4 is what we're telling.

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

Yes.

[John Shuter, analyst]

Okay. Got it. And maybe just switching to Analytics. Can you speak to the --

[Jim Hannon, executive]

And John, that will also, again, remember the geo margin mix that goes with that.

[Pawan Chhabra, executive]

Yes.

[Jim Hannon, executive]

So the U.K. '23 list pushes out to Q3, Q4, that's the higher-margin revenue. So we have to factor that into our planning as well. So Q2 revenue came into Q1. And then the U.K. Q2 was pushed into Q3, Q4. So the revenue moves out and the margin mix changes for Q2.

[John Shuter, analyst]

Okay. And then just on Analytics, can you speak to the upsell opportunities for customers that have migrated to AE cloud and specifically what proportion of those you're seeing deploy additional offerings?

[Jim Hannon, executive]

It's the new offerings are part of AE cloud and you're going to see those offers when they go [ GA ], come even closer together. So if clients are on cloud, then their purchasing motion will be new feature functionality on top of it. But as clients are migrating, they're going to be seeing that more as one inclusive offer price. Again, if they're just -- if they're using ARGUS for transactional purposes, they will have that option to stay in kind of that basic or standard ARGUS license at a per user. But what the largest clients are working with us on is one price that includes ARGUS market insights, Reonomy and/or [ ADS ] data, depending on which market they're in and looking at it more on an enterprise-level pricing, which typically manifests itself as asset-level pricing.

[Operator]

Everyone, at this time there are no further questions. I'll hand the conference back to Jim Hannon for any additional or closing remarks.

[Jim Hannon, executive]

No. We thank everyone for the time. It was a good quarter for the Altus team. We continue to -- I think the team is very successfully navigating turbulent markets. We keep putting up the recurring revenue growth. We're putting up the margin expansion. We're comfortable with our outlook for the year. And we appreciate your time here.

[Operator]

And once again, everyone, that does conclude today's conference. We would like to thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.