Real Matters Inc

TSX:REAL

Earnings Call Transcript 2019-Q3

[Operator]

Good morning. My name is Kenzie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Real Matters Third Quarter 2019 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Lyne Fisher, Vice President of Investor Relations and Marketing, please go ahead.

[Lyne Beauregard Fisher]

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Real Matters financial results conference call for the third quarter of fiscal 2019. With me today are Real Matters' Chief Executive Officer, Jason Smith; and Chief Financial Officer, Bill Herman. This morning, before market open, we issued a news release announcing our Q3 results for fiscal 2019 for the 3- and 9-month period ending June 30, 2019. The release, accompanying slide presentation as well as the financial statements and MD&A are posted in the Investor Relations section of our website at realmatters.com. During the call, we may make certain forward-looking statements, which reflect the current expectations of management with respect to our business and the industry in which we operate. These forward-looking statements are based on management's experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments as well as other factors that we believe to be appropriate and reasonable in the circumstances. The forward-looking statements reflect management's beliefs based on information currently available to management and should not be read as a guarantee of the occurrence or timing of any future events, performance or results.Forward-looking information is subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that are difficult to predict and that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or results anticipated by the forward-looking information. A comprehensive discussion of the factors which could cause results or events to differ from current expectations can be found in the Risk Factors section of the company's annual information form for the year ended September 30, 2018, and under the heading Important Factors Affecting Results From Operations in the company's MD&A for the 3 and 9 months ended June 30, 2019, each of which is available on SEDAR and on our website. As a reminder, we refer to non-GAAP measures in our slide presentation, including net revenue, net revenue margins, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margins. Non-GAAP measures are described in our MD&A for the 3 and 9 months ended June 30, 2019, where you will also find a reconciliation to the nearest IFRS measure.With that, I'll turn the call over to Jason.

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Thank you, Lyne, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our call. Turning to Slide 3. Today, we reported consolidated revenues of $91.4 million and adjusted EBITDA of $10.4 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2019. As we outlined in our news release, this was a record quarter for our U.S. Appraisal business. We also more than doubled our U.S. Title volumes, and it was the highest quarter of adjusted EBITDA yet on a consolidated basis for Real Matters.Our third quarter results were an indication of how our platform scales and translates to adjusted EBITDA with higher volume. U.S. market volume was down an estimated 4.6% in the third quarter relative to the comparable period in 2018. Our estimated market change included modest growth in the U.S. mortgage origination market of 2.3%, which was offset by estimated declines in home equity and default volumes of approximately 30%. The increase in total mortgage origination volume of 2.3% comprises a decline in estimated purchase volumes of 4% and an increase in estimated refinance volumes of about 18%. We also estimate that average loan sizes for purchase and refinance activity increased about 5% and 29%, respectively, on a comparative basis. We were very pleased with the performance of our U.S. Appraisal business in the third quarter as we recorded market-adjusted volume growth of 18.2% year-over-year, expanded net revenue margins by 300 basis points and more than doubled adjusted EBITDA. We gained share with the vast majority of our Tier 1 lenders on a sequential and comparative basis, went live in new channels with 2 Tier 1 lenders and launched 4 new top 100 lenders in our U.S. Appraisal segment this quarter.Market share gains continue to be the main driver of our growth as we win share by outperforming competitors and being ranked at the top of lender scorecards on a consistent basis, which is a direct result of our platform and network of field professionals. These results put us on track to achieve our long-term market share objectives of 15% to 20% in our U.S. Appraisal segment by September 30, 2021.In our U.S. Title segment, Q3 revenues were up 52% year-over-year, and we recorded market-adjusted volume growth of 118.1%. We calculate market-adjusted volume growth based on our estimate of the total market. However, our U.S. Title segment almost exclusively services refinance activity. We estimate that the U.S. refinance market was up about 18% year-over-year, with the vast majority of our growth this quarter coming from market share gains, new clients and our view that the clients we service captured a larger portion of the estimated increase in market volumes for refinance activity.The significant increase in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margins in our U.S. Title segment reflects the benefit of the integration work we did, porting the business onto our platform, when we service higher volumes. In the quarter, we went live with 2 new top 100 lenders in our U.S. Title segment, and the sales pipeline continues to be strong. Overall, we were delighted with how our U.S. Title business performed this quarter. In our Canadian segment, third quarter revenues were down 11% year-over-year. Higher appraisal volumes from increasing market share with certain Canadian clients was offset by a weaker mortgage origination market in Canada. And with that, I'll hand it over to Bill. Bill?

[William P. M. Herman, Executive VP & CFO]

Thank you. Thank you, Jason, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slides 4 and 5 for a closer look at our financial results. Consolidated revenues were up 24% in the third quarter of fiscal 2019 compared to the same quarter last year due to significant revenue growth in both U.S. Appraisal and U.S. Title segments despite an estimated market decline of 4.6%. Revenues in our U.S. Appraisal segment were up 22%, with the U.S. Title segment revenues up 52% and Canadian segment revenues down 11%, each expressed on a comparative basis. In our U.S. Appraisal segment, we serviced higher origination volumes due to strong market share gains that were most notable with our Tier 1 clients. As a result, average revenue per unit increased in the third quarter as we serviced a greater proportion of higher priced origination volumes and a lower proportion of lower priced home equity and default volumes. Transaction cost in our U.S. Appraisal segment increased 17% year-over-year versus the 22% increase in revenues over the same period last year.Net revenue was up 39% to $14.6 million. Net revenue margins increased 300 basis points to 23.9% in the third quarter of fiscal 2019, up from the 20.9% posted in the third quarter of fiscal 2018, which was a slight reduction from the margins we reported in Q2 2019, in line with our expectations as we build capacity for the growth in volumes we serviced in Q3. The improvement to net revenue margins was due to the network effect, increased competition for volumes across our network and a higher proportion of higher priced origination volumes serviced. We are very pleased with the progress we've made to date as we march toward net revenue margins of 27% on a doubling of volumes from fiscal 2018 levels.Operating expenses in our U.S. Appraisal segment declined 8% to $6.1 million from $6.6 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2018 due to lower payroll and related costs attributable to productivity improvements from technology developments. This decline, coupled with the increase in net revenue, contributed to the 118% improvement in adjusted EBITDA year-over-year. In addition, adjusted EBITDA margins in our U.S. Appraisal segment increased to 58.3% in the third quarter of fiscal 2019, setting a new high watermark for this segment, and up from the 37% we posted in the same quarter of last year.In our U.S. Title segment, third quarter revenues were up 52% year-over-year, while transaction costs were up 50.8%, leading to net revenue margin expansion of 40 basis points. And while net revenue margins increased to 55.8% from 55.4% in the third quarter of fiscal 2018, net revenue margins continue to be a reflection of early days for our network management strategy in this segment. Higher sustained volumes to achieve scale and deliver a similar network effect as our U.S. Appraisal segment will drive improvement in net revenue margins.U.S. Title segment revenues attributable to reported volumes for this segment increased $5.8 million to $12.1 million. However, our average revenue per unit declined due to geographic and service mix. Diversified revenues increased due to higher capital markets and commercial activity, partially offset by lower third-party search services.Operating expenses in this segment increased to $8.5 million from $8.3 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2018, and adjusted EBITDA increased to $4.3 million from the $42,000 we posted in the same quarter last year. As Jason mentioned earlier, the scalability of our platform was demonstrated this quarter and how it delivered to adjusted EBITDA. In Canada, while revenues declined in the third quarter of fiscal 2019, we leveraged our network and expanded net revenue margins to 19.3% from the 17.0% we posted in third quarter of fiscal 2018. Canadian segment operating expenses declined to $0.6 million from $0.7 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2018 and adjusted EBITDA increased to $0.9 million from the $0.7 million reported in the same quarter last year. Putting this all together, third quarter consolidated net revenue increased 42.6% to $28.8 million, up from the $20.2 million reported in the third quarter of fiscal 2018 on strong contributions from both our U.S. Appraisal and U.S. Title segment. And consolidated net revenue margins increased to 31.4% in the third quarter of fiscal 2019, up from 27.5% in the third quarter of fiscal 2018, due principally to our more mature U.S. Appraisal business. As a result of the solid performance, consolidated adjusted EBITDA rose to $10.4 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2019, up from the $0.9 million in the same quarter last year. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA margins were 36.1% in the third quarter of fiscal 2019 compared to -- or compared with 4.7% in the third quarter of fiscal 2018. Turning to the balance sheet. We had cash and cash equivalents of $60.5 million at the end of the quarter, down $7.6 million from September, and we continue to purchase shares under our normal course issuer bid, purchasing approximately 1.3 million shares at a cost of about $6 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2019. Since June 30, 2019, we purchased an additional 379,000 shares under our NCIB. With that, I'll turn it back to Jason. Jason?

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Thanks, Bill. Looking back at our third quarter, we were extremely pleased with how the business performed on all measures. We serviced record high U.S. Appraisal transaction volumes and more than doubled U.S. Title volumes to deliver record high adjusted EBITDA. We increased our market share with our largest clients in the main origination channel for U.S. Appraisal and added new clients in U.S. Appraisal and U.S. Title. On a consolidated basis, net revenue increased 42.6%, adjusted EBITDA increased to $10.4 million and adjusted EBITDA margins increased to 36.1%. As I mentioned earlier, our third quarter results were truly indicative of the scalability of our platform as revenue growth drove significant increases in adjusted EBITDA.In our U.S. Title segment, we are seeing positive momentum in our sales cycle and remain optimistic about our growth prospects. Although U.S. mortgage market headwinds are largely behind us, we continue to be cautious as we watch moves in the 10-year treasury yield, which is the leading indicator of mortgage market volume. Overall, we're feeling good about the business, and we continue to focus on the things we can control, like operational performance and building scale to drive market share growth. Our fiscal 2021 market objectives are well within sight.In closing, I'd like to thank our team and the field professionals on our network for helping us deliver exceptional results this quarter.With that, operator, we'd like to open it up for questions now.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Daniel Chan with TD Securities.

[Daniel Chan, Research Analyst]

It looks like the Tier 1 lenders gained market share this quarter if you look at all the public players. And then Quicken just a couple weeks said that they had the best quarter ever. So what do you think that's happening there? And how does that impact you guys?

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Yes. So this is the second quarter now that we seem to be seeing strength in the regulated banks, specifically the Tier 1 lenders as well as Quicken relative to the rest of the market. I think it's still early days. These larger lenders are slower to react to the market than smaller lenders, but we're certainly watching this closely. They have large client bases. They've been investing in digital technology. And so it should bode well. I mean, these lenders are at record lows, really, of share of market, well off their highs. And so I think it's consistent with our long-term thesis that we should see strength within the regulated banks. And although it's not something that we've baked into our thoughts going forward in the business.

[Daniel Chan, Research Analyst]

Okay. And you guys had some really impressive operating leverage. So Bill, maybe you can remind us what your cost base looks like from a fixed versus variable perspective and how you expect the margins to move as the business scales.

[William P. M. Herman, Executive VP & CFO]

Sure. So I guess a couple of things there, Dan. So thinking back to our Investor Day, we had a split of about 60-40, 60 being variable, 40 being fixed on both segments of the business, U.S. Title and U.S. Appraisal. When we think about adding an additional dollar of net revenue to the current slate of volumes that we enjoyed in Q3, we see that additional dollar in U.S. Appraisal segment delivering $0.75 to adjusted EBITDA. And then when we move over to our U.S. Title segment, an additional dollar of revenue at the -- in U.S. Title will fall to about a $0.60 contribution to adjusted EBITDA. So longer term, I think we're still fixed on making sure that when we have a doubling of volumes, we see the -- our U.S. Appraisal business delivering 27% margins at the net revenue line and 60% at adjusted EBITDA, and we still think of Title, longer term, on the doubling of volumes, delivering that 65% net revenue margin with 30% adjusted EBITDA.

[Daniel Chan, Research Analyst]

Jason, just one last one for me. You guys sound a little bit cautious on the overall mortgage market. But overall, people are still expecting interest rates to drop from here. So just kind of want to get some understanding of what the -- what's backing -- what's behind a little bit of that caution?

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

I think it's just the variability of rates that we've seen and the difficulty in calling the long-term 10-year treasury yield. It's very difficult to predict. And we really focus on gaining market share, operating leverage and the things that we can control. And over the long term, that's what drives our success. So it's really the -- how that rate can move around and how it affects our business. I think for Q4, though, sitting here today in August, we're 1/3 of the quarter for our business, we certainly see strength there. The Appraisal business has still 2 more months of visibility that can be impacted by rate changes. Our Title business actually because closings are delayed, we have a little bit more visibility there. We certainly are seeing strength based on these rates.

[Daniel Chan, Research Analyst]

Congratulations on the strong quarter.

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Thanks, Dan.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Thanos Moschopoulos with BMO Capital.

[Thanos Moschopoulos, VP & Analyst]

Jason, if you can expand on your comments regarding the Tier 1s and their share gains, would that apply across both origination and -- I mean, new purchases and refi? Or is it more weighted on one versus the other?

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

No. I actually think we're seeing that balanced would be my view, i.e., we're not seeing one move more than the other. I'd also point out that each individual Tier 1 lender has a very different reaction. Some lenders remain sort of strong over the last 3 years. Others really seem to consolidate back, clean up their portfolios after the mortgage crisis and now have a more upside sort of bounce back. So I think each lender has its own strategy. But I wouldn't call out a specific deviation stronger on the purchase side or stronger on the refi side for the Tier 1s versus the rest of the market. And I would just underline here. I mean it's difficult really to see it in our views of share gains now, i.e., that specific Tier 1s are outperforming the market. It just -- it's still a small impact. It's just the second quarter now we're seeing it. [ It pierce ] the group to be outperforming the rest of the market. So we're going to watch it very carefully as we've really focused on good, solid regulated banks over the long term to drive our business.

[Thanos Moschopoulos, VP & Analyst]

Great. And in the Appraisal business, remind us of how much of an opportunity there is in expanding origination channels amongst the Tier 1s versus just growing the market share in the current channels you're in?

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Well, it depends on activity. So we estimate that the home equity market's down to 30% this year over last year. That is a combination of long-term rates are more appealing than the short-term rates right now. We'll see what happens after the Fed meeting today. In terms of short-term rates, that could add some benefit to the home equity activity. But some of the regulation changes of late have impacted the banks' desire to originate and really put their foot down on the gas pedal on lines of credit. So I mean it really depends on the market conditions, but we try to build a business that can weather peaks and valleys of a market. And so we're in the default channels with customers and that might be low now, but we could see an environment at some point in the future where we want to be gaining share there and offsetting perhaps a decline in mortgage origination. We want to be in the line of credit business. We want to be in the high net worth business, new construction business. So we're really focused on being the platform for our clients and being able to benefit from that as market conditions change. But the main -- purchase and refi remain the big market opportunities for us in our Appraisal segments.

[Thanos Moschopoulos, VP & Analyst]

Okay. Great. And on the competitive front, you've got inherently more scalable model than your competition, given your network model versus which competitors do. And so when we have a climate like this where refi volumes spike, does that provide you with more of an opportunity to shine over with the competition? And what dynamic is that having on sales cycles on the refi side?

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

So absolutely. We would get an outside improvement based on the scalability, our ability to react to the market, the loyalty in the market versus -- these are all independents. We don't use staff appraisers which are very difficult to scale when big moves in refi volumes and are difficult to plan for. So our market -- our model really shines there. And I think that on refi-centric businesses, these sorts of environments help accelerate our sales cycle with our prospective clients.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Young with Canaccord.

[Robert Young, Director]

I'd like to dig into a little deeper on that -- the profitability in appraisal. You said that each incremental dollar is 75% EBITDA margin. When you look forward into 2020, are there any areas of fixed cost investment that might change that? Is there any capacity expansion that you might need if maybe the Tier 1s grow share? Is there any like pricing pressure or availability of appraisers that might stress that incremental profitability?

[William P. M. Herman, Executive VP & CFO]

Yes. Rob, it's Bill. I don't -- based on what we've got here by way of line of sight, we don't see it. I think we've got all the fundamentals in place structurally for our business as it relates to fixed cost. I don't see those rising exponentially. And when we think back to Investor Day, we had that 60-40 split, variable to fix, moving to a 70-30. I think we're still grounded in that line of thinking. So don't see any significant fixed cost investments in the business in that regard.

[Robert Young, Director]

Okay. And then also looking again into 2020 and beyond, I think it's inevitable that rates are going to rise at some point, I think most people would agree. And so how would you think -- how would you advise investors to think about the business when that happens? And how is that going to be different than what we saw in 2018? Is there anything that you can -- any color you can give that can provide some support for investors there?

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Sure. Great question. I think the refi market is the greatest volatility here. And we've certainly been in an environment where, over the last couple of years, we've sort of seen 20% plus year-over-year declines in overall refi volumes. And that decline has abated, and we sort of hit a bottom here. If you look at the refi activity that's in the market, it's still pretty low from a historical perspective. And I think we have room on the rates in terms of protecting on the downside in terms of where we are in the market cycle. We're nowhere near -- Brexit is driving the tenure down and creating a big rate refinance boom. There's refinance activity out there. There's cash-out opportunity out there. And I think it's got less a downside. It certainly moves in the rates down can create short-term spikes, but we're still in low relative volumes of refi activity compared to historical point, so I think that helps smooth it out. We, of course, focus on the long term. We focus on building market share in Appraisal and in Title and being in other channels, being good operators, leveraging our platform to drive net revenue and even margin expansion that can excel through changes in the market dynamics. So we think we're in a good position in the cycle, and we think we have the right tools to continue to gain share regardless of the market cycle.

[Robert Young, Director]

Okay. And then I wanted to just confirm something you said earlier just to make sure I heard it correctly. I think you said that the potential for regulated bank share gains isn't included in your view going forward. I assume that's the 2021 targets. But maybe just more broadly, the way you are thinking about the business in near term, is that correct?

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

That's correct. And it's not included in the long term. And it's still early days to sort of see big outperformance in the regulated banks. You can get one-offs. As a group, they appear to be growing relative to the market, but it's still a small change. If that continued to be -- to continue that would certainly inform our thoughts about the future.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Gavin Fairweather with Cormark.

[Gavin Fairweather, Analyst of Institutional Equity Research]

Wanted to just follow-up on the scalability of the model, particularly in Appraisal. I mean when we think about the Q2, certainly the peak seat of the seasonal market for purchase, plus also a pickup in refi. So just wanted to get your thoughts on how the network kind of performed through that type of environment where you having to add a lot of new field agents to the network and how those KPIs hold up to that type of environment.

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Sure. So yes, in our Q2, we were around a 24.5% net revenue margin on Appraisal, and I think we messaged that we thought we'd see a slight degradation in that margin as we built capacity ahead of what we thought it would be a stronger spring market and higher volumes, which ended up being -- I would say that our SLAs and our performance did extremely well. I think our investments in our financial planning or analytics side of the business, along with the technology, has really helped us optimize performance and margin and really run our network business effectively. So I think that we were pleased with how that all came together, and it was in line with our expectations. I think that as we look forward in terms of the next quarter that we sort of would see a similar environment. And again, our 27% net revenue margin with still strong, phenomenal, operating performance on a doubling of volumes, we think, will be measured as we grow from these points up to those levels. And that's certainly not being a terminal value or view of what's possible, which -- a focus on market share gains continuing beyond that.

[Gavin Fairweather, Analyst of Institutional Equity Research]

Okay. That's great. And then just secondly for me, 5 clients now live on Title 2.0 in terms of top 100. Maybe you can just provide some insight on how that platform is performing versus your expectations? I'm not sure if you have any scorecard metrics that you could share with us or feedback from clients as we've ramped that up.

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Nothing specific. I think the vast majority of our volume and revenue growth in the quarter was from our execution with the clients and with the client share in the market and adding more. The pipeline continues to be strong. We're really focused on execution, being a scalable bank bulletproof provider for Tier 2s, with a view to the Tier 1 lenders and excelling at those core SLAs is sort of critical to that execution, and we're doing it well. I would say that we're continuing to make investments on our network of management for the Title business, leveraging the core appraisal capabilities. It will be a continuous process. We continue to get better. And we're sort of laser-focused on as we're looking forward on Tier 1 lender execution.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Richard Tse with National Bank Financial.

[Richard Tse, MD & Technology Analyst]

Yes. In your MD&A, I think you talked a little bit about technology innovation is helping drive that operating leverage. Can you maybe elaborate on some of the bigger and more notable innovations you made on that front to drive that leverage?

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Yes. I mean sure. Great question, Richard. I mean, we wake up every day to invest in network management capabilities that can drive improvements in, first and foremost, speed and quality, our ability to load the truck, got to get more volume to the better field professionals, to be able to anticipate coming volume versus where we might be right now to continue to build capacity. So the vast majority of our investments now, and as we look forward the next 12 months, will continue to be in that productivity enhancement of how we network manage. We tend to still focus on how do we -- how are we doing that to leverage the field professionals' productivity and output versus our own internal cost because the majority of that capability is outside of our 4 walls. But we're investing in mobile, we're investing in the data analytics, we're investing in feedback, we're introducing new metrics, and we're doing this at the same time that we're increasing share with lenders. We're doing this at the same time that we're introducing new niches like high net worth and new construction onto the business. And really being able to segment the networks even further so that we can drive the true professionals to meet the needs of the banks. And the more we do that on the margin and we look after outliers and exceptions for our customers, the more effective we think we'll be in driving our overall market share.

[Richard Tse, MD & Technology Analyst]

That's helpful. I guess related to that, if I kind of look back here at this name, is it fair to sort of characterize it as in the early days of you becoming public? It just took a matter of some time to understand the business and sort of recalibrate to get to this point where you're showing this leverage. And I ask that question because if you're there now, do you think you've kind of hit your stride and you're at this point now where you've got those systems in place sort of gain even more insight to adding areas of other potential -- areas of potential leverage here going forward?

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Yes. I think we're continuing to improve in how we're operating the networks. I think Appraisal was a more mature business and just keeps getting better as we're seeing in our results. Title, we were a lot further behind. We acquired the business in 2016. We had a lot of integration work to do. We've done a lot of that. We've got -- we're adding clients and adding customers. The Tier 1s are in insight. So I think we have strong visibility on what we've got to do. We've got a great team, and we're going to continue on that execution and expect it to drive growth for us going forward.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time.

[Jason Smith, Founder, CEO & Director]

Well, thank you, operator. That wraps up things for us today. Thank you for joining our call. Have a great day.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.