Q2 2022 CPI Card Group Inc Earnings Call

August 8, 2022

Scott Scheirman: Thanks, Amitur. The second quarter built on our strong first quarter performance, and we are pleased to be able to raise our outlook for the year. We have been able to navigate a challenging supply chain, labor, and inflationary environment, and deliver for our customers. Our portfolio of innovative products and end-to-end solutions continues to generate strong demand, and we have experienced very high growth from EcoFocus contactless cards and our SaaS-based instant issuance solutions, among other products. In addition, our prepaid business is doing well relative to expectations after the record sales year in 2021. As always, I would like to thank all of our employees for working hard to deliver these results.

Scott Scheirman: Execution of our strategic priorities of deep customer focus, market-leading quality products and customer service, continuous innovation, and a market-competitive business model continue to produce results and position us well to realize the long-term opportunities in our growing markets. Thank you for joining our call today, and we will now open up the call for any questions.

Operator: Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press Star 2. Please ensure you're unmuted locally when asking your question. Our first question for today comes from Jason Schmidt of Lake Street Capital Markets. Jason, your line is now open.

The company will be discussing one or more non-GAAP financial measures, including but not limited to EBITDA adjusted EBITDA adjusted EBITDA margin net leverage ratio and free cash flow reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures. The most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the press release and slide presentation that we issued this morning.

Jason Schmidt: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on really impressive results there. Just want to start with Q2. Just curious if there was any demand you were unable to ship because of the supply chain backdrop.

Copies of today's press release as well as a presentation that accompanies this conference call are accessible on Cpi's Investor Relations website investor about CPI card group Dot Com. In addition, Cpi's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 32022 will be available on Cpi's Investor Relations website.

Scott Scheirman: Jason, good morning. I would say yes. Clearly, customer demand is still very strong and robust, and we continue to work on improving our capacity, hiring talent, and making sure we've got robust supply chain. I would say, yeah, we could have done more, and I think that's reflective of we've increased our full year outlook this morning just because of the strong customer demand. Our quality and our innovative products are winning in the marketplace.

Now I'd like to turn the call over to President and Chief Executive Officer, Scott Shannon.

Thanks, Mike and good morning, everyone. During today's call I'll provide an overview of <unk> performance in the second quarter update.

Update our 2022 expectations and review our long term strategy.

I'm going to review the quarterly financial results in more detail and then we will open up the call for questions. We will start on slide four.

We continued our strong start to the year with second quarter sales, increasing 22% to $113 million.

Jason Schmidt: Okay. That's helpful. Just following up on that, I mean, with the lifted full year outlook, does that assume you guys are anticipating at least some easing in the supply chain, or is this really a function of demand is so robust, and even if supply chain remains tight, just given the demand profile, you guys should be able to kind of hit that new range?

Another record quarterly sales level, driven by strong customer demand across our business.

Second quarter sales growth was led by our debit and credit segment, which increased 29% and included strong contributions from contactless cards.

<unk> eco focused cards and our software as a service based card it wants instant issuance solutions.

Scott Scheirman: Yeah. We work closely with a lot of our customers, so we've got really good visibility for the next five months. July is already in the books for us, right, Jason? We have really good visibility with our customers. We anticipate having chips and other supplies we need, and the labor in place. Given the visibility with our customers, we feel really good about our outlook for 2022.

We sold more than $18 million eco focused cards in the quarter led by our recovered ocean bound plastic offering increasing our total to nearly 80 million cards sold since launch in late 2019.

Although the higher average selling prices of contactless cards benefit our revenue and continue to be an increased part of the mix. The majority of our card sales growth in the quarter was due to unit volume increases.

Our SaaS based instant issuance solution Carteret. Once it was also a major growth driver for the debit and credit segment in the second quarter as small and medium sized financial institutions continue to desire our plug and play solution.

Jason Schmidt: Got it. Just the last one from me, I'll jump back into Q. I know you outlined some of the dynamics that went into sort of that increase in operating expenses. Just curious if this kind of Q2 level is more the run rate we should expect here in the second half of this year.

Prepaid segment sales declined 6% compared to the exceptionally strong performance in 2021, which benefited from a significant new portfolio addition, and retail inventory replenishment related to COVID-19 impacts.

Scott Scheirman: Yeah, Amitur, I'll let you address that.

Based on first half results and anticipated orders, we now expect 2022 full year prepaid sales to be similar to the 2021 record level.

Amitur Kaplan: Yeah. No, I mean, I think as we think about the second quarter, we did have some expenses in the SG&A side that were a little bit higher than we would think they'd be on a normal run rate. Overall, I'd say yes. I'd say the run rate that we had in the second quarter outside of some of those SG&A expenses is probably a good run rate going forward here.

Adjusted EBIT increased 2% to $20 million in the quarter as the strong sales growth offset continued inflation impacts on costs.

Our objective is the passing on inflationary cost increases when possible, while maintaining strong customer relationships for the long term.

Jason Schmidt: Okay, that's helpful. Thanks a lot, guys.

Based on our strong first half performance driven by the exceptional sales growth and our visibility for orders for the rest of the year, we are again, increasing our full year outlook.

Scott Scheirman: Thanks, Jason.

Operator: Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you can press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. Okay, currently, we have no further questions, so I'll hand back to Mike Salop for any further remarks.

We have increased our net sales growth outlook for the full year to high teens, which is up from our previous outlook of low double digits as customer demand remains strong and we expect to have inventory supply and production capacity to reach these levels.

We are also increasing our adjusted EBITDA expectations to low double digits up from mid to high single digits in the previous outlook. While we continue to expect our full year adjusted EBIT margin to be slightly below 20%.

Mike Salop: Okay. Thank you, Alex. Thanks, everyone, for joining our call today, and hope everyone has a good day.

Current inflationary pressures are affecting margins for us as well as other companies, but we believe in more normalized times sales growth should lead to further operating leverage and we remain focused on having a market competitive business model and driving efficiencies over the long term.

Operator: Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your line.

So we anticipate 2022 to be another very good year for CPI as the combination of market demand and our high quality innovative solutions is leading to healthy double digit growth expectations for both sales and adjusted EBITDA.

Turning to slide five.

Before <unk> goes into more detail on financial results I would like to review the strategic priorities we have in place.

Critical to our success.

As noted on slide five key strategic priorities include deep customer focus market, leading quality products and customer service continuous innovation in a market competitive business model.

The implementation and execution of these strategic priorities has led to significant gains in market share and we believe we have become a U S market leader for eco focused cards personalization and instant issuance solutions for small and medium sized financial institution and prepaid debit card solutions.

We've built deep and long standing customer relationships with financial institution issuers of all sizes bank platforms, and resellers prepaid program managers and Fintech.

A particular area of strength that we have developed.

Our solutions for small and medium sized financial institutions.

About two thirds of our debit and credit segment sales are to those customers as they typically need a full suite of end to end solutions and often want to provider that can bring program expertise in marketing and technology support.

Small and medium sized financial institutions typically work with one provider and services are often heavily integrated so relationships tend to be very sticky.

One example of CPI solutions that appeal to small and medium sized financial institutions as our card it wants instant issuance service.

Our solution is easy to implement easy to manage and integrates with major card management platforms in the U S.

Providing a software as a service based offering rather than a hosted solution has enhanced our appeal to small and medium sized financial institutions and our innovative solutions has helped us broaden and strengthen customer relationships.

Another example of winning business with our end to end solutions, which includes consultation design production personalization and fulfillment is with Fintech.

Both small and scaling pantex have turned to us to develop card programs that match their unique styles and requirements, allowing them to provide their customers with cards and services consistent with our brand and business goals.

These are just two examples of how innovation quality and customer service have driven sales and market share growth over the last few years.

As mentioned in the past, we believe we operate in healthy growing markets and our strategic positioning gives us strong opportunities for additional share gains in the coming years.

Now I will turn the call over to Amit to review, our second quarter results in more detail on mature.

Thank you Scott and good morning, everyone.

I will begin my overview on slide seven.

Second quarter net sales increased 22% to $113 3 million compared to the prior year quarter, driven by a 29% increase in our debit and credit segment.

Would a credit segment growth was primarily due to increased sales of higher priced contactless cards, including strong growth in our eco focused cards strong increases in card. It wants instant issuance solution and personalization services for contactless cards.

Prepaid debit segment sales declined 6% compared with the prior year.

As of 2021 second quarter benefited from Onboarding, a significant new customer portfolios and retail inventory replenishment.

Second quarter gross profit of $40 $6 million increased 9% from the prior year, while gross profit margin decreased from 39, 8% to 35, 8%.

Primarily due to the inflationary impacts on material costs, and partially offset by operating leverage from sales growth.

Gross profit margin stabilized relative to the first quarter, increasing from 35, 3% in Q1 to the 35, 8% in Q2.

SG&A expenses increased by $4 3 million in the quarter compared to the prior year, primarily due to $2 million of increased compensation expenses, which reflects increased head count and includes $1 million of stock compensation expense that we did not have in the prior year quarter.

Approximately $1 million of incremental professional services costs, and approximately $1 million related to various items, including increased expenses and comparisons with a sales tax benefit in the prior year quarter.

Net income in the quarter decreased 1% to $6 2 million and adjusted EBITDA increased 2% to $19 7 million.

Adjusted EBITDA margin declined from 27% in the prior year to 17, 4% in 2022 second quarter due to the inflationary impact on production cost.

Which offset operating leverage and higher SG&A expenses.

Net income in the quarter also benefited from a lower effective tax rate, which adjust our year to date tax rate to 31% consistent with the prior year.

Turning now to our first half financial results on slide eight.

First half net sales increased 23% to $224 7 million compared to the prior year quarter.

By segment debit and credit sales increased 31% and prepaid declined 3% in the first half primarily driven by the same factors I mentioned for the second quarter.

First half gross profit of $79 $8 million increased 10% from the prior year, while gross profit margin decreased from 39, 9% to 35, 5% due to the inflationary impact on production costs.

SG&A expenses increased by $8 million in the first half compared to the prior year, primarily due to $4 million increased compensation expenses, including approximately $2 million of stock compensation and approximately $2 million of incremental professional services costs, including $1 million related to Sarbanes Oxley.

Net income in the first half increased 41% to $12 2 million primarily.

Primarily due to the impact of debt refinancing costs incurred in the 2021 first quarter.

Adjusted EBITDA increased 2% to $42 2 million, while adjusted EBITDA margin declined from 22, 7% in the prior year to 18, 8% in the 2022 first six months.

The increase in adjusted EBITDA was driven by sales growth and the resulting operating leverage partially offset by increased production and SG&A costs.

Turning now to our segments on slide nine.

I mentioned the segment sales drivers earlier, so I will just discuss segment profitability on this slide.

Income from operations for the debit and credit segment increased 25% in the quarter to $25 3 million driven by the higher net sales and operating leverage partially offset primarily by increased material costs.

For the first half debit and credit segment income from operations increased 22% driven by the same factors as the second quarter.

Prepaid debit segment income from operations decreased 30% in the quarter to $5 $3 million due.

Due to higher labor and material costs and lower sales.

For the first half prepaid debit segment income from operations decreased 23% driven by the same factors.

Turning to the balance sheet liquidity and cash flow on slide 10.

Our cash balance as of June 30 was $9 1 million and we had $25 million of borrowings outstanding of $175 million ABL revolver with proceeds utilized to fund our notes redemption in the first quarter and working capital needs.

We had $290 million of senior secured notes outstanding and our net leverage ratio as of June 30 was approximately four times.

Cash flow from operating activities in the first half of the year with a usage of $8 1 million and we utilized $8 2 million on capital expenditures.

This resulted in a year to date free cash flow being a usage of $16 $3 million in there.

The prior year first half, we had free cash flow generation of $19 million, which included $6 million.

Cash refunds, primarily related to the cares Act.

The free cash flow usage in the first half of this year was driven by increased inventory purchases of $18 million to continue to support customer demand and a $12 million increase in accounts receivable due to the 22% sales growth in the quarter.

We anticipate improvement in free cash flow for the remainder of the year as we collect receivables and stabilized inventory levels.

Our capital structure and allocation priorities remain focused on maintaining ample liquidity and investing in the business.

Cleaning possible strategic acquisitions Delever.

Deleveraging the balance sheet and potentially returning funds to stockholders.

Consistent with these priorities, we continue to target further lowering our net leverage ratio over time.

To reiterate what Scott mentioned earlier, we have updated our full year 2022 expectations to reflect high teens net sales growth.

Low double digit adjusted EBITDA growth and adjusted EBITDA margin of slightly below 20% likely in the approximately 19% to 20% range I will now pass the call back to Scott for some closing remarks on slide 11, Scott.

Thanks, Tom mature the second quarter built on our strong first quarter performance and we're pleased to be able to raise our outlook for the year.

We have been able to navigate a challenging supply chain labor, an inflationary environment and deliver for our customers.

Our portfolio of innovative products and Indian solutions continues to generate strong demand and we have experienced very high growth from equal focus contactless cards, and our SaaS base instant issuance solution among other products and.

In addition, our prepaid business is doing well relative to expectations. After the record sales year in 2021.

As always I would like to thank all of our employees for working hard to deliver these results.

Execution of our strategic priorities of deep customer focus market, leading quality products and customer service continuous innovation in a market competitive business model continued to produce results and position us well to realize the long term opportunities in our growing markets.

Thank you for joining our call today, and we will now open up the call for any questions.

Thank you.

I'd like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad excellent. So it's really a question. Please press star two piece and showing a mutually fleet when asking your question.

First question for today comes from Jason Smith of Lake Street, Jason Your line is now open.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on a really impressive results. There just wanted to start with sort of Q2. Just curious if there was any demand you were unable to ship because of the supply chain backdrop.

Yeah.

Okay.

Jason Good morning.

I would say, yes, clearly customer demand is still very strong and robust.

And so we continue to work on improving our capacity hiring talent.

And making sure we've got robust supplies supply chain, so I would say yes.

Could have done more and I think thats reflective of we've increased our full year outlook. This morning, just because of the strong customer customer demand.

Our quality and our innovative products are winning in the marketplace.

Okay. That's helpful and just following up on that I mean with the lifted our full year outlook does that assume you guys are anticipating at least some easing in the supply chain or is this really a function of demand is so robust and even if supply chain.

Remains tight just given the demand profile you guys should be able to kind of hit that new range.

Yes, we work closely with a lot of our customers. So we've got really good.

Visibility for the next five.

Five months July is already on the books for US right. Jason So we've got really good visibility with our customers, we anticipate having chips and other suppliers, we need and.

The labor in place so just given.

The visibility with our customers, we feel really good about our outlook for 2022.

Okay got it and then just a last one for me.

Jumping back into queue I know you outlined some of the dynamics that went into sort of that increase in operating expenses. Just curious if this kind of Q2 level. It is more the run rate we should expect here in the second half of this year.

Yes, <unk> I'll, let you address that.

Yeah, No I mean, I think it is.

We think about the second quarter, we did have some expenses in the SG&A side that were a little bit higher than we would think they would be on a normal run rate, but overall I would say yes.

I'd say the.

Run rate that we had in the second quarter outside of some of those SG&A expenses.

Probably a good run rate going forward here.

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks, a lot guys.

Thanks, Jason.

Thank you as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad.

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question that you compress stone one on just kind of thing keypad.

Okay County, we have some nice other questions. So I'll hand back to Mike <unk> for any further remarks.

Okay. Thank you Alex Thanks, everyone for joining our call today and hope everyone has a good day.

Yes.

Thank you for joining today's call you may now disconnect your lines.

Q2 2022 CPI Card Group Inc Earnings Call

Request a DemoDemo

PMTS

CPI Card Group

Earnings