Earnings Labs

HealthStream, Inc. (HSTM)

Q3 2018 Earnings Call· Tue, Oct 23, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the HealthStream Third Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference, Ms. Mollie Condra, Vice President of Investor Relations and Communications. Ma’am, you may begin.

Mollie Condra

Management

Thank you, and good morning. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter 2018 results. Also on the conference call with me are Robert A. Frist, Jr., CEO and Chairman of HealthStream; and Gerry Hayden, Senior Vice President and CFO. I would also like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements regarding future events and future performance of HealthStream that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Information concerning these risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements are contained in the company’s filings with the SEC, including Forms 10-K and 10-Q. So with that start, I’ll turn the call over to Bobby Frist.

Bobby Frist

Management

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to our third quarter 2018 earnings call. We have a lot of news to cover, as we dive into the numbers and look at the accomplishments of the quarter. But before we do that, I’d like to recognize one thing that occurred in the quarter that I’d like to discuss. In our earnings release issued yesterday, we announced that our CFO, Gerry Hayden, has tendered his resignation from the company. He will remain in his position as CFO to the filing of our Form 10-K for the full year 2018, which we expect to occur in March of 2019. The Board of Directors will always see a process to fill the CFO position working with me and the rest of management. Following Gerry’s departure as CFO, Scotty Roberts, our Vice President of Finance and Accounting, will serve as interim CFO. Scotty is the CPA, who joined the company 16 years ago after working at Ernst & Young. As Gerry’s prodigy, Scotty has broad experience in financial reporting and financial operations, making him an ideal interim CFO and a candidate to fill the position permanently. All of us at HealthStream want to thank Gerry for his tremendous service in the company for over a decade as our CFO. And then, actually he served for three years prior to that period on our Board of Directors, and we’re grateful for that service as well. His leadership and financial expertise have played an important role in our growth as we’ve successfully navigated the company through many opportunities. He has built, led an outstanding Accounting and Finance department and team, and he’s mentored a strong bench of financial talent that will serve the company well for many years to come.

Gerry Hayden

Management

Thank you, Bobby. It’s been an honor to serve the company as CFO over the last decade and work with everyone here at HealthStream. I look forward to we’re wrapping up the year and including my tenure at HealthStream, it looks good getting up 10-K filed, as Bob mentioned, next March. After that time, I’m working as a Senior Executive Advisor, working closely with Scotty Roberts to ensure a very smooth transition. He’s very capable and well with qualified stepping into the CFO role here at HealthStream.

Bobby Frist

Management

All of us at HealthStream wish Gerry, a much success whenever future endeavors he choose to pursue. I’m sure you’ll have some more questions about that in the open dialogue at the end. Let’s dive into the quarter, and the numbers, and the details. Compared to the third quarter of last year, quarterly revenues were up 9%, operating income was up 71%, income from continuing operations was up 75% and adjusted EBITDA was up 22%, while in most all accounts in all core measures the metrics were solid. However, we didn’t end the quarter exactly where we expected to with regard fulfilling open staff positions. So expenses were a bit lower-than-expected in the quarter. And as we look to the fourth quarter, we expect to begin to ramp some more of that hiring, particularly in the preparation for launch of new products early next year. In addition, we benefited from a few nonrecurring revenues in the quarter, which Gerry will further elaborate on in just a moment. Overall, our third quarter results give us confidence in achieving updated guidance we provided yesterday. We intend to continue as planned with increased investment and accelerated hiring in preparation with the launch of exciting new higher margin products early next year. As we discussed in our call last quarter, we are investing in products like our new resuscitation solutions, which will carry higher gross margins in the legacy products that they replaced. In fact, the new resuscitation solutions will carry approximately double our existing resuscitation product margins. As these products and solutions are adopted by customers, we expect to see a positive impact on gross margins in the years to come. As a reminder, at the end of June 2017, we announced that our current agreements with Laerdal Medical for the HeartCode and…

Gerry Hayden

Management

Thank you, Bobby, and once again, good morning, everyone. Before reviewing our third quarter results, I’d like to note that, one, all results are from continuing operations only. So for example, 2017 and 2018 results exclude the gain on a sale of our previously divested Patient Experience business segment, the result of operations of that segment prior to the divestiture. And two, 2018 results are presented in accordance with the new Accounting Standards Codification 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers, also known as ASC 606, whereas results from – for 2017 are presented in accordance with ASC 605. Excuse me, here are some highlights from the third quarter. Consolidated revenues were up 9% to $59.9 million. Operating income was $4.7 million in the third quarter of 2018, up from $2.7 million in the third quarter of 2017, with a $1.1 million positive impact in the third quarter of 2018 from the application of ASC 606, the new accounting standard. Net income from continuing operations was $3 million in the third quarter of 2018, up from $1.7 million in the third quarter of last year, with $819,000 positive impacts in the third quarter of 2018 from the application of ASC 606. Earnings per share, or EPS, from continuing operations was $0.09 per share diluted in the third quarter of 2018 compared to EPS from continuing operations of $0.06 per share diluted in the third quarter of last year. Adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations was $11.1 million in the third quarter of 2018, up from $9.1 million in the third quarter of 2017, with a $1.1 million positive impact in the third quarter of this year in application of the ASC 606. Our 2018 financial reporting includes two developments that originated in the first quarter of this year and continue to be…

Bobby Frist

Management

Thanks, Gerry. We’ve got a few more conferences to cover before we turn it over to questions. And so I want to provide an update on our initiatives we introduced last conference call. As we’ve discussed before, the HealthStream network is now made up of approximately 4.9 million users and over 75 partnerships. In our second quarter, we introduced a new and improved way for customers and partners to access and participate in our network. We call it hStream. Our new hStream technologies represent enhancements to our platform in the beginning of our new platform as a service capabilities. We released hStream on April 30 of this year, and it is currently has approximately 587,000 subscriptions under contract as of Q3. For each existing customer contract that comes up for renewal, along with any new customer contracts, we are including a subscription to hStream. A subscription to hStream enables many exciting new features and benefits for customers. Stay tuned, in the coming months, we’ll provide more details regarding the new product enabled by hStream, the new partnerships that leverage hStream and the new services that are powered by hStream. Importantly, hStream also serves as a bridge between our workforce development and Provider Solutions business segments. In the third quarter, for example, Verity has began including hStream subscriptions in contracts for its new SaaS platform. Because of this, we believe that hStream subscriptions will soon be the most – representative metric for measuring the progress of our business. In fact, we intend for our 2018 year and earnings release to be the last time we provide our legacy subscriber metrics, which focused on a narrow representation of our learning applications. Instead, we intend to replace those metrics by reporting the number of hStream subscriptions. We look forward to reporting the progress of hStream, both in terms of subscriptions and the value it brings to our customers and partners. One last note. In the spring of 2019, we are scheduled to move into a new national office, which was prompted by the end of our current long-term lease and interest in consolidating multiple offices in Mill, Tennessee. In absolute terms, our operating expenses associated with occupying new location will increase by approximately $2 million in 2019. This increase is less expensive in the alternative renewing and remaining in our current location and continuing to occupy multiple locations in Mill, Tennessee. We’re excited to move into the new office. It is an area known as Capitol View, which is part of the thriving tech community near Downtown Nashville. We think this new location will be – will provide great energy and excitement to our culture and also assist with recruiting new tech workers to our business. At this time, I’d like to turn it over for questions from the investor community.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And our first question comes from Matt Hewitt with Craig-Hallum.

Matt Hewitt

Analyst

Good morning. And congratulations on the strong quarter.

Bobby Frist

Management

Thank you, Matt.

Matt Hewitt

Analyst

A couple of questions about the resuscitation, and then I’ve got a different follow-up question. Regarding the resuscitation, what percentage of your customers today are under contract through 2020?

Bobby Frist

Management

I don’t have that number in front of me here. So that’s probably – well, there is so much still open about the current products. I mean, in the last eight weeks of selling are so critical to our future forecasts that we’re going to probably need to take their questions now, write them all down and come back in February when we provided guidance and answer them all. So I don’t have that number in front of me right now, but we will provide it in the February earnings call. So if you have other questions related to that. By then, we’ll have a more perfect view of the two-year trajectory and wind down of those businesses. We’ll know the shape of the revenue curve essentially. Right now, it’s $51 million. It will probably peak in Q1 of next year, and then begin its decline to 0 by the first quarter of 2021. So if you have any more detailed questions, we’ll write them down and consider them all for our February release, where at that time, we’ll have wrapped full year of sales. We’ll know pretty much the – almost the exact revenue curve and be able to answer related questions like the percent of the customers that you just asked. And any other related questions, go ahead and lay them out.

Matt Hewitt

Analyst

Okay. And then one other question regarding that product. The resuscitation card that the American Heart Association provides, that was potential sticking point with some customers. Have you figured out, as you talk to some of those customers that have been up for a renewal, where they sit on that? I mean, is there going to be – are you going to be able to work around that card?

Bobby Frist

Management

No, we are – obviously, our new partnerships are signed and developing and they include new partners for all the dimensions I’ve spoke out, including a new credential that’s based on international science that we think it’s globally accepted. But we’re not in a dialogue with any customers about their acceptance of our new products. In fact, they are remaining unannounced, and we won’t launch or begin discussing with our customers those new products until January.

Matt Hewitt

Analyst

Okay, fair enough. I’ll shift away from that. During your prepared remarks, you had mentioned that there was some higher cloud hosting costs. Is there any way for you to mitigate some of that going forward? Or is that just going to be a stepped-up expense going forward?

Bobby Frist

Management

Well, we’ve always done managed hosting as we’re a SaaS application, so we have our own managed hosting costs, where we provide our multitenant SaaS applications and a managed hosted environment. So we have those costs. As we move those services, which are already web-based to Amazon Web and Azure and other hosts – and a fully managed hosted services, outsourced services, we’ll probably see some more overlapping of those costs, particularly into the next year. Of course, ultimately, I would say within 18 months, our capital outlays for acquiring hardware that goes into our managed hosting facilities will decline, and we’ll start to see a benefit of the move to Amazon and Azure, the two primary hosting services we’ve selected. So we will have some overlapping expenses, probably into the next year. And – but then ultimately, again, as we look beyond that, we’ll start to see through that financial benefit to those moves.

Matt Hewitt

Analyst

Okay, great. And then one last one from me regarding hStream. Thanks for the heads-up that you’re going to be switching the metrics that you provide. How quickly do you anticipate, I think you said approximately 580 – or 580,000 subscriptions now. How quickly do you anticipate that catching up to the 4.9 million fully implemented subscriber number that’s your – you provided this quarter?

Bobby Frist

Management

Sure. When we think it go pretty fast because so far since April, we have met no resistance at including it into the contracts. In fact, we met some enthusiasm because as we mentioned, customers get some immediate technical benefits and upgrades to their products when they include it. And so, if you think of our renewal cycles on our platforms and the fact now that the hStream subscription is included with most all of, and hopefully by Q1, all hStream products will include a subscription, we think it should move rather quickly. I would say, if you think of our average contract life spanning two to four years, let’s pick three as the midpoint, within 36 months, we should have the whole network migrated. And maybe faster if renewal coming faster and there are reasons for early renewals, for customers to get access to this benefits of hStream, which there are numerous benefits already. And let’s say, 30, 36 months is probably a good target.

Matt Hewitt

Analyst

Okay.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Scott Berg with Needham. Your line is now open.

Scott Berg

Analyst · Needham. Your line is now open.

Hi, Bobby, congrats on the good quarter and thanks for taking my question as well. Bobby, I was hoping you could help us explain why is the new hStream seems the right metric to use going forward? Trying to understand what maybe the direct revenue opportunities or general economics of the – of that platform are? And why maybe that’s the right meaningful number to value? Or at least to get a view on how the business is growing?

Bobby Frist

Management

Well. Sure, Scott. So, one fulfillment, as you know we’ve moved from having almost a singular application, our learning application, to a set of applications. And now with hStream, we have an infrastructure that supports all applications at HealthStream. And so at first look, hStream is a more fundamental, included set of architecture with every piece of technology that we sell. And so in that – in effect, from a business standpoint, it’s like our iOS, it’s like our operating system. And secondarily, it’s common across all of our business units. So we’ve started a long time ago measuring the penetration adoption of our learning platform. And as we expanded the learning platform to tools like our checklist to our competencies center, the singular metric of measuring subscriber to learning system was an important metric, but it wasn’t an encompassing growth in other areas. And so over the last two – last quarter, and this quarter, and next quarter, we’re beginning every one, the migration for this measure that we think will represent a more fundamental core metric that is inclusive of all of our business units across all of our segments. And then secondarily, it does represent new functionality. And so it is platform-as-a-service capability and the host of capabilities allow us to build both new features, new products, share revenue with partners in new ways and sign new forms of partnership agreements to have access to and leverage the network that’s in place. And so again, it represents a bit of a move from a software-as-a-service application suite to a platform-as-a-service. It is more fundamental to all of the business segments, all the new products, like Verity, include subscriptions to hStream, and so we think it is more global and more representative of our future direction as a…

Scott Berg

Analyst · Needham. Your line is now open.

Got it. Very helpful. And then one follow up maybe for Gerry. Sad to see you leave. Congrats on whatever the next adventure leads you to. Hopefully, some R&R. But on the onetime fees in the quarter, especially the contract with the shift to consumption. How much volatility does that create in the model or variance, I guess, as going forward? Because, my guess, is that those additional revenues are probably pulled forward from future periods since they were consumed in the quarter versus future quarters. And just trying to understand if that’s maybe going to create, I don’t know what the right number is, $0.5 million to $1 million variance maybe between two quarters? And then maybe what’s your visibility to those, at least on a short-term basis?

Gerry Hayden

Management

Yes. So maybe a couple of overriding comments. Very few, there are a few contracts, as the consumption-based. Most all subscription-based was kind of, an anomaly because large customers are still anomaly. Second, this – the revenue spread, I think, the way to look at that is just take the variance this quarter, spread it over two quarters or so. That’s probably with the right run rate to a normalize, did that helped?

Scott Berg

Analyst · Needham. Your line is now open.

That helps very much. Thank you very much for taking my questions.

Gerry Hayden

Management

Thanks Scott.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Steve Halper with Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open.

Steve Halper

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open.

Hi, last quarter, you talked about – you mentioned some consciousness about the launch of the new resuscitation products. How do you feel about that three months later, as we are approaching that launch?

Bobby Frist

Management

Well, of course, it’s daunting. It’s a new product that gets an incumbent that has a strong product that we’ve represented well for a long time. But it is also a very exciting. There is new energy in the market. And with our partners to see that there is more than one way to achieve an outcome and in fact maybe improve on outcomes. And so I think that our partners, we have a lot of energy. I think watching the development process internally, there’s a lot of excitement. But the caution is that it’s new and its launch is in January. And it’s going to take cycles to get it into the market and see its acceptance. So the energy inside the company and within our partners is high and as is the excitement for the future, but it is not a small path to create choice and selection, where previously there has been none.

Steve Halper

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open.

Right. So do you feel better about it than you did three months ago?

Bobby Frist

Management

I do, yes. But that doesn’t mean that in the first quarter, we’re going to be able to fill the holes of a very strong and large product that’s historically grown. And so I absolutely feel better, but you have to think, my caveat is more about the horizon. We are trying to explain this as a long-term opportunity and issue. It’s not a Q1 fix having a new product for what has been a long dominant and positive experience with prior products.

Steve Halper

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open.

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Brian Hoffman with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

Richard Close

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

All right. Yes. So it’s Richard Close. Thanks for the questions. I’m just trying to understand this hStream a little better. I know, you tried to explain it to me last quarter. But just – so let’s say, I’m a learning customer and that’s all I want is the learning platform. Why do I need this hStream? And how is it included in the product? I’m just trying to better understand why an existing customer gets the new platform and/or is the learning platform integrated in hStream? And just is there an upside to revenue associated with re-signing with hStream? Just can you walk – try to walk me through all that?

Bobby Frist

Management

Yes, sure. Yes, I can. And we’ve identified about six or seven value propositions that will play out over the next two years. But that’s a – I’ll take the first one that you hit on, which is, why would our customer of the current learning platform be excited to renew their contract and add hStream to it? And what does that mean economically? So the net economic impact will be a smaller slight positive. If you had, take a prior contract in your – on the learning center and you upgrade, we’ve effectively broken the application, which is the learning center from hStream, which is this, platform-as-a-service architecture. And so in your purchase of the learning center, you would see the bill kind of effectively split. And just for simplicity, let’s say, it’s split in half. But it’ll be split in half and then a slight up charge for hStream, because of the value that it’s going to bring. And let me give you some example of the value. So the HealthStream Learning Center connected to the old architecture had certain capabilities. They are wonderful, they got us a lot of the market share we enjoy today, but there are new capabilities immediately available to the new customer of the old learning system connected to the new hStream platform. One of the first is a new set of capabilities we call My Team. And My Team is a new set of management tools for managers to better manage learning of the direct reports to them. And so there’s a new set of features that our sales team is very excited about that are only enabled by connecting to hStream. And so upon renewal, we can go back to the HLC, the learning customer and show them the new features…

Richard Close

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

Okay. That is helpful. As a, I guess, follow-up to that, let’s say, I’m that learning customer, I come up for renewal and I balk at the upcharge to hStream, I decide not to upgrade to the hStream. Do I essentially walk away from you? Or do I renew...

Bobby Frist

Management

It hasn’t happened yet. And – so it hasn’t happened yet since April. I guess it could happen, and it might create a bit of conundrum. What we probably do is elect to leave them on the older architecture, if we wanted to retain them. But right now, we’re batting 100% right now. I’m sure across 4,000 customers, we’ll find one, who doesn’t want the incremental value for small incremental cost. And we’re trying to make the value, it’s overwhelming like Amazon Prime that it’s really, it’s a no-brainer. For example, we’ve also moved 300 free industry courses, almost like the Amazon video we have 300 free industry courses, including with your hSteam subscription. And so this – our concept is like Amazon Prime, the overwhelming value and little debate involved in the renewal. And so far, we’re batting 100%.

Richard Close

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

Okay. And based on your comments here, with respect to this 1.7 million in e-portfolio, that’s with the specific individual. So are you saying, let’s say I move from hospital A to a wholly different entity hospital B, I’m able to take my, essentially, my education records and certifications that portfolio with me?

Bobby Frist

Management

That is correct. And so it’s currently powerful. It changes the opportunity and relationship with those individuals in our network, and it’s a place where they can carryforward their resume and some of their accomplishments. And what’s happening is the institutions are agreeing to release some of the institutional record-keeping to the individual, which if you think about it, and then you kind of do that anyway, if the individual earns education while working at a hospital, they go down to the records department and ask for a copy of the CE credits they’ve already earned. And then its a administrative burden that get them, those records for their individual life portfolio. Essentially, what guide us, made that process more seamless and allow the individuals to begin to carry those records with them, which are already their records.

Richard Close

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

Now is that free to the individual? Or do they pay a nominal fee, subscription fee or anything?

Bobby Frist

Management

It is free.

Richard Close

Analyst · Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

Okay, great. With respect to my final question here. Gerry, on the consumption, move to a consumption contract with the federal or government entity. Do you see this as any type of trend going forward where other customers might be shifting to that type of format?

Gerry Hayden

Management

No, not really. So what we see, as we look as, might be, kind of an anomaly this federal contract. They’ve looked at over the course of the HeartCode products, the subscription-based model roughly attracts consumption for most customers anyway, so they are very much in sync with each other. This is one of our large cost, one anomaly.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Frank Sparacino with First Analysis. Your line is now open.

Frank Sparacino

Analyst · First Analysis. Your line is now open.

On the compliance side of things, I’m curious, Bobby, is there any particular sort of macros being that continues to drive the growth and the compliance side of the business?

Bobby Frist

Management

We see some emerging opportunities. But we have a season, yes, they’re in development. We’re talking to new partners around the opioid crisis, which we think could turn into an opportunity and in an area where much help is needed, and much education is needed. But just a core compliance functionality of things like HIPAA and OSHA and remains in a corporate and Verity agreements. They all remain in place. For better or worse of our industry, there’s a lot of government oversight and a lot of continuing requirements in those areas. So there have been a few new smaller areas, but – and we are evaluating what’s happening around opioid epidemic as opportunity and it’s an important means for industry, but there is nothing immediately. I’ll just say it’s just the base drivers that have always driven that part of the business. We do have some innovative new products, both in the market now, the KnowledgeQ part we talked about and in development. And one of things that’s interesting about those products is that they leverage a little bit more of the power of our network by using data and benchmarking services. So we think we’re adding more value to our compliance products now than we did in previous generations of the products themselves.

Frank Sparacino

Analyst · First Analysis. Your line is now open.

And just one follow-up for me. I know you don’t want to get into 2019 guidance, but just – as I look at the commentary around, obviously, the transition to ASC 606 has been a benefit this year. But being behind in hiring this year, ramping up the sales in terms of getting ready for the new transition on the resuscitations guide. It seems that it’s unlikely we’re going to see definite the margin expansion we’ve seen this year. Is it more reasonable to assume a very modest increase next year? Or any comments there?

Bobby Frist

Management

Well, we – as you pointed out, we don’t provide guidance through our full budget cycle. We finished, or treating our five-year planning process. We just wrapped that up a month ago, and now we’re in detailed budget and that results in annual guidance in February. That said, we have provided, I think, a couple of important things that do you need to be thinking about in your modeling already. One related to our office move, which we just disclosed here at the end of the call of essentially the cost of office space is going up tremendously in Nashville. And in spite of a move to a more economical location and renewing where we are, our costs for rent will go up, we believe about $2 million are all-in occupancy costs. So that is something to be aware of, there’s another driver there. And then secondarily, of course, the biggest factor is the rate of decline and the resuscitation business that will pressure us and a lot of sales. The only, the hidden silver lining of that is, it is one of our lowest gross margin products. So as it actually began its dissent, gross margins will enhance. And to the extent that the new product get solved it all, gross margins can move up. So the long run profitability and leverage for the company to gross margin level, I think it starts to show through that level middle of next year. But overall, you’re exactly right. We’re launching a new product. We are moving to a new office and our need to increase the sales effort, the marketing efforts, the product development efforts are all continuous. So – and so that’s the limit of the guidance that I can provide now, but there’s clearly two factors that have downward pressure on at least next year. We’re trying to explain though the power of the shifts that we’re making in each of our businesses from the divestiture of the low margin PX to the launch of the double margin resuscitation product to the move to a SaaS platform at Verity and the sunsetting, the eventual sunsetting of the installed products at Verity. All of those moves, if you think years two and three and four start to have overall impact on the profitability and leverage of the company. But I would characterize 2019 and maybe in the part of 2020 as relatively tougher to show gains than we had – we’ve obviously, delivered on all of our promises this year, exceeding in this case, raising guidance. And so we’re really trying to reset the bar to look at two and three horizons for everybody and appreciate the moves we are making today and the impact we’ll have, say 18, and 24 and 36 months out.

Frank Sparacino

Analyst · First Analysis. Your line is now open.

Thank you, Bobby.

Bobby Frist

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jared Hayes [ph] with William Blair. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Hey thank you. Congrats on the quarter again. Just real quick here. I wanted to see if there was an update on the transition from the HealthLine and Morrisey legacy platform claims over to the new Verity platform? I guess, I’m wondering, what has been the initial uptick? And any early feedback that you may have on the new platform?

Bobby Frist

Management

Yes, there’s a lot of excitement on the platform. We think it’s a marketing-leading platform. We are, intentionally slowing walking a bit. There, actually is more demand to implement than we are currently leading to the gate as we learn to implement the new solutions. So we’re seeing a bit of a lag and uptake some of that intentional as we work out the newness of the system and get it where we wanted. And so I would say overall, we think we have a market-leading product. The early reception is good, the demand implement is high, but we are experiencing some slow downs in getting it implemented in Q2 and in Q3. Hope that will get resolved and all those models perfected as we enter into Q1 of next year. But currently, I would say, we’re behind our plans on getting it activated. I don’t think it’s a product issue. The product has been incredibly well-received. We just attended a national conference, and the energy, enthusiasm and excitement for its capabilities we believe are market changing.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, great. That’s very helpful. And then just one other thing I wanted to touch on. Going back to the cash balance. I’m wondering, if you could provide a little bit more color on potential uses of that cash. I know, kind of mentioned, potential organic or inorganic growth opportunities. And then more specifically, if M&A is something that you’re looking at, any color that you can provide on the marketplace as far as valuation multiples or things of that nature that you are seeing in the market right now?

Bobby Frist

Management

Yes, so we have an active M&A program. I think all of last year and through March of this year was kind of consumed with that divestiture, it turned out to be a little more complicated, but very successful. As you know, it resulted in both improvement in our cash balance and it really distributed a dividend. So, but that did take and distract our acquisition pipeline. But since it’s conclusion, we are rebuilding the pipeline. We have a lot of active dialogue, and we do expect to deploy capital and M&A activity over the coming months and years. We don’t quantify or discuss deals really until they’re closed. But if you ask me, do we have active intent to deploy capital on M&A, the answer is yes. We are trying to be our normal thoughtful organization on how we proceed with that. But M&A, we do believe we’ll contribute to our overall growth story in the next, really next year and thereafter.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Vincent Colicchio with Barrington Research. Your line is now open.

Vincent Colicchio

Analyst · Barrington Research. Your line is now open.

As filling some open staff positions. Could you give us more color on what positions you’re referring to? And if this is an issue that may linger, given the tight labor market?

Bobby Frist

Management

Yes, I think it’s a combination of many things. The shifting nature of development our company this platform-as-a-service. We’re recruiting new types of people. The focus on data, data and data assets are now we’re looking at hiring people with data expertise, data visualization expertise. So there is a bit of, we’re looking for new types of people to join the company, and so that creates challenges. The labor market is tight in – across the country, but in Nashville, in particular. And so that’s creating a little bit of slowness. So yes, I think it will be a persistent and ongoing challenge for all the tech companies, and we think, we are up in the challenge. And other ways too, some of this has been intentional meaning like a sales organization for the new resuscitation product. We didn’t want to ramp up all that hiring in the middle of the year, so it will be a full core press to sales positions between now and January to strengthen and get that organization, where we wanted by a launch in mid-January. So some of it was a bit intentional and some of it is market-based.

Vincent Colicchio

Analyst · Barrington Research. Your line is now open.

And then in terms of the competitive landscape, has there been any new product introductions by meaningful competitors in some of your more successful Workforce Solutions product areas?

Bobby Frist

Management

I haven’t seen anything, any revolutionary changes that’s changing any material market share. There’s a large group of competitors for almost everything that we do. And – but I haven’t seen anybody bring an equivalent of an iPhone to market that has set up all the attention. I think in some ways, our new hStream launch and the bundled energy around our new resuscitation products. I think, we’ve got some great things in the not-too-distant future.

Vincent Colicchio

Analyst · Barrington Research. Your line is now open.

Okay. That’s it from me. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we have a follow-up question from Brian Hoffman with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

Richard Close

Analyst

Yes. This is Richard, again. Just a clarification on the new office. The $2 million in extra costs, is that $2 million – should we think about that when you move in? And maybe just, what’s the target date? I think you said spring, if I’m not mistaken. So is that when the $2 million, incremental $2 million, starts to accrue, I guess? And then, Gerry, maybe how do we think about that facility cost in terms of, is that all in G&A? Or is that spread out in the different buckets on the P&L?

Gerry Hayden

Management

Yes, so Richard, first question, the $2 million was start to kick in Q2, four and roughly. So we take the last three quarters of 2019, as opposed to the full calendar year. The second, your second question, some part of the expense will be in depreciation and amortization. One of the things, we did to be very efficient in saving – and save money on the project was we need to finance these sort of improvements ourselves, which is a much, much lower, we require the cost of capital, let’s say, if we want the money on a lease term. So how – the amortization is one part of that expense, but the actual cash occupancy cost rent will be in G&A.

Richard Close

Analyst

Okay. And then, Bobby, just to clarify some of your comments on the facility costs, you said something I thought that longer term it would be better for you. Is that – but then, you also said, you have these higher costs. So I was just trying to clarify, maybe I misunderstood?

Bobby Frist

Management

Yes, so the comments on the cultural contributions that having everybody in one place from, right now, we’re spread across 20 miles apart in Brentwood and Nashville. So that will be a positive. I think the recruiting value of the new office will be good for the millennial workforce, which is over half of our workforce now. The teams that are – the people are choosing to live downtown, so the location is really excellent. And overall, relative to several other announcements we looked at, including staying here, the cost – we’re getting better deals, and how do we just stayed in place and renewed. But I know that, I have found some relative gain, it’s just that we thought we were really looking at about eight or nine locations and pick the best cost value to our company, which would be much lower than had we just even stayed and negotiated a renewal in the current business rent, which is in the central business district. So we moved out just a little bit. More methods to employ. We think a vibrant new committee and what was called Capitol View will help us recruiting. And so I was speaking to the intangible benefits, but in a pure financial sense that will cost us more to be there.

Operator

Operator

At this time, I’m showing no further questions. I’d like to turn the call back over to that CEO for closing remarks.

Bobby Frist

Management

Thank you, everyone, for listening. Thank you to our employees for their delivery of an incredible an outstanding quarter resulted in raised guidance. I want to thank Gerry Hayden for his contributions over the years, and also his dedication to work with us for several more months to get to the 10-K filing. And even after as our senior advisor to our company, he will be facilitating onboarding our interim CFO, Scotty Roberts, who will probably introduce also on that next call. Obviously, so we’re proud of Gerry’s contributions, excited for him as he thinks of new opportunities and appreciative of all of his and to the company over 12 years. So thank you all for listening. I look forward to reporting the next quarter.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.