IBEX Limited (IBEX) Q1 2027 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Welcome to the IBEX First Quarter FY 2027 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] To note, there is an accompanying earnings presentation available on the IBEX Investor Relations website at investors.ibex.co. I will now turn this conference over to Greg Bradbury, Investor Relations for IBEX.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, I want to remind you that matters discussed on today's call may include forward-looking statements related to our operating performance, financial goals, and business outlook, which are based on management's current beliefs and assumptions. Please note that these forward-looking statements reflect our opinion as of the date of this call, and we undertake no obligation to revise this information as a result of new developments which may occur. Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expected and described today. For a more detailed description of our risk factors, please review our annual report on Form 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 10, 2026, and any other risk factors we include in subsequent filings with the SEC. With that, I will now turn the call over to IBEX CEO, Bob Dechant.

Thanks, Greg. Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us today for our First Quarter Fiscal '27 Earnings Call. Fiscal Q1 marked another period of strong growth and great momentum. IBEX continued to capitalize on its differentiated offerings, driving top-end performance from our new logo engine and further market share gains within our existing customer base. We also achieved important wins with our AI agent solution supported by our growing partnership with Sierra. We began the fiscal year with a powerful 16% increase in revenue, bringing quarterly revenue to an all-time high of $175.2 million and marking our seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Our top line growth continues to flow throughout the P&L. In the first quarter, we delivered record results for net income, adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, EPS, adjusted EPS, operating cash flow, and free cash flow. Adjusted EBITDA margin was a robust 14.4%, up 150 basis points year-over-year. GAAP EPS and adjusted EPS have now each grown by double-digits in 9 of the past 10 quarters. As we have said previously, IBEX is structurally built for performance with each of our growth vectors also contributing to margin expansion, a trend we expect to continue. Perhaps most importantly, these results continue to validate a core theme we have discussed for several quarters. IBEX is getting better as it grows. Our financial performance continues to set new records. Our new logo engine is accelerating. Our client and employee satisfaction scores are reaching new heights, and our differentiation continues to separate us further from the legacy BPO pack. As we scale, this flywheel effect is becoming more powerful, and we are now seeing the impact of this compounding across the business, giving us increased confidence in our future performance. Our business continues to build momentum, fueled in part by our strategic partnership with Sierra. In the quarter, we signed 4 new logos for traditional BPO services. And in the weeks since, we have won 4 new AI agent deals and secured verbal wins on 3 more traditional BPO opportunities, all of which we expect to launch this quarter. Combined with the 9 new logo additions in Q4 FY '26, our new logo engine is firing on all cylinders, not only powering our growth flywheel, but accelerating it. We are seeing both the number of deals and the size of the opportunities increase across our land-and-expand model, and we are excited about the opportunities ahead. The revenues from our new logo wins for FY '26 and the first quarter of FY '27 further illustrate this momentum. Our FY '26 new logo cohort and our recent FY '27 wins accounted for approximately 50% of our revenue growth in the quarter. This is a significant increase from the prior 3 years. And we expect in-year revenue from the FY '27 cohort to reach an all-time high. This performance demonstrates the strength of our BPO 3.0 strategy as our competitive moat is growing wider and deeper. Our growth extended beyond new logos. During the quarter, we gained significant market share with our existing clients, driven by our stellar operational performance. Revenues from our top 5, top 10, and top 25 clients increased 14%, 13%, and 18%, respectively, year-over-year. This performance also reflects strong revenue and client retention, which remain at world-class levels, above 99%. These results reinforce our confidence that IBEX is well-positioned to navigate the broader AI transition. I'd now like to share an update on our landmark partnership with Sierra, which we formally announced in May 2026. Together, IBEX combines Sierra's market-leading conversational AI technology with our best-in-class CX expertise, technology integration capabilities, and our deep analytics. This enables us to design and deploy scalable end-to-end AI-powered CX solutions for leading global brands in weeks, not months or years. Momentum in the partnership continues to exceed our expectations. We are seeing strong results in implementation speed, resolution rates, and customer satisfaction. Our ability to orchestrate seamless interactions between AI agents and human agents further differentiate us. As I noted earlier, these results are contributing to new logo wins and market share gains with existing clients. We are winning AI-led opportunities, traditional BPO opportunities, and increasingly, engagements that combine both. Our pipeline remains robust. AI deployments are accelerating and demand is growing among clients seeking an integrated solution that brings together AI agents and industry-leading human support. These solutions also create opportunities for revenue growth and margin expansion, further strengthening our business model. As an example, earlier this year, we won an opportunity with a leading fiber provider that was facing significant issues in their customer care model, starting with their legacy IVR. IBEX delivered an impactful solution by implementing an AI agent powered by Sierra solution paired with an integrated CCaaS solution. Within 6 weeks, the AI agent solution was developed, deployed, and launched, displacing their legacy IVR. By having all contacts immediately reaching an AI agent, we were able to reduce abandoned calls by more than 60% without the need for our client to add additional headcount. Our solution is also showing a marked improvement in CSAT and significant cost savings. Based on the success we are having with this solution, our client has now awarded us their traditional call center work. By the end of December, we will fully displace one of our multi-billion-dollar competitors, taking 100% of their traditional human agent CX work as well. This is another example of how AI agents is a growth vector for us in our land and expand strategy. Our ability to respond and execute at the pace of AI has positioned IBEX to bring together the strengths of the leading AI and human-powered support in a seamless solution spanning the customer journey. This is the foundation of our BPO 3.0 leadership, and we are confident it will continue to deliver value for our clients and growth for our business. I have previously spoken about how proud I am of the strength of our business, our teams and our brand. In our September call, I reported how our employee Net Promoter Score increased from an already impressive 77 to an amazing 82. I am now pleased to report that for the year, our client Net Promoter Score increased from an equally impressive 71 to 83. These combined scores put us in unprecedented territory, not only for traditional BPO peers but across all industries. While our financial results underscore this fact, it's also great to have another validation point; that both our employees and our clients remain incredibly committed to IBEX. In September, we announced our official expansion into Egypt, a strategically important market for IBEX. The expansion further strengthens our best-in-class offshore English language footprint while broadening our multi-lingual capabilities to meet more clients' language needs. Since launch, we have already secured multiple wins, spanning both English and French language programs. In summary, fiscal 2027 is off to an outstanding start, positioning us for our third year of double-digit organic growth. We are growing faster, winning larger opportunities, advancing our AI leadership, and deepening our relationships with our clients and employees. As we continue to lead the next era of BPO 3.0, we are confident in our ability to build on this momentum. With that, I will now turn the call over to Taylor to go into more detail on our first quarter 2027 financial results and guidance. Taylor?

Thank you, Bob, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining the call today. In my discussions of our first quarter fiscal year '27 financial results, references to revenue, net income, and net cash generated from operations are on a U.S. GAAP basis, while adjusted net income, adjusted earnings per share, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow are on a non-GAAP basis. Reconciliations of our U.S. GAAP to non-GAAP measures are included in the tables attached to our earnings press release. Turning to our results. Our first quarter results are the strongest in our history. They included all-time records across nearly every key operating metric, including revenue, net income, adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, EPS, and adjusted EPS. In addition, operating cash flow and free cash flow were first quarter records. This was our seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit organic revenue growth, resulting in top line growth of 16% for the quarter. Our differentiated solutions and execution are clearly separating us from the traditional BPO pack. First quarter revenue was $175.2 million, up from $151.2 million in the prior year quarter. Revenue expansion was driven by vertical growth in health tech of 40%, travel, transportation and logistics of 16%, technology of 10%, and retail and e-commerce of 9%, with continued growth in our digital acquisition business and accelerating revenues in our AI agent solutions. We continue to win and grow in our onshore and offshore regions during the quarter. Our onshore region grew 37% compared to the prior year quarter, primarily driven by growth of our high-margin digital acquisition business and in our higher-margin health tech vertical. Our highest margin offshore revenues grew 14% compared to the prior year quarter. Our nearshore locations remained even with the prior year. Offshore revenue comprised 50% of total revenue, remaining relatively consistent as a percentage of our total business and helping us to achieve our strong gross margins of 30.4% for the quarter. Onshore revenue expanded to 29% of total revenue from 25% in the prior year quarter, reflecting the growth in our high-margin digital acquisition services and onshore health tech delivery. We have structurally built IBEX so that our growth vectors are our highest margin regions, services and vertical markets, and we expect that we will continue to be successful driving long-term margin growth. First quarter GAAP net income increased to $14.8 million compared to $12 million in the prior year quarter. The increase was primarily driven by the continued revenue growth, particularly in our higher-margin service offerings in regions, which helped to drive gross margin expansion of 90 basis points to 30.4% and operating leverage gained from SG&A expenses as they decreased from 17.5% to 17.2% of revenue, partially offset by an increase in income tax expense compared to the prior year quarter. Our tax rate was 19% versus 11% in the prior year, primarily attributable to changes in revenue mix across our taxable jurisdictions and favorable discrete tax benefits recognized during the prior year quarter. We expect our effective tax rate before discrete items for the fiscal year to be approximately 21% to 22%. Fully diluted GAAP EPS was $0.99, up 20% from $0.82 in the prior year quarter. Contributing to the EPS growth was the impact from strong operating performance. Moving to non-GAAP measures. Adjusted EBITDA increased 29% from the prior year to a record of $25.2 million or 14.4% of revenue from $19.5 million or 12.9% of revenue for the same period last year. This represented a 14% increase from our previous adjusted EBITDA record of $22 million in the third quarter of fiscal '26. The 150 basis point improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin was driven by improvement in our gross profit margin and a reduction in SG&A expenses as a percentage of revenue. Adjusted net income increased to $16.4 million from $13.1 million in the prior year quarter. Non-GAAP fully diluted adjusted earnings per share increased 21% to $1.10 from $0.90 in the prior year quarter. As a company, we are pleased with the client diversification we have established over the last several years. For the first quarter of fiscal year '27, our largest client accounted for 9% of revenue and our top 5, top 10, and top 25 clients, where we see many of our largest competitors, represented 34%, 53%, and 75% of overall revenue, respectively, representative of a well-diversified client portfolio. Importantly, we're continuing to grow with our top 5, top 10, and top 25 clients as they grew 14%, 13%, and 18%, respectively, versus the prior year as we continue to gain market share with them. We've done a tremendous job of not only retaining and growing our top clients, but also winning and growing new strategic clients. In fact, 3 of the new logos we have won since the fourth quarter of fiscal year '26 are already on pace to be in our top 25 clients for fiscal year '27. Switching to our verticals. Health tech grew 40% and increased to 17.5% of first quarter revenue versus 14.5% in the prior year quarter. Our other vertical grew 31% to 18.1% compared to 16% in the prior year quarter, driven by growth in our digital acquisition business. Retail and e-commerce grew 9% and represented 24.6% compared to 26.3% in the prior year quarter. Travel, transportation and logistics grew 16%, and technology grew 10%, both remaining relatively consistent with the prior year quarter at 14% and 8% of revenue, respectively. These increases were driven by continued growth in multiple offshore and onshore geographies and our continued ability to win significant new clients in these verticals. Conversely, our exposure to the lower-margin telecommunications vertical decreased to 8.8% of revenue for the quarter versus 10.2% in the prior year quarter as revenue remained flat in this vertical. Revenues from the fintech vertical were also relatively flat and represented 9.3% of first quarter revenue versus 11% in the prior year quarter. Moving to cash flow. Net cash generated from operating activities was a first quarter record of $16.3 million compared to $15.7 million for the prior year quarter, which was driven by an increase in our revenues and profitability. Our DSOs were 72 days, up from 69 days at the end of the last quarter and 71 days in the first quarter last year. We expect our DSOs to remain stable in the low to mid-70s on a go-forward basis. Capital expenditures were $7.2 million or 4.1% of revenue for the first quarter of fiscal year '27, down slightly from $7.6 million or 5.1% of revenue in the prior year quarter. The capital expenditures during the quarter were driven by $4.6 million related to facility expansions in our offshore regions and $2.6 million related to purchases of IT and telecommunications equipment to support growth. Free cash flow for the quarter was also a first quarter record inflow of $9.2 million compared to an inflow of $8 million in the prior year quarter. The increase was primarily driven by the increase in net cash generated from operating activities. We're proud to be achieving record cash flow levels while investing for high growth. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 123,000 shares for $4.4 million at an average price of $35.92 and leaving $13.5 million on our share repurchase authorization. We ended the first quarter with $36.7 million of cash and debt of $1.7 million for net cash of $35 million, an improvement of $4.1 million compared to net cash of $30.9 million at the end of our last fiscal year. As I mentioned earlier, fiscal year '27 is off to an exceptional start with first quarter performance that included records across nearly every key operating metric, including revenue, adjusted EBITDA, EPS, and free cash flow. Our financial results were driven by stellar growth from new logos and further augmented by expansion in our embedded client base. This combination makes us stronger as we grow, underscoring the long-term and durable value of our differentiated strategy. Looking ahead, this momentum gives us increased confidence in our outlook for fiscal year '27 to continue to drive double-digit growth and year-over-year margin expansion. In response, we are raising both revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year. Revenue is now expected to be in the range of $720 million to $735 million, up 12% to 14% from fiscal year '26 versus our previous guidance of $700 million to $715 million for 9% to 11% growth. Adjusted EBITDA is now expected to be in the range of $96 million to $99 million, up 17% to 20% from fiscal year '26 versus our previous guidance of $90 million to $94 million for 9% to 14% growth. Capital expenditures for the year are expected to be approximately $30 million at the high end of the previous $25 million to $30 million range, given the increased growth expectations. This represents slightly over 4% of revenue, of which just approximately 1.5% is for maintenance CapEx and the rest for growth. Looking ahead, we continue to believe that our business is well-positioned to continue outperforming the industry, and we are excited about the future of IBEX as we head into the second quarter of fiscal year '27 and beyond. With that, Bob and I will now take questions. Operator, please open the line.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from David Koning with Baird.

Great job. You've turned into one of the fastest growers on our entire list in a market where people have worried that you will get displaced. So clearly, you're doing a lot right. And I guess my question is, is the ability to just penetrate the wallets of your clients with new services something that you can actually win more business than they've ever spent with you before because you're bringing new solutions. So like are you actually opening up the market rather than AI being like a headwind at all?

Yes, Dave, great question, and thanks for joining on the call. Look, we have built a really good flywheel here. And your question about the embedded base clients is really spot on and accurate about how we're winning. We're going in, we're outperforming. The KPIs that we continually deliver on are higher than our competitors. And that's repeated. And over time, our clients just keep awarding us market share based on our ability to out execute. And we have numerous examples, and that's why we give visibility to our growth with those clients. And it's strong growth, and it has been that way for a while. Now most of these clients look like this. They have large outsourcing spends, $100 million, $800 million, up to $1 billion. That's all upside for us. That's all TAM for us to go after, which we continually do by our ability to out-execute them. Now that alone puts us in a really, really good position. And I know I have to touch on, and we have the best revenue retention in the industry. Clients don't leave us. And so you have the back end shored up. Now the other element is our new logo engine is on fire, and it's gotten stronger as we continually articulate that we are the best BPO in the industry in delivering human agents. And we've been demonstrating that quarter-over-quarter for the last several years. But now when you add this AI solution on top of that, that gives our ability -- and the client, the ability to select us to deliver that end-to-end solution, whether it starts with AI or whether it starts with human agents, but it evolves to that land and expand to both. And then we move into new geographies, we move into additional services. And most of those clients have been sitting with the legacy players, the pack, as I like to call them, the guys that have serviced them for 15, 20 years, and they're looking for better, and we're winning. And so when you put the 2 of those together, we believe that we are able to create a business that will continue to grow double digit. Now let me touch on -- because you made the comment on AI and what's going to happen to volumes as a result of AI. Well, first and foremost, and we keep articulating this, when we're winning these new logos, the AI revenue and the human agent revenue is all incremental. And you put that together, and that is accelerating our growth. And then by delivering those solutions into our embedded base, we believe that, that creates more revenue, higher margin revenue for us in that embedded base client, even though we may be -- as we highlighted with PAL, Philippine Airlines last call, same thing with a company like BJ's, even though we're solving 20% to 40% of those interactions with AI we're winning the market share game of the human agents. So we feel like we have a powerful stacking of growth vectors that is putting us in a unique space in this and significantly higher growth rates than anybody in this industry, and we believe that we are in a really good position to continue that. I apologize for the long answer, but that's -- there's a lot of complexity into that.

Yes. No, that was great. And maybe for Taylor, Q1 was a pretty huge margin quarter. You expanded margins a ton, and you really don't need to expand margins maybe at all even the rest of the year to hit your full year guidance. Is that -- are you being conservative just in how you're thinking about the rest of the year? Or are you just going to invest a lot of the margin expansion away just to keep winning clients, keep investing in AI?

Yes. And so if you look at our guidance, our guidance implies a 50 to 70 basis point improvement in our EBITDA margins in fiscal year '27 versus fiscal year '26, which is exactly what we want, right? Because if you look at the revenue guidance, it's up 12% to 14%, but our EBITDA guidance is up 17% to 20%. So we're getting good leverage throughout the P&L. But it also implies that we will -- we expect to see year-over-year EBITDA improvement throughout the year, every quarter, not to the extent that we saw in Q1, but we do expect year-over-year improvement throughout each quarter for the remaining of the year.

Got you. And I guess, finally, just capital allocation, like you haven't bought as much stock back, but you're generating good cash flow. Are you thinking of make acquisitions at this point?

We're really -- if you look at our capital allocation strategy, first and foremost, expanding capacity to meet the strong demand, right? And we get very good payback periods. Most of the capacity we're building out in offshore regions and the payback period is about a year. So we're very excited to make those investments. Secondly, as you pointed out, we continue to do share repurchase. I think we still have $13.5 million left in our current share purchase authorization, but we've repurchased over 30% of our shares in the past 3 years, and we continue to see that as a good investment as our business continues to grow. From an acquisition standpoint, we're really laser-focused right now on the -- growing our AI agent solutions and with our double-digit organic growth, which has been 7 quarters, will soon be 8 quarters, we don't feel the need to make acquisitions. If the perfect acquisition fell in our lap, if it fits like a certain geography or vertical market, we'd certainly take a look at it and listen. But it's not -- I would not consider it a high priority of our capital allocation strategy right now.

I would now like to turn the call back over to Bob Dechant for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you all for listening today. I want to take a moment to congratulate my team. They continue to deliver quarter after quarter, as you can see through our results and prove that they are the best in the industry and their dedication and commitment to delivering and -- delivering for our clients puts us in a unique space in this industry as we further separate ourselves. So a shout out to them for their commitment, and we look forward to talking in the next quarter as our business keeps chugging along. Thank you all.

Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.