Earnings Labs

PAR Technology Corporation (PAR)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 12, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the FY 2019 Fourth Quarter and Year End Financial Results. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host. Chris Byrnes, Vice President of Business Development. Please go ahead sir.

Chris Byrnes

Analyst

Thank you, Lori [ph], and good afternoon. I’d also like to welcome you today to the call for PAR’s 2019 fourth quarter financial results review. The complete disclosure of our results can be found in our press release issued this afternoon as well as in our related Form 8-K furnished to the SEC. To access the press release and the financial details, please see the Investor Relations and news site at www.partech.com. At this time, I’d like to take care of certain details in regards to the call today. Participants on the call should be aware that we are recording the call this afternoon and it will be available for playback. Also, we are broadcasting the conference call via the worldwide web, so please be advised if you ask a question, it will be included in both our live conference and any future use of the recording. I’d like to remind participants that this conference call includes forward-looking statements that reflect management’s expectations based on currently available data. However, actual results are subject to future events and uncertainties. The information on this conference call related to projections or other forward-looking statements may be relied upon and subject to the safe harbor statements included in our earnings release this afternoon and in our annual and quarterly filings with the SEC. Joining me on the call today is PAR’s CEO and President, Savneet Singh and Bryan Menar, PAR’s Chief Financial Officer. I’d now like to turn the call over to Savneet for the formal remarks portion of the call, which will be followed by general Q&A. Savneet?

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon to everyone and thank you for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter 2019 results. To begin with, I want to take a minute concerns around the Coronavirus outbreak. We like everyone are closely monitoring the spread of the virus and the potential impact on our business and supply chain. Early in the virus’s trajectory PAR took a proactive step and accelerate inventory purchases and pulled forward previously ordered equipment in the event there’s a supply disruption. We continue to push vendors to accelerate their timelines and hope to build a strong safety stock. We believe building inventory is a smart use of capital in an event of a potential longer term disruption. Second, we have not experienced any customer impact to-date. This could change at any time but our customers have not expressed any change in their plans yet. We will continue [indiscernible]. Finally we’re monitoring all potential are of impact on our business and are in close contact with our suppliers and partners. We continue to invest in the safety of our employees and have strengthened their over site given the current concerns. Now to focus in our Q4 operations. To begin with, I’m pleased to report that we completed the acquisition of Restaurant Magic at the end of the fourth quarter and we’re now better positioned to continue to expand our wallet in the restaurant software space. We’ve been impressed with Restaurant Magic team and are excited about their pipeline and what both organizations can bring to each other. Now to review the fourth quarter. This afternoon, the company reported fourth quarter revenues of $52.9 million to $46.7 million in the fourth quarter last year, a 13.4% increase. This increase was primarily due to the increase of 25% in product revenues…

Bryan Menar

Analyst

Thank you Savneet and good afternoon, everyone. I would now like to take this opportunity to provide some additional details surrounding our fourth quarter results. As Savneet previously stated, we reported revenues of $52.9 million for the quarter up 13% from $46.7 million reported in Q4, 2018. Our net loss was $5.8 million or a loss $0.35 per diluted share for the quarter versus a net loss of $6.2 million or a loss of $0.38 per diluted share for Q4, 2018. Our quarter-over-quarter favorable performances primarily driven by continued growth in Brink POS revenue including related SaaS hardware and support services and an introduction of recently acquired Drive Thru product line. Operating segment revenues for the year ended December 31, 2019 were $35.6 million for the restaurant retail reporting segment. An increase of 16% from $30.8 million reported in Q4, 2018 and $17.3 million for the government reporting segment, an increase of 9% from $15.9 million reported for Q4, 2018. Restaurant retail revenue for Q4, 2019 by business line consisted of $23.4 million for quarter, $11.7 million for Brink and partial period revenue of $0.3 million for Restaurant Magic for the 12 days post close of a year end acquisition and $0.3 million for the one month revenue related to SureCheck prior to divestiture at the end of October, 2019. Restaurant retail revenue for Q4, 2018 by business line was $22.5 million for core, $6.9 million for Brink and $1.4 million for SureCheck. Government revenue for Q4, 2019 by business line consisted of $8.9 million for ISR, $8.3 million for Mission System. Compared to Q4, 2018 revenue by business line of $5.9 million for ISR, $9.8 million for Mission Systems and $0.2 million for product sales. Product revenue for the quarter was $20.2 million up $4.1 million or 25% compared…

Chris Byrnes

Analyst

Thanks Brian. Lori [ph]. I think we’re ready for Q&A now.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] we have a question from Samad Samana from Jefferies. Please ask your question.

Samad Samana

Analyst

I guess to maybe, I know you touched on kind of the broader environment during the call. But if I can maybe double click on that. How should we think about maybe how your QSR customers are thinking about store opening, store closings or prioritizing kind of technological advancements during a time like this? Just help us maybe understand how we should think about customer behavior a little bit better just during volatile times like this?

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Sure I think all we know as we’ve been told so far and I can tell you is, two of our customers have not yet pulled back on their plans with us and as you know their plans with us are very much tied to new store openings or rollout. So we haven’t seen it impact quite yet and I think, as I mentioned during the call. In the premise of being QSR probably helps us there. I think a good analog might be 2008, where you saw QSR in fast casual be relatively resilient during a tough time and so if that happens that, which I think there’s no reason that it could, that the pool that we fish in is a little bit called more shallow [ph] than others that we shouldn’t be it more resilient, given that both of the customers we serve very well. Second, I think, it’s clear with the virus that traffic to table service restaurants to drop off significantly and that too should potentially be a boost to QSR restaurant drive thru focus restaurants. But I think it forces every restaurant to have a robust plan around digital ordering, online ordering, third-party deliver, native delivery, off-premise eating, labor, inventory management and all of those initiatives required modern point of sales system. So I think if there’s a global recession nothing will truly offset that. But I think this definitely helps mitigate it because I think that spend will still be prioritized.

Samad Samana

Analyst

Okay that’s helpful and then. Yes, Savneet I know during the quarter that recently a company filed that a permanent contract for you, I know that’s a question some investors had brought up to us. I’m curious if you’ve noticed anything in terms of when you’re dealing with larger enterprise customers. If that’s, I know it’s a little bit weird question, but has that had any type of impact now that or especially maybe on the employee side at the company itself as well. Now that they know that you’re somewhat at the long haul and how has that, has that any type of [indiscernible]?

Savneet Singh

Analyst

No, but I think our employee is a team, our customers knew that I’m sort of all-in and very committed to the journey. So I think more to the [indiscernible] than seeing anything else.

Samad Samana

Analyst

Okay, so it’s just an investor - we care. With the Restaurant Magic acquisition, I know the company talked about the different customer basis last quarter. could you give us maybe an update on the cross selling strategy there and maybe initial customer feedback now that the acquisition has been closed for about three months?

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Sure. So I think the [indiscernible] has been fantastic. I think a lot of this driven that restaurant organizations are continuing to trying to find new ways to simplify their organization. They had a challenging time managing so many vendors and so I think they liked that arguably the two most important products in the restaurant are the back office and the point of sales and having it under one roof I think simplifies their experience and so we’ve had really a strong reception from our customers. As it relates to sort of going in together. We have a nice pipeline of joint customers we’re going after and I think the teams are working very well together and I look forward to sort of sharing some of those winds down the road. But without question a number of customers are always looking for us to work much closer together and the Brink seems really been able to do, increase the speed of referral to the Restaurant Magic side.

Samad Samana

Analyst

Great and then maybe one last one for me and then I’ll pass the baton along. I know that the company did a few acquisitions in 2019. Obviously in times like this there’s dislocations. How should we think about maybe M&A opportunities with PAR being a publicly traded company with a healthy balance sheet? How should we think about year on maybe strategic M&A opportunities in this type of environment?

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Sure. So I think from an M&A perspective I think we’re in a fantastic place. We completed our capital raise, raised it close to the peak of the market. So we’ve centered our balance sheet, which gives us a lot of comfort to continue the investments we’re making and potentially be more aggressive on the M&A side. We’ve been really transparent that we think that there’s a great opportunity for us to own more of the wallet share of restaurant software spend and this should accelerate that. We’ve looked at dozens of deals to be frank that we love to have gone deep on and taken a swing at. I think multiples were just never given at the margin to safety to really get into. I really do believe that’s going to change with this VC cycle hopefully slowing down a bit, it gives us the opportunity to be more aggressive and I think, not all but some of our competitors will be in more challenging financial situation which we’re in competition for some of these deals and so I think it could be very, very beneficial for us.

Samad Samana

Analyst

Great, that’s really helpful and I’ll pass it along to my peers on the call. Thanks again for taking my questions.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ishfaque Faruk from Sidoti & Co. please ask your question.

Ishfaque Faruk

Analyst

First of all, Navneet [technical difficulty] expense add around 1,000 or so [technical difficulty] both going forward or do you think [technical difficulty] might have [technical difficulty] off due to the current situation?

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Ishfaque, you’re cutting it out, but I think I know the question. So the question was, do we still expect to hit around 1,000 bookings for the quarter? I think we should be directionally there going forward. As we said in the transcript, we had a hardware component issue that we wouldn’t have well passed that number in Q4, it’s not for hardware component issue. I think hopefully we’re in there. But much of our quarters really determined by the lot two weeks of the year and so we’ll see how the quarter saves up, but the macro environment obviously has a big impact on us. We feel like very confident what we think for the year, we can hit. But short-term we don’t know. But I’d say broadly where we continue to sort of tug along as we’ve been doing. I feel confident and as I said all along, I really feel extremely confident about the back half of the year.

Ishfaque Faruk

Analyst

Got it. And table serve side, you mentioned that you guys are ready to put the current environment [technical difficulty] on the timing of the table served for a more broader view?

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Ishfaque, I’m having hard time hearing you but, is the question timing of table service?

Ishfaque Faruk

Analyst

Yes for a broader rollout.

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Got it, so. We’re still probably a couple months away from broader rollout. We’ve gotten to the point where the [indiscernible] about the products, the team. And so, you can think of it as we got early customer traction, we’re going to work it out with them. We’ve been selling table service for years and years. This is sort of revamped product that we feel extremely confident about and so we’re in conversations with mix of some organizations and then a couple of very, very large organizations. So it’s still very early in what we’re doing and but we feel really confident at the quality of product and as we mentioned before, a lot of our entry in the table service was driven by either large customers requesting us to do that or our channel partners really pushing us. So we feel, it’s very exciting for us. We’re just at the beginning of it and hopefully the next quarter we can talk about traction.

Ishfaque Faruk

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Adam Wyden from ADW Capital. Please ask your question.

Adam Wyden

Analyst

Yes, Savneet, so look it’s an interesting time that we’re all in, I think people are asking a lot of questions. I think it’s a been a pretty long journey over the last couple of years. It feels like kind of where we are where we started, but we’re not. So and I guess my question to you is a lot of short sellers are out there saying that, no one is going to install any software if restaurants are not open, they’re not making any money. In the past you talked about giving people hardware in exchange for SaaS and payments. And some of our channels actually became evident, you might have signed a couple of these contracts recently. You’ve got this robust balance sheet. I mean can you talk a little bit about how you can kind of accelerate deployment. I mean because it seems at some level that the bottom [indiscernible] people. You said you couldn’t get the hardware, but you got the hardware. I mean sometimes the bottle neck is getting the guy to pay for it. Can you talk about the initiatives that you’re doing in terms of giving people the hardware, discounting the hardware in exchange for payments and SaaS like your peers are doing maybe talk a little bit about how that gives you confidence in your backlog relative to kind of what other people are saying?

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Sure. I’ll first say that, we get to see through the pull back room from the industry. Obviously if it happens, it happens. We feel if there’s some reasons that there’s some tailwinds to protect it. But specifically to the hardware question. Absolutely we’ve built out a payments business and one of the advantages is having a payments module, is allowed you to be more creative on how you structure deals to your end customers. And so buy building on a new recurring revenue stream we can be more flexible in how we price out our hardware and so it’s a tool that we kind of, we needed it in our back pocket to accelerate our growth particularly in the table service market and I think what we’ve been encouraged by early on in our conversations payments is that, some of our larger customers who we just never would have thought, even have the conversations have been the ones actually very excited by it.

Adam Wyden

Analyst

Let me ask you a question, in this world where you have everybody sorting sea world [ph] 6.5, the people are saying they’re never going to go to a restaurant again. And we know that people go to restaurants, even if they don’t go, if they go less. People are going to eat; people are not going to sit at their homes. I mean, even if your restaurant sales are down, your props are down. I mean why on earth, would you not take this opportunity when business is slower to take this software that’s going to allow you to be more efficient, cut cost and get delivery and it doesn’t cost you anything because I mean at the end of the day, if you’re taking Brink the only cost to you effectively is the SaaS, but it’s really the hardware. And so my question to you is like, if you’re in a situation where you’re getting the hardware heavily or free like, why would you not take the product in a down economy. It’s only going to bolster efficiency and potential sales. I mean I’m just trying to understand that. I mean that seems like a silver bullet on some level.

Savneet Singh

Analyst

I think ROI for Brink is always high. I think ROI now, if I was a restaurant operator, is even higher. Not having online ordering, not having third-party deliver your cost all account, not having off-premise dining, not having creative way to manage your drive thru. I find it hard to think that they wouldn’t want to continue to make that investment they haven’t done that yet, given what you talked about which is maybe not everyone will go to a restaurant until they want, pick up, they want deliver. I think that in all down economy there’s a pull back and spend, but there are certain areas you’d invest into hopefully offset some the revenue off as you’re going to as a small business. This is one of the areas I expect them to go after and as you suggested, if we can mitigate some of that hardware cost or all of it at times it’s - I think it’s a no brainer, which is why I think today we haven’t loss of customers going back for this yet, but I think we will see it as this virus continues to as it’s trajectory.

Adam Wyden

Analyst

I mean look I guess at the end of the day like even if the government were to mandate restaurant closures, right? That still wouldn’t preclude you guys from doing implementation and stuff like that. I mean I will just come back to the same point which is it like, if it doesn’t cost on anything to do it. I guess it really just comes down to like counter party risk on your part, like you’re making investment in them. If you’re going to give them the hardware that they’re going to stay in business and get the revenues. But I mean, if you’re doing business with big chains right like it seems like a pretty good risk adjusted return. Which comes to my next question, which is? We talked about M&A. I mean the stock here is at $15. I’m just going to do what I call convenient store map. The 15 times 17.2 that’s $258 million that converts at $43 million. I don’t know what your net debt is, I haven’t checked your balance sheet. But it’s probably on the measure of around $30 million. If you’ve got government worth at least 100 and hardware at least 100 that’s $88 million and at least kind of my back at the envelope map, with Restaurant Magic and the previous thing. You were supposed to exit the year around 50 on ARR which means you’re basically paying less than two times ARR for Brink. Now we can play with the numbers around a little bit and this map. I mean but it seems unlikely that there is anything that you can buy at two times ARR. So maybe this is a little bit like Lee Cooper [ph] on the Windham [ph] call, but this is getting kind of outrageous and the short sellers are kind of giving to us and as a long-term shareholder. I mean I want to be rewarded for taking the pain and taking the journey with you. I mean what type of initiatives. I mean let’s say tomorrow the stock market is down 10%, this thing trades $10. I mean going down 25% everyday. I mean you do 25% a day for four days and you’re probably a zero. I mean what are you going to do for us shareholders to make sure that we’re being compensated for the journey. Because I know you moved your family up there. You got this comp package. You want to make money like the rest of us. I mean what kind of confidence can you give to investor that you’re going to protect us and really reward us for being on the journey with you.

Savneet Singh

Analyst

The best thing we can do is continue to execute our plan which is to make our investment with Brink, so we can continue the reacceleration of Brink organic growth and as I suggested. Obviously, we’re very active and looking at having opportunities right now. And so I just think - I guess I think we feel stronger than our competitors at this moment in time which, so we want to take advantage of that and be aggressive during this time of year.

Adam Wyden

Analyst

While I was talking about like share repurchase. So right now the stock’s at $15. Let’s say tomorrow it trades at $10. I mean you raised a ton of money; you can do an accelerated share repurchase I’m sure by a third. I mean you almost have a moral obligation to do it. Right. I mean right now the stock market is basically put double bell shock under your head and say you’re dead. You’re dead. Restaurants are dead. Savneet Singh, PAR Technology’s restaurants are dead and you guys aren’t worth the paper that you printed on. And my question to you is that fortunes get made buying fear. And so you have a confidence in this business and this stock is $10 tomorrow which it totally could be like what are you going to do to protect the shareholders because you just raised $120 million at $43, we are $10 why are not doing an accelerated share repurchase putting $30 million stock at $10. If you have really confidence in the backlog, you have an obligation.

Savneet Singh

Analyst

I think we would look at, stock with $10 we’d obviously get all opportunities to create value and we would make the argument, how we look at our valuations return of buying back shares in verse doing acquisition verse staying in the course. We’ll constantly keep doing that now and making sure we’re maximizing every dollar announcement.

Adam Wyden

Analyst

Like I know you get it, but like I guess my question to you is like, if you’re going to do M&A you need a cost of capital and right now it seems very harder to me, I mean I guess where I’m going with this. These prices it doesn’t feel like you can any M&A when you’re trading at two times, when Brink is trading at two times revenue. So my question is.

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Yes, I think, we understand. I totally agree with you and we understand the dynamic of our share price in many ways is part of our cost of capital. And so, we’re a week or two into this steep decline and so while the company evaluates what’s the best way to create shareholder value. We’re best with it. The team is invested behind it and stock with $10 I think whatever price of stock is, we would take incredibly seriously. But we need to wait out against the other options that we have out there and we will constantly do that.

Adam Wyden

Analyst

Yes, I mean look it’s at $15 today. I mean I don’t know where it is tomorrow. But even at $15 like I’m thinking about it. I’m saying to myself; you know it’s two time - you’re paying like two times revenue for Brink and I think on some level. I think you know we have the tech debt, we had issues with the engineers. I mean look all the types of things that you can do to drive organic growth like the payments, like the hardware solutions all these things were things that time to spool up and so now it’s kind of spooled up, growth should accelerate and I guess my question is, you never wish bodily harm on humanity and this virus is terrible. But like it’s presenting an opportunity where people are saying look, I can just shoot any hospitality stock in the world, right just shoot them all. And the question is.

Savneet Singh

Analyst

So listen, I think we have exact perspective that there’s an opportunity, we’ll be aggressive to be talking. I think we’ve shown that we’ve done that a lot in the last year and we’ll continue to do that.

Adam Wyden

Analyst

Well I mean look, honestly.

Savneet Singh

Analyst

And it obviously limits on what we can say publicly and we can’t publicly and so it’s all I can really say about it.

Adam Wyden

Analyst

Okay, that’s fine. Well look I think you’re doing a great job and I’m very happy with the initiatives. It’s kind of like there’s just - so it’s kind of like we’re in the Twilight Zone. I just think it’s kind of insane that in the last three years, we made all this progress, but it’s just not reflected so. I tell all CEO’s when the market gives you these opportunities you kind of have an obligation to shareholders. Right. And if you can take the share counts from 17 to 10, we’re all going to make a lot of money on the other side of this, but this but like you can’t squander those types of opportunities.

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Okay, thanks Adam. We’ve got another caller and we can continue this offline.

Adam Wyden

Analyst

Yes that’s all right.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] your next question is from James Burian [ph]. Your line is now open.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

Could you give a little color about PAR Pay because it’s my understanding there’s a lot of low hanging fruit that could make lot of money for us quickly.

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Sure. I’ll just [indiscernible] terminology. It’s most PAR payment services. PAR Pay is a module of PAR payment services. But in general the idea is for PAR to provide payment service to restaurant thus that, when a transaction is swiped at the restaurant that run through our own payment facilitator as a pose to referring that business to a third-party and it’s a model that has tried and tested by essentially every one of our competitors except for PAR. And why we believe this contributes in addition to our revenue is that, we’re not recreating the wheel here. We’re very leveraging the work has been done by every other firm out here and I think our sort of unique ad here, is that we’ve made it incredibly seamless for the customer. we made incredibly transparent. No hidden fees. None of the sort of potential behavior that has scared people away from partnering payment. And most importantly, as we’ve gone out to our customers, we continue to be excited about their interest in the product and so the way to think about it is, every time you swipe that card at the restaurant. PAR will make a fixed fee on every single one of those swipes in return for doing approximately that transaction and so the revenue we expected that in certain restaurants, it maybe a small, it’s a very large concept and call it increasing recurring revenue by 10%, but in other restaurants it could increase our revenue well over 100% and so it’s a big range of what we can make on it and we don’t have the data, here’s how we look at it going forward. But as we get out there, into next quarter we’ll have some good data to share.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

So you’re basically at zero traction right now when it comes to assigned customer?

Savneet Singh

Analyst

I can’t comment on that. But I can say this, we would not have made the investment into the product and partnership if we do not believe there was customer demand.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Presenters, there are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call over back to Mr. Singh for his closing remarks.

Savneet Singh

Analyst

Thank you everyone for joining. We look forward to updating you in the coming weeks.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this conclude today’s conference. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day. You may all disconnect.