Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (BR) on Q3 2021 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Operator: Good morning and welcome to the Broadridge Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Edings Thibault, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Edings Thibault: Thank you, Andrea. Good morning, everybody and welcome to Broadridge’s third quarter fiscal year 2021 earnings conference call. Our earnings release and the slides that accompany this call may be found on the Investor Relations section of broadridge.com. Joining me on the call today are Tim Gokey, our CEO and our CFO, Edmund Reese. Before I turn the call over to Tim, a few standard reminders. We will be making forward-looking statements on today’s call regarding Broadridge that involve risks. A summary of these risks can be found on the second and third pages of the slides and a more complete description on our annual report on Form 10-K. We will also be referring to several non-GAAP measures, which we believe provide investors with a more complete understanding of Broadridge’s underlying operating results. An explanation of these non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to the comparable GAAP measures can be found on the earnings release and presentation. Tim Gokey: Thanks, Edings and good morning. I will begin with an overview of our key messages and an update on our third quarter results, including our performance against our strategic objectives. Edmund will review our financial results and then we will take your questions. It’s an exciting time to be at Broadridge and we have a lot to cover. So, let’s get started. I am pleased to share that Broadridge delivered strong third quarter results. Recurring revenues and adjusted operating income both rose 8%. Our results in both ICS and GTO are being propelled by long-term trends, including increasing digitization, mutualization and the democratization of investing. These trends are driving strong new business growth, record growth in the number of shareholders and higher trading volumes. We are also executing well against our strategic growth plan across governance, capital markets and wealth and investment management. I will highlight some of those initiatives in a few minutes. A combination of those strong results and continued execution against our growth plans is giving us the confidence to continue to invest in our business. We have continued to fund attractive investments in our products, platforms and people, including the pending acquisition of Itiviti. We are also substantially increasing our guidance for fiscal year 2021 on both the top and bottom line. We now expect recurring revenue growth of 8% to 10% and adjusted EPS growth of 11% to 13%. While the new guidance reflects the impact of Itiviti, the bulk of this raise is organic, as Edmund will discuss. The net result of all these points, our strong third quarter results, our continued internal and M&A investment and our outlook for fiscal 2021 is that Broadridge is executing well and is on track to deliver at the higher end of our 3-year financial objectives, including 8% to 12% adjusted EPS growth. We remain focused on delivering long-term growth driven by secular trends and consistent investment across our governance, wealth and capital markets businesses and in turn generate consistent, sustainable top quartile shareholder returns. Broadridge’s ability to generate those attractive returns is driven by executing on our clear long-term growth plan. So, let me update you on some highlights of our recent progress on Slide 5. I will start with ICS. Recurring revenues rose 11% to $586 million driven by revenue from new sales and very strong equity record growth. The biggest driver of ICS’ strong growth was revenue from new sales and I am pleased to see the impact of recent investments on our results. Edmund Reese: Thanks, Tim and good morning everyone. As you can see from the Q3 financial summary on Slide 7, Broadridge delivered another strong quarter. Recurring revenue grew 8% to $900 million. Adjusted operating income also grew 8% to $284 million. Margins declined 60 basis points to 20.4% as we successfully made the investments that we discussed last quarter in our technology platforms, in our products, our people. Our operating income was partially offset by a higher tax rate in Q3 ‘21 as we grew over discrete tax benefits in Q3 ‘20. So, our adjusted EPS grew to $1.76 in the quarter, up 5% over Q3 ‘20. Now, let’s turn the slide and get into the details of the quarter, starting with recurring revenue growth. As I said, recurring revenue grew 8% in the quarter powered by 7% organic growth and comfortably within our historic mid to high single-digit growth performance demonstrating the strength of our sustainable recurring revenue growth model. As a result of that strong organic growth and an increase in our outlook for the fourth quarter, we are raising our guidance for recurring revenue growth to 8% to 10% for the full year, up from our prior guidance of growth at the higher end of 3% to 6%. Now, let’s look at this quarter’s recurring revenue growth by business on Slide 9. I will start with our ICS segment, where revenues grew by 11% to $586 million. Regulatory revenues rose 20% to $290 million driven by the 20% equity record growth, higher mutual fund and ETF communications volumes and net new sales, including from our Shareholder Rights Directive 2 solution that Tim highlighted earlier. We expect strong regulatory revenue growth to continue in the fourth quarter with our current testing indicating 25% equity record growth. Our issuer business also contributed to our overall growth rate, thanks to continued growth in VSMs and increased issuer communications. After a strong 12 months, we now have significant penetration of our VSM solution across the S&P 500, and we expect issuer revenue growth to ease going forward as we start to lap the increase of VSM activity that began in Q4 ‘20. Fund solutions revenue was flat as double-digit growth in data and analytics was offset by lower interest income from custodied accounts in our funds processing business. Customer communications revenues were also flat with double-digit growth in our high-margin digital products, offset by lower print volumes due in part to the pandemic depressed activity levels. We expect growth in both our data-driven solutions and customer communications business to pick up in the fourth quarter as these headwinds ease. Turning to GTO, wealth and investment management revenues rose 7% driven by the on-boarding of new component sales and higher retail trading. Capital markets revenues fell 1% of strong growth from international sales, was offset by $6 million in lower license revenues, which declined as expected. As we said last quarter, this flat revenue growth will continue in the Q4 ‘21 before picking up in fiscal year ‘22. Let’s turn to Page 10, where we show more detail on volume trends. Broadridge’s recurring revenue growth benefits from underlying volume growth trends, including stock record growth. Over the past decade, record growth across equity, mutual funds and ETF has grown 6% to 8%. Recently, equity record growth has accelerated to 11% in Q4 ‘20 and continued to increase through the year to 20% in Q3 ‘21, surpassing the estimates from our January testing. As I said, we expect these growth trends to continue and reach 25% in Q4 ‘21. Mutual fund and ETF record growth picked up as well to 7%, more in line with our historical growth rates. We are modeling a return to more moderate mid-single digit growth across both equity, mutual fund ETF records for fiscal year ‘22 with stronger growth in the seasonally smaller first half and more moderate growth in the second half. Touching briefly on trade volumes, which you will see on the bottom of this slide, this is the fifth consecutive quarter of aggregate double-digit volume growth. This growth reflects the increase in volatility in retail investor engagement over the past year, which continued to be quite strong well into the third quarter. More recently, trading volatility subsided during the second half of March, and we expect tougher trading volume comps in Q4. Let’s move to Slide 11 for a closer look at the drivers of our recurring revenue. Organic growth at a very healthy 7% continues to be the largest component of our recurring revenue growth, and new sales remains the biggest driver with strong growth contribution from both ICS and GTO. We also continued our long track record of revenue retention above 97%. Internal growth contributed another 3 points as growth in ICS regulatory volumes more than offset the decline in GTO license revenue. And finally, acquisitions, we have now fully lapped all of our fiscal year 2020 acquisitions. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, we expect Itiviti to add 3 points to fourth quarter recurring revenue growth. Now we will turn to Slide 12 to briefly touch on our total revenue performance. Total revenue growth this quarter was stronger than usual, reaching 11% with distribution revenue contributing 3 points due to the increased mailings that correspond with the high record growth and the increased event driven activity this quarter. Moving forward, we continue to expect the low to no margin distribution revenue to decline over time as we focus on increasing higher margin digital revenue across our governance business. Event-driven communications remain an integral part of our client offering. Event-driven revenues have climbed over the past 4 quarters to be more in line with our historical norms of about $50 million a quarter and reached $74 million in the third quarter, well above last year’s unusually low $39 million. Broadridge benefited from an increase in mutual fund proxy activity as well as a rebound in proxy contest volumes and capital markets transactions. We expect fiscal ‘21 event-driven revenue to be more in line with the average that we have seen over the past 7 years. For modeling purposes, we are assuming $50 million to $60 million of event-driven revenues in the fourth quarter. Turning to Slide 13, adjusted operating income grew by 8%. Our adjusted operating income margin declined by 60 basis points, reflecting the continued investments that we are making in our technology platforms and product capabilities that we highlighted on our last quarterly call. These investments, which support our long-term growth, have a short-term impact on margin expansion, but we remain on track to deliver approximately 50 basis points of margin expansion for the full year, right in line with our fiscal year ‘21 guidance and 3-year growth objectives. This formula forgoing near-term margin expansion and consistently investing in our technology platforms and products to drive long-term sustainable recurring revenue growth will continue to be an important part of how we manage our business. As a CFO focused on long-term growth, it’s encouraging to see us making these types of investments across all of our product lines, giving us momentum towards future growth. Before I turn to capital allocation, let’s turn to Slide 14 and spend a moment on another key operating metric, closed sales, which as I mentioned earlier, is the most consistent driver of our long-term recurring revenue growth. Our $124 million closed sales year-to-date are in line with our performance over the same period last year. We continue to see strong demand for our ICS solutions, including regulatory and issuer communications and data solutions. We remain on track to achieve our full year guidance of $190 million to $235 million for closed sales, which implies a fourth quarter range of $66 million to $111 million. Historically, the closed sales performance in the last quarter of the year has been impacted by the timing of larger deals. A handful of larger signings could propel us to the top end of our guidance range, and conversely, delays could put us at the lower end. And I will also note that we continue to feel good about our recurring revenue backlog, which was 12% of our fiscal ‘20 recurring revenues as of Q4 ‘20 and gives us great visibility into our top line growth. Moving to capital allocation on the following slide, we generated $136 million of free cash flow year-to-date, up $54 million over the first 9 months of fiscal year ‘20 driven by higher earnings and strong working capital management. During the first 9 months of the fiscal year, we invested $205 million in building out our industry platforms and another $71 million in CapEx and software spending. Our M&A investment through the first 9 months of the year was zero, but that will change with our announced $2.5 billion acquisition of Itiviti, which I will touch on in a moment. Even after completing the Itiviti acquisition, Broadridge will remain committed to a balanced capital allocation policy. which prioritizes internal investment, growing our dividend, M&A and returning excess capital to shareholders. Importantly, we are also committed to maintaining an investment-grade credit rating, which means we will prioritize debt pay down over share repurchases and expect to limit ourselves to smaller tuck-in M&A opportunities over the next several quarters. Given our strong free cash flow, we believe that we can comfortably achieve our new 2.5x leverage target by the end of fiscal year ‘23. Turning to capital returns on the right-hand side of the slide, our dividend has grown and remains in line with our historical 45% payout ratio. On Slide 16, we are on track to close the Itiviti acquisition in the coming weeks. So, let me take a moment to give you some additional clarity about the expected impact that Itiviti will have on our financial performance. I will start with fiscal year ‘21. We expect Itiviti to add $25 billion to $30 billion or 1 point to our full year recurring revenue growth, which equates to 3 points to our fourth quarter growth. And the acquisition is expected to be modestly dilutive to our adjusted EPS growth. In fiscal year ‘22, we expect Itiviti to add approximately $250 million or about 8 points to our recurring revenue growth. And we expect the acquisition to be accretive by approximately 2 points to 3 points or roughly $0.10 to $0.15 to adjusted EPS growth. Please note that Itiviti’s results in both fiscal year ‘21 and fiscal year ‘22 will be negatively impacted by the accounting treatment of acquired revenue, which will reduce revenue recognition by approximately $30 million in total with two-thirds of that impact in fiscal ‘22. This revenue haircut is incorporated in the numbers that I just shared with you. Finally, I want to reiterate the commentary that I gave you when we announced the deal, about the impact on our 3-year growth objectives. We expect Itiviti to add 2.5 points to 3 points to our 3-year recurring revenue growth CAGR and, after interest, more than 2 points to our 3-year adjusted EPS CAGR. Now turning to guidance on Slide 17, we are raising our outlook for fiscal ‘21 recurring revenue growth to 8% to 10% from the higher end of 3% to 6%, and that includes 1 point of growth from Itiviti. We are raising our guidance for total revenue growth to 8% to 10% from the higher end of 1% to 4%. We continue to expect our adjusted operating income margin to expand to approximately 18%, up from 17.5% in fiscal year ‘20 as we balance near-term returns with continued investments to sustain long-term growth. We expect adjusted EPS growth of 11% to 13%, up from the higher end of 6% to 10%, and that includes a 1 point drag from Itiviti. Finally, as I noted earlier, we continue to expect closed sales in the range of $190 million to $235 million. And before we begin to take your questions, let me share some final thoughts. The Broadridge Financial model is working. We are on track to deliver strong 8% to 10% recurring revenue growth. That growth is fueling our ability to both invest and expand margins. At the same time, our strong free cash flow business model enables us to pursue balanced capital allocation, commit to a rising dividend, fund investments in our platform and products and step up and make a significant M&A investment to grow our capital markets franchise. And finally, thanks to our consistent investment in our capabilities, we are on track to deliver another year of $190 million plus of new closed sales, which combined with our strong backlog, positions us well for additional recurring revenue growth. The end result is that we are on track to deliver at the higher end of our 3-year financial objectives of 7% to 9% recurring revenue growth and 8% to 12% adjusted EPS growth. It’s a great example of how we manage our business to drive sustainable revenue growth, steady and consistent adjusted EPS growth and historically top quartile TSR. Let me now hand the call back to Andrea to take your questions. Andrea? Operator: And our first question comes from David Togut of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Unidentified Analyst: Hi. Thank you for taking the question. This is Millie Wu on for David Togut. So, my question is the event-driven business continues to shift back to strong growth after several years of decline. How sustainable is the recent turnaround in the event-driven business? And how high were the incremental margins this quarter? Tim Gokey: So Millie, thanks for the question. Event-driven revenue, as you know, is about 4% of our recurring revenue. It’s a bit more cyclical, but it’s an important part of our total offering. It’s high-quality revenue at – it’s a strong margin in that business. And as you mentioned, Q3 has continued to increase and go back to our historical norms. We have done about – on average, about $50 million a quarter. You have seen pickup in mutual fund proxy business and contests and capital markets. It’s not unusual to see us have an unusually high quarter or an unusually low quarter. But over the long-term, I do expect event-driven revenue to pick up and grow in line with stock record growth. So during the Investor Day, I came out and said that we have seen 14 years ago, event-driven revenues average for the first 7 years, $180 million. Over the last 7 years, it’s been above $200 million. And I feel comfortable that we should anchor in the full year number for event-driven revenue, and we expect it to be at that level as we look throughout our objectives in the ‘22 and ‘23 and, again, at reasonably strong margins in that business. Unidentified Analyst: Okay. Thank you so much. Operator: The next question comes from Michael Young of Truist. Please go ahead. Michael Young: Hi. Thank you for taking the question. I appreciate the guidance on the Itiviti growth contribution for fiscal ‘21. Would you hazard a guess or any guidance as to how much you expect that to contribute to kind of the long-term 3-year growth guidance? Edmund Reese: Yes. Michael, let me jump in there. And Tim, you might have some commentary on the business itself. And we were thinking – when we were bringing Itiviti on, first, we were looking for very strong assets in the capital market space after deploying most of our M&A to wealth management and governance over the past 3 years. And the thing that looks great from a financial standpoint for Itiviti is the strong growth outlook. The core business by itself is mid-single digit growth from a revenue standpoint. I talked earlier that we committed to about $20 million in synergies by 2025 in that business. So, you should see high-single digit growth in that business. The recurring revenue models are predictable. They are subscription-like revenues, healthy operating margins in that business. And I think it’s a great time to finance it in this low interest rate environment. I also said that we expect because of that profile to get to double-digit IRRs in this business. So I think we will focus on integrating it, but I do expect it to have that high-single digit revenue growth at 30% margin, so a strong return over a very long time for us in that business. Tim, I don’t know if you want to add some comments to the profile. Tim Gokey: Yes, Michael, just remember at the time that we – and we announced this, we said we were – we felt confident that we would be at the high end of our 3-year guide. So in terms of what the impact would be beyond ‘22, I think that also gives a bit of a flavor. And just to add on to what Edmund talked about strategically, we are really pleased with the way to strengthen our capital markets franchise and really allows us to drive front to back. That has been really emphasized in some of the client conversations that we have had since the acquisition was announced. We have talked to our top 50 clients and have half of them, one, have a conversation about this. And so it’s really gratifying to see that level of interest. But specifically in the vision of front to back and in the vision of having an alternative in the market with someone like Broadridge that is investing in this business. So, we feel really good about that piece on the capital markets, and we are also feeling good about how it adds to our global scale and reach – and really deepens our relationships with some of our most important clients. So, we are excited about it. And we do think it’s going to add to our growth and our ongoing organic growth into the rate, specifically bring us to the top end of the 3-year guidance. Michael Young: Okay, great. And maybe just a bit of a departure from that question. But just as we look to kind of post pandemic and reopening and sales trends, are you seeing any increase in conversations or willingness of clients to take on new products, new conversions, etcetera. Is that a tailwind at all for the business at this point? Tim Gokey: I would say on the sales side, we are – it’s interesting because we have been this past year really in the situation where I have talked about this before in terms of originating new opportunities and then working through the long sort of cycle a business case and requirements and things like that, doing that all remotely. And that’s been a very interesting evolution over this past year. I think the productivity has been remarkably good. It is – we will see as we get to the end of the year here in terms of timing of some of the larger transactions. But what we are seeing certainly and as people look out is this real pressure for next generation technology, the digitization that is happening, has just accelerated where people want to be and you will talk to client after client about who will say what they expected to happen over 3 years has happened in 12 months, for over 5 years, has happen in 18 months. And so they are really looking to make change. It also means they’re very busy. And so it’s a matter of getting on their agenda, but we feel very good about our ability to continue to drive our business through net new sales. Michael Young: Okay, thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Chris Donat of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. Chris Donat: Thanks and good morning everyone. I had one question I just want to check in as we are thinking about as we refine our 2022 fiscal models, with the UBS wealth management platform, can you just remind us on where we stand with that, and once it goes live, how that starts to affect revenues and expenses? Tim Gokey: Yes, Chris, it’s Tim. Just on UBS, we continue to have a great partnership with UBS. We continue to support their ongoing technology and digital transformation. There are parts of this that are already live and creating benefits for UBS and its financial advisors. We are continuing to invest for both for UBS and for clients 2, 3, 4. And we are having very good conversations with clients 2, 3, 4. And I think our results show the momentum we have in our components. When we get into the timing of specifically when this is going to happen, it is that’s really UBS’ announcement to make. And when we get to August and really talking more specifically about ‘22, we will have a further update then. But right now, I can’t comment more on it. Chris Donat: Okay, understood. And then I mean, with Itiviti, I am not sure the comments fully on the impact for fiscal 2022. Well, I guess first, did you say that the – and was it $230 million in revenue and did that include purchase accounting adjustments? And then if we start thinking about fiscal 2023 as the impact of purchase accounting adjustments fade, would we expect maybe optically to you have higher revenue growth just without the purchase accounting adjustments if you are thinking… Edmund Reese: Yes, Understood, Chris. Thanks for the question. So just specifically on fiscal ‘22 for a moment, we said we expected to add approximately $250 million in revenue and that does include the purchase accounting of about $30 million, I mentioned that about two-thirds of that is in fiscal ‘22. The other third is this year in fiscal ‘21 impacting the revenues that we expect over the next 2 months that will be about 8 points to the recurring revenue growth in fiscal year ‘22. And as I mentioned, about 2 to 3 points to the adjusted EPS growth. And so you can expect growth on that revenue fully in the fiscal year ‘23 without any further impact from the accounting adjustment that I was just talking about. So, we feel good about the contribution that we’ll make as we go into 2030, as Tim said a moment ago, helping propel us to the top end of our range. I will also add, Chris, when we gave the 3-year objectives, we talked about 5% to 7%, organic recurring revenue growth and we talked about, 1 to 2 points from M&A in acquisition and Itiviti makes it I think that’s what makes us feel good about the objectives is that, Itiviti comes on and adds this type of contribution putting us at the higher end of those 3-year objectives. Chris Donat: Got it. Thanks, Edmund. Operator: Our next question comes from John Rodriguez of D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead. John Rodriguez: Hi, this is John calling off for Pete Heckmann. Now that you gave additional time to dig into the activity business, I want to just see what are the main solutions you guys see that are best poised for cross-selling? Thank you. Tim Gokey: Yes, John, it’s Tim. And we are – we haven’t closed yet. So we will be – that we will be – we will be digging in. I think on the cross-selling opportunities there are several. They have a strong position on Continental Europe, a stronger position than we do and so the ability to bring our products to their clients in Continental Europe and Asia, for that matter that sort of opportunity one. Opportunity two, we have a much stronger position in North America. And so the opportunity two help them better penetrate North America is opportunity two. And so there is a sort of the geographic opportunities. And then we have the asset class opportunities. And they have a very strong position in exchange traded derivatives. And that’s a more nascent area for us. And so we expect that combined offer to be to be very interesting. And we have a very strong position in fixed income and they have a building position in fixed income. And so that’s another attractive area. So, we think that between the geographic cross-sell and the asset class cross-sell that there is a really nice degree of revenue synergy built into this. And that as you know, most of the things that we do, we do really for revenue growth, we are not a – by a slow growing thing and cut costs and then go on to the next one that’s sort of not our model. So we think this will add nicely to organic growth for a long time to come. Operator: The next question comes from Patrick O’Shaughnessy of Raymond James. Please go ahead. Patrick O’Shaughnessy: Hey, good morning, guys. On LTX, can you speak to what sort of participation you have at this point from some of the largest fixed income dealers? Tim Gokey: Yes, Patrick. Thanks. This is Tim. And I am glad you asked that question actually, because it was sort of in the script there, but we have just enough last quarter signed measures the largest, but one of the top three in terms of fixed income managers. And so that is not on board yet, but it will be coming on board in the next few months, but that was a real milestone for us. So, I think the milestones that we were excited about on LTX and why we continue to talk about it were the patent we received on the best execution protocol, which really allows aggregation across buyers and sellers, the first execution of an aggregated trade, which is a real milestone. And so important, because the electronification of trading as you know has been a little slower in fixed income and really hasn’t penetrated the larger trades, which are the important ones. And so that aggregation capability we think really will help unlock the digitization of a fixed income. And then the third milestone was really the signing of one of the top – one of the very top fixed income managers. And so we think that’s just another side and why we are confident as we go through this year, we are going to continue to see momentum pickup. Patrick O’Shaughnessy: Got it. Appreciate that, Tim. And certainly, I think one of the interesting aspects of LTX is that it’s kind of a dealer centric solution. So, I appreciate that you guys have got alliance to that big trade you signed up one of the biggest buy side firms, but on the sell side, are you working with the biggest sell side broker dealers at this point with LTX? Tim Gokey: At the moment, I would say we are working a tier below the very largest ones and which is a great first mover opportunity for those firms are working very closely with them, including Raymond James, as you know. And so we are excited about that. We are in conversations with two of the Tier 1 firms and we’ll see how those go. I think, what’s interesting is when we put – and as you say it’s dealer-centric, so it really enables them to grow their business and that is so much about the AI and about enabling them to serve their clients really well. And when you get a trade in as the salesperson as the trader that likely counterparties to have one or two are sort of obvious, but number 25 you might not think of and what those firms are seeing and they are testing our AI side by side with their AI and they are seeing that it adds real value in terms of well, who is the number 25 person, I might not otherwise call it. So it really increased the efficiency for the salesperson, allows them to serve their clients a lot better. So that AI piece, even independent of the marketplace has real value. And so I think it’s, really makes for some very interesting conversations. Patrick O’Shaughnessy: Yes. Very interesting. And then switching gears to an expense question here. To what extent does your updated fiscal year ‘21 guidance reflect incremental organic investment relative to your prior outlook? And assuming there is some incremental organic investment? Where are you directing those dollars? Edmund Reese: So, Patrick, I think we have obviously signaled during the Q2 call that we would continue to invest in the business. And I will talk a little bit and Tim, you should jump in on where those investments are going. But again, I will reiterate that we remain committed to being able to drive adjusted operating margin to the tune of 50 basis points for the year. And I think we will still be able to do that. But it does include organic investments, I think about them across our technology platforms. Tim mentioned in his earlier remarks across post trade, across wealth management, and our infrastructure, as you think about the network resiliency that we have had over the past few quarters where we have seen a record trade volume growth, I would say that organic investment into our infrastructure and technology platforms is starting to pay dividends. You see it in our products, as well, Tim earlier talked about the VSM solutions and the SRD solutions within that regulatory business growth, you saw a 28% growth, benefiting from the investments that we have been making in those solutions. And I always added on to his comments about LTX, where we have continued investments there. And as we think about our 3 year outlooks, no revenue associated with that. So, that’s an opportunity for us as well. And then the final thing I would say, Patrick is investments in our go-to-market and sales organizations, particularly as we think about expanding internationally, focusing on our premium accounts. These are investments that I really, as I mentioned, I think drive recurring revenue growth. So, we will continue – we have been and will continue to be committed to these investments while producing margin expansion in delivering the high return that we want to drive. Tim Gokey: And I just can’t help but add-on, because it’s a topic we are all passionate about. So it is, Patrick, I think, you know well from following us over a long time, that it is a key part of our growth model. And that we do reinvest when we get the opportunity. And I am just pleased to be sitting here talking this morning talking about increased guidance, increased margin, increased investment in our products, and our associates. And when I look at the investments we are making in digital in LTX, in wealth, in multiple areas, in governance, including increased investments in data analytics. And now with activity we have never had so many paths that are not just the next 18 months, but well beyond that. And so it really gives you the confidence to be talking about the upper end of our 3 year objectives, but also really what happens after that, and that’s why we feel really so good this morning. Patrick O’Shaughnessy: Alright. Very helpful. Thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Puneet Jain of JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Puneet Jain: Hey, thanks for taking my question. How do you reconcile strong internal trade volume growth in capital markets with flattish revenue, even if you are just for $6 million in license sales? It looks like volume growth was much higher than revenue growth? Edmund Reese: Yes. So, when you think – thanks for the question Puneet. When you think about our GTO business, we show that chart that breaks it up between capital markets and wealth management. And the first thing I would say is as we were coming into Q2, remember, we are coming in Q3 off of record trading volume comps. 26% combined equity and fixed income and 28% for equity and that was primarily you saw that benefit come through in the capital markets business and we said that would be a tough comp as we came into this quarter. So in the capital markets business, you had a harder comp on trading volume in the license revenue impact that brought it to flattish revenue. The trading volumes that you saw the continued growth, I mentioned the fifth consecutive quarter of growth was primarily retail trading. And you saw the 7% growth in the wealth management business is the item that was benefiting from that. So, you have this tale of two cities and our GTO business right now, with capital markets coming over higher comps facing the lower license revenue that I will remind you was an grow over an issue an uptick in Q3 ‘20 revenues. But wealth management is seeing the benefit of the trade volumes that we saw this quarter. Puneet Jain: Got it. And why it might be a little early, but do you expect any changes in regulatory focus under the new administration and Chairman of SEC? Tim Gokey: Yes. Puneet, it’s Tim. First of all, let me just restate what I said before, which is we always work to support the SEC’s mission to inform and protect investors. And we have done that for a long time. And we expect to continue to do that. I think when we hear about the focus of the next SEC, certainly one of the things at the top of the list that we hear about in the market is around ESG and related disclosures for ESG, and how that may be an early focus. And we certainly stand ready to assist and to play the role that we play. I think it’s too soon to tell that’s a business opportunity, but it certainly appears to be an area of focus. I think the other questions are really around the initiatives from the previous administration and the extent to which they will continue or not, we – there is a lot of conversation about vote confirmation, we are hearing that could remain an area of focus. And that’s certainly something that we have been a supporter of. We share with the SEC the result of a successful pilot that was done with the top 100 issuers showing how that can work. On virtual shareholder meetings., there have been discussions about making the beneficial voting available to all providers, which we have done this season via APIs, universal proxy, as an area we support and we stand ready to help. There is a working group that recommended changes there. There were discussions about and working group that really isn’t making a recommendation. And then there is a whole conversation around streamline communications in funds, which were focused for the previous SEC is unclear, if that’s going to be a focus for the new leadership. But we support the recommendations. And we will continue to work to strengthen the industry for the long-term. So, lots of different things that were on the agenda that are a little less clear in terms of what their forward momentum is. Certainly the new things we hear about relate to ESG. Puneet Jain: Thank you. Operator: Our next question comes from Andrew Bauch of Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Andrew Bauch: Hey, guys. This is Andrew on behalf of Darren. Thanks for taking my question. Tim, you mentioned in your prepared remarks that you are expecting 25% stock record growth in the fourth quarter? Could you unpack this a little bit? I mean, obviously, that’s an impressive acceleration considering the level of growth you are at today. And if I am not mistaken, I believe the comps get harder in that regard? Thanks. Tim Gokey: Yes. Andrew, it’s a great question. And it’s definitely an interesting time. And we are just more broadly we are seeing this, as I talked about in my prepared remarks just as part of a long-term trend of the democratization of investing. And what we are looking at, as we look into the fourth quarter is, and we do have a fair bit of visibility at this stage, into what’s going to happen in the fourth quarter, because there is a lag between when the records come together and when they go out. So, we have testing, but we have good visibility. What I would say is just, what we are seeing is very, very broad based growth. We are seeing it across all different types of issuers. We are seeing it across all different types of broker dealers, although stronger in online broker dealers. We are seeing it across industries. And we are seeing across both managed accounts and other accounts. And it’s not just focused on main stock. So, like a lot of the things that you have been reading in other places in the press, this rise in equity holdings and rise in the participation in the market is very significant. We are also seeing to a lesser degree, but good interim record growth, which is driven by stronger inflows and healthy markets. So, we are seeing very strongQ4. We often get asked about, when the market changes or if the market changes, what will be the impact of that. And we have done a lot of work going back over the last 25 years of history and events like ‘99, and ’09 and even last spring and what that would really tell us is that growth flattens can be slightly negative, but that equity investors tend to stay invested in and it is sort of reaches a new plateau. So, we do think that these levels of ownership are sustainable. We are not modeling the same level of growth in the future, clearly. But we see there is a return to sort of more sort of normalized growth in the future. Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tim Gokey for any closing remarks. Tim Gokey: Thank you. And thank you all for joining us this morning. As I think you can tell this is an exciting time to be at Broadridge. Our business is strong, run a front foot, we are investing for growth. And we are on track to deliver at the higher end of our 3 year objectives. We appreciate your interest in ownership. And we look forward to speaking to you again in 3 months to tell you about our fourth quarter results and to share our guidance for fiscal year ‘22. Thanks again. Operator: The conference is now completed. Thank you for attending today’s presentation and you may now disconnect.BR Ratings Summary
BR Quant Ranking
Related Analysis
Broadridge Financial Solutions Q1 Earnings Forecast: Growth and Stability
Broadridge Financial Solutions (BR:NYSE) Quarterly Earnings Preview
Broadridge Financial Solutions (BR:NYSE) is on the cusp of revealing its quarterly earnings for the period ending March 2024, with Wall Street analysts forecasting a notable uptick in its financial performance. The expected earnings per share (EPS) of $2.23 represent an 8.8% increase year over year, while the company's revenue is projected to grow by 6.8%, reaching $1.76 billion. These figures underscore a positive trajectory for Broadridge Financial, reflecting its potential for sustained growth and profitability in the competitive financial solutions sector.
The stability in the consensus estimate for the EPS over the last 30 days is a significant indicator of the confidence analysts have in Broadridge Financial's performance. This unwavering outlook is essential as it plays a pivotal role in shaping investor sentiment and can directly impact the stock's market performance in the short term. The company's stock has recently experienced a slight decline of 1.6%, which is noteworthy when compared to the Zacks S&P 500 composite's decrease of -2.7%. Despite this, with a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), Broadridge Financial is poised to align with the broader market trends, suggesting a stable investment outlook.
Delving into the specifics, Broadridge Financial's key metrics reveal areas of growth and challenges. The Global Technology and Operations segment is expected to report net revenues of $414.68 million, a 6.7% increase year over year, indicating robust growth in this area. Similarly, the Total ICS Recurring Fee Revenues are forecasted to rise by 5.4%, reaching $731.04 million. However, the Total ICS Event-Driven Fee Revenues from equity and other sources are anticipated to decrease by 3.4%, highlighting some volatility in this revenue stream. On a brighter note, the Mutual funds segment within the same category is expected to see a significant 25% increase, showcasing potential areas of expansion and profitability.
Furthermore, the company's current trading position provides additional context to its financial health and market perception. Trading at $198.85, with a recent increase of $3.5 or approximately 1.79%, Broadridge Financial demonstrates resilience and investor confidence. The stock's performance over the past year, fluctuating between a low of $144.54 and a high of $210.24, alongside a robust market capitalization of approximately $23.42 billion, underscores its solid standing in the market. With a trading volume of 373,162 shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Broadridge Financial maintains a significant presence, reflecting its importance within the financial solutions industry and its potential for continued growth and investor interest.
Broadridge Financial’s Price Target Raised at Evercore ISI
Evercore ISI analysts increased their price target for Broadridge Financial Solutions (NYSE:BR) from $226.00 to $230.00, while maintaining their Outperform rating. The analysts anticipate that at Broadridge's triennial investor day this Thursday, there is a high likelihood, about 75%, of the company presenting new three-year earnings per share (EPS) growth projections that surpass its December 2020 forecast.
They expect the total recurring revenue growth to maintain its 7-9% rate, but the EPS growth outlook might be raised to 9-13% from the previous range of 8-12%. This potential increase is attributed to enhanced free cash flow following the completion of the UBS wealth platform and the renewal of Broadridge's extensive share repurchase program.
The analysts also suggest that dividend growth tends to follow earnings growth, which is important for dividend-focused investors. For context, at the 2020 investor day, Broadridge forecasted 7-9% total recurring revenue growth, 5-7% organic recurring revenue growth, a 50 basis points annual increase in operating margin, and 8-12% adjusted EPS growth. Moreover, due to the significant impact of Trian’s proxy contest with Disney, the analysts revised their 2024 and 2025 EPS estimates upwards to $7.85 and $8.80, respectively, from the earlier estimates of $7.75 and $8.70.
