RealPage Inc
Q1 2013 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 2 May 2013

[Operator:]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by, and welcome to the RealPage First Quarter 2013 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference may be recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Rhett Butler, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Rhett Butler:]

Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to the RealPage Financial Results Conference Call for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013. With me on the call today is Steve Winn, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Tim Barker, our Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. In our remarks today, we will include statements that are considered forward looking within the meaning of securities laws. In addition, management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current knowledge and expectations as of today, May 2, 2013, and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. A detailed discussion of such risks and uncertainties is contained in our most recent quarterly report on Form -- or excuse me, annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 27, 2013, and our Form 8-K filed today. RealPage undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. Finally, please note that on today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, in which we will exclude certain noncash and nonrecurring items depending on the measure, such as acquisition-related deferred revenue adjustments, depreciation and asset impairments, amortization of intangible assets, net interest expense, income tax expense or benefit, stock-based compensation expense, any impact related to Yardi Systems litigation, stock registration costs and acquisition-related costs. We believe that these non-GAAP measures of financial results provide useful information to investors regarding certain financial and business trends relating to our financial condition and results of operations. Please refer to today's press release announcing our financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013, available on the Investor Relations portion of our website for a reconciliation of these non-GAAP performance measures to our GAAP financial results. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve.

[Stephen T. Winn:]

Thanks, Rhett. Today, I will briefly review our first quarter performance, provide an update on the industry and discuss our operational highlights. First quarter performance was inline with our expectations and we continue to deliver on-demand revenue growth above 20%, while expanding adjusted EBITDA margins. Specifically, on-demand revenue grew 21% and non-GAAP total revenue grew 19%, both compared to the first quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA grew 26% compared to the same period last year. We ended the quarter with 8.5 million on-demand units representing 15% growth from the prior year period. Revenue per unit, or RPU, grew 7% over the same period last year. Annual customer value was $350 million, an increase of 23% compared to the prior year quarter. The rental housing market continues to be healthy. According to MPF Research, an independent division of RealPage, apartment occupancy for the first quarter of 2013 came in at 94.9%, flat compared to the prior year period. Annual revenue growth for the rental housing market, which includes shifts in both occupancy and effective rents, was at 2.6% as of the first quarter. Apartment occupancy rates are holding at very strong levels. Even with a mild increase in the number of households leaving the apartment sector to buy homes, apartment demand is proving reasonably healthy. Helping support the market, job creation for young adults is proving strong enough to spur some new household formation among those who have been living at home with mom and dad. Ongoing construction for the 100 largest markets in the U.S., which are expected to be completed within 18 to 24 months was approximately 270,000 units at the end of the first quarter, which continued to accelerate from historical lows experienced in 2009. During the quarter, YieldStar, Payments and SeniorLiving.Net were our fastest growing solutions, with all -- with growth in all products except our traditional MyNewPlace iOS where we saw revenue cannibalization as clients shifted spend away from traditional iOS to the newer lead gen channels, such as search engine optimized websites with online leasing, classified postings and social networks. Overall, LeaseStar growth is in the mid-teens, which we have forecasted to remain about the same for the remainder of the year, although I think there is some upside opportunity here since we're experiencing strong bookings now that the LeaseStar suite is available for deployment. During the quarter, we also expanded our solutions through 2 small acquisitions. The first called RentSentinel is a market share extension for our classified posting service and social network site. With nearly 300 customers managing 4,500 multifamily sites, RentSentinel adds market share to the LeaseStar install base, including 272,000 new units, to which our sales force is already selling our full suite of products and services. We also picked up some great technology in sales talent that we are adding to the overall LeaseStar team. The next acquisition, SeniorsForLiving.com, adds more lead generation capacity to our RealPage Senior Living offering. Whether we are helping a community answer their inbound calls, contacting leads before they arrive at the community or working with our partners locally through our nationwide care adviser network, our goal is always been to provide our clients with the most qualified residence through a lead-nurturing process based on each resident's needs and desired level of care. As the demand for senior care communities continues to grow, RealPage's expanding network of living and care options will continue to provide senior care operators with the tools and services they need to succeed and families with the best information available when it comes to making a decision on senior facilities and care. In summary, we're happy with the results for the quarter. We feel confident that customers will continue to migrate to our robust platform of software and software-enabled services, which we believe are the most integrated and most comprehensive solutions in the industry. With that, I'll now hand over the call to Tim.

[Timothy J. Barker:]

Thanks, Steve. During this discussion, some of the financial measures I will use are non-GAAP measures internally used to manage our operations. Our earnings press release issued earlier today provides a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP item. Total revenue for the first quarter was $89 million, an increase of 19% compared to the first quarter last year. The details on the components of revenue are as follows

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Our first questioner in queue comes from the line of Pat Walravens with JMP Securities.

[Patrick D. Walravens:]

I just have 2 questions. Steve, could you just comment on if you were happy with the productivity of your sales force in Q1? And then bigger picture, as we look at the rent growth data that comes out, it's been decelerating. Does that matter for you guys? How should we think about it?

[Stephen T. Winn:]

We are pleased with the sales productivity. It's -- we continue to hire salesmen and expect that will continue in the future. The market has slowed down a little bit on rent growth. This is not, in our opinion, have any impact on RealPage's ability to grow. We do well in an up market or a down market. Arguably, there's a little bit more demand for our marketing suite if the market slows. So if anything, I would consider this a biased positive.

[Operator:]

And our next question comes from the line of Brendan Barnicle with Pacific Crest Securities. Okay, we'll go to our next questioner. Our next question comes from the line of Justin Furby with William Blair.

[Justin Furby:]

You mentioned a decline in the MyNewPlace legacy business. Do you feel like you're losing share in that business? Or is it just the overall market that's losing it? And just any comments on your thoughts on where you are in the market share with that business. And I thought you mentioned in the last call that as you exited Q4, you saw some acceleration in that business. It sounds like the growth rate was sort of flat from where you saw it in Q4. So any additional color there would be helpful as well.

[Stephen T. Winn:]

We're seeing the same -- approximately the same mid-teen growth. If you'll recall, we released the online leasing functionality late in the fourth quarter. And what happens is customers begin to deploy that on pilot sites, so we didn't expect to see a big impact on revenue in Q1 because even if they deploy because of our revenue recognition policy, you only get 1 month or 2 months of revenue in the quarter. So it doesn't amount to much impact. We are seeing good bookings growth on the overall suite. It is our expectation that the new model for generating leads, which is owner brand-centric, revolving around search engine optimized websites, posting suites and social networks is going to displace some revenue in all of the ILSs. And MyNewPlace has a new version, which we call LeaseStar Places, and -- but it still has the old ILS model. And I would expect that to -- clients to shift away from that over time to the newer LeaseStar suite, in line with what all the other ILSs should be experiencing.

[Timothy J. Barker:]

And this is a business model transition we talked about when we bought MyNewPlace that subscription-based pricing will go away, which we've seen that decline. And lead-based pricing is a little more pay-per-performance, but it will still decline. And it gets into more of the new modern channels, and that's what we're seeing. We called it out because it's really the only product family that's not growing, and it's really only the subscription and lead pieces of that ILS.

[Justin Furby:]

And is that still kind of a $15 million to $20 million business within the LeaseStar group, which I understand to be something like closer to $60 million to $70 million? Or any -- help me parse out the different pieces of LeaseStar, I guess.

[Timothy J. Barker:]

We don't give product level. But LeaseStar is 20% -- low 20% of our total business. And the listing service is in there, and it's not as high as you were talking about. And as we sell the suite, we'll do our best to allocate. But Places is being sold in the suite. And so the listing service is becoming a smaller and smaller piece of our overall revenue.

[Justin Furby:]

Okay. You guys have paid down your entire credit facility. Just curious what your appetite is to reload there as you look out over the next 12 months or so. Will it continue to be sort of the tuck-in variety of M&A? Or is there any thought to another big acquisition?

[Stephen T. Winn:]

Well, we have an active acquisition pipeline, as we have for the last several years. So I can't really speak to a specific acquisition. But we look at product extension, acquisitions. We did a small market share extension acquisition a month or so ago. What you're going to see are product extensions, market share extensions. You won't see us move out of our primary real [ph] house, if you will, of rental real estate.

[Timothy J. Barker:]

As far as appetite on the credit facility, my cash flow can support a much larger credit facility than the $150 million. But it will be driven based on acquisition activities.

[Justin Furby:]

Okay. And then just last question. The unit growth -- I think you said organic was 11%, which I don't think it's been that high in several quarters. Anything in particular that was different this quarter that drove that?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

It's been pretty steady in the 9%, 10%, 11% range. So what drove it up to 15% was obviously the acquisitions coming in at the end of the quarter. That's just steady penetration into the market.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Lauren Choi with JPMorgan.

[Lauren Choi:]

I guess, if I was thinking about your RPU growth versus unit growth, I guess, I just wanted to get a sense, are you managing the sales force either way to go after new customers versus trying to get an upgrade? And how do you guys think about that?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

We typically want ACV growth, and we want ACV growth to 20%, 25%, and that will drive our on-demand revenue growth in the same percentages. The ACV is the product of units times RPU. So we want them kind of to both contribute. In a quarter where units are higher, it will dilute the RPU. And especially if acquisitions come in at the end of the quarter and raise the units and you didn't have the revenue in the quarter, it dilutes that 7%. So the $40.98 if you excluded the acquired units, would actually be $41.65 and it would have been more like an 8% growth. As far as specific steering, nothing large. I mean, we like them to go up to the most ACV they can get, the fastest they can get it. There's $2.8 billion of run rate revenue in our existing customers if we just sell our current products. Having said that, there's some salespeople that are better at going after new units and some that are better selling into our existing base. So there are spiffs that will incent some of that movement, but they're not large spiffs. It's just some slight steering.

[Lauren Choi:]

Got it. And then, Steve, in terms of LeaseStar you mentioned that there could potentially be some upside for the year. What do you think are like kind of the things that you guys can do that you view that way? I guess, I just wanted to get a sense of the drivers that you're talking about.

[Stephen T. Winn:]

Well, the key driver is that the suite is now available for purchase. We now have finished the bulk of the development on the suite. We are continuing to expand on that development. But the bulk of the development is done and customers can now adopt this new way of generating leads. So our job is to take this less expensive way of generating leads to our existing customers and new customers and get them to buy it and then deploy it. And so there's no magic here, it's just getting the feet on the street, evangelizing the new way of generating leases.

[Operator:]

Our next question will come from the line of Tom Ernst with Deutsche Bank.

[Jobin Mathew:]

This is Jobin Mathew for Tom Ernst. So you mentioned that LeaseStar is exiting at a 15% growth rate. You mentioned there's a bookings acceleration that you're seeing in the pipeline. But you also said there's a cannibalization effect from some of these older products being phased out. Looking ahead to the end of the year, do you feel like the bookings kind of is strong enough -- bookings -- the faster bookings would be strong enough to overcome these smaller cannibalization effect? And based on what you're seeing in this quarter, what does your guidance imply in terms of where LeaseStar could shape up for the year?

[Stephen T. Winn:]

Well, we're assuming mid-teen growth in our guidance in LeaseStar for the full year. And I do think there's -- if bookings continue to accelerate, we have some upside opportunity there. But this is a -- it's a new product. It's much like YieldStar was a number of years ago, where you're evangelizing a new way of generating leads and leases. And the adoption rates are somewhat unpredictable because customers have to try out the new way and get comfortable that it does, in fact, deliver on the value proposition that we've shown through other customers and then take the 1 or 2 properties that may have -- they may have tested on it and deploy it to the rest of their portfolio. So predicting exactly what quarter and what the timing of that is going to be is very difficult. What we do know is that the value proposition is substantiated and there isn't any doubt in our minds that an owner-centric branding strategy is more cost effective than the traditional ILS, and we would expect the market to continue to use ILSs. They're not going to go away. But you're going to see a significant shift of marketing spend over the next few years towards these newer forms of lead gen. And I -- we just want to be positioned in the mainstream of where this shift is going to occur, so we can benefit from it and not be victimized by it.

[Jobin Mathew:]

Okay. So just going back to the acquisition side. In the past you've mentioned that you are looking at international opportunities, expanding outside the U.S. Is that still on the edge [ph]? Is that something, which you expect to do organically or more inorganically?

[Stephen T. Winn:]

I would be surprised if we moved outside of North America organically. I mean, Canada is a logical place to sell without an acquisition. But if you look at other places in the world, you probably want to start with an existing foothold. So I would be shocked if we entered in an overseas market organically. It would probably be done through an acquisition. I will also state that the international is not where we view the bulk of the opportunity. The U.S. market is still extraordinarily unpenetrated and represents most attractive opportunity for us today, and that's where we're focusing the vast majority of our sales and development emphasis.

[Jobin Mathew:]

Got it, okay. And last question from my side on the sales force headcount. So looking at the math, it seems that the sales force headcount is up 28% year-over-year. Is this -- is there some inorganic numbers in this? And what are you thinking in terms of your pace of hiring? Are you looking to step it up from here or maintain at the same pace?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

Yes, your 28% is correct. And we said we'll grow sales and marketing line item a little faster than revenue. Most of that is compensation. So the Q1 growth of '11 is not out of line with that. And so we're on track with what we've said. I'm pretty sure most of that headcount growth is organic year-over-year because there hasn't been any big acquisitions during that year period.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Nemeroff with Credit Suisse.

[Michael B. Nemeroff:]

Just want to get a sense of the unit growth and where these units are coming from? Are these coming from new constructions from existing customers? Or are these from brand-new customers?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

It would be more from new customers than existing units, but we obviously get it from both.

[Michael B. Nemeroff:]

Okay. And then also, Tim, do you expect the organic on-demand revenue to dip below 20% but stay 20% for the year? Is that something that you guys are forecasting?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

No.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Houston with Barrington Research.

[Jeffrey L. Houston:]

To begin with, could you talk a bit about the competitive landscape with LeaseStar, that suite? And how often do you compete with Yardi's RENTCafé? Or is it mostly what you talked about before, displacing the old way of generating leads?

[Stephen T. Winn:]

Well, I would say it's mostly the old way of generating leads that we're competing with. There's a large number of smaller companies in this marketing solution space. I think a lot of people have recognized the same thing we see and have glommed on to one particular marketing solution and are promoting that. But Yardi is clearly a competitor with their websites and their overall lead-generation strategy. It's -- we are a little confused about what RENTCafé is. It started out as a traditional Internet listing service, but they appear to be branding their entire suite around RENTCafé now. But they're a competitor, but not -- I think this market is very early in its evolution. And markets that are as immature as this one, you tend to see lots and lots of competitors, and that's what we're seeing.

[Jeffrey L. Houston:]

And then on --separately regarding the 2 acquisitions in the quarter. Could you provide some more detail on the functionality that they brought? And then separately how much of the -- I think you said it's a $3.5 million revenue run rate, how much of that is included in the 2013 revenue guidance?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

I'll take the financial one first. One, for the quarter, there was around $300,000 in our Q1. The impact of Q2 would be -- impact revenue growth of approximately 1.5%; and for the year, about 1%.

[Jeffrey L. Houston:]

And then the functionality that the acquisitions brought?

[Stephen T. Winn:]

The bulk of the functionality that RentSentinel brought was a posting tool. They also had built an interesting new social listing service that we're embedding into the LeaseStar Places offering. SeniorsForLiving was marketing leads to the senior assisted living market. And we took over that, all that lead generation and are now continuing to perpetuate their model but also using those leads to feed our own referral network.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Brendan Barnicle with Pacific Crest Securities.

[Brendan Barnicle:]

On the on-premise revenue, should we be assuming sort of that run rate as we look at it through the remainder of the year?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

No. It continues to decline every quarter.

[Brendan Barnicle:]

Okay. So we should be looking at that as declining. And then on the -- again, going back to the macro changes that you were seeing, so in terms of the unit growth, it's primarily occurring from new, not from existing?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

Our unit growth is primarily from new, but we also get it from existing.

[Brendan Barnicle:]

And is it -- when you're talking about new, is it new construction primarily that you guys are tapping into?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

It's a new customer, it's a new owner or fee manager.

[Brendan Barnicle:]

As you think about some of the stats you've seen on new construction, do you guys have any sense of what you're win rate is looking like with -- on those new units?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

Just real quick, let me clarify when I say a new customer, I don't know that they're new in their existence. They're new to us. They're new to using one or more of our products.

[Brendan Barnicle:]

Right. But if you think a little bit about some of the new construction that's been going on that we've been seeing in multifamily, are you guys getting a sense of what your win rate is amongst that set of buildings?

[Stephen T. Winn:]

We don't disclose that or track it even. It's a -- we have a large number of merchant builders and large REITs that are participating in that development. So I would -- we're getting a bit -- a good chunk of that, but we're certainly not getting it all.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from Richard Baldry with Wunderlich Securities.

[Richard K. Baldry:]

It looks like both the G&A and the sales and marketing lines sequentially were up pretty solidly. The G&A, I assume, is probably the acquisition-related expenses. On the sales and marketing side, was there something disproportionate about the sequential growth or investments you made to maybe support some of the new product launches?

[Timothy J. Barker:]

No. You can't look sequentially in these line items because of the seasonality of payroll taxes. So if you go from Q4 to Q1, trying to compare these line items that have a lot of people in them, you start over in January and book all your new payroll taxes. So we have seasonally higher every year more payroll taxes in Q1 than Q4. So that's one of the bigger drivers quarter-to-quarter versus year-over-year. So other than that, it was the headcount growth.

[Operator:]

Thank you. And presenters, at this time, I'm showing no additional questioners in the queue. With that, that concludes today's Q&A session and today's conference call. Thank you, presenters, and thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation. Again that does conclude today's conference. You may now all disconnect and have a wonderful day.