EPAM Systems Inc (EPAM) — Q1 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I will begin my summary of the quarter. I want to acknowledge that the past months have been a stark reminder that we are still in the midst of a deadly and major global pandemic and that we must continue to be united in our efforts against COVID. As we have done over the last year, we will do everything possible to support our people on the ground and the communities in which they live and work. Now, turning to our results, for the first quarter, we delivered approximately $781 million in revenues, reflecting growth of 20% year over year with a reported 18% in constant currencies. Non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.81 represents a 27% increase over the same quarter in 2020. Both revenue growth, combined with a greater level of profitability, enabled us to continue to invest at higher levels across the business. Since we last talked in mid-February, we have seen a meaningful increase in demand across our business, particularly with notable consolidation activity in the second half of the quarter. Our core services remain robust as clients continue to double down on digital transformation and innovation journeys. Recently, we have embarked on building new platforms, conceiving new digital products and services, and modernizing and transforming our creative technology strategy and delivery models. Digitization trends are driving increasing interest in business strategies, new types of engagement platforms, cloud migration, and modernization efforts, data engineering, data analytics, and our machine learning and AI applications. From an industry perspective, we are experiencing this dynamic, most notably in life sciences and healthcare, financial services, insurance, consumer packaged goods, retail, and communications. Today, the focus is on building stronger vertical expertise to leverage our marketing capabilities and current data and cloud. As a result, we still have much work to do to continue building our integrated consulting propositions on the EPAM Continuum brand. With our increasing depth in vertical domains, we're already realizing the promise of delivering increasingly differentiated solutions to our global enterprise customers. An example is that EPAM and Equifax are creating a platform that develops cloud-based applications, products, and services. It is a critical part of a multimedia cloud and data-driven reformulation for Equifax. They are working together to build a Google Cloud platform with a data fabric to enable Equifax to organize its legacy data sources into a seamless structure while keeping all critical development and separation measures in place. It's worth mentioning that while the transition from Equifax's legacy system to the cloud would normally take years, EPAM successfully assisted in transforming Equifax's mainstream applications in less than one year. This is one example repeated across many markets and verticals, from financial services to the growing interest in retail platforms. We believe that the amount of technology is changing the discussion of linguistic activity. All these dynamics have led to an expectation that, hopefully soon in a post-COVID environment, the number of business demands and processes needing digitization will increase rapidly. Those market drivers, along with opportunities in cloud modernization, composable architecture, data, machine learning, AI, and cybersecurity will create significant room for continuous and sustainable growth. To meet this growing demand, we continue to focus on scaling up our talent. The challenges of 2020 required us to create reliable and secure remote operations. In 2021, we have the opportunity to leverage investments in infrastructure, modern processes, and tooling to explore ways to activate broader talent markets and deploy a more diverse set of capabilities. The result is that our project and net headcount growth is accelerating. For Q1, we welcomed approximately 2,300 net hires to EPAM, which included an increase in senior-level hires with strong, consistent experience. Overall, since the beginning of Q4 2020, more than 5,400 net additions have joined the company, representing the highest level of performers we have added in two consecutive quarters. While this shortage of technical and deep-industry talent is a known industry issue, we are confident that our investment in that area, brand recognition, and expanding employee journeys will strengthen our recruitment efforts. Also, part of EPAM's growth strategy involves expanding our capabilities through focused acquisitions, as acquisitions add talent and experience in salesforce, business intelligence, and security. Therefore, we announced the acquisition of PolSource, a Salesforce consultancy with talent concentrated in the U.S., U.K., and Poland. This will extend our Salesforce services' global footprint and provide consolidation for building additional expertise, intellectual property, and scale in our Salesforce ecosystem. This acquisition builds on our earlier acquisition of Mulesoft Partner Ricston and enhances our Salesforce API capabilities, allowing customers to leverage a multi-cloud approach. We are already working closely with the PolSource team to bring together a compelling value proposition to enterprise clients. On Tuesday, we announced the acquisition of White-Hat, a niche cybersecurity consultancy based in Israel. White-Hat's expertise, methodologies, and team of talented professionals will enhance our cybersecurity capabilities and help clients improve security within their platforms. Finally, we recently closed an acquisition of an analytics consultancy firm with offices in Europe and Asia, serving retail clients. This acquisition will bring a team of trusted advisors and experts to provide a full spectrum of data and analytics consultancy, including strategy advisory data management, market-leading accelerators, and end-to-end delivery across multiple vendor platforms and solutions. We are pleased to acquire these three companies. In conclusion, we're encouraged about the road ahead. Over the last twelve months, we proved our leadership position in the digital segment of a highly competitive global IT services market. EPAM today is more adaptable, diverse, and global, with increasingly strong market listings and the necessary components of a scalable talent ecosystem that are required for growth as we aim to become a $5 billion to $10 billion company. With that, let me hand the call over to Jason to provide more specifics in our Q1 results and our 2021 business outlook.

Thank you, Ark, and good morning, everyone. We're pleased with our performance this quarter. As Ark mentioned, we delivered strong growth across a broad range of industry verticals and geographies. First-quarter revenues were approximately $780.8 million, a year-over-year increase of 19.9% on a reported basis and 17.8% in constant currency, reflecting a positive foreign exchange impact of 210 basis points. Revenues came in higher than previously guided due to stronger demand in the second half of the quarter, combined with our ability to accelerate hiring in response to the improving demand environment. Our industry vertical performance produced strong sequential growth across most areas of the portfolio, with higher revenues from both existing clients and new customer relationships established over the past 12 months. In terms of year-over-year performance across our industry verticals, life science and healthcare grew 31.6%. Growth in the quarter was driven by platform development to support new business models and data analytics to drive deeper customer insights. Financial services grew 28.3%, with demand coming from traditional banking, insurance, and, to a lesser degree, wealth management. This growth was driven by our clients' need to transform beyond digital banking to modernize core processes and applications, leveraging the cloud. Software and high-tech grew 20.7% in the quarter. Travel and consumer grew 16.3%, driven by strong growth from our consumer clients, along with solid and improving performance in retail. Business information and media delivered 6.5% growth in the quarter, reflecting a tougher comparison with the same quarter last year. Lastly, our emerging verticals delivered 23.6% growth, driven by telecommunications, automotive, and materials. From a geographic perspective, North America, our largest region, representing 60.2% of our Q1 revenues, grew 20.6% year over year or 19.9% in constant currency. Europe, representing 33.2% of our Q1 revenues, grew 16.3% year over year or 10.9% in constant currency. CIS, representing 3.9% of our Q1 revenues, grew 21.2% year over year and 28.2% in constant currency. Finally, APAC grew 53.9% year over year or 48.4% in constant currency, now representing 2.7% of our revenues. Growth in the quarter was driven primarily by clients in financial services. Additionally, the shutdown of economic activity in the region in March 2020 produced a favorable year-over-year comparison. In Q1, revenue growth across the portfolio was more diverse than in previous quarters, with our top 20 clients growing 12.1% while clients outside our top 20 grew 25.9%. We also saw good growth in both existing and new clients. Moving on to the income statement, our GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 33.5%, compared to 34.9% in Q1 of last year. Non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 34.9%, compared to 35.5% for the same quarter last year. The lower gross margin in the quarter was primarily due to Q1 2021 having one less available day of capacity compared to Q1 2020. Additionally, we are beginning to see some elevated labor costs in certain geographies. GAAP SG&A was 17.5% of revenue compared to 19.2% in Q1 of last year. Non-GAAP SG&A came in at 15.5% of revenue, compared to 17.6% in the same period last year. SG&A reflects a lower level of corporate spending, which we believe will tick up as we progress throughout the year. GAAP income from operations was $107.3 million or 13.7% of revenue in the quarter, compared to $87.5 million or 13.4% of revenue in Q1 of last year. Non-GAAP income from operations was $136.9 million or 17.5% of revenue in the quarter, compared to $105.3 million or 16.2% of revenue in Q1 of last year. Our GAAP effective tax rate for the quarter came in at 5.1%, which includes a lower-than-expected level of excess tax benefits related to stock-based compensation. Our non-GAAP effective tax rate, which excludes excess tax benefits, was 22.7%. Diluted earnings per share on a GAAP basis was $1.86. Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $1.81, reflecting a 26.6% increase over the same quarter in 2020. In Q1, there were approximately 58.8 million diluted shares outstanding. Turning to cash flow and the balance sheet, cash flow from operations for Q1 was $12.8 million compared to $63.3 million in the same quarter of 2020. Free cash flow was $1.6 million compared to $34.2 million in the same quarter last year. The lower cash flow was due to the timing of payments related to our annual variable compensation programs returning to more historic norms. Additionally, income tax payments were higher compared to the same quarter in 2020. We ended the quarter with $1.37 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Q1 DSO was 67 days, compared to 64 days in Q4 2020 and 76 days in the same quarter last year. We believe we can continue managing DSO levels in the upper 60s. Moving on to a few operational metrics, we ended the quarter with more than 38,800 engineers, designers, and consultants, a year-over-year increase of 17.3% and a sequential increase of 5.7%. Total headcount for Q1 was 43,450 employees. Utilization was 81.4%, compared to 79.5% in Q1 of last year and 77.9% in Q4 2020. Now let's turn to guidance. We continue to see strong demand across a broad range of our offerings. Given the elevated demand across the portfolio and improvements in staffing capacity, we are raising our revenue and EPS outlook for 2021. I mentioned during our last earnings call that throughout 2021, we will invest at elevated levels across the business to support growing demand, and we will continue our expansion into new geographies, underpinning our long-term growth objectives and our goal of becoming a larger and increasingly global EPAM. Starting with our full-year outlook, revenue growth will now be at least 29% on a reported basis, and in constant currency terms, will now be at least 28% after factoring in an approximate 1% favorable foreign exchange impact. We now expect approximately 200 basis points of revenue contribution to come from acquisitions we closed in the last 12 months. We expect GAAP income from operations to continue to be in the range of 13.5% to 14.5%, with non-GAAP income from operations expected to continue in the range of 16.5% to 17.5%. As mentioned earlier, our income from operations reflects a higher level of investment in planned expansion of our capabilities and geographies in 2021. We expect our GAAP effective tax rate to continue to be approximately 12%, and our non-GAAP effective tax rate, which excludes excess tax benefits related to stock-based compensation, to continue to be approximately 23%. We now expect GAAP diluted EPS to be in the range of $7.09 to $7.31 for the full year, with non-GAAP diluted EPS in the range of $7.54 to $7.76. We expect a weighted average share count of 59 million fully diluted shares outstanding. In Q2 of 2021, we expect revenues to be in the range of $853 million to $861 million, producing a year-over-year growth rate of approximately 35.5% at the midpoint of the range. We expect a favorable impact of FX on revenue growth to be approximately 3%. Lastly, we now expect approximately 250 basis points of revenue contribution to come from acquisitions we closed in the last 12 months. In the second quarter, we expect GAAP income from operations to be in the range of 13.5% to 14.5%, and non-GAAP income from operations to be in the range of 16.5% to 17.5%. We expect our GAAP effective tax rate to be approximately 11%, and our non-GAAP effective tax rate, which excludes excess tax benefits related to stock-based compensation, to be approximately 23%. We expect GAAP diluted EPS to be in the range of $1.76 to $1.83 for the quarter and non-GAAP diluted EPS to be in the range of $1.88 to $1.95. We expect a weighted average share count of 59 million diluted shares outstanding. Finally, some key assumptions that support our GAAP to non-GAAP measurements include stock-based compensation expense expected to be approximately $21.8 million in Q2, $21.5 million in Q3, and $21.2 million in Q4. Monetization on intangibles is expected to be approximately $3.1 million for each of the remaining quarters. The impact of foreign exchange is expected to be approximately a $1.5 million loss for each of the remaining quarters. Tax-effective non-GAAP adjustments are expected to be around $5.7 million in Q2 and approximately $5.5 million in each remaining quarter. Finally, we expect excess tax benefits to be around $14.2 million in Q2, $2.2 million in Q3, and $8.6 million in Q4. In summary, we are pleased with the high-quality results we delivered in the quarter, which, combined with the broad-based strength we see across the business, support strong 2021 performance. Operator, let's open the call for questions.

Hi, good morning. Thank you. I wanted to ask on the outlook first. Can you talk about where the strongest recoveries in demand have been that enabled the upside guidance raise? And are you seeing improved pricing discussions with existing clients? Or is this upside predominantly being driven by volume more?

Yes. So the upside would predominantly be generated by volume. What we are seeing is that there's a whole wave of modernization programs kicking off within the financial services industry. A significant amount of growth is expected, as you saw in Q1, but also further acceleration of growth in financial services in Q2 due to modernization programs with large banks and much-accelerated growth in insurance. We're seeing recovery in the travel and consumer section of our portfolio, quite strong growth with consumer-oriented programs in retail and with consumer goods companies. We're even beginning to see some sequential growth in the travel space. We're seeing strong growth in healthcare and life sciences. We're witnessing solid growth in our traditional high-tech software and technology clients. And we're also seeing reemergent emerging verticals with very strong growth in telecommunications, automotive, and materials. Between Q1 and Q2, we expect even stronger growth in financial services, the travel and hospitality sector, and, again, even stronger growth in the emerging verticals. This is a broad-based recovery across existing and new relationships, with some good new customer revenues. On the pricing environment, we are having more constructive conversations with clients. Both existing and new clients understand that with the wage inflation in the marketplace, somewhat higher pricing will likely be required to support the addition of new teams. But for the most part, this growth is volume-based.

Okay. And then on margin, you talked about building cadence, particularly during the second half of the year, which suggests you're set up within the outlook. Did you have any investments that had shifted within the year? Or any changes in your expectation on the scale of talent investments? Can you dig in a little bit on that elevated labor cost comment you had?

Yes. So, we're expanding our capacity in terms of adding staff, and that would probably show up more in the SG&A portion. As we look at gross margin, if I were to be very clear, I think we're expecting now that gross margin might be slightly lower, not lower than Q1, but lower than our original expectations for 2021 based on this updated guidance. SG&A will also be somewhat lower, allowing us to maintain profitability in the 16.5% to 17.5% range that we've discussed with a real focus on the midpoint, which is 17%. But we are seeing somewhat elevated levels of compensation required both to retain and attract staff to EPAM. We are mindful of this as we produce the guidance and manage the company throughout the year.

Thank you.

Thank you. To build up on some of those talent questions, any changes to the geographic focus that you talked about last quarter with Poland, India, and Mexico, just given some of the talent challenges? And as you broaden your capabilities and become a more global company, what do you think is the right distribution of talent in terms of onshore, nearshore, and offshore locations?

I don't think there are significant changes in the direction of the locations we've discussed, like India, Mexico, and we continue to grow with them. Actually, India is probably the fastest-growing component in our talent composition right now. From this point of view, we are becoming more distributed and balanced, as the concentration in Eastern Europe is going down, which is normal with the growth of the company and globalization of our clients. Regarding what's the best offshore or onshore mix, we are still increasing our onshore component, especially with the complexity of engagements requiring strong industry connectivity and consulting relationships. So that's growing, but it's not drastically changing. We are very careful at managing the balance right now. What is ideal? I don't think anyone knows, and it's changing dynamically.

Okay. And then, Jason, I understand the current gross margin dynamics that you just outlined and the expectations. But when you think about more kind of medium term and becoming a more global company, does that allow you to start to drive gross margins back up over time? Or what should we expect over a more medium-term timeframe?

Yes. So on the 34.9% adjusted gross margin we booked in Q1, the lower level of gross margin was partly due to there being one less available day of capacity in the quarter. However, I do think we are seeing somewhat elevated levels of wage inflation. Those could continue to elevate throughout the fiscal year. In the remainder of the year, I believe we might run below the approximate 36% we have spoken about over time from a gross margin standpoint. It's generally stabilized at a slightly lower level than that 36%, but I don't expect it to continue to decline. I think we will be able to provide guidance later in the fiscal year.

Okay. Thanks, guys.

Sure.

Thank you very much. I wanted to ask on hiring. The 2,000 net headcount addition looks really strong, especially considering the competitive environment for talent. Can you provide a bit of an update on hiring and the traction you're seeing? Also, could you share your hiring strategy for fiscal year '21 and what you think is achievable or sustainable given the strong competition and demand for high-skill talent right now?

I think we're comfortable with the current level of guidance. Thinking about a couple of thousand net new hires per quarter should be achievable this year. Maybe a little bit higher; we will see. However, the market is extremely challenging; I wouldn't downplay that like a message you're probably hearing from other companies. But the geographical distribution we've built during the last five or six years allows us to continue the pace we have in Q1.

Got it. And you announced the White-Hat acquisition yesterday. What's your appetite for further acquisitions this year? What capabilities are you looking to add?

Nothing has changed in our M&A direction. It just so happened this quarter that we made three acquisitions. We are in constant discussions as well. It's important to understand that two of these are boutique consultancies. We aim to add capabilities and some geographical diversification. That's what we're going to do in the future too.

That's great. Hey, thanks a lot, guys, and all I can say is keep it going.

Thank you.

Hey, guys, this is Kathy on for Jason. Just wanted to ask about utilization. What's your comfort level with this around 81%? I know you were slowing a little bit in sequential headcount growth but still very strong. How are you balancing that and what's the real sweet spot on utilization?

Yes. When we're running at 81%, that would still generally be high. We continue to explore what the right level is. We believe that somewhere in the high 70s is a better place for us, as it does allow us to be prepared for new customer engagements and unexpected expansions at existing customers. We also think there is a possibility of elevated vacation taking in the second half. Considering all the unused vacation that accumulated in 2020, our revenue guidance would also accommodate lower utilization due to time off in the summer and fall months.

Okay, perfect. And just a follow-up question. Has there been any change in deal sizes you've seen or an update on the pace of converting backlog to revenue? It sounds like you haven't had any problems, but just want to get an update there.

I mean, there have been several quite large modernization programs that have likely kicked off and are expected to be multiyear in length. We continue to engage with our customers in a different way than we would have five years ago. We are seeing more of these types of engagements.

Operator, why don't we go to the next question?

Thanks, Ark and Jason.

Hey, Ashwin.

Hi. So I think my first question, you mentioned both elevated labor costs. Is it in any particular geography? And flip side of that, in pricing, are clients willing to pay up for the shortage of talent?

To the wage inflation, it would be fair to say that it's across all markets, including key markets as well. Given the current sector dynamics, there is significant demand. Regarding pricing, the majority of our revenue growth is coming from the volume of work we're doing. However, we do expect some pricing improvement, especially with major consulting-led programs. It's a little early to discuss this in detail.

Yes, so there's an increase in the pricing environment, as we discussed. But this still predominantly arises from volume, while pricing improvement is starting to materialize.

Got it. Okay. And then, I know there's always churn in sort of the top 20 client list. Clients outside top 20 are growing faster; do you think that's a sustainable trend?

Yes, I think when we look at the pipeline, this trend will continue in Q2, where we have more rapid growth outside the top 20. Last year was somewhat unique, with a few large corporations who were less impacted by the pandemic continuing to grow. However, this year, we see new relationships established in 2020, and that's driving growth.

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

Hi, good morning. Great results here. Ark, I want to ask about two things from your remarks. The first was about data digitization, do you consider that akin to modernization? Last quarter, you started discussing systems integration. How would you categorize where data digitization fits?

I don't think of it as a new term. It was more about digitization in general. Data, cloud, AI, and ML play significant roles in it, but I didn't mean to introduce it as a new concept.

I did notice you mentioned a $5 billion to $10 billion target for the company, which is larger than simply doubling. Can you provide context for the $10 billion figure?

That's a good discussion. Practically, we demonstrated the ability to double the company every three years historically. If not for the pandemic, we would probably have been positioned to do this by now. Our current thinking on how to reach $5 billion is practical and not just for the next quarter; it reflects our long-term aspiration.

Hey, guys, it's Damian on for Ramsey. I wanted to ask again on margins here, particularly in the context of employee travel as the world begins to normalize. What expectations do you have for travel-related costs? Ark, any high-level thoughts on virtual delivery?

It's still too early to make predictions about future employee travel. There's definitely a desire to return to more traditional in-person engagements, but it is currently unpredictable. Our understanding of the situation is also changing on the fly. The productivity of our distributed work model hasn't been negatively impacted, and it's proven to be successful. I believe it will remain relevant going forward, but it's too early to judge.

Regarding margins, we had anticipated a return to normalcy in the second half of the year, but it's unclear now. There are some temporary benefits in the income statement, but we are seeing greater efficiency in SG&A, which we believe will have lasting impacts.

We've accounted for potential increases in travel in our models but are unclear on how this will play out.

That's very helpful. Can I ask a quick follow-up on involuntary attrition? What are you seeing in your employee base since the start of the pandemic?

Attrition in Q1, for the entire quarter, is still relatively low, below 15%. It's somewhat lower than in Q1 of 2020. However, we are beginning to see an increase at the end of the quarter in March and into April. Again, we are below 15%, and well within expectations, but some elevation in attrition is noticeable.

Hello. Congratulations on the results and thank you for taking my question. My first question is about your latest acquisition. You're moving into cybersecurity, which wasn't a strong focus before. Is this area considered a major opportunity for you, or is it more complementary to your offerings?

Cybersecurity has become an important part of our strategy. It is vital to ensure applications and platforms are secure. We've developed our capabilities organically, but there are additional high-skilled areas needed for comprehensive platform engineering. The recent acquisition represents a necessary addition to our global engineering practice.

Regarding pricing, the concessions made during COVID have largely expired, which will help us generate revenues moving forward. Pricing discussions are becoming increasingly constructive.

Thank you very much.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you. I want to ask about your commentary on modernization in the financial services industry and that being a growth driver. Can you elaborate on what you mean and any specific catalysts?

The discussion around modernization is generic but remains relevant across various capabilities. We are witnessing significant investment in infrastructure and applications to transition to the cloud with enhanced functionality. This encompasses a range of legacy elements, data, and analytics with substantial ongoing efforts.

Okay. Thanks. We can take that offline. I have a second question regarding pricing challenges. It seems there is a disconnect in the market responding with higher rates amid supply constraints. Is this an unusual or a typical dynamic?

It takes time for the market to adjust. Clients have budgets to manage when discussing pricing adjustments. This will likely accelerate as we work through the year.

I agree; there are many factors at play, and timing is essential. Clients may perceive digital investments as cost-reducing, which may not be true due to the overhead involved.

Got it. Okay, thanks very much.

What trends are you seeing regarding account consolidation, and what has been your ability to capture incremental share of wallet?

We have been quite effective in our ability to consolidate within our accounts. We are seeing budget reductions inside some existing clients.

You can see our strong performance in financial services shows that we have had some success in that area.

Perfect, thanks. You mentioned investing more in your consulting business. How are those investments resonating, and how much have you been able to capture in consulting services from your customers?

We are seeking to engage in conversations early with clients to guide them on practical implementations of the platforms rather than just chasing consulting for its own sake. We are making great progress quarter after quarter, with new use cases coming in.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'd like to say congrats on a great quarter. I have a question about emerging technologies. In prior years, you were working in blockchain technologies. Are you starting to see any meaningful interest in blockchain, and is it becoming a larger part of your capabilities? Similarly, is AI also seeing an uptick in client interest?

It's difficult to say that blockchain is becoming a significant driver, but it is part of our normal engagements alongside other advanced technologies. We also see some pick up in AI engagements, although it remains relatively small. We think this will accelerate as we build data infrastructures capable of supporting such applications.

Within your digital segment, are there specific areas or technologies within digital that you're seeing fast growth or high client interest?

I would prefer not to delve into specifics. However, cloud modernization remains a significant driver, leading to various projects and client engagements.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone, for your time today. If you have any questions, David is available to help. Talk to you in three months. Thank you.