Sezzle Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
November 8, 2023

There are 4 speakers on the call.

Operator

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Sezzle Incorporated Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. All participants are in a listen only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Charlie Joachim.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. For those joining us from Sezzle's Home in the United States, good evening, and welcome to Sezzle's 2023 Third Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Charlie Uekin. I'm the CEO and Executive Chairman of Sezzle.

Speaker 1

I'm joined today by my Co Founder and President, Paul Peridis Our Chief Financial Officer, Karen Hartshi and our Head of Corp. Dev and IR, Lee Brady. In conjunction with this conference call, we filed an earnings announcement and presentation on the ASX, which we will speak to. So please go to the ASX website to find our presentation if you would like to follow along. Before diving into the presentation, I would also like to note that we have submitted a formal application to the ASX for removal of the company from the official list We are currently listed on 2 securities exchanges, the ASX and the NASDAQ Stock Exchange.

Speaker 1

And after the process is completed, Sezzle will only be tradable on the NASDAQ. The Board of Directors of the company has that this is in the best interest of the company and its security holders for a number of reasons, including Sezzle's primary listing is not in Australia, But the United States, where we are already required to file with the SEC, the additional cost savings from not being listed in 2 markets, The geographic considerations with the majority of our beneficial ownership located in North America and the low liquidity of trading volume in CDIs. We anticipate consolidating the listing to the NASDAQ to increase liquidity in the remaining markets. Tezos delisting is subject to the ASX approval and any conditions the ASX may impose in conjunction with any such approval if granted. Full details will be contained in an announcement which is anticipated to be lodged with ASX next Monday.

Speaker 1

Now, let's dive into the presentation and our quarterly results Starting with Slide 3. To say that I'm excited about what we've accomplished in such a short period of time is an understatement. We are helping a great number of people on their financial journey and the numbers speak to this. Since our launch, we have processed over $5,000,000,000 in volume, representing over 58,000,000 orders. And we have had over 15,000,000 consumers sign up with us.

Speaker 1

Further, we have done this in a financially responsible way for shareholders. In the last 12 months, we have generated an EBITDA margin of 20%, Posted a profit margin in the low single digits, grew the top line by more than 20% and provided a return on shareholders' equity in excess of 35%. I'm not aware of any other pure play buy now, pay later that can stay the same. And we couldn't have achieved those results without a strong connectivity to consumer. And they are voting for us with their feet as we have now surpassed 230,000 subscribers and with their hearts.

Speaker 1

As we have received 4.9 stars out of 5 on the Apple App Store and 4.7 stars out of 5 on Google Play and Trustpilot. You might say Slide 4 looks familiar and you'd be right. Our mission of financially empowering the next generation is job number 1 and we want to make sure this is clearly understood. As the only buy now pay later company that is a certified B Corp, we believe our actions speak louder than words. Giving consumers the opportunity to spread payments out, avoiding interest and potentially building credit fills an Important gap for people who may be facing difficulty in their daily lives when it comes to making payments.

Speaker 1

Since our inception, we have been committed to driving change To financially empower people on their financial journeys. As noted earlier, consumers are voting for us with their feet As we have surpassed 230,000 subscribers to our subscription based products, Sezzle Premium and Sezzle Anywhere, as shown on Slide 5. The amount of engagement has been phenomenal. Subscriber frequency is higher than non subscribers by 20%, And they shop at a broad array of locations from everyday purchases such as grocery and service stations to meeting their discretionary needs at clothing and specialty source. Further, we are literally opening doors for shoppers as almost 40% of our Sezzle Anywhere To gauge the satisfaction of users, we track the Net Promoter Scores closely through a random survey implemented through a third party tool.

Speaker 1

In case you aren't familiar with NPS, anything above a 50 is fantastic. And if you are above 70, well, that's the Holy Grail. So to have Sezzle premium sitting at an NPS of 62 and Sezzle anywhere at 70 means we're doing something right. Our success has been driven by a team effort and that is added on Slide 6, as sales, partnerships, marketing and product teams Have played vital roles. During the quarter, we signed up over 200 new merchants in platform representing over $9,000,000,000 in gross merchandise volume.

Speaker 1

Meanwhile, our partnerships team has expanded our platform presence with WooCommerce and Justify. We talked about how we are growing beyond direct to merchant and are enhancing our direct to consumer position. This is apparent in our marketing and product teams. We recently hired a new Head of Marketing With over 20 years of e commerce and digital marketing experience, this team is now working on several consumer marketing campaigns to further improve consumer acquisition and engagement. Additionally, we continue to make a number of product adjustments that enhance the consumer experience.

Speaker 1

Our improved gift card checkout flow has resulted in an 84% increase in consumer sharing gift cards with others. Our introduction of Payin' Full and Payin' 2 Has been well received as those options represent over 10% of our order volume in the quarter. Our in app volume rose 33% year over year As we continue to improve our marketplace experience and last but not least, the number of consumers enrolled into our SezzleUp credit reporting products increased 40% year over year. While each of these might seem like minor items on their own, they add up to be a significant driving force for our success. On Slide 7, I would like to provide an update on our fiscal year 2023 initiative that we announced earlier this year.

Speaker 1

These initiatives are on pace to deliver $10,000,000 in annualized bottom line improvement that we set out to achieve when we first launched them. 3 of the 4 initiatives are completed and have been performing in line to ahead of our expectations. Our bank partnership initiative is still in progress. Admittedly, we hoped it would be completed in 2023, but nonetheless, we are making great strides and remain very We will be in a better position to provide a more detailed update on our bank partnership progress when we report our 4th quarter results. Turning to Slide 8, it's quite clear that our initiatives have made a positive difference.

Speaker 1

A lot of green on the screen, which is a good thing. A couple of items to point out. We went from a negative EBITDA margin position in the Q3 of 2022 to a positive 18.5 percent EBITDA margin In the Q3 of this year. We have achieved this by improving our unit economics and leveraging our operating cost structure. On a year over year basis, our unit account margin improved to 49.2 percent of total income from 44.5 percent and our non Action related OpEx as a percentage of total income declined to 46.2% from 65.5% the year prior.

Speaker 1

While everything is not green on our engagement scorecard on Slide 9, the red areas are being addressed and moving in the right direction. We have also been winning where it really matters, Increasing repeat usage, subscription growth, consumer order frequency and diversifying our revenue streams. Although our active consumer count is down year on year, we are seeing stability in this number in recent weeks. We believe the multitude of initiatives that we have implemented are having a positive impact and are encouraged by the future as additional initiatives in the pipeline should assist us further. Similar to our discussion last quarter, the decline in merchant count might seem alarming, but it's not.

Speaker 1

Generally, these micro merchants do not drive our business. We implemented the minimum volume hurdles for merchants to remain on the platform and have thus Seeing a drop in count. Our results show that these merchants were not driving our performance. Further, our shoppers have the ability to shop beyond integrated merchants with our subscription products, making this metric not as important as it once was. With that, I am now happy to turn the call over to our CFO, Karen Harchi, We'll go over our quarterly results in greater detail.

Speaker 1

Karen?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Charlie, and hello to all. Before we dive in, just a reminder that our 3rd quarter results are unaudited and presented in U. S. Dollars. Turning to Slide 10, I am happy to note that after 2 straight quarters of UMS declining year over year, Our UMS rose 11.4% in 3rd quarter compared to the prior year.

Speaker 2

The increase in our UMS, coupled with our continuous drive to diversify our revenue stream, led to total income for the quarter increasing 34% year over year to $40,800,000 We are excited about the start to 4th quarter and what the upcoming holiday season holds for us As October UMS rose 20% year over year to $176,500,000 representing a new monthly high in UMS for 20222023. On Slide 11, 3rd quarter 2023 transaction expense comprised primarily of payment processing costs improved slightly by 9 basis points year over year to 2.1%. We believe we can further lower our payment processing expenses as we continue to push for consumers to use ACH, renegotiate terms with network partners as our volumes grow and expand products such as Pay in 2 and Pay in Full that reduce our fixed installment processing costs. As discussed on previous earnings conference calls, we expected our provision for credit losses, As shown on Slide 12, to increase throughout the year compared to the Q1. For the upcoming Q4, we expect a moderate increase relative to the 3rd Quarter due to a seasonal pickup in volume, but we still anticipate the provision for fiscal year 2023 to outperform the 1.7% provision for fiscal year 2022.

Speaker 2

Turning to Slide 13, Our unit economics puts us in a good position to further expand our profitability. In 3rd quarter, total income less transaction related costs Increased 48.4 percent year over year to $20,100,000 As shown on Slide 14, Non transaction related operating expenses declined 5.2% year over year to 18,900,000 and set a new company low of 46.2 percent when measured against total income. Not only are we leveraging non transaction related operating expenses relative to total income, but we also continue to manage them successfully On an absolute basis, we are hyper focused in this area and believe that is reflected in our results. We have now recorded our 5th Straight quarter of GAAP net income as shown on Slide 15. We are not aware of any other Pure buy now, pay later that can make a similar claim.

Speaker 2

On an adjusted EBITDA basis, we reported $7,600,000 In the Q3 of 2023 compared with negative $1,300,000 in the Q3 of 2022, Another example that our initiatives are working. Turning to Slide 16, not only are we focused on growing our top and bottom line, We're building a solid balance sheet and capital structure. In the last 12 months, we've increased our stockholders' equity by over $12,000,000 to $18,000,000 Even with the significant increase in stockholders' equity, We recorded a return on equity of 35.7 percent over the last 12 months. Our capitalization is stable, I would like now to turn the call back over to Charlie.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Karen. With that, we are now happy to take your questions. Operator, will you please open up the lines for Q and A?

Operator

Thank Your first question comes from Phil Chippendale from Odd Minute. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Good morning, team. Thanks for your time. Charlie, first question just for you. Just on the customer numbers, you said that recently that they sort of started Stabilize, is that really a function of you're cycling an easier comp now? Yes, just I'd love to understand that dynamic a little bit just

Speaker 1

It's really on both sides still. So we've the engagement piece Has improved for us because of our additional products with Premium and Anywhere. So we're keeping the existing customer base more active and more engaged and there's less Turn from that base. And we're also seeing increase in new customers coming into the platform. So a little bit of both at this time.

Speaker 3

Okay, thanks. When I think about your subscriber numbers as a proportion of your active customer base, Obviously, that's continuing to climb partly due to the denominator effect, but that numerator, the absolute number now at 230,000. What sort of growth rate would you sort of expect in that subscriber number going forward over the next 6 to 12 months? Should we see that sort of just modestly continue to grow?

Speaker 1

I think the best projection is we don't have one for you, I guess, First of all, where we expect it to rise to. What we've basically been looking at is our past performance. I think what we've found is that it's easier to convert customers that are more engaged currently. So as we continue to improve the business, I think the plan is introducing these products to customers when they're active with us, when they're more engaged with us, and that's the best time to convert them over. But really I'd probably point to past performance as the best projection for anyone looking at things.

Speaker 3

Okay, thanks. Just last one for me. It would be remiss of me if I didn't ask about the removal of the ASX listing. I recognize that you're not expecting to make an announcement until Monday, so you may not be able to answer this question. But just on timeframe, is there anything you can talk to us there I'm obviously the announcement on Monday, but have you got a sense of how long this process might take?

Speaker 1

No, we will have more details on Monday. We don't have any Details for you, Phil, today. I'm sorry, I can't nothing to say at this point.

Speaker 3

Okay. Appreciate it. Thanks, Vito. Thanks,

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Mr. Joakim for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

All right. Thank you. First of all, another big shout out to the Tezzle team for continuing to crush it. I also want to thank our investors Continue to believe in us over this time period, and we're looking forward to talking to you when we report our 4th quarter results. Have a great rest of your day, everyone.

Operator

That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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Sezzle Q3 2023
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