First Northern Community Bancorp Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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August 3, 2023

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to InterDigital's Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Raiford Garabrant, Head of Investor Relations.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Good morning to everyone and welcome to InterDigital's 2nd quarter 2023 earnings conference call. I am Rafford Garabrant, Head of Investor Relations for InterDigital. With me on today's call are Liren Chin, our President and CEO and Rich Breske, our CFO. Consistent with last quarter's call, we will offer some highlights about the quarter and the company and then open the call up for questions. Before we begin our remarks, I need to remind you that in this call, we will make forward looking statements regarding our current beliefs, Plans and expectations, which are not guarantees of future performance and are made only as of the date hereof.

Speaker 1

Forward looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from results and events contemplated by such forward looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include those described in the Risk Factors section of our 2022 annual report on Form 10 ks and in our other SEC filings. In addition, today's presentation may contain references to non GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our financial metrics tracker, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website. With that taken care of, I will turn the call over to Liran.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Rifert. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. This was another strong quarter for the business. We added to our recent momentum, once again demonstrate our ability to deliver stable recurring revenue and strong profitability and continued our excellent track record of returning capital to shareholders.

Speaker 2

Let me start with a status update on licensing. We continue to make solid progress in the smartphone space, where we added a new licensee in Q2. In addition, we closed a new licensing agreement with Alpine, a specialist system and technology provider in the IoT and auto sector. In the first half of the year, our recurring revenue from the consumer electronics and IoT, including auto, increased by almost 20% year over year. Once again, highlighting how we are capitalizing the opportunities in multiple verticals.

Speaker 2

In addition, early in Q3, we added another new licensee from consumer electronics sector. We also continue to advance our case in our arbitration with Samsung. The 3 arbitrators Who will hear the case has now been confirmed, and a case management conference is being held today. As a reminder, Samsung has already agreed to take license to our portfolio effective January 1, 2023, where the arbitration process will decide the monetary terms. We remain confident that our new license with Samsung will reflect the value of our portfolio and continue our long term relationship with Samsung that started more than 25 years ago.

Speaker 2

Next, I want to give you an update on our litigation with Lenovo. Recently, we received another good decision from the U. P. High Court, which increased the amount Lenovo must pay us for a license to our 3 gs, 4 gs and 5 gs patents to just under $185,000,000 which we already received from Lenovo. Rich will explain the revenue recognition topic in his remarks.

Speaker 2

This is a very positive development for us And as to the Cord's previous ruling that Lenovo must pay us in full for the past sales going back to 2027. As Cord noted, this is intended to be a powerful way of discouraging licenses from holding out on taking our rent license. I want to remind you that the $185,000,000 judgment is for a license to only our cellular patents until the end of 2020 It does not include our valuable portfolio of video, Wi Fi and implementation patterns, and we remain committed To receive full and fair return on our technology that Lenovo uses in its devices each day. One aspect of our dispute, which I'm particularly pleased with, is that when we assert our patent in 3 separate technical trials against Lenovo, Each patent were found to be valid, essential and infringed. Because they are all standard essential patents, This not only places us in a strong position on Lenovo case, but also in our future negotiations and litigation with other prospective licensees.

Speaker 2

We are in our heart a research innovation business. The technology we developed and the patent that we filed each year are in many ways the product that we bring to the market. The high quality of our portfolio is directly connected to our ability to remain at the cutting edge of foundational research in wireless video and increasingly in AI. This year has already included many examples of how we excel as an innovation business. Our engineers produced a record number of new invention filings in the first half across both 5 gs and video spaces.

Speaker 2

As we continue working 5 gs, including what will be the first release of 5 gs Advanced, we are also deepening our research for 6 gs. In Q2, we announced a new research partnership with the University of Surrey in the UK to focus on specific technologies that we think will become a part of the 6 gs standard. Our ongoing wireless work, including the use of AI to improve the efficiency and reliability of mobile networks, It's an excellent example of how central AI has become so much of our innovation. Our CTO, Rajesh Pankaj, He's a well known leading expert in EAI and has been working in the space for years. Many of our other engineers are becoming noted experts and like Rajesh, several has emerged as leaders in the field.

Speaker 2

For example, in Q2, one of our senior engineers were elected as a Vice Chair of our industry group within the standard body, Etsy, which is focused on creating standards to preserve and improve the security of AI. Stating on our innovation success, we were recently named by LexisNexis as 1 World's Top 100 Companies in Innovation that advances sustainability. We strongly believe that our innovation is only become more valuable In an increasingly connected world, and I'm delighted that we are also playing our part in steering us towards a more sustainable future. Before I hand it over to Rich, I want to thank all our employees for the hard work in putting us in a strong position and deliver superb value to our shareholders. Our financial strength combined with our innovation leadership And the growing importance of our technology for different use cases means that we remain ideally placed to build our recent success.

Speaker 2

And with that, I hand it over to Rich.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Liran. I'm pleased to share that in Q2, we delivered Diluted earnings per share and adjusted EBITDA above the high end of our guidance range. This was driven primarily by revenue in line with expectations coupled with continued expense management. It's worth highlighting that when we received the initial Lenovo judgment in Q1, we recognized a large amount of catch up revenue and a smaller amount of recurring revenue. In Q2, the UK High Court increased the value of the award, But in Q2, we recognized the same conservative level of recurring revenue from Lenovo as in Q1.

Speaker 3

Furthermore, we expect to continue to recognize revenue on that same basis throughout the balance of the year or until the related appeal process progresses. As such, we are deferring recognition for about 40% of the updated award. This is rooted in the conservatism inherent in the generally accepted accounting principles applicable to the situation since some of the award is still contingent on appeal. Even with the deferral, Our revenue continued to drive strong profitability as we posted adjusted EBITDA of $54,000,000 at a 53% adjusted EBITDA margin. Notably, we have delivered an adjusted EBITDA margin over 50% in 7 out of the last 8 quarters.

Speaker 3

Our adjusted EBITDA margin shows the power of our business model As even in a quarter with only a small amount of catch up sales, we converted over half our revenue to adjusted EBITDA. This is driven by the operating leverage inherent in our model combined with the discipline to ensure we maximize the conversion of revenue to profit and cash flow. As discussed on the last few calls, We believe adjusted EBITDA is a great metric to measure the ability of our business to generate cash over time because it adjusts for timing differences in cash collections under our fixed fee agreements. For example, this year, we use cash in the first half of the year, but expect customer receipts, including Lenovo, will drive well more than $200,000,000 of free cash flow in Q3. And we continue to return excess cash to shareholders.

Speaker 3

As previously discussed, In the Q1 of this year, we repurchased 2,700,000 shares through a $200,000,000 Dutch tender. Since then, we have repurchased over 700,000 additional shares for almost $60,000,000 That brings the year to date totals to over $250,000,000 of share repurchases, a reduction of 12% of the outstanding shares since the beginning of the year. Looking forward to Q3, I'll remind you that our Q3 revenue guidance is based off of contracts signed to date since the timing of new license agreements is inherently uncertain. We expect Q3 recurring revenues will once again be around $99,000,000 We expect operating expenses to be similar to Q2. We expect an adjusted EBITDA margin of about 50%.

Speaker 2

We expect

Speaker 3

to continue to repurchase stock. And finally, we expect GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.60 to $0.70 Since both of our converts are in the money now, the diluted share count in our guidance includes an estimated 1,200,000 shares It's important to note that while the converts are dilutive from a GAAP standpoint, They are not economically dilutive below $106 due to hedges we have in place. Longer term, our goal remains to achieve and sustain a 60% adjusted EBITDA margin on $650,000,000 of annual recurring revenue from device licenses with additional upside from licensing new products and services. With that, I'll turn it back to Raiford.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Rich. At this point, Michelle, we are ready to take questions.

Operator

And you may get back into the queue if you have additional questions. Thank you. Please standby for our first question. The first question comes from Anya Soderstrom with Sidoti, your line is open.

Speaker 4

Hi. Thank you for taking my question and congratulations on the solid execution. A question on the Lenovo case. So the resolution you've got now 185,000,000 It's just in regards to license for the Celadar. Are you running the other technologies parallel?

Speaker 4

Or is that something you will When do you think that's going to be resolved as well or how is that progressing?

Speaker 2

Yes. Hey, Anya, good morning. This is Lorne. So as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, our current $185,000,000 reward from the U. K.

Speaker 2

Judge only captures 3 gs, 4 gs, 5 gs cellular technology and but it also only captures the use of those technology until end of this year. So therefore, there's really 3 elements for additional value. 1 is we have other patents, plus Wi Fi, HEVC and implementation patents that their Devices are using. We also have patents reading on their non cellular devices, including their PC and their laptop, Which are not part of the judge's decision. In addition, after end of the year going forward, they are unlicensed, even for the cellular devices.

Speaker 2

So regarding us capture the value, we currently already have ongoing litigation against them, for example, in Germany, Where we are asserting our HEVC patents against both their laptop, but their mobile devices, their cell phones. And the trial is actually coming up In next month. So we definitely working on those and we expect, as I said in the prepared remarks, to be paid Fully for our technology that they are using.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you. And in terms of capital allocation with all this cash coming in, What's your sort of priorities?

Speaker 3

Yes. So Anya, our priorities are to be responsible stewards of our cash. We returned, as I noted in my comments, quite a bit of cash so far this year, but we have $142,000,000 remaining on the authorization. And as I indicated, we certainly plan to continue to repurchase shares into Q3. So that's as always An ongoing discussion with us.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you. That was all for me.

Operator

Please standby for our next question. The next question comes from Brian Chin with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Hi, thanks for taking the question. Just on the targets that you've outlined, dollars 500,000,000 for Wireless and $150,000,000 for IoT revenues. Could you please give an update on reaching those targets? How should we think about Levers that you still need to pull perhaps upside from the ongoing cases to reach that $500,000,000 wireless target?

Speaker 2

Yes. Hi, Brian. This is Lorne. So on the target for $500,000,000 We are proceeding very well. Obviously, the Lenovo case is part of the step towards that decision.

Speaker 2

But the 3 largest unlicensed, including also Oppo and Weibo, which frankly size wise are bigger than Lenovo regarding their annual device sales. We currently have cases against OPO pending in multiple jurisdictions. While the thing I mentioned in my prepared remarks, it's a Decision in UK for the 3 patent trials is actually a very helpful decision given for the OPPO case Because the standard essential patents, our patent have been found the 3 patents have been found to be valid, infringement, actual to the standard, Which allows us to fast track that case in U. K. Against OPPO.

Speaker 2

And there's an accurate important hearing coming up in October of this year. It's a willingness trial and then followed by a friend redetermination next February. So those are Frankly, the Opu timeline, it's quite good. And regarding Weibo, we are continuing active dialogue with them. So we feel confident About our $500,000,000 target for the mobile side.

Speaker 2

Regarding the CE and IoT space, the $150,000,000 That's something we are making progress. And frankly, if you look at our program here, our IoT CE growth rate is faster than our mobile. We have been achieving double digit We are growth for the IoT space for the last couple of years already and first half of this year we are grew about 20% year over year. So we like to keep on building on that momentum.

Speaker 5

Okay, perfect. And I just had one follow-up. So on You guys have started articulating potential monetization of services. Could you perhaps provide an update On potential size of opportunity and timing of this and if you could provide any color on And the process and strategy and building out this platform, that'd be great.

Speaker 2

Yes. Again, look, Brad, this is Lauren. So if you look at So what the kind of technology those online services are using, buy online services have been the distribution of video, Either one direction or interactively, it's beyond any reasonable thought that they're using and benefiting a lot From our connectivity as well as from our video technology. So the real question is really how do we launch a licensing program in there, which we have been working on for Add a bit now. If you look at the market size, the online video space is projected to be growing to about $500,000,000,000 in 2027, which interesting enough is the same size as today's smartphone market size.

Speaker 2

So we are working on that quite diligently. Currently, we don't have enough specification to provide A precise estimate on how big a licensing opportunity this is with us because we really would prefer to sign up at least 1 or more license before we put a specific number to it. So we'll keep you informed and we have been working on quite a division beyond that space.

Speaker 5

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

I am showing no other questions in the queue at this time. I would now like to turn the call back to Raiford for closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Michelle. I'll now turn it back to Liren for his closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Hey, thank you everyone who joined today's call and we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter.

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