Forge Global Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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August 7, 2024

There are 9 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Angela, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Forge Second Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. On today's Ford's Global's call will be Kelly Rodriguez, CEO Mark Lee, CFO Lindsay Rydal, Executive Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Communications and Dominique Paschel, SVP of Finance and Investor Relations. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.

Operator

After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. And now, I will now turn the call over to Lindsay Rydal. Ms. Rydal, you may begin your conference.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining us today for Ford's Q2 2024 earnings call. Joining me today are Forge's CEO, Kelly Rodriguez and Forge's CFO, Mark Lee. They will share prepared remarks regarding the quarter's results and then take your questions at the end. Just after market close today, we issued a press release announcing Forged's Q2 2024 financial results. A discussion of our results today complements the press release, which is available on the Investor Relations page on our website.

Speaker 1

This conference call is being webcast live and will be available as a replay for 30 days beginning about 1 hour after the conclusion of this call. There's also an investor presentation on our IR page. During this conference call, we may make forward looking statements based on current expectations, forecasts and projections as of today's date. Any forward looking statements that we make are subject to various risks and uncertainties and are important factors that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those included in the statements. We discuss these factors in our SEC filings, including our quarterly report on Form 10 Q, which can soon be found on the IR page of our website and the SEC filings website.

Speaker 1

As a reminder, we are not required to update our forward looking statements. In our presentation today, unless otherwise noted, we will be discussing adjusted financial measures, which are non GAAP measures that we believe are meaningful when evaluating the company's performance. For detailed disclosures on these measures and the GAAP reconciliations, you should refer to the financial data contained within our press release, which is also posted to the IR page of our website. Additionally, we have posted our Q2 supplemental information on the same page. Today's discussion will focus on Q2 2024 results.

Speaker 1

As always, we encourage you to evaluate both annual and quarterly results for a full picture of Forge's performance, which can be affected by unexpected events that are outside of our control. With that, I'll turn it over to Kelly.

Speaker 2

Thanks all for joining today. We're excited to share our Q2 results with you amidst a continued market recovery and consistent and progressive growth at Forge. We're pleased to announce that in Q2, we recorded our 5th consecutive quarter of revenue growth. Revenue grew 15% over last quarter and rose 32% compared to the year ago quarter. This performance was attributable to continued upward momentum in our trading business as buyers return to the private market and as valuations continue to trend upward.

Speaker 2

Perhaps the most telling measure of the market's recovery, marketplace revenue is up 103% compared to the year ago quarter. Forge and the private market have come a long way. For the past 2 years, we've continued to invest heavily in our next generation technology platform to enhance our operational efficiency and the efficiency of this market. In that time, even as the market flirted with a near standstill, we introduced new products and new innovations, including Forge Pro and our first two private market indices to position ourselves for the market's reawakening. We're seeing that as IPO volumes start to rise and as VC fundraising picks up steam.

Speaker 2

While we're excited about our progress as well as our improvements in the top line revenue over the past 5 quarters, we are never satisfied. Because of the investments made over the last couple of years, we're in a position now to advance planned cost savings and deliver them to our bottom line. To that end, we announced today a decisive action to further reduce our expenses and accelerate our timeline to profitability. Our action today results in a reduction in headcount costs by roughly 11%. This action combined with other expense reductions will significantly improve our margins and produce savings of an estimated $11,300,000 on an annualized basis.

Speaker 2

I want to be clear, any decision that affects our employees and their families is never easy. I have incredible appreciation for the valuable contributions all our forge team members have made to this organization. We have intensely talented people here and losing any of our team members is difficult. However, this prudent and necessary step will strengthen our financial posture and it is consistent with the next generation platform strategy we laid out 2 years ago to deliver margin and efficiency improvements. The action today should not be viewed in isolation.

Speaker 2

We will continue to reap the benefits of incremental gains in productivity and efficiency as we roll out more and more of our next generation platform. The market's continued momentum and revenue reacceleration puts Forge in a strong position and accelerates our timeline to profitability. Given the path given the continued growth in the recovery of our markets business and the cost actions we announced today, our models indicate Ford should achieve breakeven adjusted EBITDA in 2026. Mark will come back to this shortly. We believe that Ford and the private markets are at an inflection point.

Speaker 2

The considerable investments we've made in our brand and in our technology, the Prussian's acquisition of our custody business and the progress we've made in product innovation throughout the market's downturn have prepared us for this moment. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark to dive deeper on the financials.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Kelly. I'll give more details about today's cost reductions as well as Forage's timeline to profitability. But first, let's cover the strong results from the quarter. In the Q2 of 2024, Voyager's total revenue less transaction based expenses totaled $22,000,000 up 15% from last quarter and up 32% from the year ago quarter. Our marketplace revenues continue to recover with renewed investor confidence amidst the continuation of the great reset.

Speaker 3

Total marketplace revenues less transaction based expenses reached $11,400,000 up from $8,500,000 last quarter, reflecting the continued improvement from the trough recorded in Q1 of 2023. Marketplace revenue rose 35% over last quarter and jumped 103% from the year ago quarter. In addition, while still early, we are starting to gain revenue traction in our European business. As a reminder for modeling purposes, we historically experienced a slowdown during the Q3 given the prevalence of summer vacations and holidays. Transaction volume for the quarter increased 62% from $263,000,000 in Q1 to $426,000,000 in Q2, bringing our year to date volumes nearly to full year 2023 levels.

Speaker 3

Meanwhile, our net take rate in the 2nd quarter moved from 3.2% to 2.7%. As previously discussed, net take rate fluctuates depending on the mix of trading in any given period. In Q2, we were able to complete several large block trades, which drove higher volume at lower take rates. Our custodial cash balances totaled $495,000,000 at the end of Q2, up from 481,000,000 dollars at the end of the Q1. Total custodial administration fees were $10,600,000 roughly flat to the prior quarter.

Speaker 3

We can see meaningful spikes in cash balances related to customer investment activities. While interest rates are expected to decline, current rates remain elevated, private investors seek higher yields. At the end of Q2, total custody accounts were 2,200,000 dollars and assets under custody were $16,600,000,000 both essentially flat the last quarter. 2nd quarter net loss declined from $19,000,000 to $14,000,000 quarter over quarter. This declining loss was attributable to improved revenue and lower operating expenses due primarily to a $2,800,000 non recurring legal expense in the first quarter.

Speaker 3

In the 2nd quarter, adjusted EBITDA loss was $7,900,000 compared to a loss of $13,500,000 last quarter as revenue improved and non recurring charges declined compared to Q1. Excluding one time expenditures of $5,600,000 associated with the resolution of legacy legal matters, net cash used in the quarter was $8,800,000 compared to $12,400,000 last quarter. As a reminder, the first half of our fiscal year includes timing driven cash flows such as the payout of our annual bonuses in Q1 and the payment of annual corporate insurance in Q2, neither of which will recur in the second half of twenty twenty four. Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash ended the quarter at $121,600,000 compared to $130,700,000 last quarter. This excludes $1,000,000 $7,600,000 in term deposits respectively classified as other current assets, including these term deposits as cash.

Speaker 3

Our total cash at the end of the quarter stands at $122,600,000 compared to $138,300,000 in the first quarter. From a housekeeping perspective, our weighted average basic number of shares used to compute net loss was 183,000,000 shares and our fully diluted outstanding share count as of June 30 was 201,000,000 shares. For Q3, we estimate 184,000,000 weighted average basic common shares for EPS modeling purposes in a loss position. As previously mentioned, we have taken actions to reduce our expenses to accelerate our path to profitability. Our actions will generate approximately $11,300,000 in annualized savings against budget, excluding one time severance charges.

Speaker 3

Of the $11,300,000 in savings, we estimate $8,800,000 in headcount related expenses and $2,500,000 in other expenses. Our current headcount sits at 342 and post expense actions we expect our headcount to reduce to approximately 319. As Kelly mentioned, we have internally modeled our path to profitability, which based on our assumptions we expect to reach in 2026. Our modeling assumes that total headcount related spend will remain relatively flat post our enacted cost reductions. We have also incorporated projected improvements in automation, operational efficiencies and productivity driven by the technology investments that we are making as we build and scale forge into a global business.

Speaker 3

If one were to extrapolate forward the growth of marketplace revenue over the past 6 months, combined with the expense assumptions previously outlined, our models project reaching breakeven adjusted EBITDA sometime in 2026 based on organic growth alone. While our models are based on assumptions that are subject to change, we believe that we are making targeted investments and taking the necessary steps to improve our productivity, growth trajectory and to achieve profitability. I'll hand it back to Kelly for a brief market overview before we turn it over for questions.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Mark. We continue to see momentum, positive momentum in the private market since valuations and investment activity bottomed out in Q1 of 2023. We've seen buy side interest continue to outpace sell side interest. We noted in our latest forged private market update that the bid ask spread continued to trend downward to 6.4% at the end of June, recording its narrowest range since Q3 of 2021. The number of companies represented by our IOIs increased to 551 in Q2, our highest number on record.

Speaker 2

And we noted that while the median discount to the last primary round was 32%, one quarter of companies are trading at par or better in June. This tells us that more companies are emerging from the great reset as valuations improve and investments start flowing again. As we look forward to our growth for the future, we have observed reasonable correlation based on historic data, our transactional revenue based on historic data between our transactional revenue and both the health of the U. S. IPO market and the health of primary late stage venture funding environment.

Speaker 2

As of the end of July, proceeds of $23,200,000,000 from the U. S. IPO market year to date already exceed full year 2023 IPO proceeds and the number of IPOs is up 37% year to date according to Renaissance Capital Data. And U. S.

Speaker 2

Late stage venture funding totaled 19,500,000,000 in Q2 of this year, a 61% improvement compared to the year ago quarter according to PitchBook. We provided charts in the Forge investor supplemental to demonstrate these historical correlations. Similar to public markets, we tend to see some softening in trading activity during the summer due to vacations and holidays. With that said, we are aware of other factors that can affect investor and market sentiment, including the upcoming election, Fed actions and global events. Still, we remain optimistic that even if every quarter isn't up into the right, the momentum is building in the private markets to help us finish out the year strong.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Devin Ryan with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, Kelly and Mark. This is Alex stepping in for Deb and Ryan. Hope you guys are doing well. Nice to see the progress you guys made this quarter. I guess, first, just to start on the expense side, you guys gave a nice a lot of nice color in your remarks.

Speaker 4

But with the expense actions you're taking, how should we think about a revenue range that could support a breakeven level for the company going forward? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. Hey, Alex. Thanks for the question. So I mean, if you're are you asking specifically about the revenue numbers that we were describing in our breakeven model?

Speaker 4

Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 3

Okay. So kind of as I said in my comments, what our revenue model did was to simply extrapolate revenues. Looking at the growth that we've experienced recently. So if you look at the revenues in the first half of twenty twenty four compared to the back half of twenty twenty three and calculate kind of the growth in marketplace revenues. We're using that as a proxy for growth in revenues going forward.

Speaker 3

And it was using that extrapolation of prior historical growth in order to model the breakeven point in 2026. Does that answer your question?

Speaker 4

Yes, I believe so. That's helpful there. And then just to follow-up on the trading volumes and take rates. Total trading came well above our expectations. Take rate was a little lower.

Speaker 4

Was this a resurgence of more institutional players coming back to the platform? Or can you just walk us through the dynamic there? That would be great. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes, we definitely are seeing an increase in institutional interest, Alex. And as we've been communicating now for, I think, the past couple of quarters, we've indicated how the ratio of IOIs between buyers and sellers has in the last several quarters shifted where we're seeing more interest and more buy IOIs come in exceeding the amount of sell side IOIs, which was a very positive development, right? As we previously discussed during 2020 2 and 2023, it was a 2:one ratio on the sell side. So it was very welcome to see the institutionals coming back in, in 2024 as evidenced by the ratio of buy side IOIs to sell side IOIs. And the other thing that I would note is when you think about the increase in volume and the lower take rate, the 2.7% that we mentioned for Q2, this has happened in prior years, right?

Speaker 3

We see spikes in institutional volume and block trades. In Q4 of 2022, our take rate was 2.8%. In Q4 of 2021, it was 2.9%. But in all 3 years, 2021, 2022 and 2023, our blended weighted average trade rate was 3.3% in each of those years. And so I think having that quarter and a period where you see heavier block trades and institutional activity that leads to a lower weighted average take rate, it's something we've seen in the past.

Speaker 3

And we expect to see on a go forward basis from time to time.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you guys for the color. Appreciate it.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Alex.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ken Worthington with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hi, good Kelly and Mark, this is Michael Cho in for Ken Worthington. Thanks for taking the question here. My first one, I just wanted to touch on again on the comments around the cost actions and really ultimately around the path toward breakeven and profitability in 2026. I mean, can you also kind of provide some color or commentary in terms of maybe the cash burn trajectory in relation to the breakeven 2026 comments? And while the path to profitability has ultimately accelerated or changed, it's actually also changed the longer term outlook for normalized forward margins in the future as well.

Speaker 3

Thanks. I think there's a bunch of questions that you kind of threw in there. Michael, one thing I would start with and make sure I try to take them 1 by 1. But when we built our model, we based it built on adjusted EBITDA. The primary delta between adjusted EBITDA and cash flow breakeven is the interest income that we receive on our cash.

Speaker 3

And so, adjusted EBITDA breakeven even implies a low level of cash flow profitability given the interest income? So that was the first question. Sorry, can you repeat the second one?

Speaker 5

The second one is really just touching on the cost actions that you announced today and maybe incremental automations and efficiencies that are coming on board sometime in the near term, does that ultimately also impact even the longer term forged model for normalized margins ahead?

Speaker 3

Yes. The specific reference to the improvement in productivity and efficiency that we built into our model kind of is based on detailed analysis we've done on the benefits of the investments that we're making in our technology platform. And so we've always said, right, we're just here to transform the private markets. And as we see these tech improvements come into place and we start to realize those productivity benefits, we expect our gross margins to improve in our core trading business. And that's kind of what we've modeled in over the next several years as we talk about the path of breakeven.

Speaker 3

So it's a combination obviously of expecting that our revenues will continue to grow and we're using the extrapolation of revenues that I mentioned previously. We're building in the productivity and gross margin enhancements that we've modeled. And then we're expecting to basically keep our costs relatively flat incorporating the expense savings that we announced earlier. The only thing I'd add to this is we always contemplated in setting the strategy for NextGen platform

Speaker 2

that it was going to ultimately result in a globally scalable and attractive gross margin business. I think what you should take away from today is in addition to realizing that we really are committed to moving up the point at which we get to cash flow break. We thought that was very important for the business and the investments we've made over the last couple of years. We think we wanted to start to share and show the market will result in that path to profitability being closer and perhaps proceed.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Michael.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Owen Lau with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Good afternoon and thank you for taking my question. Could you please remind us the dynamics between the IPO market and your transaction volume. Does the IPO trigger more, let's say, pre IPO trading to test the water, that's why your volume goes up even though there's still a kind of a big valuation discount compared to the last funding run? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks for the question, Owen. I think we have covered we have discussed this kind of in the past. I would say from a qualitative standpoint, clearly when we have a normally functioning IPO market and investors see private companies successfully come to market, it generates a lot more enthusiasm to try to get in to invest in private companies prior to the time that they go public to be able to help participate in that private company alpha, right, prior to the actual IPO. I think the other thing that we've talked about is that when a company announces that they're going to go public and typically that could be a year to 18 months ahead of the time that they go public.

Speaker 3

There's increased activity historically in those names as the shareholders typically see an opportunity to take their gains and avoid a 6 month lockup. So investors are motivated to kind of take the bird in the hand and investors are motivated to try to get in prior to the IPO. So that's the kind of qualitative explanation and discussion that we've had in the past. I would say what we have done here is that if you look at the investor supplemental, right, it's included now. What we have done here for you is we've plotted the relationship between changes in our market's revenue with the IPO count.

Speaker 3

Technically, it's the North America technology IPO count. And so you can see the relationship, and it's a relatively high correlation in R squared. And so now we're kind of giving you data, quantitative data that really correlates or is very consistent with what we described qualitatively.

Speaker 6

Yes. I mean, we've

Speaker 2

felt this though for a while, Owen. This is Kelly. We could we've talked about this in the past qualitatively. I think Mark has pointed it out, but we did want to include in the supplemental this time some of the historical correlation that we're seeing. So we're really trying to back it up with a little bit more detailed data, but we've seen a relationship here between IPO activity and late stage investment activity.

Speaker 7

Got it. And then going back to the expansion reduction plan, could you please maybe add more color on how much savings you expect to capture for the second half of this year? I mean, should we expect just half of the $11,300,000 this year and then the full $11,300,000 in 2025? And then will there be any like other reinvestments so that the total expense saving would be lower than that? Any more color would be helpful.

Speaker 7

Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks for the question, Owen. For as you kind of look at your models, what I would say, specifically I broke out the $11,300,000 The $11,300,000 is against our budgeted expenses. And we kind of said it's primarily headcount related with some other expense saves as well. Now if you look at kind of the saves relative to kind of run rate, I think you can take that $11,300,000 and assume that roughly speaking, 2 thirds of it is against our current run rate and 1 third is kind of cost future cost avoidance.

Speaker 3

So I think that's the bulk of it should be achieved in Q3 and in Q4, but there's probably some straggling timing related issues, but the vast majority should be released. We should be should benefit as us in on a go forward basis. We are also very specific to say that excludes severance, Owen, and obviously, severance would be a one time expense.

Speaker 7

Got it. Thanks

Speaker 2

a lot. There was a question too about any more new investments in there too. Is that right, Owen?

Speaker 7

Yes, exactly. Like, would we invest some of the save into the business maybe this year or next year, like excluding the service?

Speaker 2

The short answer is no. We are fully committed to continuing the investment levels in the NextGen platform with this taken into account. So we expect to, as Mark said, realize the full amount in 2025 and still continue to make investments in ongoing margin expansion and efficiency with the people that we've got here now.

Speaker 3

As we've said in prior calls, I mean, even though we've had a hiring freeze for the past 7 quarters, right, we've worked really hard to try to make sure we're focusing our resources on the top priorities and opportunities. And as we've discussed before, even during those 7 quarters of hiring freezes, we've been able to kind of initiate our efforts in Forg Europe, roll out our data product Forge Pro, put out our Forge Index, our option based lending program. So, even kind of in a constrained cost control environment, obviously, we always seek to prioritize our resources towards kind of that the opportunities that have the biggest payback.

Speaker 2

Yes. Just a reminder to everybody on the call, we did talk last quarter about the rollout of our global order book, the extensible capability for us to now expose forge on a global level. This is, as Mark referenced earlier, part of how our revenue contribution from Europe has started to emerge. And we are seeing now that relationships in Europe having access to counterparties through that extensible global order book are now starting to drive revenue for the business. We'll talk more about that in future quarters.

Speaker 7

Thanks a lot.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Smith with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Hi, thank you. So how is your data business doing in this environment with transaction activity up nicely in the quarter? And what are you doing to increase adoption there? I think you'd mentioned that last quarter versus kind of focusing on growth. But just curious what you're doing there and how that has been performing?

Speaker 2

So I think one of the things that we referenced previously is a focus on data adoption And we have really employed a strategy this year to get forged data everywhere. I think we wanted to keep the focus of our statements today on our performance, our optimism and essentially the cost savings decisions that we've made. I will say this, we are seeing very good uptake on Forge Pro and on the use of Forge data and look forward to reporting on some specifics of this in our next earnings call. But I'll let Mark reference any of the specifics that we've got.

Speaker 3

Yes. The only thing else that I would add Jeff is just as a reminder to the entire group. But we think about you can think about our data offerings kind of in 3 buckets, our Forge Pro product targeted at institutional trading clients, Our subscription based forge intelligence product, that's targeted really at clients that are not specifically looking to trade, but find the data very helpful to their business. A good example we've quoted in the past are like venture debt businesses. And then the third, as you know, Jeff, I'm whole DRIVE data business and that's forged price and the forged indices, right?

Speaker 3

And there's 2 indices are forged private market index as well as the investable forged liquidity private market index. So, we think about our data business kind of in those 3 different buckets and plug it away and have a lot of optimism for the future opportunity.

Speaker 8

Great. And then, what does the competitive landscape look like actually for private market index? I mean is there many out there today or I guess do you foresee many kind of emerging in the market? And what do you see as your kind of advantage if they do?

Speaker 2

Yes. This is a really interesting question because there's been a fair amount of news actually coming out of some larger places. I'm sure everyone has seen the commitment that BlackRock just made in their recent acquisition about emerging passive strategies and products relating to the private market. We see this as an incredibly powerful sign of what's coming next in the market. We believe part of our excitement around derived and index data is that having funds that are built on passive strategies and passive opportunities is going to open up this market for a whole set of participants that aren't here now.

Speaker 2

And so we believed in this strategy for a couple of years. And as we've reported previously, we now have our first index, investable index powered by forge by forge's private market index. We see more of that coming. But I'd say as it relates to competitive, most of what's out there today that have been cited as indexes aren't using the depth of clean data that Forge has as the market volume leader. We're seeing indexes announced that are using fund marks, which we believe are a less reliable and more stale source of data by which to build a product off from.

Speaker 2

And so we are really excited about our position in the market here. As far as competition, this is still a business from a revenue generating standpoint that's pretty small. And there's a number of small players out there that are aggregating data from 3rd party sources. We believe that we've got a competitive advantage given the depth of our global order book. We talked about some of these metrics earlier in the call.

Speaker 2

And we expect that at some point that part of the market is going to consolidate. There are just too many small players out there to raise capital with very little and meaningful revenue to support additional investment. So we're watching and we're continuing to lead from the front. But we think this is a really exciting part of our future and we're considering when and if to start breaking this out and start reporting on some of the KPIs separately, but we'll consider that in the future. For now, we believe 2024 will largely be a year focused on continuing to build the highest source of high quality data in the space and getting our name and brand out there associated with a singular source of truth for pricing.

Speaker 2

So, we're excited about where this is going, but we'll look for the future to start reporting on it.

Speaker 3

It. Hey, Jeff. I would add just a few comments on top of Kelly's. Obviously, as Kelly referenced, the BlackRock acquisition of Prequin, MSCI with their they completed their acquisition of Burgess and rolled out 130, I think, was the number in the seas. I mean, those are both as Kelly mentioned and referenced, those are both situations where they have fun level information, which we think is very different from secondary market pricing at an individual company level.

Speaker 3

And then you see a lot of articles out about people. I mean, Larry Fink talked about indices. You hear discussions around ETFs. There's a closed end fund out there that has been in the press. There is a lot of attention and desire for people to get access to the private markets.

Speaker 3

And we do think that investing is going to be part of that answer. And it's different having an index composed of exposure in the individual names versus creating indices based on fun interest and fun information. So I would just kind of add that to Kelly's comments.

Speaker 8

Okay, very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over back to the presenters for any closing remarks.

Speaker 6

Yes. Thank you all for dialing in today. We will be in New York at the Barclays and UBS Financial Tech Conferences post Labor Day. If you have any other questions, feel free to e mail irfordsglobal.com. Otherwise, thank you for the time.

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Forge Global Q2 2024
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