Friday, November 4, 2016

Key Quotes from Cogint's Q3 2016 Earnings Call COGT

Cogint (ticker: COGT) reported earnings results and hosted an earnings call yesterday. Here are some key quotes from CEO Derek Dubner and CFO Dan MacLachlan:

Key Takeaways
"The key takeaway is that there's tremendous demand for our products and solutions." 
"We're sitting in an amazing position. Many companies would desire to be where we are today. We're swimming in opportunity.  
The marketing side of our business is firing on all cylinders, entering its best quarter or quarters here in the latter and beginning of the year.
We have so much right in front of us that translates to revenue and big profits.....lots of low hanging fruit.
Long term consolidated gross margins (45%-55% - see below)...we're very encouraged we can meet those long term targets in an expedited time frame."
idiCORE
"we're receiving terrific feedback from customers regarding idiCORE." 
Historically, in early stages of similar product releases we've seen a larger percentage of transactional usage versus contract usage -- as high as a 70-30 ratio of transactional to contract customers. Today, we're experiencing the opposite
These indicators provide affirmation of the successful execution of this product rollout as well as future viability in the form of recurring revenues
idiCORE...delivering the full breadth of the product within the next quarter or so."
Gross Margin
"We expected and saw some seasonal margin pressure in Q3. 
Traditionally within the performance marketing segment you'll see gross margins that range between 28% and 32%. 
And in the first part of Q4 through today we've seen a rebound to those margins and are very excited by some of the growth we've actually seen at that level as well. 
Several key growth initiatives required increased spend to avail ourselves of the opportunities that our trends exhibited and that we believe will come to fruition by year end
Going into what's effectively the best time for the performance marketing division relative to holiday spend and budgets from our advertisers we're very excited about what will come in the next month and a half to close out the quarter."
"Long Term" Consolidated Gross Margin (45%-55%)
"We're encouraged by the increased demand for our information services business. And as that business continues to scale at a higher gross margin based on the leveragability of the fixed cost of goods model, we see long term consolidated gross margin targets of between 45%-55%
We haven't put out any specific guidance on the definition of "long term". But what we do see is with the great trending of the information services side of the business both in the risk management side and consumer marketing side we're very encouraged with our ability to accelerate and meet those long term targets in a relative short period
Historically when we look at the information services side of the business at a more mature state you're seeing gross margins range from 70%-85% because of that fixed cost nature of that side of the business."
Guidance
"We put out a little bit of guidance in terms of $183-$187 million for full year 2016. 
With what we're seeing closing out Q3 and first part of Q4 we feel VERY comfortable with that range. 
It's my nature (to be conservative)."
Market Opportunity
"On the risk side of the business, risk analytics, that's in excess of $8 billion market. That's really the information services side of the business.  
If we're talking about the digital marketing space, that market is orders of magnitude larger. We see that market today that's addressable in excess of $60 billion. 
Long term, looking at the complete data and analytics market is orders of magnitude larger than that."
TransUnion Litigation
"In August of this year we received an unfavorable ruling by the court on that matter.... 
We believe that reversible error was committed. We have filed an appeal and motions to stay the case pending the appeal."
More COGT analysis HERE.

Disclosure: Long COGT

1 comment:

KQforever said...

Thanks for the update. This low-volume company needs more awareness for the market to reflect the potential accordingly. Their performance is doing quite well