Good morning. My name is Michelle, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Pluribus Technologies Corp conference call to present the financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2023. All lines are being placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Instructions on how to queue up to ask questions will be given at that time. Forward-looking information is based on a number of assumptions, including the business plans of the company, including the successful completion and pace of future acquisitions, management's expectations on the growth, profitability, and performance of its current and future acquisitions, the company's ability to continue acquiring business-to-business software companies at reasonable prices, and the company's ability to grow its portfolio companies into significant organizations and other assumptions as set out in the Risk Factors section of the company's fourth quarter MD&A, dated May 29th, 2023. Forward-looking information is subject to risks, many of which are beyond the company's control. A comprehensive summary of the risks and uncertainties that may affect the business is set out in the company's filings statement dated January 7th, 2022. This forward-looking information represents management's expectations as of today and accordingly is subject to change. Such information is based on current assumptions that may not materialize and is subject to a number of important risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Listeners are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information. Pluribus does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as expressly required under applicable security laws. Pluribus' MD&As and filing statements are available on the corporate website and its filings with the Canadian Securities Administrators on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Simon Giannakis, Chief Financial Officer of Pluribus Technologies. Mr. Giannakis, you may begin your remarks. Thank you, Michelle, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Unfortunately, Richard Adair, CEO of Pluribus, will not be on today's call as he's with a close family member who's in critical condition in the hospital. I would like to take a moment to wish him and his family well during this difficult time. In terms of an agenda, I will review the key highlights for the first quarter before going into a brief financial review. We'll then open the call to questions. Our focus in 2023 remains consistent with our communication during the Q4 2022 earnings call, which is to expand revenue and profitability through continued cross-selling, developing channel partnerships, and finding new markets and new verticals for products and services offered by our business units. In the eLearning TLN space, we saw clients defer certain workforce development projects in TLN this quarter. This work is expected to resume in the second half of 2023. During Q1 2023, we continued to invest in growth initiatives by extending sales and marketing capabilities within eLearning and expect to see the benefits relating to the investment in the second half of the year. In the eCommerce space, we saw growth in the business, partly attributable to the full quarter impact of the Social5 acquisition, completed in January 2022. POWR and Social5 continue to partner as a new distribution channel for the eCommerce suite of products. Finally, we continue to believe strongly in EdTech. Kesson had a stable quarter, with growth expected in Q3 2023, driven by the seasonality of the business. We remain very cautious with capital remaining from our public equity raise to ensure we have sufficient cash and liquidity to meet our debt service obligations in a very challenging macroeconomic environment. We maintain a robust pipeline of acquisition opportunities through the relationships and partnerships that we have developed with owner-operators. In 2023, we continue to evaluate these opportunities and will remain selective in how we deploy capital in this challenging environment. With that, I will now turn to a brief financial review. Revenue for the quarter ended March 31st, 2023, was CAD 9.3 million, an increase of CAD 1.1 million, or 13%, compared with CAD 8.2 million for the prior year period. The increase is the result of the full year impact of two acquisitions, Tortal Training and Rowanwood, in 2022 after the comparable period and to a lesser extent, the acquisitions of Kesson Group and Social5, acquired at the end of January 2022. The impact of the acquisitions on revenue was offset by several eLearning TLN customers deferring workforce development projects to the second half of 2023. Operating expenses for the first quarter were CAD 4.9 million, compared with CAD 4.3 million for Q1, 2022. The increase in operating expenses was driven by the two acquisitions previously mentioned and the acquisitions of Kesson Group and Social5, which were acquired at the end of January 2022. Pluribus invested in a select number of growth initiatives in its key business units, TLN, EdTech, eCommerce, by expanding sales and market capabilities. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was CAD 0.9 million, compared with CAD 1.1 million in the same period of 2022. The decline in Adjusted EBITDA was driven by the eLearning business unit and increased sales and marketing expenditure as we invest in a select number of growth initiatives, as mentioned earlier. This was partially offset by higher year-over-year Adjusted EBITDA from the rest of the company's business units. Net loss for the quarter was CAD 1.7 million, a decrease of CAD 2.9 million compared to the net loss of CAD 4.6 million for the prior year period. The decrease in net loss for the quarter was driven by no one-time transaction costs and lower acquisition costs in the current quarter. In Q1 2022, these costs related to the RTO and the completion of two acquisitions, both Kesson and Social5. Turning briefly to the balance sheet, we closed the quarter with cash on hand of CAD 6.4 million, compared with CAD 5.3 million on December 31, 2022. Additionally, the company has not drawn from its CAD 3 million revolving line of credit. Between cash on hand and our revolving line of credit, we have sufficient liquidity to manage through this challenging economic environment. That concludes the financial review and our prepared remarks for today. I will now turn the call back to Michelle to begin the Q&A session. Michelle? Thank you. We will now conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star two. We will now take a moment to compile the Q&A roster. The first question comes from Parth Shah of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning, thank you for taking my question. First one, not a lot of time has passed since the last update, has there been any change or any color that you can provide on customer behavior or sentiment? Thanks, Parth, for joining the call and your question. You know, I think what we're seeing in the marketplace is pretty consistent with our update last quarter, specifically on the eLearning TLN side of our business, with certain workforce development projects being deferred to the second half of the year. We are seeing an increase in activity now. We're seeing some of that sentiment improve. That was, you know, the conditions that were present during the Q1 results. Got it. Then you spoke a bit about targeted investments in areas where you see profitability. Can you speak a little bit more about that? Is that more on growing your channel, or is that more on, you know, getting into new markets? Can you add more color on that? Sure. It's a bit of a mix, it's specific investments in our, in our key business units. On the eLearning TLN business unit, we continue to have a strong roster of Canadian enterprise customers. Our specific investment is to replicate that success in the U.S. by having direct boots on the ground as far as direct sales capabilities and targeted marketing. As we look at Kesson in our EdTech vertical, you know, we continue to invest in that business unit by expanding our ability to grow and find new partners. You know, specifically, we've been working with a large partner called PowerSchool, which has an extended reach in the K-12 market in North America. Finally, on eCommerce, you know, our investing in that space is to grow the direct sales capabilities, to provide new revenue channels to both POWR and Social5 that were previously more heavily relied on, eCommerce partners such as Shopify and Wix. All right. That's helpful. Cash flow was pretty strong in the quarter. I'm guessing that's more cash conversion than guessing some renewals there. Can we expect this to be a trend going forward, where Q1 is strong and then the rest of the quarters are kind of more normalized? Yes. There is some seasonality in the quarter that was not seen last year due to the timing of the RTO and the payment of certain transaction costs. On a going forward basis, you can expect that Q1 does have some seasonality as it relates to cash flow with the advance in billing of some of our enterprise LMS customers. Got it. That's helpful. Thanks. That's all from me. I'll pass back. Thank you, Parth. Thank you. The next question comes from Nick Corcoran of Acumen Capital. Please go ahead. Good morning, thanks for taking my questions. Morning, Nick. Just my first question, maybe can we dig into the performance by segment a bit more? Like, should we think of the challenges being primarily related to the deferral of, large projects in eLearning, or is there anything else that you want to call out? You know, as we think through and talk about the various business units, I'll leave maybe the eLearning TLN to the end. On the EdTech side, you know, we continue to see K-12 having strong funding from the federal government in the U.S. We continue to see there are opportunities, although, you know, the closing of those RFPs or sales pipeline can be slow at times, but we continue to see positive sentiment in that vertical. In eCommerce, you know, the clients that we do target are susceptible to a recession or downturn in the economy. We continue to stay on top of our churn, which is something that is managed daily, and so far, those businesses are faring fairly well, given the economic conditions. In HealthTech, our business, TeleMED, is generally uncorrelated with the macro environment, and we continue to see steady performance. Finally, in Digital Enablement, it's a fairly specific and engaged customer base. Even in these challenging economic environment, we continue to see stable performance. Really where we're seeing the most challenges is the deferral of larger workforce development projects in our eLearning TLN business unit. That's helpful. Maybe building on Parth's question, there's a larger release of working capital in the quarter. What seasonality should we expect through the remainder of the year? Yeah. I think, you know, Q1 is typically gonna be a stronger quarter. You know, there's renewals, and typically our second half of the year is stronger from a revenue and billings perspective, some of which gets collected in Q1. To kind of further expand on that, Q2 is typically seasonally our lowest point from a working capital perspective, as our first half of the year tends to be lighter in revenue and billings than our second half of the year. We have certain, we have certain expenses that will be paid in Q2, primarily our annual U.S. and Canadian and U.K. taxes. Good. Maybe the last question for me, just on the M&A pipeline, with M&A being a lower priority, have you seen any of the targets shelve off the list, or are you reasonably active in negotiation with all your targets? It's a very patient and sticky pipeline. These are owner-operators that typically have not taken outside capital and therefore are in full control of their own timeline and process, many of which have identified us as the right go-forward partner. We have not seen a material decline or, you know, a loss of our of our pipeline. We continue to also look for partnership opportunities as we wait for a better economic climate to kind of further ramp up M&A. That's great, Kelly. Thanks again. I'll pass along. Thanks, Nick. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back to Mr. Giannakis for closing remarks. Thank you, Michelle, and thank you for all of you for joining us today. We look forward to updating you on our progress on our Q2 conference call in August. Goodbye. Have a good day. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the conference call for today. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines.
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