Compass, Inc. (NYSE:COMP) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Soham Bhonsle: Hey, good evening, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. Kalani, maybe, I wanted to dive in a little bit on the underlying assumptions for the guide in 3Q. So the $1.35 billion midpoint, is it fair to say that you’re assuming sort of flattish ASP next quarter and assuming similar market share there take, I guess, on a year-over-year basis? And then on EBITDA, the $25 million, the midpoint it sort of looks like it would take your non-GAAP OpEx to that $900 million range by 3Q. So, does that mean that there’s potential to maybe go below that $900 million run rate by 4Q?

Kalani Reelitz: Yes, sure. I’ll answer the last one. I think we are — as we mentioned, we continue to move kind of from that $950 million where we’re at today and annualized down to $900 million. I think overall, we are working hard. As we’ve always said, the majority of the actions to get to $900 million have been identified and actioned already. And so it’s about timing, I think vendor contracts and timing of those coming up. I think we will kind of glide into the fourth quarter run rate. We continue to look for opportunities on cost and continue to look for opportunities to be more efficient. So we’ll keep working there. But I think our guide where we are right at that $900 million at the end of Q4 is right for us. And I think that’s the right level of operating expense right now.

Soham Bhonsle: Okay. And then, a word on recruiting, thanks for the color earlier. But just wondering on the competitive environment. I guess, could you maybe bifurcate what are you seeing for full service models versus other cloud-based or discount-based models? Because one of the things that we’re hearing is agents might be moving to some of these cloud-based models because they can just keep more of their sort of their split today. But I just wanted to hear from you what you’re seeing on the ground.

Robert Reffkin: Yes. So what we’re seeing on the ground, at extreme, there’s, on one side, discount brokerages that charge nothing and give very little to say it lightly. On the other hand, there’s brokerages that have historically charged more and provided more. And what I’m seeing is a lot of the brokerages in the latter group that historically competed in hiring agent and retaining them off of value-added support services, culture, training, coaching, trying their best on integrating technology that they’ve, in this environment, massively pulling back, closing offices, reducing supports. And then the agents coming back to them the next year and saying, “Hold on, you don’t even have an office. Why are you charging me 20%, 25%?

I’m not going to pay that. So, I am going to go to the discount brokerage unless you charge me less.” And so it’s kind of foreseeing this downwards spiral with some of the traditional competitors moving towards a discount brokerage model as you coined it. And so yes, there’s discount brokerages out there. There have been for all of Compass’ existence. But I think it’s a zero-sum game. And there’s only so many top agents that would want to be at a discount brokerage, because generally speaking, the people that are best at what they want to do — the people that are best at what they do want to have the best to help them do it. And that’s really where Compass fits in.

Soham Bhonsle: Great. Thank you.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Jason Helfstein with Oppenheimer.

Jason Helfstein: Thanks. Just first for Kalani. Maybe talk about why the revenue is closer to the lower end of the guide versus the midpoint. Was it share coming in lower than you thought or industry trends weakened later in the quarter, or combinations? And then second question, maybe, Robert, just kind of continuing to focus on share. How do we think about — I mean, share — you guys are gaining share, but albeit kind of less than last year. Is there an acceleration at some point to levels like more similar than we’ve seen maybe last year? And then just how you’re thinking about your strategy for market expansion from here? Thanks.