Deluxe Corporation (NYSE:DLX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Chip Zint: Yes. And I will just add another comment about it. So, obviously the Data Solutions segment is a bit messy this year with the Web Hosting divestiture halfway through the year. If you take that aside, the go-forward portfolio will grow roughly 6% for the full year, the DDM-specific portion, that’s really the growth engine inside of there, is going to grow closer to 7%. And so it’s just a campaign-oriented business. Campaigns can shift right at the edge of a quarter in one way or out the other. And so we feel really good about where we are going to be at. And we just will have a decline here in the fourth quarter as we lap a tough comp, but we think that 7% growth figure that you kind of deliver for the full year is a good gauge for where this business is heading in the long-term.

Charles Strauzer: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question is from the line of Marc Riddick with Sidoti & Company. Please go ahead.

Marc Riddick: Hey. Good morning. So, I wanted to jump into – and certainly, first, I want to thank you for scheduling the Investor Day because certainly for a lot of the questions that I am sure that a lot of us have, you will be covering it at that time. But I wanted to sort of circle back into maybe some of the process of setting up the program, and maybe you can talk a little bit about maybe how the conclusion of the ERP, did that sort of lead to some of the learnings or some of the initial pillars that led to project North Star or sort of maybe how that – how project North Star sort of gathered steam, if you will, over these last few months?

Chip Zint: Yes. Marc, this is Chip. I will start and then Barry can add more color. So, I think at first, I just want to reiterate that this project we are going through is a really good investment that we believe will drive meaningful shareholder returns. As we wrapped up the ERP and everything we have been doing over the last 3 years, the one thing we know is that was necessary to get us here to this inflection point, and the organization didn’t have the capacity to take on this bigger project until we got through that. So, this is a logical transition to the next step. As we said, it’s not a change in our strategy. It’s really helping accelerate the path we have been on and to really provide that executional certainty that we will get there.

And so we are very confident. We are very excited about this and we think it’s a great initiative, and we are very pleased that we have already executed that $10 million worth of in-year – I think here in the fourth quarter, which annualized gives us a $40 million run rate already going into next year, again, partially offset by what will be secular declines. But that gives us the certainty that this is going to be successful and yield immediate results.

Barry McCarthy: Well said. We are really confident about this, and that we have already put points on the board that are going to deliver for shareholders starting in the fourth quarter, we think is a really strong indication about the opportunity right in front of us that we are executing against.

Marc Riddick: Okay, great. And then I guess from the – one of the things that sort of has jumped out is the resilience of the checks business. I just wanted to touch on that a little bit, I guess maybe at least from the vantage point of market share offered to us, but if you talk a little bit about that? I mean how we should sort of look at that and kind of what you experienced in the third quarter and what you think may be available to you, at least vis-à-vis the overall secular expectations. It certainly seems as though you are still gaining market share if we are not looking at that one.

Barry McCarthy: So, first of all, I really appreciate the question. I think this is one of the things that maybe the market doesn’t fully understand about the quality of the earnings and the cash flow that this company produces. Checks actually increased profitability in the third quarter and we are winning market share. Every time there is bank consolidation, we tend to be the big winner and that we continue to improve the effectiveness of our program of selling checks through all of our bank and other non-bank channel partners. And so we really fundamentally believe that, and we don’t dispute the check consumption and usage is in decline, but we are able to win market share and we are also able to price effectively. That helps us control that decline at a rate less than the market, and we have a very long history of that.

And actually, in the last couple of years, we have had a period where we had four consecutive quarters of revenue growth while holding on to really attractive margins in the mid-40s. So, that gives us a ton of confidence in our ability to continue transforming the company and deliver the great cash flow that investors expect of us. And really proud of that, and we have got a great team that’s working on it. We have made reasonable and responsible investments to improve and maintain our operating efficiency for the long-term that also has given us a better product, a clearly superior product, which helps deliver us additional market share, helping us ensure that great cash flow for the foreseeable future.

Marc Riddick: No, that certainly has gone quite well. So, thank you for those details and looking forward to the Investor Day. I will turn it over there. Thank you.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And at this time, there appear to be no further questions. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Anderson for any closing remarks.

Brian Anderson: Thanks Dennis. Before we conclude, I would like to mention that management will be participating at the Stephens Annual Investment Conference in Nashville on November 15th. More details regarding our Investor Day presentations, which will take place from 8:30 to 11:00 a.m. Eastern on the morning of December 5th at the Lotte New York Palace Hotel, will also be posted on the Investor Relations site following this call. Thank you again for joining us today, and we look forward to sharing more during our Investor Day activities, and again in early February as we share our full year 2023 results.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the Deluxe third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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