Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FICO) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Weber: It’s a little bit of both. So we knew we were never going to be able to keep the 70% number, right? So now we’ve been 50%, now we’re a little less than 50%. Looking at the rest of the year, we think we’ll probably be in that high 40s to low 50s percent. So there is some timing around some of these things. But we don’t see it really decline. I mean, it’s declined for the last few quarters, but we think we’re pretty comfortable operating in this range, give or take a few points.

Manav Patnaik: Got it. Okay. Thank you, guys.

Operator: Our next question is from Ashish Sabadra with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Ashish Sabadra: Thanks for taking my question. Just a question on the special pricing. Our understanding is that tends to be in the $40 million to $60 million range usually. Is that the expectation this time as well based on initial feedback as you have ruled out these special pricing increases?

William Lansing: We never confirmed that number. It’s €“ and so I won’t be doing it today. There is still some special pricing, but I can’t confirm a number for you today.

Steve Weber: It’s easier to do in hindsight. There’s a lot of volatility, right, in the marketplace. So if you can tell us what the interest rates are going to be in six months, we can probably give you a better number.

Ashish Sabadra: Okay. That’s fair. Maybe just a follow-up question on portfolio rationalization. Is it fair to assume that the Siron divestiture could also potentially help on the growth profile? And are there other opportunities for portfolio rationalization within the software portfolio?

William Lansing: I would say yes and no. So yes, our platform growth rate is substantially higher than the Siron business that we divested. And so divesting it does contribute to a higher growth rate for FICO. And are there other opportunities in our portfolio? Not really. I mean never say never. We’re always looking to be as streamlined and efficient as we possibly can be. But we’re pretty happy with the set of assets and the set of solutions that we have today. Even our older application solutions are still quite popular with our customers. We continue to invest in them and make sure that they have the features and functionality that the market needs. And as you know, the renewals on these typically have a cycle of kind of three years, and they get renewed multiple times.

It could be a nine-year or 12-year kind of arrangement. And so I think we’ll be probably hanging on to the vast majority of our portfolio. There are no obvious candidates for divestiture at this time.

Ashish Sabadra: That’s very helpful color. And maybe if I can sneak in one last question on the B2C side. As you mentioned, some of it is tied to the mortgage weakness. But I was wondering if there’s anything that you can do from a product perspective or a marketing perspective in order to improve or moderate the headwinds that are causing from the weak mortgage market on the B2C side?

William Lansing: Well, I can share you that our talented management team is doing everything they can on the marketing side and the customer acquisition side to keep the business growing as much as possible. But you do have a macro environment that just results in the kind of performance that you’re seeing right now. That business is completely data-driven science-based kind of a business where we spend on customer acquisition up to where it ceased to be economically smart to do so. And so there’s €“ that is always optimized. That business is optimized at whatever levels we have in the marketplace. And so the short answer to your question is we’re doing just the right amount. I really think it’s optimized. I don’t know that more would make things better. You might be able to get the growth rate up, but it wouldn’t be better from an economic standpoint.