Apollo Tactical Income Fund Inc. Price & Performance (AIF)

I'm joined today by our CEO, Jim Hannon our CFO, Pavan Chabra as well as Rich Sarkis, the President of Software and Data. Some of our remarks on this call and in our disclosure may contain forward looking information, that is based on certain assumptions and therefore subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results differ materially. From those projected. Please refer to our forward looking information disclaimer in today's materials. Please be reminded that Altus Group uses certain non GAAP financial measures ratios, total of segment measures, capital management measures and supplementary and other financial measures as defined in National Instruments 50 two-one 12. We believe that these measures may assist investors in assessing our investment in our shares as they provide additional insight into our performance. Readers are cautioned that they are not defined performance measures, and do not have any standardized meaning under IFRS, and may differ from similar computations as reported by other entities. And accordingly, may not be comparable to financial measures as reported by those entities. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as substitute for financial measures prepared in accordance with IFRS. An explanation of these measures is detailed in today's IR materials.

Would also like to point out that unless otherwise specified, all percentage and basis growth rates we refer to on today's call, will be on a constant currency basis over the same period in 2024. And okay. Over to you, Bhavan. Thanks, Camilla, and thank you everyone for joining us today. Altus had a solid start to the year delivering recurring revenue growth steady margin expansion, and improvements in cash generation.

Let me hit some of the highlights. Analytics total and recurring revenue were up. Consolidated revenue was modestly down impacted by the Appraisals and Development Advisory segment. Profit from continuing operations improved by 47%. Adjusted EBITDA was up 29.7% driving a two eighty basis point margin improvement. Both cash provided by operating activities and free cash flow were up meaningfully over last year and the comparative period last year included a contribution from property tax. Turning to the analytics business segment. Total revenue growth was led by Argus Intelligence. As discussed last quarter, we've been winding down some nonrecurring revenue lines of business. We're really pleased with the consistent improvement in adjusted EBITDA, which reflects high quality of revenue operating efficiencies, and our ongoing cost optimization efforts. Recurring revenue is a key metric for our performance. Argus and DMS revenue streams have very low churn with retention rates above a %. Q1 recurring revenue was up 2.1%. Our new software growth was strong. EMS growth was modest as expected. As you recall, there's seasonality to BMS. Historically, Q4 represents our largest quarter for DMS revenue. Our margins continue to expand up 200 basis points in the quarter above guidance. Drivers of our margin expansion include revenue growth, our portfolio optimization efforts, efficiencies from our global service center, benefits from restructuring activities, and our overall expense growth moderation.

We're steadily driving towards our f y twenty twenty six target of approximately 35%. Turning the analytics new bookings. This metric reflects new and incremental business. We're pleased with the 34.3% improvement in recurring new bookings which included strong software bookings and a 5,000,000 of the fifteen million three year subscription agreement with Ryan Tax. Excluding this deal, recurring new bookings growth was 3.1%. Turning briefly to our cloud adoption rate. Having reached 90% of users contracted on the cloud, we're now retiring this metric from our external reporting. Finally, at appraisals and development advisory, as CRE transactions remain muted, revenue came in lighter than guidance. However, our restructuring activities are paying off.

Driving $1,300,000 improvement in adjusted EBITDA in Q1 in line with guidance. Transitioning to the balance sheet.

On the sale of the property tax business in January, our cash position at the end of the quarter increased to 491,900,000.0 We had $158,900,000 in bank debt at the end of the quarter, representing a 1.44 x funded debt to EBITDA ratio. During the quarter, we deployed $76,300,000 towards a share buyback, reducing our outstanding shares 44,400,000.0 We also reduced our debt by $127,000,000 in the quarter. Restructuring costs were 6,200,000.0 and dividend payments were 6,500,000.0. Cash from operations continues to be strong, driven by improvements in working capital. We expect our cash conversion to improve throughout the year as our restructuring efforts take hold. With that, I'll turn it over to Rich Sarkis President of Software and Data to discuss Benchmark Manager. Thanks, Robin. I'm happy to be here and I'm to announce that we launched Benchmark Manager in q one. Benchmark Manager is a significant addition to Arcus Intelligence and builds on our previously announced portfolio manager capability which was launched last September. Industry benchmarking has traditionally relied on backward looking static, generic averages to track performance. Now Benchmark Manager, powered by what we believe to be the most comprehensive valuation dataset, users can immediately see how their assets and portfolios stack up against the market.

Crucially, this enables CRE professionals to track their portfolio's performance across markets, asset classes, and at different points in the cycle. This provides powerful insight what is driving movements in value right down to the individual asset level. Ultimately enabling users to drive portfolio performance and mitigate risk. Have been very encouraged by client interest and the quick pipeline bill. With that, over to you, Jim. Alright. Thanks, Rich. Hello, everybody. Very happy to be back in Toronto.

It was two years ago, I established a room and said, go, Leafs. My silver guy is from out West trying to convince me last night to say go, Oilers. But I guess Toronto is where my my Canadian home. So [indiscernible] Very happy everyone's here. All right, guys. Our strong performance in Q1 demonstrates the continued execution of our growth initiatives. Our commitment to delivering value to stakeholders. As you heard from Pavin today, team has delivered strong financial results. Resilient recurring revenue performance and sustained margin expansion has been a consistent theme. Our operational improvements and ongoing portfolio simplification is translating to higher quality earnings compared to a year ago. This drove strong improvements in cash flows. In Q1, we returned capital to shareholders by repurchasing repurchasing 76,000,000 our seventy $6,000,000 for shares. Operationally, we delivered significant new bookings growth. I'm very pleased with the adoption of ARGUS intelligence and its add on capabilities. We have currently over 1,300 clients contracted on ARGUS Intelligence and signed dozens of new asset based pricing deals in the quarter. We hit our 90% cloud conversion target, This was partially driven by a large service provider agreement with an asset based pricing structure includes Argus Intelligence and ForBerry solutions.

This represents the future state of our commercial contracts, allowing unlimited users and driving expanded adoption within our clients. Releasing Benchmark Manager at the end of the quarter was a key strategic and operational milestone With this capability, Altus demonstrates its unique position to help clients drive performance. Benchmark Manager will also make our internal teams significantly more productive. During the quarter, we integrated Forbery with the Orbis calc engine modeling multifamily assets in The U. S. This connects FortBerry data to our platform while delivering enhanced functionality for our ForBerry users. This also expands our addressable market. Particularly in The U. S. With our initial focus on the multifamily sector. As a reminder, ForBerry brings simplicity of use its Excel interface. Looking ahead to the rest of the year, we remain committed to executing against our guidance which anticipates a steady improvement in market conditions representing a stronger second half. At the same time, we recognize that macroeconomic volatility particularly surrounding tariffs, could introduce uncertainty. That's why we're staying closely connected with our clients monitoring leading indicators, and adjusting our operations as needed to navigate the evolving landscape. We remain bullish on the long term prospects for Altus Group driven by strong secular trends in commercial real estate compelling new product innovations, a refined pricing model driving client adoption an exceptionally strong balance sheet and a dedicated team committed to delivering value.

Before I open up the line for questions, I'm pleased to share that we 're planning to host an Investor Day on September 9 in New York. We think that will be the right forum and time to discuss new metrics. Stay tuned for more details to be shared in due course and we hope you can join us. Okay. Let's open the questions the lineup for questions, Abby.

Thank you. And if you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press If you would like to withdraw your questions, simply press star 1 a second time. If you're called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. Again, it is star 1 if you would like to ask a question. And our first question comes from the line of Stephen MacLeod with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Just wanted to ask about the Benchmark Manager, which I it's interesting to, to hear about that from Rich. Just curious if you can share a little bit about initial feedback from clients and kind of how you see that product evolving over the next, you know, twelve months or or next few years?

Great question. Thanks. We're we're really excited with the feedback. We we've talked to hundreds of customers over the last several months and quarters as we develop this.

Figure out what really they were looking for that they didn't have. And the response has been really solid. Now, of course, we'll continue to iterate on that in a in a very rapid fashion, but the response has been very positive.

Okay. That's great. And just to clarify, I mean, that's a live product that you're currently selling right now? Yes. That's live. We launched it in Q1. And we'll look to evolve it over the next few years. [indiscernible] Great. Okay. And then I just wanted to ask about the cited in your recurring revenues just a new contract with Ryan. And just wanted to confirm, think, Colin, did you say that's a multiyear contract? And do you expect that to continue to have similar contribution as you think about the rest of the year or over the next few years?

Yeah. It's a it's a a good question, Steven. As you recall, we had said that the the deal was a it's a three year contract for for data type solutions that, would contribute about 5,000,000, per year.

And then, obviously, we're looking forward to continuing that relationship with Ryan Tax at the conclusion of this first iteration of the contract.

Right. Okay. That's great. And then just lastly for me, on the Q2 guidance. Can you talk about some of the revenue components around the analytics expectation for you know, one to 3% total revenue growth? Kind of what's you know, what what what the components are into that? Yeah. Well, if if we're, you know, we're we're continuing to keep a very close eye to to to the macros. With that said, we're pretty comfortable with regards to to our guidance for q two. We're gonna continue to see positive momentum as we saw in Q1 on, Argus Intelligence and and the software elements of of of the revenue component. We are seeing modest growth in in in DMS And as you know, a lot of VMS is tied to the timing around asset deployments. And in in the current macro environment, while we're still seeing growth, the growth is not as robust as software. And so as you think about the guidance, we're thinking about Q2 is really a continuation of the momentum that we built in Q1. We continue to see good good momentum on the software side and and and modest growth in BMS.

Hey, Steve. Let me let me add to that. On the components. If you recall from last quarter, we we talked about the fact that we sold some noncore businesses in analytics. Which brings down the overall growth rate, but that's why we particularly emphasize the higher quality revenue that we have now. And we are also very deliberately not pursuing noncore data clients, and we are not heavily pursuing nonrecurring service agreements. So there's a lot of focus going on here on the the high margin recurring core client activities. Great. That's, that's good incremental color, Jim. Thank you. Okay. That's great. Thanks. Thanks so much, guys.

Thanks, Steve.

And your next question comes from the line of Richard Tse with National Bank Financial. Your line is open.

Yes. Thank you. Just kind of wanted to get an update in terms of your conversations with clients today in terms of when they're thinking market to recover. Is it still largely around rates and I guess now tariffs or is there something sort of more specific to the CRE market? No. You you nailed it, Richard. It's the clients are they they're we we did a we had a webinar today So what we're seeing from clients is we're seeing actually improvements in underlying NOI and in valuations, including in office, which is an interesting turn in several quarters in a row. So that's a that's a point of optimism amongst our client base.

Of course, being able to predict their cost of capital is a little trickier, so we remain cautious on that. And as far as I we're staying very close to the clients on the leading indicators for us here, and we will manage the bottom line very closely as we always do. So on the recovery, like, it's it's everyone in the world is watching It can change day to day. But with what we know right now about some of our clients' activities, and with the new products coming out, we feel good about our guidance range, and we we have flexibility around that guidance to maintain our margins.

So we're still banking on a back half of the year and that we kind of work through the volatility that we're seeing right now.

And that things stabilize by the time we enter the second half. Okay, great. And I guess sort of in a related question, have any of your clients or have you observed any kind of permanent structural changes in the market? And if so, how those changes would inform your decisions to invest in areas certain areas of product or R and D? Yeah. The the I see a positive structural change, which is there's more private debt available So the liquidity in the market is good. And that has us doubling down on our focus on making sure we are tailoring particularly our our VMS services to the particular needs of the debt side of the market. And we continue to grow clients and funds there and we'll continue to build out our expertise in debt. Okay. And just the last one for me. I think you've talked about acquisitions in the past, and you clearly have quite a bit of capacity now from a balance sheet perspective to do that. Can you just sort of remind us the areas that you're most focused on is the market for valuations today looking more compelling given that sort of soft backdrop?

Or have they moved up down, like, stayed the same Just curious to see, what the update with that on that would be. Thanks. Yes. It's there were as the whole market saw, there were a lot of tech darlings a few years ago. That I've that you saw us do our key strategic acquisitions and you're now seeing those come through in our new products. So README is the heart of the Altus ID. Which allows us to tie all of the models to the benchmarking the Stratadem acquisition, gives us the attribution analysis. That provides that extra insight to our clients So once you saw us make a and FinanceActive put us on the debt side of things, And Forbury gives us that more of a global footprint and ease of use that expands our market So outside of those key strategic acquisitions, you saw us really back off. Other than the our attempt to to go for revs. Which would have been a great acquisition, But other than that, you saw us back off because our perspective was valuations were extremely lofty. They didn't meet our IRR requirements and our hurdle rates for acquisitions. We maintain a very specific set of guidelines of how and when we'll pull the trigger.

On acquisitions and the financial hurdles and the strategic fit that they have to have, That said, valuations have come down significantly and we're getting a look at interesting things. But we're in no hurry. Like, we're gonna take our time We're gonna be super smart about this. I don't feel like that cash is burning a hole in my pocket. And right now, we're very happy to be returning capital to shareholders through a very strong share buyback program. Okay, great. Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Paul Treiber with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Thanks very much and good afternoon.

On your your outlook for the year, there is back end loaded growth and you didn't mention macro and new products. [indiscernible] How quickly typically do you see new products ramp? And then which is the more important driver do you think of of an improvement in growth for the back half of the year? Is it really those availability of new new products to pent up demand? Or are you anticipating that a a macro improvement would would underpin a lot of that growth?

Paul, it's great question. So let me break that down into a couple of pieces. When we think about our growth algorithm, I think the core of your question is how much is predicated on just organic market growth and we do expect some. The Q2 guide that we just gave is exactly in line with the model where we gave the Q1 guidance in the full year. We are still on that model. Every month, we do a bottoms up field outlook by product line So we know where the, and we do price times volume on that outlook. So we know where the the assumptions could be a bit aggressive from the field. Hub and has modeled all of that out with sensitivities that give us a comfort level around our range. That said, it's something like wild came out macro economically, We're not our guidance range handling or contemplating something crazy. But steady state and with the improvement and I think people getting their head around the current environment, we think we have a reasonable set of volume assumptions. Now we also as we said, we have asset based pricing deals which give us an opportunity to lift our wallet share with clients because clients see the value in it that they can they still get a price bump, but their volume bump of number of users could be their whole their whole business.

So from an ARPU perspective for us, my team has heard me say, I would be very happy to see our ARPU come down because our absolute revenues are going up from the pricing. And we want our clients, we want to be adopting as many products as and we're making that as easy as we can for them to do it. Then we have new logos that we're going after. ForBerry, again, expands our addressable market. Into the non heavy Argus user but who needs valuation and wants those models tied to a platform. And then we have the new products take up an adoption. I am very bullish on benchmark manager The entire architecture that we've been talking about is building the platform. Was so that we could deliver that product at scale with platform economics and we've done it. Not only does it will it help our clients, but our VMS business is an excellent and our appraisal business is an excellent proxy for our clients. So our BMS business does a lot a tremendous amount of analysis for the biggest investors in the world. So we know what their requirements are. We help them manage their data.

And the platform and Benchmark Manager in particular was built to accelerate the time to analysis and decisions So we're bullish on that. Will really have a much bigger impact in 2026. As clients are deploying more and more of ARGUS intelligence which Benchmark Manager has to sit on top of. So the pricing, we're delivering the value with the base because their volumes go up We do think volumes will come up in the second half. We'll add new logos from new spaces like multifamily and then the new product adoption will be good this year but will really accelerate in twenty six. Thanks for those details. In terms of like the growth of asset based pricing, you mentioned dozens of deals. How should we expect that to grow from here? I mean, do you think you're just scratching the surface in ramp significantly? And is that a fact that you'll continue to give going forward so we can attract the the adoption over time?

Yeah. So, on asset based pricing, we actually so for the very, very small end of the mark low end of the market, like, like one or two properties or assets, it's really not worth our clients' time or our time to try to convert them. Right? Or if they have one or two Argus licenses, We're just gonna keep as frictionless commerce with them as we can. And let them renew on license basis. We didn't actually expect broad adoption from the service providers to have a marquee service provider move to asset based pricing they we think that there's going to be a lot of fast followers from that. [indiscernible] help drive ForBerry in the markets where ForBerry is the best solution and Argus in the markets where Argus is the best solution. Without our clients having to go back to their IT groups every time ago, we'd like the budget to add one more user. It's backed as frictionless as possible, So we think the industry is going to follow fast on this.

Okay. That's great to hear. I'll pass on. Thanks, Paul.

Our next question comes from the line of Scott Fletcher with CIBC. Your line is open.

Hi, good evening.

I'll ask one on capital returns, the buyback in particular. Obviously, it was really very active in the quarter.

Could you just give us an idea of how you're expecting that to play out over the course of the year? And I mean, whether you know, you have a a clear plan on timing and if that can change, I guess, whether other capital return or other capital allocation opportunities. Present themselves?

Yeah, Scott. It's it's a great question. And as we said in some of the prepared remarks, we're extremely pleased with traction that we made in q one against our NCIB on the share buybacks for the zero seven the $76,000,000 that that that we accomplished in in Q1. If you recall, he had originally positioned us. We said we wanted to do $250,000,000 of share buyback over the course of three years with a heavier rating. Know, a hundred and 50,000,000 ish heavier rating in the first year. And and, obviously, with the with the the the start that we that we have in in q one, we're we're well on that path. And and we're gonna look to continue to continue to pursue that. You know, we had a very good view in regards to valuations, and we're gonna continue to to take a significant we're going to take a significantly strong position in continuing to pursue that for year to date perspective. Can share with you that $76,000,000 is now, at a hundred and $7,000,000 as of, I believe, closed yesterday. And so that traction continues. Look, we said we believe share buybacks is an way to return value back to shareholders.

We're committed to that. As Jim mentioned, you know, we're gonna look at other potential vehicles potential m and a, but the the cash is not burning in our pockets. And and we believe that this share buyback is a is a is a great way to to return that value back to shareholders. So so that's the plan, Scott. Hopefully, that answers your question.

Yes, definitely. Thank you. And then I'll just ask one on the margins. Very strong in the quarter for above the guidance range.

Is there anything that specific to call out in terms of outperforming what you thought you would do and then is there should we be expecting sort of maybe near the high end of the guidance range for the full year given the performance in the first quarter?

Yeah. And look, the the the around the margin expansion is not to dissimilar from how we've talked about it in the past. Again, we continue to have a lot of continue to be able to moderate margin. We have a lot control and really focusing on on what we can control and again, when you think about it, you know, there's there's both the revenue and the at this point, cost management approach here. It's on the revenue side, you know, the the the cloud conversions continue to provide some degree of of a of a tailwind. And that's gonna continue as as we move towards the the full transition to the cloud. We are doing price led growth in in our valuation advisory, upon renewals as so that's going to continue to be tailwinds from a revenue perspective. And the price to value increases on our software subscriptions plus the left that we're gonna get from from the the new product launches that that that Rich just talked about. It's gonna help us on the revenue side. On the on the cost side of the equation, Scott, if you remember, we did a pretty large restructuring last year.

We're going to get the dividends of that restructuring flowing through for the full year this year We are committed to continuing to grow grow the the the GSE in in India. It plays a very crucial role in in optimizing work flows, improving our delivery speeds, and really supporting our operational scalability. And so when you combine both the both the revenue and the cost cost knowledge of management efforts, you know, where where pretty committed to being able to continue to scale and grow and feel comfortable that we've got several levers to continue to drive the margin expansion.

Okay. Great. Well, good progress so far.

Thank you.

Star one if you would like to join the queue. And our next question comes from the line of Kevin Krishnaratne with Scotiabank.

Hey there. Good evening. I have a question on you know, Benchmark Manager and maybe some of the the AI products that you've got out there now. Can you maybe talk about adoption? Where do you see adoption adoption rate sort of going? And more bigger picture, a lot of your may already have sort of in house data science teams. How do you see your product you know, you know, in that context? Is it gonna help support the those teams? Is it gonna be taking budget? You know, as far as the budget for you if more of the their AI team strategy is leveraging products. Like, I'm just trying to understand sort of the AI the AI strategy and how you see it really fitting into your customers' strategies themselves going forward?

Yeah, Kevin. Good question. Thanks for that. Let let me just hit on a couple of the core value propositions of of Benchmark Manager, and then I'll I'll talk a little bit about the the AI component as well. Of the more fundamental value propositions of Benchmark Manager is leveraging that unique identifier, the Altus ID. To bring all of the data together. And that's something that even in house, a lot of our customers sell us a something that they need help with. So that is a core value prop that I didn't wanna talk about. And then, of course, it's the quality and the granularity of the benchmark. And the depth and breadth of the benchmark and the ability to go down and drill down and understand why certain assets are under or over performing versus a hyper relevant set of comp properties. Is something that comes through very, very clearly with benchmark manager. And, of course, given that it's powered by the aggregated anonymized Argus and VMS data, that within a specific client, they obviously don't have the breadth of all of that. Really helps to differentiate that as well. In terms of AI, building on that and moving that forward to recommendation engine, that not only show under or over performance, but then help to suggest action to ultimately drive performance is something that we are heading towards as well.

Got it. No. Thanks for that. Super helpful. And then maybe just the the last one for me. Just on the recurring new bookings. I think you mentioned excluding the Orion contract, 3% growth. I think that quite a slowdown from what you saw in Q4. I might be reading the MD and A incorrectly. Correct me. If I'm wrong there, but it just looks like the recurring new bookings was a little bit lighter excluding that that contract. So I'm just wondering if you can explain that from there. I know it's really hard to kind of the way that you disclose the bookings. It's not really greatest comparison. But can you just talk about the trends that you're seeing there? Because I think you did mention mention software growth as being sort of strong in the quarter. [indiscernible] We did say that software growth was strong. It's one of those I wish we disclosed the pieces of it, but as you know, we're going to move away from bookings which is internally we're much more focused on ARR and NRR at this point. And as I said, we'll we'll start introducing those metrics at investor day so that we can explain exactly how we do all of them.

But the largest software growth was really impressive for us. In the quarter. Like, I was I was shocked given the the market environment, On the flip side, the VMS growth was not there. Which is completely predictable in this interest rate market because client you know, the the the BMS clients are kinda on a wait and hold on transactions. Overall, we're seeing complete transactions across the market, like a transactions of all sizes, were down over 7% year over year. So where that manifests itself is in the growth of BMS So to put up the 3% growth excluding the data contracts, in this market with BMS flat is a really strong performance for our software business.

Okay. Yes. I hear you. That all makes sense, Jim. Thanks. Appreciate it. I'll pass the line. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

And with no further questions at this time, I would now like turn the conference back over to Mr. Jim Hannon for closing remarks.

All right. Well, my closing remarks is thank you, as always, for joining us. We are always available for the one on ones and follow ups. We look forward to talking about the quarter and what we see the rest of the year. And hopefully, most of you can make the Investor Day in September. So you, and we'll talk to you soon.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.