Earnings Call Transcript - DLX Q2 2021

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen thank you for standing by and welcome to the Deluxe Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode and today's conference call is being recorded. We will begin with opening remarks and introductions. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host Vice President of Investor Relations, Tom Morabito. Please go ahead sir.

Tom Morabito, Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you operator and welcome to the Deluxe second quarter 2021 earnings call. Joining me on today's call is Barry McCarthy, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Scott Bomar, our Chief Financial Officer. At the end of today's prepared remarks, we will take questions. Before we begin and as seen on this slide, I would like to remind everyone that comments made today regarding management's intentions, projections, financial estimates, or expectations about the company's future strategy or performance are forward-looking in nature as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These comments are subject to risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, risks related to COVID; the risk that the company's recent acquisition of First American Payments Systems or any other acquisitions does not produce anticipated results or synergies; and the risk that any future acquisitions or divestitures will not be consummated. Any of these risks and uncertainties could cause the actual results to differ materially from our projections. Additional information about factors that may cause our actual results to differ from projections is contained in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2020 and in other company SEC filings. On the call today, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures including adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. In our press release, our presentation, and our filings with the SEC, you will find additional disclosures regarding the non-GAAP measures including reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable measures under US GAAP. Now, I'll turn it over to Barry.

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

Thanks Tom and good morning everyone. Before we begin, it's my pleasure to welcome Scott Bomar, our new CFO who joined us nearly two months ago. Scott spent over 15 years at The Home Depot serving in a variety of leadership roles with high impact and visibility, most recently as the Senior Vice President of Home Services, a $5 billion business unit with approximately 5,000 team members. Previously he served as the Vice President, Payments and Treasurer which included responsibility for the company's credit card acceptance strategy and private-label credit card program. Scott has significant financial and operational experience, particularly in payments and is a tremendous addition to our One Deluxe team. I would also like to thank our former CFO, Keith Bush for his hard work and dedication over the last four years as Deluxe implemented our historic transformation. Keith will be leaving Deluxe next month and I wish him continued success. Before I share our impressive second quarter results, I want to first share how proud I am of my fellow Deluxers for their grit and perseverance over the past 18 months. Our team dug in and delivered every day for our customers. Despite COVID challenges, the team is making great progress unlocking the incredible potential of our transformation. Turning now to second quarter results. We delivered nearly 10% growth for Deluxe and 16.5% growth including First American Payments Systems. All four segments payments, cloud, promotional solutions, and checks experienced solid year-over-year revenue increases. Payments' performance was driven by the acquisition of First American as well as sales-driven growth in all our major businesses. You will recall we completed the largest acquisition in our company's history with the addition of First American that closed in June. Cloud's growth was driven by our data-driven marketing business. Promotional solutions was led by branded merchandise and business essentials. While checks' growth was driven by business checks and new competitive wins. Our strategy is working. The second quarter performance is further evidence we are executing on our One Deluxe strategy across the board. As I said many times before, we say what we're going to do and then we do what we say. Consolidated highlights from the quarter include the following; revenue was $478 million, up 16.5% year-over-year. Not including the impact of First American, revenues were up 10%. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 20.4% at the midpoint of our guidance. Adjusted EPS improved nearly 9%. Despite the largest acquisition in our history, First American, our strong liquidity improved sequentially. We ended the quarter with $456 million of liquidity and a cash balance of $163 million. On the sales front, we remain on pace to exceed last year's record sales performance. Our One Deluxe go-to-market approach is showing strong results with the addition of two more wins to the top 10 largest over the past decade. So, to put a finer point on our sales capability, over the past seven quarters since we started the One Deluxe approach, we've closed 10 of the 12 largest deals of the last decade and two of the largest in company history. Of course it will take time to implement these wins, but the deals certainly give us confidence in our outlook. Moving on to some segment highlights. Our payments segment, largely driven by the acquisition of First American, improved 43% year-over-year. We experienced growth in all of our major businesses especially payroll and HR and our payables as a services offering which includes our Deluxe payment exchange and medical payment exchange. These businesses are seeing significant growth and we continue to be very optimistic about their future prospects. Similarly, we recently announced our new HR management solution, which offers small to medium-sized businesses an integrated HR and payroll platform with a modern user experience. This is another fast-growing area with great upside potential for Deluxe. We knew First American was going to be a tremendous addition to the Deluxe portfolio and outperformed even our lofty goals. Since the acquisition, the business has been exceeding expectations and has been experiencing one of the strongest periods in its 30-year history. As we've mentioned on other calls, the Deluxe halo effect is real and it's helping First American succeed. The Deluxe halo includes: first, customers trust us and have for over 100 years; second, our sales reach to millions of small businesses, thousands of financial institutions and hundreds of the world's leading brands; and third, our financial strength. Our combined sales teams were quickly able to bring First American products to Deluxe customers, building on the trust and relationships we've had in place for years. This is very encouraging for the future. We're close to securing several transactions with financial institutions and are in active engagements with dozens of other FIs, not only for merchant services, but in adding other products like payroll, payables, and receivables at the same time. We're pleased with this early sales momentum and unsolicited inquiries for services we've received. These customers were not in the pipeline prior to the transaction providing solid evidence of the Deluxe halo. Another example of the power of One Deluxe in Payments, we recently secured an additional contract with Arvest, a privately owned financial institution with over 230 branches and $24 billion in assets. Deluxe will be providing several new payment services to Arvest. Arvest had been a Checks customer for three decades and now buys several of our products in all four of our business segments. This shows both the power of One Deluxe bringing the best of Deluxe to every customer and the power of our existing Checks business as a lead source. Cloud Solutions had a very strong quarter, improving 26.3% year-over-year led by our data-driven marketing business as continued low interest rates drove increased demand among several of our large financial partners. Excluding business exits from 2020, Cloud's growth would have been even more impressive coming in closer to 40%. As we've said before, our data strategy is to diversify beyond our core banking and mortgage verticals. The strategy is working. For example, we recently signed a deal to partner with a top retail electricity provider to identify and acquire new residential and business clients in select deregulated markets. Our website services also showed resiliency driven by our international business and favorable exchange rates. Our corporation services continue to perform very well. Now on to our Promotional Solutions segment. Promotional Solutions improved 14.5% as Branded Merchandise and Business Essentials both performed well. As a reminder, Business Essentials is where we deliver custom forms and other products that businesses consume in their routine operations. This business is rebounding well consistent with the overall economy. We expect to see further recovery in Branded Merchandise, as events and in-person activities return. Promotional Solutions' second quarter was positively impacted by the PNC deal we announced last quarter, expanding our relationship with the eighth largest commercial bank in the U.S. Deluxe is offering multiple products to PNC which ramped up in the second quarter. Relationships such as these are key components of our cross-selling-enabled growth story. And this is also a great example of key wins quickly converting to revenues. Arvest was also a key win in Promo. The Arvest marketing department is now utilizing our Deluxe Brand Center platform to provide their employees access to customized marketing collateral and tools. And then another key win, leading security company ADT will use Deluxe to order and manage promotional items and apparel for its new hire and training programs. These DBC platform wins highlight our strategy shift for Promo to a recurring revenue model rather than a one-time sale. The DBC platform integrates simply and easily into our customers' web properties. This makes us the only integrated partner for the customers' marketing and promotion needs, shifting our relationship to a recurring model. Finally, our highly profitable cash-generating Checks business improved 3.2% year-over-year, largely due to solid growth from business checks. While the sector is in secular decline, we continue to secure competitive wins helping to mitigate those impacts. Key wins in Checks occurred across several top-tier financial institutions including leading regional FI M&T Bank and a renewal for a top five FI in terms of assets. Our product superiority and the strength of our balance sheet enable us to keep winning market share and protect our outstanding cash flow. Checks play a very strategic role for Deluxe. Checks deliver low-cost leads to our other businesses and generate strong free cash flow which we will first invest in our growth engine, payments and data and also deploy to reduce debt. In summary, we're very proud of our transformation progress. All four businesses are showing positive momentum. Our strategic acquisition First American is performing better than expected and the Deluxe halo is helping even more. Our cross-selling results are encouraging and our sales momentum is real. We are clearly fulfilling our promise to become a payments company delivering sales-driven growth. And our robust second quarter results further validate the strength of our team, strategy, and overall execution. Now I'll turn it over to Scott who will provide more details on our financial performance.

Scott Bomar, CFO

Thank you, Barry, and good morning, everyone. I'm looking forward to meeting all of you in person in the coming months. As Barry mentioned, we are pleased with our second quarter results due to our strong execution and improved marketplace conditions. Let's go through the enterprise highlights for the quarter before moving on to the segments. We posted total revenue of $478.2 million, up 16.5% year-over-year. Not including First American revenues came in at $450.8 million, up 9.9% year-over-year. We reported GAAP net income of $12.1 million or $0.28 per share in the quarter. GAAP net income was impacted by $15.9 million of cost related to the First American acquisition during the quarter. On an adjusted basis, EPS came in at $1.25, up 8.7% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA grew 16.3% to $97.5 million, while adjusted EBITDA margin remained healthy at 20.4%, due to margin strength in the Cloud and Promotional Solutions segments, robust year-over-year revenue growth, and as the team continued to drive efficiencies within the post-COVID-19 operating structure. Turning now to our segment details. Payments grew second quarter revenue 43.1% year-over-year to $103.3 million, largely impacted by the acquisition of First American and sales-driven growth for stand-alone Deluxe. Excluding First American, Payments revenues increased 5.3% year-over-year. In addition to First American's strong performance that Barry mentioned, we experienced growth in all our core Payments businesses. Including First American, adjusted EBITDA increased 35.9% in the quarter and adjusted EBITDA margin was 20.5%, down 110 basis points due to increased investments in IT, sales, and marketing for standalone Deluxe. With the addition of First American, our Payments segment has more than doubled in size and now rivals our Checks business in revenue scale. Longer-term, we expect the Payments segment to deliver a high single-digit revenue growth rate, reflecting our continued ability to deliver sales-driven growth. We also expect adjusted EBITDA margins to remain in the low 20% range for the full year. Cloud Solutions had a very strong quarter. Segment revenue increased 26.3% year-over-year to $68.1 million in the quarter and increased 9.4% sequentially from Q1. Cloud was particularly hit hard by COVID in the second quarter of last year providing a favorable comparison. Overall, Cloud continues to benefit from our data-driven marketing solutions, which continue to see a nice rebound with the recovering economy and increased marketing spend. We signed several new data-driven marketing clients during the quarter that will benefit us in future periods, highlighting our strong ongoing execution. In Q2, Cloud's adjusted EBITDA margin improved 140 basis points versus prior year to 27.6%, driven by strong cost management. For the remainder of 2021, we have good visibility on the marketing campaigns being planned by our financial institution customers. We do expect the pace of spending to moderate in the second half of 2021, and as a result, we expect to see mid-single-digit revenue growth on a reported basis. We expect Cloud margins to remain healthy in the low- to mid-20% range. Promotional Solutions second quarter 2021 revenue was $135 million, up 14.5% year-over-year and 8.4% sequentially. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the second quarter was 15.9%, up 410 basis points. Including the impact of non-recurring PPE sales in 2020, we are anticipating 2021 top line growth in the low single-digit range and improved adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-teens, due to the value realization initiatives, partner consolidation and cost actions taken in 2020 and in the early part of 2021. Checks' second quarter revenue increased 3.2% from last year to $171.8 million as strength in business checks and new competitive wins helped alleviate the anticipated secular declines in the business. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA margin levels continued to be strong at 46.7%, although this is a 300 basis point decline from last year, largely driven by increases from the continued One Deluxe infrastructure improvements as well as inflation and product mix. Based on high renewal rates and new business won in 2020 and in the first half of 2021, we anticipate checks to decline in the low single digits for the full year. Turning now to our balance sheet and cash flow. We ended the quarter with strong liquidity of $456 million, including $163 million in cash, both of which were up year-over-year. We're pleased with this result given the improvement occurred even while we closed the largest acquisition in company history. We think it is another demonstration of the financial discipline and responsibility of the leadership team. We ended the quarter with a net debt level of $1.67 billion, up from $714.6 million, due to the First American transaction. As a reminder, this included a $500 million senior unsecured notes offering and as we replaced our previous revolving credit facility with a more robust and flexible facility to allow for future growth. While our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio increased to 4.3 times this quarter, we expect to lower this leverage ratio by at least 0.5 turn per year with a long-term strategic target of three times. Importantly in July, within 60 days of closing the First American transaction, we retired $24 million of debt, another demonstration of our financial discipline and commitment to delever. Free cash flow defined as cash provided by operating activities, less capital expenditures was $37.2 million for the first half of 2021, a decrease of 55% from $82.6 million last year. The relative decrease was primarily due to costs related to the First American transaction, higher capital investments and CARES Act tax deferrals in the prior year. Our Board approved a regular quarterly dividend of $0.30 per share on all outstanding shares. The dividend will be payable on September 7, 2021 to all shareholders of record on August 23, 2021. We did not repurchase common stock in the second quarter. As a reminder, our capital allocation priorities are to responsibly invest in growth, pay our dividend, reduce debt, and return value to our shareholders. We will evaluate future purchases on an opportunistic basis. Turning now to guidance. As promised, today we're updating our 2021 expectations to include First American. As a reminder, we announced the transaction on April 22 and closed on June 1. The guidance assumes a continued economic recovery and is subject to among other things, the macroeconomic unknowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic including the Delta variant, as well as potential supply chain constraints, labor supply issues, and inflation. For full year 2021, we now expect the following: revenue growth of 10% to 12%; excluding First American revenue growth of 0% to 2% and exiting the year with growth in the mid-single digits; adjusted EBITDA margin between 20% and 21% with the fourth quarter being stronger than the third; capital expenditures of $95 million to $105 million as we include First American; and we continue with important investments to position Deluxe for long-term growth on an adjusted tax rate of approximately 25%. To summarize, I'm pleased with the second quarter results. We are executing on our One Deluxe strategy and believe the company is experiencing strong momentum.

Operator, Operator

Your first question comes from Christine Karout with Sidoti & Company.

Christine Karout, Analyst

Hi, this is Christine Karout from Sidoti. I'm filling in for Chris McGinnis. Congratulations on a great quarter, and thank you for allowing me to ask my question. My first question is, I wanted to inquire about...

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

Good morning, Christine.

Christine Karout, Analyst

Good morning. Good morning. So first question is I just wanted to ask with the acquisition of First American and good that you already announced it because it seems positive how has it changed the way you are talking to your customers and prospective customers about your Payments offerings? And what has been the big surprise now that you had a few months to work with them?

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

I think our customers have been very pleased to see us cement our position as a Payments company. And with the acquisition of First American, we've been saying we're going to become a payments company and that we were investing in becoming a payments company. And our customers appreciate our commitment to be there and salute us and honestly are calling us directly about new opportunities that we had not seen before in our pipeline as a result of the move that we have made. I think it also gives us the opportunity to talk to our customers holistically about how we can help them pay and get paid, whether they are a customer on the treasury side, whether they're a small business, whether they're a midsized business, we have a solution to help them get paid, to get paid, pay and optimize their business for growth. So it's given us an extraordinary opportunity to go back to our customers and tell the Deluxe story about our future and the reception has been terrific. We're very, very pleased by the reception. I think going forward, we think there is even more opportunity to cross-sell our payment solutions to an even broader set of our customers. At just 60 days into it, we're seeing great initial results.

Christine Karout, Analyst

Sounds good. So from there, I just have a question about how the conversations have changed with clients that are not currently working with DLX. Given the changes that have taken place over the last two years, are people in the industry taking notice?

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

Absolutely, the marketplace has taken notice. Deluxe has been a trusted brand for over 100 years. We support 4,000 bank customers and millions of small businesses, which has led to a number of unsolicited inquiries about how we can help businesses succeed. This has shifted the perception of Deluxe in the marketplace, clarifying for both our customers and non-customers that we are indeed a payments company. This clarity has opened up new conversations. We are fortunate to have thousands of financial institution customers and millions of small businesses, and for companies not currently using Deluxe products, it provides us with an opportunity to engage in discussions with customers outside our portfolio. For instance, First American has approximately 100,000 to 140,000 small business customers along with around 120 bank partners. This situation allows us to offer Deluxe products to those customers and not just cross-sell First American to our existing customers. We are starting to see positive outcomes, such as introducing our payroll product into the First American channel, which we didn't have access to before. The idea of the Deluxe halo we've discussed is becoming a reality. Our trusted brand, our strong financial position, and our excellent distribution channels enable us to engage in broader conversations with our customers at First American and beyond. The response to our direction and initiatives has been quite significant.

Christine Karout, Analyst

Okay. All right. So last question on Payments, are you missing anything that you need to compete within the marketplace? And what is the opportunity to expand the offering from here, be it software upgrades or ability to expand the offerings?

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

When we announced the First American transaction, we mentioned that we were closing what we considered our largest gap. We have customers who initially purchase a solution from us when they start their businesses, whether it's choosing a logo, web design, or a web host. However, we lacked a means for them to receive payments, which is crucial for any business’s sustainability. With the acquisition of First American, we addressed that gap with a market-leading asset that has demonstrated strong performance. Going forward, we plan to acquire additional assets that meet specific criteria. First, these assets should enhance the scale of our existing Payments products to drive growth. Second, they should provide new capabilities or enable us to enter new markets. If we identify a market segment we wish to target and require certain capabilities, we could pursue that to better serve our customers. Importantly, all decisions regarding inorganic growth will be focused on enhancing shareholder value. To clarify, we do not currently see a significant gap that needs urgent addressing; rather, we recognize several opportunities to expand our business more aggressively, which we will pursue both organically and opportunistically as new growth opportunities arise.

Christine Karout, Analyst

Okay, great. So now thinking about the outlook for the full year and the expectation to exit the year at mid-single-digit revenue growth, given the new Delta variant and an inflationary environment, what do you see as the biggest hurdles to achieve that outlook?

Scott Bomar, CFO

So Christine, this is Scott. Thanks for the question. So we built our outlook based on a stable macroeconomic environment. Certainly, there are a lot of concerns in the marketplace right now, inflation, supply chain pressures, lots of things happening. We're certainly not immune to those. And we'll continue to monitor them and make sure that if shifts happen, we respond accordingly. But we still feel comfortable in our outlook and feel like we're in good shape, even in the current environment.

Christine Karout, Analyst

Okay. Good. And so, my last question is just in the Checks segment. How much growth in the quarter is driven by new wins versus maybe frequency of use from existing customers? And what is the opportunity for continued market share gains going forward?

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

We experienced a mix of factors during the period, but notably, we saw an increase in the consumption of checks, reflecting the ongoing recovery. Business checks, in particular, are essential to normal operations, and as commerce increases, so does the issuance of checks. Additionally, we benefited from several new wins in this timeframe. A significant highlight for us has been our success in gaining market share in checks, which has reinforced the strong cash flow from this segment. Previously, we did not have bank customers in Canada, but now we have partnered with two of the leading banks there. We've also secured a deal with what we believe is the largest reseller of checks directly to consumers. Our achievements include important wins across various bank combinations, resulting in substantial growth for our Checks business. Our success can be attributed to our superior product and our commitment to responsible investments that maintain our margins and financial strength. This was particularly evident during the COVID crisis when many financial institutions turned to Deluxe due to our strong management team, product quality, and financial stability. We see further opportunities to capture additional market share, and we typically achieve more wins than losses when we pursue new business, which enhances our cash flow. This, in turn, supports our efforts to reduce debt while investing in growth areas like our payments and cloud businesses. There remain many attractive verticals in payments, and our addition of First American allows us to address sectors like non-profits. Overall, Checks is a vital part of our business that is performing well and provides a foundation for our ongoing initiatives in payments, cloud, and data.

Christine Karout, Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you. Barr and Scott, thank you for taking my question. That's all I had. And congrats again on the quarter.

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

Great. Thank you.

Scott Bomar, CFO

Thanks, Christine.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Charlie Strauzer with CJS.

Charlie Strauzer, Analyst

Hi. Good morning.

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

Hey, Charlie. Good morning.

Charlie Strauzer, Analyst

How’s everyone doing today?

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

We’re doing great. Proud of our report.

Charlie Strauzer, Analyst

Excellent. Just if you could talk a little bit more about the guidance. Maybe give us a little bit of help in terms of how we should think about the segments for the back half of the year. Also, maybe some high-level thoughts like cash flow and then just some housekeeping on the interest expense and D&A for the year as well.

Scott Bomar, CFO

Certainly, Charlie. Let me begin with our guidance. We are projecting growth of 10% to 12%, including First American, and an adjusted EBITDA of 20% to 21%. The midpoint of that range represents our expectations for the first half of the year, which gives a good indication of how we anticipate the second half will perform. We believe that Q4 will show stronger results than Q3, so keep that in mind, but we remain confident in our overall guidance for the company. Regarding free cash flow, we did encounter a few one-time items in Q2 that won't recur in the future. One significant factor is that we have returned to normal capital expenditure levels. In Q2 2020, we significantly reduced our CapEx, so as we revert to more typical levels, you can project cash flow for the second half of the year and expect free cash flow to return to more standard figures. Additionally, we've provided some details on how we expect each segment to perform. If you have any specific questions about a segment, we can explore that further.

Charlie Strauzer, Analyst

No. Just looking at all four segments, just what assumptions are you building in for each of the segments to get to your guidance?

Scott Bomar, CFO

So, regarding payments, the notable aspect of our guidance for the second half is the inclusion of First American, which is the largest factor affecting this period. It will slightly dilute our rate and adjusted EBITDA, but it will significantly impact adjusted EPS by approximately $0.25 to $0.30 per share. This is the key consideration for the Payments segment. For Cloud, we anticipate some normalization in sales rates, projecting mid-single-digit growth for the second half. In the Promo segment, we experienced favorable comparisons to last year, and the business is performing well, with 2020 showing low single-digit growth overall. Finally, Checks had a strong quarter in Q2, but we expect a slight decline for the full year, in the low single digits.

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

Scott, just to be clear and for you, Charlie, the $0.25 to $0.30 impact from First American is the debt expense associated with that. And just sort of, kind of a little math about half of the growth in income we're getting from First American will be offset by debt expense.

Charlie Strauzer, Analyst

Got it. And so, how should we think about interest expense, I'm sorry for the full year?

Scott Bomar, CFO

Yes. We will be issuing a new debt structure, and you should be able to model the interest expense from that accurately. To clarify what Barry mentioned, the profitability from First American and its contribution to net income will largely balance out about half of the additional debt expense resulting from the transaction.

Charlie Strauzer, Analyst

Got it. And also do you have any thoughts on the D&A for the full year as well?

Scott Bomar, CFO

We don't typically guide to D&A, but our capital expenditure rates, again, we're going to return to a normalized level of $95 million to $105 million for the year.

Charlie Strauzer, Analyst

Thanks. Barry, could you provide an overview of how small business customers feel about the economic recovery? With the Delta variant causing some spikes that might dampen that enthusiasm, what are your thoughts based on your conversations with small business groups?

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

I can provide some insights based on the data we have, along with some anecdotal observations regarding the marketplace. Overall, we are witnessing a strong economic rebound. This is evident in the rise of new business formations and ongoing business expansions. Additionally, we are seeing consistent demand for our products that support the ongoing operations of businesses, such as our Business Essentials, Checks product, and Payments volume. There is a clear recovery within the small business sector. While there is some concern regarding the Delta variant, the situation feels different compared to March of last year, as many small businesses have adjusted their business models to adapt to mask mandates and other challenges related to COVID. As a result, businesses are more prepared to face these challenges now. We anticipate a slight impact from the Delta variant, but we do not expect any significant changes. We are hopeful that this situation will resolve quickly and that any effects will be minimal in the latter half of the year. This outlook has already been incorporated into the broader guidance that Scott provided.

Charlie Strauzer, Analyst

Got it. And lastly, regarding the work-from-home situation, are you looking forward to people returning to the office? Are you making plans to return fully to the office, or will some people continue to work from home?

Barry McCarthy, President and CEO

Thank you for the question, Charlie. Our main priority is to deliver for shareholders while ensuring the health and safety of our employees. We successfully maintained production in our facilities throughout the pandemic without any interruptions, which demonstrates our resilience and core values. As we plan to bring our professional staff back to the office, we will open our new headquarters in Minneapolis in September and our tech center in Atlanta later this month. We anticipate a gradual return to the office and have communicated to our teams that we will adopt a hybrid model, encouraging them to be in the office more often than not. We strongly believe in the benefits of teamwork and collaboration, knowing that more can be accomplished together. However, we aim to remain flexible as an employer and will act responsibly, taking guidance from scientists and government recommendations. Our intention is to return to an office-based environment. Additionally, during the crisis, we revised our real estate strategy, selling our large corporate campus and moving to a more efficient space in downtown Minneapolis, which will save on operating costs and reduce capital expenses for upgrading an outdated facility. This approach also applies to Atlanta, allowing us to streamline our operations and focus on our core hubs, including Minneapolis, Kansas City as a major production site, and Atlanta as our tech center, alongside First American in Fort Worth where we plan to grow our workforce efficiently.

Charlie Strauzer, Analyst

Thanks a lot. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator, Operator

At this time there are no further questions. I would like to turn the floor to Mr. Morabito for closing remarks.

Tom Morabito, Vice President of Investor Relations

Thanks, Angie. Before we conclude, I would like to mention the following conferences that management will be participating in: the Needham Virtual Fintech One-on-One Conference on August 19; the BMO Capital Markets 2021 Technology Summit on August 25; and CL King's 19th Annual Best Ideas Conference on September 14. Thank you again for joining us today. Please stay healthy and safe. And we look forward to speaking with you in November as we share our third quarter 2021 results.

Operator, Operator

Thank you for participating in today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines at this time.