SunGard posts Q3 results

For the quarter, revenue was $702 million, up 2% year over year (up 4% adjusting for currency). Operating income was $120 million, up 26% year over year, and the operating income margin was 17.0%, an improvement of 3.3 points year over year, driven by the increase in revenue, and a 2% decrease in total costs and expenses. Adjusted EBITDA was $199 million, up 6% year over year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin was 28.3%, up 1.2 points year over year (down 0.1 points adjusting for currency).

For the first nine months, revenue was $2.1 billion, up 2% year over year (up 5% adjusting for currency). Operating income was $343 million and the operating income margin was 16.7%, compared to an operating loss of $117 million for the first nine months of 2014. The first quarter of 2014 included a $339 million non-cash trade name impairment charge related to the split-off of the Availability Services business. Excluding this charge, operating income increased 55% year over year and the operating income margin improved 5.7 points year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $552 million, up 12% year over year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin was 26.8%, up 2.4 points year over year (up 1.3 points adjusting for currency).

Russ Fradin, president and chief executive officer, commented, “We’re pleased with the advances we’ve made in building a stronger, more streamlined software and services company with a leading position in the global financial services industry. Our transformation has been focused on making the right investments in great software products and a broad array of services to continually improve our organic growth rate. Clients have responded positively to our initiatives as reflected in another strong quarter of growth. We look forward to becoming part of FIS, a global leader in banking and payments technology as well as consulting and outsourcing solutions. The combination with FIS will make us even stronger in serving our clients.”

On August 12, 2015, SunGard entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by FIS for an enterprise value in excess of $9 billion, which includes the assumption, repayment or refinancing of all of SunGard’s outstanding debt, totaling $4.7 billion. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, and is expected to close during the fourth quarter.

SunGard reports its business in two key segments; Financial Systems and Public Sector & Education. Our segment revenue is classified into three categories: (i) Software revenue; (ii) Software-as-a-Service (“SaaS”) and cloud revenue; and (iii) Services, which includes professional and business processing services revenue. Approximately 70% of our revenue is highly recurring as a result of long-running contracts for software maintenance, rentals, SaaS, Cloud and BPaaS offerings.

Financial Systems (“FS”) segment revenue was $646 million in the quarter, up 1% year over year (up 4% year over year adjusting for currency), driven by growth in SaaS and cloud, and Services revenue. Software revenue was down 2% (up 2% adjusting for currency) driven by a combination of new sales and renewals of software license fees. SaaS and cloud revenue grew 1% (up 3% adjusting for currency) driven by increased adoption of our offerings and higher volumes from our existing customers. Services revenue grew 7% (up 11% adjusting for currency) driven by growth in business processing revenue from our new utility offerings. Adjusted EBITDA was $196 million in the quarter, up 7% year over year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin was 30.4%, up 1.5 points year over year (up 0.1 points adjusting for currency).
Year to date, FS revenue was $1.9 billion, up 2% year over year (up 6% adjusting for currency). For the same period, adjusted EBITDA was $543 million, up 14% year over year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin was 28.7%, up 3.0 points year over year (up 1.8 points adjusting for currency).

In 2015, the stronger dollar has impacted revenue year over year, but the Company’s non-U.S. spending base has created a natural hedge, resulting in a modest increase in profit margin.

SunGard’s FS solutions address a broad range of customer’s needs across the financial services industry. During the quarter, notable deals included the following:
• Front Arena was chosen by a leading Swiss bank for equity, fixed income and FX electronic trading and risk management.
• Quantum was selected by a leading European oil company to help improve its corporate treasury operations.
• Protegent was selected by a large U.S. financial services conglomerate to help address market manipulation and insider trading concerns.
• Global Plus was selected by a private U.S. trust company for full-service, back-office outsourcing to help build operational scale and support growth.
• Stream GMI was renewed by a U.S. investment banking subsidiary of one of the largest Japanese financial services companies to help streamline its back-office processes for listed and cleared OTC derivatives.
• Macess and associated Application Management Services (AMS) were selected by one of the largest Medicaid Plans in the U.S. to help design, build and implement new workflow processes.
• Hedge360 was selected by a German asset manager to provide a real-time view of portfolio profit and loss as well as risk factors by investment strategy.
• Aligne was chosen by a leading German energy supplier for integrated energy trading and operations.
• Front Arena was chosen by a leading broker in Saudi Arabia to support its institutional brokerage expansion.
Public Sector & Education (“PS&E”) segment revenue was $56 million in the quarter, up 4% year over year, driven by growth in all revenue categories. Software revenue grew 3%, SaaS and Cloud revenue grew 5%, and Services revenue grew 8%. Adjusted EBITDA was $16 million, down 6% year over year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin was 28.2%, down 3 points year over year, reflecting investments in services and support offerings.
Year to date, PS&E revenue was $166 million, up 3% year over year. For the same period, adjusted EBITDA was $49 million, down 3% year over year, and the adjusted EBITDA margin was 29.3%, down 1.6 points year over year.
Notable deals during the quarter included the following:
• eSchoolPLUS, IEPPLUS, PerformanceTRACKER and CurriculumCONNECTOR were selected by a school district in Pennsylvania to help manage student demographics, assessment, curriculum and special education information.
• BusinessPLUS was selected by one of the largest school districts in Ohio to help manage financial, procurement, payroll and personnel functions.
• Public safety licensing and services were selected by a city in South Carolina to provide computer-aided emergency dispatch, records management and mobile computing.

Financial Position
For the nine months ended September 30, 2015, the continuing operations of the Company generated $323 million in cash flow from operations, up $101 million year over year. Capital expenditures were $85 million, down $13 million year over year. During this period, the Company also spent $25 million on acquisitions.

At September 30, 2015, total debt was $4.7 billion and cash was $591 million. The Company’s leverage ratio, as defined in its senior secured credit agreement, was 4.81x, down from 5.41x at December 31, 2014. The leverage ratio is calculated using adjusted EBITDA as defined in Note 2 of this release. See Note 3 of this release for supplemental information on debt. In addition, on October 1, 2015, the Company sold a small business within the FS segment, resulting in a discrete tax benefit in the quarter. The assets and liabilities are shown as held for sale on the balance sheet as of September 30, 2015.