News Details

Strong execution on 'three-A's' strategy drives margin expansion

• Revenues for the quarter ended September 30, 2023 total $4.1 billion, pretax loss is $109 million, and net loss is $142 million
   
• Adjusted EBITDA is $574 million, adjusted pretax income is $25 million, and adjusted net loss is $12 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2023
   
• Raises full-year adjusted earnings outlook

NEW YORK, Nov. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Kyndryl Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: KD), the world's largest IT infrastructure services provider, today released financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2023, the second quarter of its 2024 fiscal year. 

"We're strengthening and transforming our business at an accelerated pace, which is driving faster-than-anticipated margin expansion and creating future growth opportunities for Kyndryl.  We're again increasing our adjusted earnings outlook for the year, and we remain on track to return to revenue growth in calendar 2025," said Kyndryl Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Martin Schroeter.  "Our customers are increasingly relying on us to provide the mission-critical expertise and technology necessary to harness today's secular IT trends."

Results for the Fiscal Second Quarter Ended September 30, 2023

For the second quarter, Kyndryl reported revenues of $4.1 billion, a year-over-year decline of 3% and 5% in constant currency.  The year-over-year revenue decline reflects the Company's decision to reduce inherited zero-margin and low-margin third-party content in customer contracts. The Company reported a pretax loss of $109 million and a net loss of $142 million, or ($0.62) per diluted share, in the quarter, compared to a net loss of $281 million, or ($1.24) per diluted share, in the prior-year period.  The net loss in the quarter included $87 million of transaction-related costs and workforce rebalancing charges.  Cash flow from operations was $46 million.

Adjusted pretax income was $25 million, an increase of $127 million compared to an adjusted pretax loss of $102 million in the prior-year period.  Currency movements had a positive year-over-year impact of approximately $9 million on adjusted pretax income.  Adjusted net loss in the quarter was $12 million, or ($0.05) per diluted share.

Adjusted EBITDA of $574 million increased 34% compared to $428 million in the prior-year period, primarily driven by contributions from the Company's Alliances, Advanced Delivery and Accounts initiatives, partially offset by a software cost increase of $50 million.  Adjusted free cash flow was $69 million.

"In our fiscal second quarter, we delivered outstanding growth in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted pretax income, driven by continued progress on our three-A initiatives and transforming how we operate.  At the same time, we're positioning Kyndryl for future success by signing new contracts and renewals with meaningfully higher margins than our pre-spin, legacy contracts," said Kyndryl Chief Financial Officer David Wyshner.

Recent Developments

• Alliances initiative – In the first half of its fiscal year, Kyndryl recognized $180 million in revenue tied to cloud hyperscaler alliances, progressing well toward the Company's hyperscaler revenue target of more than $300 million for fiscal year 2024.
   
• Advanced Delivery initiative – To date, Kyndryl has redeployed more than 7,500 delivery professionals to serve new revenue streams and backfill attrition. This has generated annualized savings of approximately $425 million as of quarter-end. Automation and the Kyndryl Bridge platform, powered by AI, are driving this progress, and the Company is therefore raising its fiscal 2024 year-end objective for annualized savings from $450 million to $550 million.
   
• Accounts initiative – Kyndryl continued to address elements of contracts with substandard margins, bringing the total impact from this initiative to $400 million of annualized benefits, achieving the Company's $400 million fiscal 2024 year-end goal ahead of schedule. The Company is therefore raising its fiscal 2024 year-end goal for annualized savings to $500 million.
   
• Strong projected margin on recent signings – In the quarter, projected pretax margins associated with total signings were again in the high-single-digit range, which aligns with levels achieved throughout fiscal 2023 and reflects the Company's focus on margin expansion.
   
• Double-digit growth in Kyndryl Consult – In the quarter, Kyndryl Consult revenues grew 19% year-over-year and 17% in constant currency and were 14% of total revenue.
   
• Separation-related costs – Kyndryl's reported results for the fiscal second quarter reflect $48 million of transaction-related costs, primarily related to systems migrations associated with the Company's spin-off. Separation-related costs are expected to end this year.

Raising Fiscal Year 2024 Outlook

Kyndryl is raising its fiscal 2024 adjusted pretax income outlook, which it now expects to be at least $140 million, compared to its prior outlook of at least $100 million.  The Company is also raising its fiscal 2024 adjusted EBITDA margin outlook, now expecting it to be approximately 14.5%, compared to its prior outlook of approximately 14%.

The Company is raising its fiscal 2024 targets primarily because of the benefits from its three-A initiatives, as discussed above, and noted that it continues to expect its fiscal 2024 adjusted free cash flow will be positive.  Kyndryl is narrowing its outlook for constant-currency revenue growth to (6%) to (7%), which represents the stronger end of its prior estimate of (6%) to (8%).

Earnings Webcast

Kyndryl's earnings call for the second fiscal quarter is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. ET on November 8, 2023.  The live webcast can be accessed by visiting investors.kyndryl.com on Kyndryl's investor relations website.  A slide presentation will be made available on Kyndryl's investor relations website before the call on November 8, 2023.  Following the event, a replay will be available via webcast for twelve months at investors.kyndryl.com.

About Kyndryl

Kyndryl (NYSE: KD) is the world's largest IT infrastructure services provider, serving thousands of enterprise customers in more than 60 countries.  The Company designs, builds, manages and modernizes the complex, mission-critical information systems that the world depends on every day. For more information, visit www.kyndryl.com.

Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release, including statements concerning the Company's plans, objectives, goals, beliefs, business strategies, future events, business condition, results of operations, financial position, business outlook and business trends and other non-historical statements, including without limitation the information presented in the "Outlook" section of this press release, are forward-looking statements.  Such forward-looking statements often contain words such as "will," "anticipate," "predict," "project," "plan," "forecast," "future," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "target," "may," "should," "would," "could," "outlook," "goal," "objective," "seek," "aim," "believe" and other similar words or expressions or the negative thereof or other variations thereon.  Forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current assumptions and beliefs regarding future business and financial performance.

The Company's actual business, financial condition or results of operations may differ materially from those suggested by forward-looking statements as a result of risks and uncertainties which include, among others: risks related to the Company's spin-off from IBM; failure to attract new customers, retain existing customers or sell additional services to customers; technological developments and the Company's response to such developments; failure to meet growth and productivity objectives; competition; impacts of relationships with critical suppliers and partners; inability to attract, retain and/or manage key personnel and other skilled employees; the impact of local legal, economic, political, health and other conditions; a downturn in economic environment and customer spending budgets; damage to the Company's reputation; inability to accurately estimate the cost of services and the timeline for completion of contracts; its implementation of a new enterprise resource planning system and other systems and processes; service delivery issues; the Company's ability to successfully manage acquisitions, alliances and dispositions, including integration challenges, failure to achieve objectives, the assumption of liabilities, and higher debt levels; the impact of our business with government customers; failure of the Company's intellectual property rights to prevent competitive offerings and the failure of the Company to obtain necessary licenses; the impairment of our goodwill or long-lived assets; risks relating to cybersecurity and data privacy; risks relating to non-compliance with legal and regulatory requirements; adverse effects from tax matters and environmental matters; legal proceedings and investigatory risks; the impact of changes in market liquidity conditions and customer credit risk on receivables; the Company's pension plans; the impact of currency fluctuations; and risks related to the Company's common stock and the securities market.

Additional risks and uncertainties include, among others, those risks and uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023, and may be further updated from time to time in the Company's subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Any forward-looking statement in this press release speaks only as of the date on which it is made.  Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

In this release, certain amounts may not add due to the use of rounded numbers; percentages presented are calculated based on the underlying amounts. 

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In an effort to provide investors with additional information regarding its results, the Company has provided certain metrics that are not calculated based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), such as constant-currency results, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted pretax income, adjusted net income, adjusted EPS, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted pretax margin, adjusted net margin and adjusted free cash flow.  Such non-GAAP metrics are intended to supplement GAAP metrics, but not to replace them.  The Company's non-GAAP metrics may not be comparable to similarly titled metrics used by other companies.  Definitions of non-GAAP metrics and reconciliations of non-GAAP metrics for historical periods to GAAP metrics are included in the tables in this release.

A reconciliation of forward-looking non-GAAP financial information is not included in this release because the individual components of such reconciliation are not currently available without unreasonable effort.  For the same reason, we are unable to address the probable significance of the unavailable information, which could be material to future results. 

Investor Contact:
Lori Chaitman
lori.chaitman@kyndryl.com

Media Contact:
Ed Barbini
edward.barbini@kyndryl.com

Table 4
NON-GAAP METRIC DEFINITIONS AND RECONCILIATIONS
(dollars in millions, except signings)

We report our financial results in accordance with GAAP.  We also present certain non-GAAP financial measures to provide useful supplemental information to investors.  We provide these non-GAAP financial measures as we believe it enhances investors' visibility to management decisions and their impacts on operational performance; enables better comparison to peer companies; and allows us to provide a long-term strategic view of the business going forward.

Constant-currency information compares results between periods as if exchange rates had remained constant period over period.  We define constant-currency revenues as total revenues excluding the impact of foreign exchange rate movements and use it to determine the constant-currency revenue growth on a year-over-year basis.  Constant-currency revenues are calculated by translating current period revenues using corresponding prior-period exchange rates.

Adjusted pretax income is defined as pretax income excluding transaction-related costs, charges related to ceasing to use leased / fixed assets, charges related to lease terminations, pension expenses other than pension servicing costs and multi-employer plan costs, stock-based compensation expense, amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, workforce rebalancing charges, impairment expense, significant litigation costs and currency impacts of highly inflationary countries.  Adjusted pretax margin is calculated by dividing adjusted pretax income by revenue.

Adjusted EBITDA is defined as net income (loss) excluding net interest expense, income taxes, depreciation and amortization (excluding depreciation of right-of-use assets and amortization of capitalized contract costs), charges related to ceasing to use leased / fixed assets, charges related to lease terminations, transaction-related costs, pension costs other than pension servicing costs and multi-employer plan costs, stock-based compensation expense, workforce rebalancing charges, impairment expense, significant litigation costs, and foreign currency impacts of highly inflationary countries. Adjusted EBITDA margin is calculated by dividing adjusted EBITDA by revenue.

Adjusted net income is defined as adjusted pretax income less the reported provision for income taxes, minus or plus the tax effect of the non-GAAP adjustments made to calculate adjusted pretax income, and excluding exceptional items impacting the reported provision for income taxes.  Adjusted net margin is calculated by dividing adjusted net income by revenue.

Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) is defined as adjusted net income divided by diluted weighted average shares outstanding to reflect shares that are dilutive or anti-dilutive based on the amount of adjusted net income.

Adjusted free cash flow is defined as cash flows from operating activities (GAAP) after adding back transaction-related payments, charges related to lease terminations, workforce rebalancing payments and significant litigation payments, less net capital expenditures.  Management uses adjusted free cash flow as a measure to evaluate its operating results, plan strategic investments and assess our ability and need to incur and service debt.  We believe adjusted free cash flow is a useful supplemental financial measure to aid investors in assessing our ability to pursue business opportunities and investments and to service our debt.  Adjusted free cash flow is a financial measure that is not recognized under U.S. GAAP and should not be considered as an alternative to cash flows from operations or liquidity derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

Signings are defined by Kyndryl as an initial estimate of the value of a customer's commitment under a contract.  We calculate this based on various considerations including the type and duration of the agreement as well as the presence of termination charges or wind-down costs.  Contract extensions and increases in scope are treated as signings only to the extent of the incremental new value.  Signings can vary over time due to a variety of factors including, but not limited to, the timing of signing a small number of larger outsourcing contracts.  The conversion of signings into revenue may vary based on the types of services and solutions, customer decisions and other factors, which may include, but are not limited to, macroeconomic environment or external events.  Management uses signings as a tool to monitor the performance of the business including the business' ability to attract new customers and sell additional scope into our existing customer base.

SOURCE Kyndryl