2017 GAAP Revenue of $1.152 billion, an increase of 46% 
2017 Pro Forma Revenue of $1.456 billion, an increase of 9% 
2017 GAAP Net Loss of ($204) million including charges totaling $221 million

IRVING, Texas, March 15, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Exela Technologies, Inc. (“Exela” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ:XELA), one of the largest global providers of platforms for Business Process Automation (“BPA”), announced today its financial results for the fourth quarter and year-end for the year ended December 31, 2017. 

“I’m pleased with our operational and financial results highlighted by 2017 pro forma revenue growth of 9% and meeting our full-year 2017 guidance for pro forma revenue and Adjusted EBITDA. Revenue from our top 100 customers grew 14% year-over-year.

As I look to the future we have numerous opportunities for growth, by leveraging our scale, experience and references in business process automation and in industry-specific and industry-agnostic enterprise software solutions.

To best position the Company for long term shareholder value, and to increase our profitability, our strategy includes, increasing awareness of our Company’s solutions in the market, and accelerating investments in people and technologies,” said Ronald Cogburn, Chief Executive Officer.

Financial information contained in this press release is presented pro forma for the business combination of Quinpario Acquisition Corp. 2, SourceHOV Holdings, Inc. (“SourceHOV”) and Novitex Holdings, Inc. (“Novitex”), which closed on July 12, 2017. The primary pro forma adjustment is to include the results of Novitex for the period January 1, 2017 to July 12, 2017. For more information, please refer to the reconciliation of reported to pro forma financial results contained in the Schedules of this release.

Full-Year 2017 Pro Forma Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $1.456 billion, an increase of 9.2% from $1.331 billion in 2016. Information & Transaction Processing Solutions (“ITPS”) revenue was $1.131 billion, an increase of 15.0%. Healthcare Solutions (“HS”) revenue totaled $233.6 million, a decrease of 5.6%. Legal and Loss Prevention Services (“LLPS”) revenue totaled $91.6 million in 2017, a decrease of 9.0%.
• 100 customers represent ~60% of total revenue, up 14%
• 6 customers over $25 million in annual revenue and over approximately 200 customers with more than $1 million in annual revenue.
• Low concentration with the largest customer representing 6% of total revenue.
• Revenue per full-time employee increased to $66k from $56k.
   
• Adjusted EBITDA: $245.2 million, representing an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.9%, compared with Adjusted EBITDA of $248.5 million and 18.6% margin in 2016.
   
• Further AdjustedEBITDA: $346.8 million, representing a Further Adjusted EBITDA margin of 23.8%, compared with Further Adjusted EBITDA of $349.9 million and 26.2% margin in 2016. The year-over-year decrease in Further Adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by higher ramp-up costs associated with new ITPS client contracts, investments in the Company’s revenue growth initiatives, and higher public company costs, partially offset by cost savings initiatives of which over $40 million was delivered in 2017.
   
• Capital Expenditures: 2.9% of 2017 revenue compared to 3.9% of 2016 revenue 

             
Balance Sheet and Liquidity
             

• Balance Sheet and Liquidity: At December 31, 2017, Exela’s total liquidity was $141 million and total net debt was $1.345 billion.  The Company had cash of $62 million, of which $23 million is segregated for customer use and a $100 million revolving credit facility, which was undrawn, but net of $21 million in stand-by letters of credit, giving the Company $79 million at December 31, 2017 available for borrowing.   
   
• Net Leverage Ratio: 3.88x

Fourth Quarter Ended December 31, 2017 Pro Forma Financial Highlights

• Revenue: Actual revenue of $386.3 million, an increase of 9.6% from $352.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2016, and an increase of 7.8% from $358.2 million in the third quarter of 2017. Refer to pro forma revenue reconciliation for third quarter of 2017 and fourth quarter of 2016. All three segments grew revenue on a year-over year basis. ITPS revenue was $301.5 million, an increase of 11.2% year-over- year, driven primarily by increased volumes and expansion of services within existing customers. HS revenue was $60.1 million, an increase of 2.5%. LLPS revenue was $24.7 million, an increase of 8.3%.
   
• Net Loss: ($58.7) million and includes an impairment charge of approximately ($69.4) million. Net loss for the fourth quarter of 2016 totaled ($19.9) million. Excluding the impairment charge, the company would have reported a net income of $10.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2017.
   
• AdjustedEBITDA: $62.7 million, representing a margin of 16.3%, compared with Adjusted EBITDA of $64.7 million and margin of 18.4% in the fourth quarter of 2016. The year-over-year decrease in fourth quarter 2017 Adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by higher ramp-up costs associated with new ITPS client contracts, investments in the Company’s revenue growth initiatives, and higher public company costs.
   
• Stock buy-back: purchased 49,300 shares to partially fund the long-term incentive plan.

             
             
Outlook
            2018

• Initial 2018 revenue guidance is in the range of $1.510 billion - $1.540 billion or of 4% - 6%, exceeding the Company’s previous long-term guidance of 3% - 4% growth based on our visibility heading into 2018
• Adjusted EBITDA guidance – in the range of $290- $310 million or growth of 18% - 26%, representing a 19% - 20% margin for 2018
• Further Adjusted EBITDA guidance – in the range of $330- $355 million or a margin of 22% - 23%
• Guidance includes delivering $40 - $45 million in savings during 2018 with remaining during 2019

            Long-term

• Revenue growth in the range of 3%-4%
• Further Adjusted EBITDA margin guidance in the range of 22% - 23%
• Guidance is based on constant-currency

The above outlook is based on 2017 pro forma results. Reconciliations are available in the attached tables.

Earnings Conference Call and Audio Webcast

Exela will host a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter 2017 financial results today at 5:00 p.m. EDT.  To access this call, dial 800-860-2442 or +412-858-4600.  A replay of this conference call will be available through March 22, 2018 at 877-344-7529 or +412-317-0088 (international).  The replay passcode is 10116940.  A live webcast of this conference call will be available on the “Investors” page of the Company’s website (www.exelatech.com). A supplemental slide presentation that accompanies this call and webcast can be found on the investor relations website (http://investors.exelatech.com/) and will remain available after the call.  Exela has also posted additional historical financial information regarding SourceHOV Holdings, Inc. and Novitex Holdings, Inc. on a combined basis to its investor relations website, (http://investors.exelatech.com).

About Exela:  Embracing complexity. Delivering simplicity℠. Exela Technologies, Inc. (“Exela”) is a global business process automation ("BPA") leader combining industry-specific and industry-agnostic enterprise software and solutions with decades of experience. Our BPA suite of solutions are deployed in banking, healthcare, insurance and other industries to support mission-critical environments. Exela is a leader in workflow automation, attended and un-attended cognitive automation, digital mailrooms, print communications, and payment processing with deployments across the globe.

Exela partners with customers to improve user experience and quality through operational efficiency. Exela serves over 3,500 customers across more than 50 countries, through a secure, cloud-enabled global delivery model. We are 22,000 employees strong at nearly 1,200 onsite client facilities and 150 delivery centers located throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. Our client list includes 60% of the Fortune® 100, along with many of the world’s largest retail chains, banks, law firms, healthcare insurance payers and providers and telecom companies.

Follow Exela on Twitter: https://twitter.com/exelatech
Follow Exela on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11174620/

About Non-GAAP Financial Measures: This earnings release presents certain non-GAAP financial measures including EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, Further Adjusted EBITDA, each of which is a financial measure that is not prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”). We believe that the presentation of these non-GAAP financial measures will provide useful information to investors in assessing our financial performance, results of operations and liquidity. We believe these non-GAAP measures allow investors to better understand the trends in our business and to better understand and compare our results. Our board of directors and management use EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, and Further Adjusted EBITDA to assess our financial performance, because it allows them to compare our operating performance on a consistent basis across periods by removing the effects of our capital structure (such as varying levels of debt and interest expense, as well as transaction costs resulting from the business combination and other such capital markets based activities. Adjusted EBITDA and Further Adjusted EBITDA also seek to remove the effects of integration and related costs to achieve the savings, any expected reduction in operating expenses due to the business combination, asset base (such as depreciation and amortization) and other similar non-routine items outside the control of our management team. The Company does not consider these non-GAAP measures in isolation or as an alternative to liquidity or financial measures determined in accordance with GAAP. A limitation of these non-GAAP financial measures is that they exclude significant expenses and income that are required by GAAP to be recorded in the Company’s financial statements. In addition, they are subject to inherent limitations as they reflect the exercise of judgments by management about which expenses and income are excluded or included in determining these non-GAAP financial measures and therefore the basis of presentation for these measures may not be comparable to similarly-titled measures used by other companies. These non-GAAP financial measures are not required to be uniformly applied, are not audited and should not be considered in isolation or as substitutes for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Net loss is the GAAP measure most directly comparable our non-GAAP measures. For reconciliation of the comparable GAAP measures to these non-GAAP financial measures, see the schedules to this release. Optimization & restructuring expenses and merger adjustments are primarily related to the implementation of strategic actions and initiatives related to the business combination completed on July 12, 2017. All of these costs are variable and dependent upon the nature of the actions being implemented and can vary significantly driven by business needs. Accordingly, due to that significant variability, we exclude these charges since we do not believe they truly reflect our past, current or future operating performance.

Forward-Looking Statements: Certain statements included in this press release are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation  Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as “may”, “should”, “would”, “plan”, “intend”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “estimate”, “predict”, “potential”, “seem”, “seek”, “continue”, “future”, “will”, “expect”, “outlook” or other similar words, phrases or expressions. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding our  industry, future events, the estimated or anticipated future results and benefits of the recently consummated transaction between Exela Technologies, Inc., SourceHOV Holdings, Inc., and  Novitex Holdings, Inc. (including the related transactions, the “Business Combination”), future opportunities for the combined company, and other statements that are not historical  facts. These statements are based on the current expectations of Exela management and are not predictions of actual performance. These statements are based on the current expectations of Exela management and are not predictions of actual performance. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties regarding Exela’s businesses, and actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, changes in the business environment in which Exela operates and general financial, economic, regulatory and political conditions affecting the industries in which Exela operates; changes in taxes, governmental laws, and regulations; competitive product and pricing activity; failure to realize the anticipated benefits of the Business Combination, including as a result of a delay or difficulty in integrating the businesses of SourceHOV and Novitex or the inability to realize the expected amount and timing of cost savings and operating synergies of the Business Combination; and those factors discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in Exela’s Proxy Statement dated June 26, 2017 (the “Proxy Statement”) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). In addition, forward-looking statements provide Exela’s expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this communication. Exela anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause Exela’s assessments to change. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Exela’s assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this presentation.

Contact: Jim Mathias
E: ir@exelatech.com
W: investors.exelatech.com
T: 972-821-5808

Source: Exela Technologies, Inc.