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648fa0f9f6e2fc9ee86bdb3d5b22a9f2 | So I guess, just in terms of dual antagonism of E-selectin and CXCR4, why have you chosen ER/PR-positive patients versus, for example, like triple negative? What gives you confidence that's going to work in this subset versus other subsets? | So we -- that's a great question. And we don't think that the effects or the potential benefit would be limited to one population or another. We have chosen the population in part because of relevance in the Phase 1b clinical setting and the ability to access patients who are stable in terms of their metastatic disease and then on appropriate therapy for us to assess this molecule as an early exploratory proof of mechanism study. So -- but we think that this could be quite relevant for addition to therapy for patients with multiple tumor types of breast cancer. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
f944ede293c63304440c29ccbeb8dc18 | With the Phase 1b start in the second half of '19, can you give us any expectations for timing to the data? And also, the number of patients that you're expecting to enroll? | Yes. Just -- this will be a small trial, so it will be less than a dozen patients, and we would be hoping to have some data readout by the end of 2020. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
3d3f91f07bd5e6c1d799100378175a46 | And then just on the other AML trials. Are you going to be able to provide any kind of updates as to enrollment and how enrollment is progressing? I know it might be difficult with the NCI study, but maybe with your own study? | Yes. So we're not going to be providing details as to how many patients are enrolled. But if there's any impact on time lines, we'd let you know but -- so our objective is to work toward the data readout and to focus timing on that -- timing issues around that. | fully_evasive | [
"direct",
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eebc3e0b7b90fec107e8e0e42cea393d | OK. Thanks, Rachel. And then maybe just lastly on rivipansel, following the top-line release by Pfizer, do you plan on hosting your own conference call? | So again, I don't think the top line release is going to be at a level of detail that's -- we're not going to be -- we're not going to go beyond what's in the press release until there's some opportunity to share a broader data set, as I said, in the context of a scientific meeting or in a publication. So I don't currently plan to host a separate conference call because we don't believe we're going to be able to do anything beyond what's in the press release. I mean, that being said, we're always happy to take questions and calls but so -- I think we'll be sticking with what's in the press release in terms of the data disclosure at that time. | direct | [
"direct",
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c8871ce7c4af9788bc634084d65c252f | My question is I want to know about the competitive landscape in each business segment. Thank you. | Actually, according to the statistics from QuestMobile, the number of daily DAU of our access to mobile websites and also primary app and mini app grew to 43.87 million in September, representing 12.3% increase year on year. Actually among those, especially for those active users who actually are using mobile phones priced above RMB5,000 was 37%. Actually comparing that number with our peers, our major competitors, that number was only 20%. The industry average was only 15%, which indicate that our user is more high-end and actually their purchasing power is stronger. Well, according to the competitive landscape maybe somebody will say our competitors, they have some other company, which is Tencent and ByteDance. Actually our mother company Ping An Group was very capable, if -- for example, let me quote with you with a few numbers.
For Ping An Group, we have 640 million internet users and 210 million financial service users. Out of that, we still have 60 million auto insurance of Ping An and the 30 million, the credit card -- credit card users, which also are the car owners of Ping An Bank. So, actually leveraging on Ping An Group large and vast customer base, so we actually can further grow our Autohome's business. We also expanded into the EV and new renewable energy and EV business, as well as the live streaming and live broadcasting business. We also offered a lot of, for example, motorcycle car model library and also together with the live streaming and the live broadcasting business, we are attracting more and more users, especially the young users.
I would like to share with -- I would like to share with you my outlook over the next 24 months of the market competition.
Now let's look at our traditional business first. We believe that the traditional business actually would transform from quantitative based to qualitative based, which means the driver would be quantity then transform into quality. The OEMs and the dealers would pay more attention to the quality of the data, for example, the effectiveness on the conversion rates of the leads. In terms of this, Autohome is absolutely Number 1 in the vertical auto media industry.
Now, in terms of the advertisement product businesses, we believe the advertisement would transform from the exposure type to more interactive and immersive type. We believe that the leads in the future will be more direct linking with the customers.
Now let's look at the new business. We have three major piece of new business. One is data business, second is NEV, and the third one is used car. Now let's look at the data business. For the big data, we believe there is one thing, which is quite momentum and it's for sure that is a digital transformation of the OEMs and the dealers. This is for sure. And they would accelerating the whole process to go to digitalization. Comparing with our competitors, actually we are an early bird in the vertical media industry of the auto, and compared with other competitors, which are internet players like the Baidu, Alibaba and iFly, actually we have better foundation, and a more solid foundation than those companies. Actually we have larger volume of the data, because we accumulated the data ever since 2016. And then secondly, we have did a great job in creating the data, classifying the data, and we input and feed our data into our models, which make our models more valid and more relevant and more smart. So in this way, we have better results and effectiveness over our competitors in terms of the data business.
Now let's look at the NEV business. Actually, we already account for more than 50% of the market share in NEV business. Looking into the next two years, we believe that the OEMs, their biggest challenge is how to maximize and enhance the sales under direct sales model. So, for these vertical media players, if they don't transform their business and model and their service model, that would be a big challenge for them. For us, we are already in the leading position, because we already promoted and also boosted the transaction and sales in the NEV market. So in this way, we can help those OEMs to achieve more success under the direct selling retail model.
Now let's comment on the used car business. Actually used car is a big market in China, but it's very much segmented. There is no giant player who dominant this market, because there are so many small players. It's so much segmented. In terms of the B and the C on the B2B side and the C2B side lack of trust is a major challenge.
Well actually, in terms of the used car, our major competitor is 58.com. However, we are more successful in promoting the transaction, because we can effectively boost the transaction. And in terms of the trading transaction and auction process, we are more advanced comparing with 58.
Actually, in terms of the used car business, leveraging on Ping An Group's massive resources, one of our benefit and our advantages is that we can maximize our source of orders, the used cars. If we can monopoly, the source of the used cars and we can very quickly be leading the second player in the market by getting into the B2B model. In this way, we will be in the leading position, and we actually is already in the leading position. And in terms of dealing with used car dealers, currently we are working with more than 50,000 used car dealers and our target is to grow this number to more than 90,000. Currently, it's 50,000 and we are going to expand in 90,000 used car dealers, in this way, we can maximize our source of the used cars and we can boost the transaction to ensure we will be in the leading position in the used car auction market. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
49f5107ed2f8de138a5b53b503e2b54d | So recently, there were some news talking about Ping An potentially selling Autohome's stake. Can management response to that? And how do we see Ping An's involvement into Autohome's strategy and sort of the importance toward Ping An? How does it change so far? Thank you. | Actually my comment is, rumor is just a rumor. There is no sound evidence. And internally, we haven't heard any things similar to what you quoted. We haven't heard any news like that. Actually, if you look at the Autohome's shares, the share value currently is undervalued, the share price. Actually, for Ping An Group and Autohome, we had very frequent and timely as well as routinely discussions about Autohome's business. And also this morning, we just hold an internal meeting talking about Autohome remains to be one of the core part of the auto ecosystem of the Ping An Group, and it will be in the future. So Ping An Group attach good importance to support Autohome's development. Thank you. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
c75dc84134aad45ffcb0b40797045349 | Thanks management for taking my questions. I have two questions here. First, could management share the view of 4Q and next year market outlook? When the core business revenue growth is expected to recover? And next question is related to the customer end strategy. So what's the Company's strategy on that the new emerging business models such as live streaming? Thank you. | Well, actually to answer your question, firstly, in terms of the short supply of the chips in auto business, on the optimistic side, we believe next Q2, the situation will be eased. And for the latter half of next year, you can see that the whole market would be turnover. Actually for this year, Q3 and Q4, in terms of the new car sales, we would call it the darkest time -- the darkest hours. We believe this situation will be eased in the next Q1. And we believe the new car sales would go up next year. In Q1, may be it would be growing by 4% to 5%. So, it would be middle single-digit. And I think it would be comparable to the growth rate of 2019.
Now in terms of the live streaming business, actually, we have to distinguish from live broadcasting and live broadcasting, while live selling of the vehicles. Actually, in terms of the live streaming and the live selling of the vehicle, we do see there are lots of discussion about that. However, the real sales is still very low, because auto sales is very complicated transaction and cannot easily be completely done online. So, actually, we are expecting that on the live streaming in the area, there will be more new ways to -- we would see more way to be more interactive in the future. Actually, tomorrow would be the Guangzhou Auto Show, and we would be hosting seven-hour live streaming campaign, which is quite innovative live streaming activity. So we welcome you to join us for tomorrows live streaming. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
4a6a5f1f9ef7a9adc52fc1b78ea056e8 | Just one for me as I know there's some things you guys kind of want to couch until next week. But Max, you talked a little bit about kind of the benefit in the first half of this year of 300 basis points to the operating margins. And my question was kind of along those lines. As you guys think about next year and, obviously, a tough comparison in the first half and obviously, really strong results here in the second half. How are you kind of thinking about the cadence throughout the year? | Looking about this year, I think we need to elaborate a little bit on the performance of Lottery. That is the focus of your question. And let me say that in a more stable environment in recent months, I'm talking about Q3 even plus October, we are seeing Lottery sales that are structurally above the pre-pandemic level. This implies an accelerated growth profile and higher player consumption compared to historical trends.
We believe that the second half of this year, net of Jackpot represents a new baseline for the industry. There are some discrete benefits we mentioned in our prepared remarks, such as the standard closure of gaming roads in Italy, significant LMA incentives and the related Jackpot activities that happened during the first half of the year. This creates a high comparison for us next year. But the net of those items, we believe Lottery should grow at a net single-digit rate.
And since we see for the overall performance in 2022, we see a good growth expected for gaming. We see a strong growth expected for Digital & Betting and, therefore, we expect that the next year revenue and profit to be substantially aligned with 2021.
And Carlo, this is Max. If you do the math on the 300 basis points, you basically can get to about $165 million of revenue and about $140 million of profit which is kind of split 50-50 between Italy and the U.S. on the discrete benefits. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
a7cc9b68327c59493b9ebdd7a4138923 | Wanted to ask about the dividend, how you arrive to the $0.20, which is what you were distributing pre-pandemic. Is it related to kind of a free cash flow generation, free cash flow estimate? I know before, I think it was around a 30% payback ratio. Just a little bit more color in terms of how you were able to announce that positive result. | We are firm believers of simplicity of the communication. So historically, the company has delivered $0.20 per share per quarter. And that was kind of a number that was baked into the expectations of the capital market. If you look at the stock price today, that represents something north of 2% of yield on an annualized basis, 2.5% today.
Hopefully, the yield is going to go down as the stock price potentially may increase down the road. But having said that, I think this is kind of more or less in line with similar cohort companies in our peer group. When you look at the S&P 500 dividend payout statistics as well as across the different sub industries in our pleasure and entertainment, a large cohort. In any case, Chad, we will provide more insights into our capital allocation plan next week at the investor day. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
f14ae233df5d8023e6ab34a19e30ac34 | And then on the OPtiMa plan, Max, you mentioned that you hit all your targets and you achieved everything. I'm sure there's still more to do, and you'll continue to optimize margins there. How should we think about additional flow-through on gaming business coming back? And I guess the one piece of the business, just wanted to ask about, it seems like the installed base on the rest of world is still not recovered here. Anything to kind of help us understand when we should expect for that business, particularly the yields to be back to pre-pandemic levels? | So when we crafted the program, we wanted to make sure that we were able to get to the milestone within a year. And the upside potential could be generated by -- as the volume scales into the gaming business going forward, which obviously is going to be a combination of North America and international, as you also highlighted. So we expect that there is potential out there for more savings to come. But we also need to keep in mind at the same time that we have to face supply chain constraints, which are able to offset with the incremental savings that we have achieved so far.
And we expect that, obviously, also to represent a good buffer for next year. But I think we will elaborate more on this next week at the investor day.
Regarding the installed base in international is very much related to the situation of the different countries. As you know, the countries are generally open, but there are some mostly capacity-type restriction in many of the informational jurisdictions. So it will take some more time to recover those jurisdictions, but we feel that it will happen over the next quarters. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
09f93f61a42eb087bdc5c6f51696de41 | I wanted to start with the strong Lottery trends you're seeing. Can you give a little more color on what you attribute those higher play levels? Is it content? Is it COVID or consumer savings rate? I just want to get a sense on your thoughts around the long-term sustainability. | I think this is a very good question. And what we noticed is that consumer were exposed to an enlarged offer of Lottery products, and they bought more during the pandemic. The result of it is that they enjoyed the large offer of Lottery games throughout the jurisdictions. And we tested it through consumer research, and we carried out our researches in the U.S. as well as in Italy and the players stated that they enjoyed playing these games. And they also anticipated the intention to maintain a higher level of spend over time. And this is what is all getting up now that brings us to consider the trend we are seeing, especially in the second half of the year as the new base for Lottery. We cannot, of course, consider the first half, especially in Italy where have the rest of the gaming offering was closed. But what we are seeing now that we are measuring against '19 provides us a level of comfort regarding what the reserves indicated some months ago, and we are experiencing in now four months of strong results and customer satisfaction. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
86baed2ba244ad58c37fbc1df14df5a2 | And then just as a follow-up, how are you thinking about M&A here? Are there any areas that interest you, either bolt-on or something more substantial? Or you're pretty happy with sort of the organic path? | Generally speaking, we are happy with what we have. We will express some indication during our investor day, but it's clear that the digital area is where some selected transaction, M&A transaction could well reinforce our future outlook. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
5c53b5de60bc2045e79bb146cbd8f522 | My first question is on the Italian lotteries because you were commenting on the call that the growth was particularly strong in Instant Tickets and the Lotto performance was mostly with Q3 2019. So I'm trying to understand what is driving particular the Instant Ticket performance? And if you see this new base as a sustainable as you had mentioned also for the general answer on the Lottery. And the second question in the guidance. So if I understand properly, so for Q4, you are expecting something more similar to Q3. So this would point to, say, more in the 2.7 EBITDA for the full year than really 1.6 that is the new guidance. So it's just an approximation of a broad approximation of the full year. And I'm trying to understand if there is any specific topic that is embedded in your guidance, for example for the ForEx or the payment -- the incentive payments that you mentioned before to your employees you did include in the 2021 number? | OK. So the main -- I'll take the second part of the question and then pass back to Marco for the first question about the retail offering trend. So in terms of our revised upgraded outlook for 2021, just to keep it simple, I would say that the look reflects the normalization of our Lottery business after the exceptional H1 performance that we mentioned previously in the call, included several discrete benefits. But on the opposite side, it also accounts for the possibility that despite a typical seasonal strength in our product delivery on the gaming side, which comprised -- typically is slated for the final part of the year, we have to face potential some delivery delays due to supply chain constraints.
So we have a very strong finance in our hand right now of activity. But we need to obviously balance the availability of components and the delivery times as this whole supply chain complications have substantially added four weeks on the normal go-to-market time of delivery for our product pipeline. Net-net, again, as we said, we expect Q4 to be substantially in line with Q3 with effectively, as you clearly said, highlight an EBITDA for the full year around [Inaudible].
Regarding the question on lotteries, worldwide, the trend of Scratch & Win has been more robust than the group-based games, and now it's happening the same. You are referring to Italy. You are perfectly right. I mean, the performance of Instant Tickets is stronger compared to the '19. Lottery is better than the pre-pandemic but not with the same trend. So this is what we are considering the baseline and very good Instant Ticket performance that will be maintained through a lot of innovation that we intend to provide the market. But at the same time, also sounding Lotto performance well. By the way, we intend, next year, especially in Italy to innovate -- to sustain through good innovations, especially in the second part of the year. And this is somehow sustaining the outlook I have generally provided.
The new guidance is effectively consistent with the current rate expectations that are out in the market. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
7ebcbf67d21d88da03f34a0028df973c | I wanted to ask about specifically the U.S. installed base because -- and my sense is it's been discussed a decent amount, but it is up for the first time I think, in the last several quarters. And I just wanted to get a little more insight as to is that product-driven? Is that specific opportunities and without -- at the risk of asking for guidance, is this what you'd consider an ongoing inflection point in that number of units? | The installed base this year in North America benefited from two main factors. The first comes from the MLP expansion. As you know, we have invested seriously. We have presented a lot of our new products in G2E, and this is helping us to sustain our installed base. The other part that is around half is coming from new casino opening and expansion activities, mainly in Canada. Those are there. When I look at the installed base, we think that you have to take account, sorry, going forward some market structural changes in the WLA markets. I'm referring to New York there or Rhode Island, that are expected to impact our installed base in Q4 and next year.
And -- but if we exclude these jurisdictions, we expect that in 2022 to be broadly in line with '21. Obviously, there will always be some volatility individual quarters. But generally speaking, I guess, that the outlook we can provide is net of these three jurisdictions whereas an RFP has changed a little bit the structure of the market. What we are doing on the products and the feedback we are getting from customers are giving us confidence in providing an outlook over the next quarters of 2022 of relative stability net of these three jurisdictions. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
7d2b61a7dc599d02f60a0d7c291b6c36 | And if I can ask a similar question for just a little more insight in terms of the yield on those or the win per day. So difficult for us to model these coming out of the pandemic since demand has been rather intense and concentrated. Anything you can share to help us think about that. | But look, the yield, as you know, now are aligned. The overall yields in North America of Q3 are aligned with Q3 '19. That is a great achievement and are higher than the previous quarter. So we tend to consider to look at yields with some stability the level we have achieved so far. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
83408a0e5009286333af9384f407270d | Yeah. Hi, Jorge, and Luis, I had a question. You talked a little bit about what you were doing in the last few months of the year, November, December at Lindero. Can you talk a little bit about how October looked in terms of what you were able to get on the pad in terms of tons or ounces? And can you talk also a little bit maybe about how the mining costs are tracking at Lindero so far? | Yeah. October was a difficult month in the ramp-up. We had two breakdowns of conveyor head pulleys, something quite unusual. We've never seen, anybody on the team, a break of pulleys like that, particularly new pulleys.
So that was a problem with fabrication. That took us down pretty much 12, 13 days in the month, right? Those are very simple to manufacture. We manufacture them ourselves in Salta, and we have manufactured spared head pulley, something that we have never carried in stock, anywhere in light of what happened. But nevertheless, that took us down around 12 days in the month of October.
Our design rate of production in the crushing system is about 1,100 metric tons per hour, and we've been -- we are running right now, on average, at around -- for the year so far at around 800. So in the ramp-up, we're doing well. But the loss of operating hours in October -- operating days, in this case, did take a toll. So as I mentioned, I think we're tracking in the right direction with a team of experienced operators who we have trained.
But nevertheless, there is always a curve there. As they gain more experience with the equipment, under limitations with rotation of supervision and speed at which we can address issues, right? But in November, we're faring better. And again, the message, I think, overall, is we are heading in the right direction. Where it's just taking a bit longer because all of these drags with the difficulties to move personnel and that are related to our ability to solve issues on site, right? | intermediate | [
"direct",
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] | B |
100ec8c575e6e694db9a97cb09f741ab | So now that November is kind of settling in, it is a little more typical of operating. Can you say anything about how mining costs look on a unit-cost basis compared to what you're targeting? | Trevor, unit costs of the mine are well within our expectation. We are not seeing any significant deviations. So as for Q4, we expect to be reporting, albeit in a capacity to report mining costs, within our original plan. There's not much deviation on that side.
That's different, of course, for plant and indirect cost where there's still a distortion of the ramp-up. But overall, we see that our expected cost at a steady state is achievable and on track, which is in the range of $10.5 to $11.00 per ton of process ore.
The main drivers for cost on the side of consumables are, what, fuel for energy as we self-generate, cyanide and layer. And the pricing we've been able to achieve on cyanide and fuel is well within what was in our original budgets. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
02bd4f62074e6ef09a7d3924d40e29a1 | OK. That sounds good. And I understand because the irrigation has been a little bit unsteady due to the way the stacking configurations, it hasn't gone exactly the way you had originally planned. Is it possible to give us a sense of recovery, though, from the heap? How -- if that's tracking also the way you want it to? | Yeah. As I mentioned, the leaching kinetics is something we're looking at carefully. We have the benefit that this -- there is little interference with these initial cells as there is nothing stacked on top of them. And the percolation is quite rapid, right? Solution percolation, irrigation the cycle is quite rapid, as these are the cells closest to the plastic, right, to the bottom of them.
So -- and we also have our column test to control what's happening. And what we can report is that the leaching curves are performing according to our expectations. Remember that we are currently placing coarser ore than the original design calls for. We're placing ore at a pad of around 35 millimeters.
Design is nine millimeters. But we have done the column tests and have done our projections based on this coarser crush, and we expect to be at about 50% recovery within 90 days. And that's where we are tracking. In the initial cells, we did have some issues that are also more operational.
We had a bit of funding in one of the cells. We are after stacking with trucks. We are -- before we start the irrigation, we prepare the ground. We rework the first 30 centimeters.
We have to go a bit deeper. Due to the traffic of trucks, we have to go a bit deeper. And once we did that, the problem just went away. So -- and then we have some clogging of pipes because of the dosage of reactants that we use in order to avoid deposition of carbonates in the pipes.
That's also an issue that was identified and quickly addressed but just normal stuff that you see through a ramp-up in a new operation. And the problems are being managed. Leaching kinetics are tracking along with our expectations and just solving these issues. And with respect to the speed at which we can incorporate new areas under irrigation, yes, we have made an adjustment in our forecast.
We are not able with -- we were not able to implement retreat stacking, which would have allowed us to bring in irrigation at a much faster pace. We are stacking with trucks in an advance, not in retreat. So we need to wait until the cell is complete and when -- and that's when we can start to irrigate. So that takes away the speed at which we can bring new ounces under irrigation.
This is a temporary issue related to the fact that we are stacking with trucks. We -- this week, we started working with the conveyor stackers. And this problem just goes away with conveyor stacking, which is designed for retreat stacking, right? | direct | [
"direct",
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] | A |
f994c1460f7e793e17f257aed988894a | Yeah, no, understood. Maybe one -- just very simple last question for Luis. And that is with respect to the VAT recovery, any sense of kind of how that -- how you expect that to play out? | Yeah. We expect to start collecting the VAT as soon as we start selling. As Jorge mentioned, we had our first sale in November. And based on the existing regulation and the amounts we are able to collect as a percentage of sales every month, our expectation is that within 12 and 14 months, we should expect to -- we should be able to expect to collect the full amount in pesos.
Let's -- as you might be aware, the collection is in local currency. So that's the time frame, Trevor. | direct | [
"direct",
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"fully_evasive"
] | A |
b35ce4113b776e55aa8d79003f86ea1f | Hello there, guys. Just thank you for taking my questions. Just looking at the pictures, it looks like a great place to build a mine. A couple of quick questions here. You do mention that you're allowing for additional time to fully take, I guess, the HPGR, agglomeration and stacking systems to commercial. Is that built into the time frame you anticipate for first commercial production in Q1? | We originally anticipated, Chris, to have -- to place about 0.5 million tonnes of crushed ore on the leach -- crushed and agglomerated ore on the leach pad in December. We are reducing that tonnage down to about 320,000 tonnes, and that is accounting for what we are projecting would be more realistic based on the limitations that we are facing with this COVID environment, right, and as I expected, the flow of people, supervision, technical assistance. So you know how it is with commissioning. Sometimes it just goes very well and smooth, and sometimes it gives you a bit of grief.
So in this forecast, we're taking a bit of a more conservative position with respect to the tonnage. We have not translated that into the first quarter of this year. Certainly, it's something we are monitoring. If there is -- our expectation is to be today that we should be in a position early in Q1 to be achieving about 0.5 million ounces of ore placed on the leach pad every month, right? We -- before incorporating the HPR and conveyor stacking, we were already close to that rate of production, right? | intermediate | [
"direct",
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] | B |
05aa3f78436cb265540e97a058c16130 | Right. Could you just, Jorge -- what do you need to achieve to tick the box by way of commercial production? Maybe you could just remind us of that. | I think we would like to see the mechanical aspects of the operation within 85% of design. Again, the first -- the mine is operating at the design rate. Primary and secondary crushings have been operating within that range of efficiency and productivity. We just need to be able to sustain it.
And now we need to incorporate this last part of the train. With respect to the metallurgical performance, at the end of the day, metallurgical performance is what it will be. But the leaching kinetics are acting according to our expectations so far. And at the ADR plant, we also had some early issues with the ability to bring temperature in the caldrons up to design.
Those issues have been solved. So I believe the ADR today is at or close to design parameters. So I think the main thing is to see this last portion of the crushing system coming in and have the entire train from primary crushing all the way to the stocking, delivering at or around 900 tonnes per hour, right? | direct | [
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] | A |
f4bc38228014b1c061b05bc7dc83a4d2 | Right, right. OK. Just going -- just moving and just chatting about grade, I guess, placed at the moment. When do you anticipate being in a position to place, I guess, or to increase the grade to expectations on the pad? | No. We are delivering the grade. If you look at the aggregate, we're behind. But the only reason why we are behind in the aggregate is because in the early start of the crushing, we did not have -- because of the social distancing guidelines, we didn't have room in the camp to accommodate the operations workforce.
So what we were doing, we were feeding the mill with the medium, low-grade stockpile. We were feeding the plant with the medium, low-grade stockpile. So on the aggregate, that's what's weighing down on us achieving design or planned grades. But as I said, the conciliation is tracking well, and that was an issue related to the first month, two months of initial production, and our operations are delivering the grade.
I don't see an issue there. | intermediate | [
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704a0c3d6df6edcf1986c2f4d2a341b6 | All right. OK. So we can -- so you are stacking 0.9 gram per tonne, right, now on the pads? | If I go by today's report, 1.2 grams, I mean, we're tracking with the expectations, yes. | direct | [
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5954adb17a0aac8f9875db34332ec589 | All right. And then just flipping gears a little bit, just as a -- I wonder if you could just update us on -- obviously, there was news last year related to the royalty disagreement with the government. Any developments on that front? | Nothing new. Just as a recap, the case is in court. We have been granted a stay of execution by the court, so protecting us from any intention to collect the royalty on the part of the Secretary of Mines, and the case is in court. It could -- a development could be that we have some indications that we might see a ruling on first instance faster than we originally anticipated.
We were expecting this would take several months to get resolved on first instance. And the latest is that it is perhaps possible to see a ruling before the end of this year. A ruling would be a ruling on first instance that any of the parties can appeal. And if that is the case, our stay of execution protects the company through all the appeal process as well.
So I think the only change could be, perhaps, that there are some indications that we could see a ruling on first instance, faster than originally anticipated. | direct | [
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d43c83e42f3cfd4db4cdb6d6921af343 | Yes. You boys are doing a good job. I go to Sierra and VectorVest Canada. They have -- the company valued at CAD 16.62 a share. And the last question, just wondering if Warren Buffett is interested in taking a large position. Thank you very much. | No. We have no relation with that banking house, so we don't know that coverage. And the last I heard, Warren is not interested in taking a position at Fortuna. | direct | [
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1318c5e67b652ad1236fc5d35fc7c973 | Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I had questions about Lindero, how we're looking in 2021 and through the end of this year. But I guess, we went over them pretty clearly. And I guess my second ones would be Argentina, the capital controls. What was it? There was about $106 million. I think you can get out before capital controls kicked in. Has that changed at all? And can you discuss that, please, Luis? | Yeah. I can give a quick introduction to that. Yeah, there are, as we all know, capital controls or restrictions on access to exchange rate -- dollar exchange rate in Argentina. Our plan, we have a repatriation plan in place, considering all the current restrictions or limitations in place by the government.
And our repatriation plan is not impacted for the better part of 2021 by any of these measures because the structures we used and to contribute funding to Lindero.
To be more precise, we should be fine for the first $120 million to $130 million. We should be able to repatriate directly out of sales proceeds without having to bring those funds back into the country. Again, under the intercompany debt structure that we have in place this particular component of our inter-company risk that is out of the scope of existing restrictions today. And as Jorge mentioned, that should cover us for the first, we expect, at least nine to eight months of 2021. | direct | [
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9e0ab45c8121bec0da64d8e58a882ca1 | Yeah. I was actually going to ask the same question as the last caller, but maybe I'll just ask another one. In Argentina, there was an export tax that was reintroduced. I think it was last year at some point, and there was talk of that export tax potentially going away at some point. So can you maybe just comment on where things are at with that tax and what it currently sits at? | The export tax is currently at 8% for gold products, Ryan. And in our particular case, we have a tax stability treatment agreement -- a tax stability agreement that fixes that at about 5%. But that's something that in under Argentinian laws, you claim after you close the exercise for the year. So in March, we're not planning to claim back anything for 2020.
So our plan right now is that, for 2021, which would include 2020, we would start the process claim the difference. In Argentina, it works a bit different than in other countries like Peru, for example, where we also have stability agreements, taxability agreements. In Argentina -- unlike Peru, in Argentina, you have to -- what they fix is the total amount of your tax burden in a way and looking at other taxable components of the total tax burden. They look at the total amount and see if there is a gain or a loss, and then you are -- you can claim that difference, right? In Peru, it's different.
It works by what you fixed in terms of the IR or -- sorry, income tax or the royalty itself. But we plan to see if there is a difference in 2021 and then claim it back through 2022, right? | direct | [
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71653cebac0130975a325168dd7901a9 | OK. Fair enough. The last question for me is on the U.S. market. I'm sorry if I missed this. Are you -- just sort of the timeline, I guess, on DGC. It seems like it's been hanging out there for a while. Curious -- sorry again, Neal, you mentioned this, but just where you are in closing that transaction. And then maybe just reexamine, given everything that's changed so fast in terms of the macro conditions, how you're thinking about entering the U.S. market today versus six months or a year ago, and how you think about the impact to your '23 numbers. I think, Alinda, originally you're saying it was sort of a these are my numbers. Maybe it was 8 million to 13 million in annual negative adjusted EBITDA impact. Just curious if that's still the same range you're thinking and if your intent or your playbook or design of going to the U.S. market is the same given all the volatility. | Hi, there. Richard here. So the closing of the DGC acquisition is still on track for our target, our goal of having that done by the end of the year. As you mentioned before, there are a number of licenses that Super Group needs to be granted before that time. So we're obviously working to the timelines of the regulators in those various states. So that remains our goal. In terms of the U.S., our plan remains very much the same. The -- in terms of the 2023 targets, in terms of the 2023 numbers, we expect the range of impact to EBITDA assuming that DGC is within the Super Group for the whole year to be between EUR 50 million and EUR 70 million with our target break even for the end of 2024, beginning of 2025. | direct | [
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8ae91fc597c32353648d62684032df66 | Hey. Great. Thanks for taking my question. Just two, if I may. Circling back to the macro, can you talk about what regions you're sort of seeing impacting that due to the higher dollar? Because just trying to reconcile with what you're seeing. I know you're global versus what we heard last week from some of the North American operators where they're not seeing an impact and you also heard that in travel as well, particularly Europe and travel in Europe is stronger. So are you seeing more of an impact in APAC and Africa? And then just on the change in the revenue, can you talk about like is that a benefit or can you talk about how that that impacts the financials and the growth rates? | OK. So I'll just say because we -- we're the same company as we always have been. So because we're in the global marketplace across the world, of course, we have currency fluctuations but coming out of Africa, APAC, etc., right. So from us, those currencies are always swinging against the dollar's or the euro's, right. So that, we've had anyway and we continue to grow the revenues in those markets despite -- even if it is offset slightly by some currency losses in those markets. But that's the global nature of Super Group and from that point of view. So for us is yes, and we -- I can't comment on our competitors. But remember, we are not in the U.S. We are across the world. So we have global factors across the world in the market that we operate in.
And then just on your question regarding the guidance for revenue, we -- the guidance is high quality revenue. I'm being very precise in the reforecast because to make sure that it's a strong, achievable target for all our businesses and to make sure that it's the high quality revenue that comes through and that our teams are very focused on are now achieving for the remainder of the year. | intermediate | [
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477b16b71373337b186dc5faee3dff20 | Got it. And then just one more for me. Just as we look out to next year sort of the countries the Netherlands, Germany, where you're having the regulatory headwinds, I mean, do you expect to be operating in those countries next year? And can that actually become a tailwind or how should we think about that? | No. Well, Germany, we're still operating in Germany. So just there's no casino in Germany but Netherlands, we're still working with the regulator but it's not in any of our guidance for 2022.
Yeah, yeah. So Germany, yes. And then Netherlands, we have said it all depends on the regulators in that market.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Germany, we're currently live with now. We just don't have iCasino. So it depends on the iCasino and the taxes that they want in Germany will then depend if it's feasible for us to do iCasino, iGaming in Germany. | intermediate | [
"direct",
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bdd4ff3d53bf65fa79651af73e93fd6e | I have a question about the growth in billable employees. So, that metric has been fairly strong year-over-year and sequentially in the last couple of quarters here. So, I'm wondering what the expectations are for hiring over the course of the year? And then what would be kind of the normalized level of additions when you set acquisitions aside? | Yeah. I think it's -- if you look at the midpoint of our guidance for the year, we're about 10% organic. I don't expect much of that to come through rate increases. We're trying to maintain very competitive rates, good leverage offshore and building on our pyramid to drive additional margin expansion, which was also -- we've also guided to. So, in terms of head count, you can expect about 10% across the board. And I should say probably 5% or 6% in the U.S. and the rest offshore. And of course, the offshore is actually multiplied by the rate differential. So, we would be hiring a lot. We are currently hiring a lot. | direct | [
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005060582772c045184a4734f06bc87c | And then I wanted to follow up on both the demand environment and the competitive environment particularly in your Healthcare and Banking and Financial Services segment. We've seen a lot of potential competitive new entrants into the healthcare space on the Services side and then interested in kind of the strong performance that you were able to put up this quarter in Banking and Financial Services. | Yeah. It's interesting. We're not necessarily seeing any new players that we're experiencing. It tends to be the majors that we've always competed with in the space. And in fact, we had a knockout Q4 in terms of healthcare bookings. Healthcare is about 33% of revenue. We did about 42% in bookings. And likewise in financial services, we probably are seeing more competition but that's because we're penetrating that market more. A lot of our revenue comes from management consulting, business consulting in that sector but we've managed to expand those relationships now into technology consulting as well. So we're seeing nice growth there as well and frankly not competition that we're terribly concerned about. In fact, I'm certain we're taking share away at least in financial services. | direct | [
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34bcc60b73b5bee68947fc7ecc2e18eb | When you look at your industry verticals of focus, which of them do you think is most behind in terms of executing on the digital transformation strategy and how do you see that change over the next year or two? | That's a great question. I almost want to say all of them. I think retail is probably ahead. Obviously, retail in the brick and mortar side is waning and clearly the business model is changing pretty rapidly. So that's forcing them to drive accelerated transformation and they're probably further ahead is the way I would describe it and I think there's plenty of runway everywhere else. It's pretty fascinating. We're doing a lot even in manufacturing and sort of with -- people might consider older businesses to do transformation. But I still think healthcare, given the high volume and high-touch nature of that business, and by high volume, I mean customers or patients as it were, is similar to retail in many ways.
And they've got a lot of catching up to do still in that industry. But I still think there's opportunity in -- across all the sectors. And in fact, there's, sort of, the prisoner's dilemma effect, that there's a lot of leapfrogging going on and this is a very dynamic environment. The tools behind digital transformation are very dynamic, changing and evolving rapidly. And so it's sort of a constant process more than a one and done-type of environment. So, I would say in terms of digital transformation, like I said, retail is probably ahead, the rest are probably similarly behind, the financial services might be a little bit ahead of the curve, but that's how I would cap it. | direct | [
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3efd64505384d6487394d25da956c933 | Great. And then in the fourth quarter, as well as thus far in the first quarter, are the majority of your bookings coming from digital transformation? And in addition, are these generally new logos? Are they existing logos? I mean, obviously, everyone is going to adapt to the changing consumer behaviors. | Yeah. It's a strong combination, actually, and I would say the vast majority, 90-plus-percent of those bookings are absolutely square in the middle of digital transformation. So -- but there's a lot of new logos in there as well to your question. We've got a long track record of maintaining good tenure, stickiness as it were and strong relationships, where a lot of our business is repeat business, 90-plus-percent typically. And, I think, we'll see that 90% come down a little in a positive way, not in dollars but as a relative percent of the business, as we do add new logos and we have added quite a number. We've got a number of new accounts that have joined us in the last say six months starting out kind of small as is typical, if you think about the life cycle of an engagement and yet to ramp up this year. So we're expecting to see a lot of that activity ramping up throughout the year and additional logos coming in. So, it's a very major focus that we have. | direct | [
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be27421099c9151dc22b3c81a92eb4f6 | Which is a perfect segue to my last question, when you take -- can you take us through a typical road map of the digital transformation program, for example, is your initial design is small, is your initial development is small and how does that change with follow-on projects over the course of years especially as it pertains to larger customers? | Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it typically starts and where we prefer to be in the life cycle is with strategy. And that strategy tends to center around some user experience whether that's our client's customer, an end customer or a corp-to-corp or even internal. So, really the requirements are developed first and some sometimes high level. So you can get that strategy mapped out and then you go deeper on the requirements and then begin to engage in the technology implementation whatever that is, typically a lot of custom development, a lot of data as well. So that life cycle, you can think of it as a -- for a given project, you can think of it as sort of a belter. But typically our engagements are made up of a number of projects so they overlap. And our relationships are actually picked [Phonetic] up by the number of engagements so that they overlap. So we tend to get a pretty steady stream coming out of a relationship that makes sense. | intermediate | [
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260a2010dd2239c299d2875ea5407649 | Just wanted to start off in the margins and kind of what your assumptions are especially in the gross margin side in 2021. I believe that as you guys are continuing to move work offshore, should we expect to see some gross margin leverage here in 2021? And will this be partially offset by any like increase in T&E or anything in the back half of the year assuming things kind of normalize in the world? | Yeah. Sure. Great question. We're expecting margin expansion this year probably 50 to 100 basis points. Our long-standing goal we've talked a lot about is adjusted gross margin that is netting stock comp of 40%. And I think that's right about where we'll be this year. That's -- I think our model reflects that. But we've got a number of economies below that. We've got great scale that's really kicking in. So, I actually expect and I think the model, if you back into it, reflects probably about a 200 -- 150 basis point to 200 basis point increase in adjusted EBITDA. T&E will return to a higher level probably in the second half of the year, we're expecting. I think it's going to take a ramp to get there. By the way, for us, all T&E is below the EBITDA line, so -- I mean, the gross margin line, so it won't affect gross margin. But I think we'll be able to absorb it. It's reflected in our model and in our guidance. And that still reflects, like I said, about 150 basis point to 200 basis point increase. | direct | [
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e39f69fa121e840fa6a8073d86e83b64 | Great. That's helpful. And then, maybe if we could just switch over to the M&A pipeline. I know the PSL deal was a little bigger than you guys have normally done. But do you think like that is integrated and like are you ready to do another deal? And if so, like what are you guys looking for, for potential targets? | Yeah, absolutely. And I'll answer the -- well, I'll tell you, yes, PSL is integrated. That's always kind of sort of an ongoing exercise. But in this case, it was really straightforward. As I mentioned in the script, we've got a lot of business going there in early stages that I think will expand a lot. So that's goodness as its related to PSL. But, yeah, we're absolutely in the hunt. Again, we took a little pause after PSL, one, because of the uncertainty of the pandemic, but also because it was a larger size, to your point. But we've got a number of things in the pipeline. In terms of the focus, it's certainly digital. We're also interested in more potentially more near-shore type deals as we are rapidly scaling to meet demand that we're seeing increase rapidly. But beyond that, from a skill set standpoint, it's cloud, it's custom active. It's the typical, analytics data. Commerce actually is another spot. So we're seeing good demand everywhere and look at the scale the business kind of across the board but again, really all digital. | direct | [
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f662f1f716bc28c9d79f7be310357d4b | What would you target bill rate increases for 2021? | Probably in the sort of 1% to 2% range, Vince. I think our philosophy on bill rates is we want to stay as conservative as we can. There's probably a lower runway there. But again, we've got I think such great opportunity in the offshore mix, shifting more work offshore to drive margins that we're comfortable keeping the rates kind of down so we can stay competitive. The other point I'll make on margins, and kudos to Tom and team on this, but our average salary, consultant salary in North America last year was actually down 1%. Despite the fact that we gave normal merit increases in the sort of 3% to 4% range which is industry standard, we were down about 1%. And that's because of that pyramid that I alluded to earlier. We're actually able to hire people more at the lower end of the -- at the bottom or base of the pyramid as we're taking on larger and longer term engagements. So those are the levers around margin. We're going to hold rates probably again maybe 1%, 2%, but we're not ready to address upon that. | direct | [
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1b7b8308b860a342f6974eb757f65cc5 | And how does your visibility when you're putting together your outlook for the year compared to what it was like pre-pandemic? | I think right now, we've got the largest backlog we ever have. And as we've had really, really strong bookings here in the second half of '20, bookings have started off strong this year. And so as we sit here today, we've definitely got the largest backlog certainly in absolute dollars but also as a percent of our total forecast going forward. So visibilities right now is the best it's been in recent memory. | direct | [
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708d85577952c222a6d95310f2e1f23f | And what was your organic gross in the quarter and for the year? I'm sorry I missed that. | No problem. It was about 3% for both I believe. Yeah, about 2% for the year, about 3% in the quarter and our guidance for Q1 is 8%, and for the year is 10%, all organic. | direct | [
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b1520ebffff4c07f4a50e7d49efc55bb | So, Tom, in terms of large deals, $70 million in the fourth quarter, which is good to see, just given this for the year end quarter, can you provide some color on maybe two things? In terms of timing of when those deals closed throughout the fourth quarter, there's any noticeable changes from prior years like back end loaded or is it kind of evenly distributed? And then the second one, how many potential large deals maybe got pushed into 2021 that may just kind of got pushed out or delayed for whatever reason that maybe could have closed in the fourth quarter? | So, thank you for the congratulations. On the compare Q4 year-over-year, really not much of a difference. We definitely see it spread throughout Q4. I think by nature some of it is a little bit closer toward the end as people wrap up some of their physical years. But no real material difference between year-over-year when it came to closing deals. We always see some deals slipping from quarter-to-quarter. Nothing sticks out in 2020 compared to previous years. So, we have some nice deals that we closed in Q4, some nice ones in Q1, some move every quarter-over-quarter, but nothing sticks out on that one I guess. | intermediate | [
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189c1b85dbcefe9dce1213c4ccd37e7a | You met -- an analyst was asked about this as well, but and in your prepared remarks -- bookings are strong, pipeline strong. Everything seems strong, which is great. But can you maybe just talk about back to kind of visibility topic. Throughout 2020, the kind of comment and theme was potential contract cancellation risk. Maybe can you just update that view you have in terms of how you're kind of perceiving unexpected? I know it's a tough question, but unexpected contract cancellations from a few months ago and where that deal is for today now? | Yeah. I think -- in terms of going forward, I'll really just speak to that. We always baked in a fair amount of conservatism in our guidance and in our forecast. There is an ebb and flow always. But I will tell you in terms of any impact from COVID it really appears to be behind us as it relates to contract concerns. In fact, what we are seeing is a significant pickup in demand that I think is probably related to some pent-up demand, projects that were delayed or not even embarked on last year. I think we're seeing that now. I'll tell you anecdotally our sales team is busier than ever. So while that is a factor, it always is. Like I said, there's always an ebb and flow. We feel like we've reflected plenty of that here, and like I said that we're reasonable in terms of conservatism in the forecast. | intermediate | [
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1957d00b4f0a775eaee1fed199bc5b41 | Hi, Jeff. Just a big picture question here. Can you talk a little bit about the nature of the projects that you're seeing in the sense that -- are clients at this point in time starting to our clients at this point in time starting to embark on bigger projects that are like maybe different than the times that they had last year or are they still -- or they kind of biting off shorter term projects where they're maybe going to get something done that's going to pay dividends within the next year or at least like bigger things that they're thinking about at this point? | I would say they're increasing, definitely. Like I said the demand that we're seeing pretty bullish, people are embarking on pretty major programs now. And I don't know that it's a fundamental shift again related to COVID from last year to this year. Some of it quite frankly is how we've managed to elevate our relationships with a lot of the clients that we already had including major Fortune 50 companies where we've managed to become now a preferred vendor, one of only six globally. So, we're seeing -- with that obviously comes more larger, longer term opportunities.
That said digital transformation is about speed and nimbleness. And so, you have to yield some results along the way. This is what -- gone are the days of a three-year program before you produce any results. It's much more iterate now. So -- but that doesn't mean again a $90 million relationship over four years involves a lot of -- again, a lot of iteration, a lot of deliverables along the way, and you're building on a foundation. And then, by that time as I said before kind of the prisoner's dilemma, it's time to go back and enhance. So, it's sort of perpetual. | direct | [
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26f7db1988cd75cebcae2df6f74c6758 | Got it. That's helpful. And then just a clarification on the growth of offshore revenues from a definition's perspective. Is that refers to the revenues that are generated by offshore staff or is it non-North America-based revenues, meaning from a client perspective? | No. It's offshore staff. Yeah. | direct | [
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3bc9cc8bc1c7106fd3932950fc893fa3 | Yeah, thanks. Hi, guys. I think looking at 2019, the two moving parts I want to make sure I fully understand is you mentioned Datawatch flat to slightly down. I think that's very consistent. But what does that actually mean in terms of the actual dollar contribution within the guidance that you've provided? As well as, is there -- as we think about the 606, everything should be annualized, so there's no additional tailwind or headwinds from 606 to the top line, correct? | Right. So to be -- I know you're going to hate this answer, but to be honest with you, the way that -- the way that we manage our software business, we integrate all of the products under our Units model. And so we expect by basically beginning of the second quarter to have the Datawatch products running under the Units model. And so you're going to have a mix through the year of sort of the historical stand-alone stuff, because there's some of that, as well as a lot of HyperWorks Units revenue. And so we really aren't breaking it out. I know you hate that because you want to break it out, but what we do is we look at the overall picture and we look at the overall picture of expenses as well and we try and manage our business. So I'll let Howard add to that if he wants to.
The add is simply we've -- as we've converted prior acquisitions as well, although not obviously quite the same size as the Datawatch, it's been essentially the same fundamental process for us converting into a HyperWorks Units and then we clearly lose the individualized revenue streams that are acquired.
Yeah, that's absolutely correct. | intermediate | [
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259d2ffbae71a302e8f3cffa86f46c23 | Just a follow-up on the Datawatch contribution. For 4Q, I think you said it wasn't meaningful, Howard, but I think Jim actually referred to a seven-figure deal that you got during the quarter. So I'm just wondering did they contribute maybe $2 million in 4Q in that couple weeks or if there is any color you could give on Datawatch's contribution to 4Q? | Rich, it's -- there really was a pretty negligible impact overall on the revenue in Q4. We owned them for essentially 18 days, of which it includes Christmas and New Year. So I would -- I'm not going to say it's zero dollars but really quite negligible. | direct | [
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826234235f6d32fe41f1d08f7884e1cb | Got it. And then just on the expense side, the non-GAAP net income I think came in lower than we expected, despite a decent top line beat. Was there something acquisition related that you didn't back out of that non-GAAP net income? | No, not acquisition related; actually tax related. Specifically as I think you're aware, we're in a full valuation allowance on our US tax attributes because of our NSO deductions and such. So the foreign taxes that we pay -- the foreign taxes withheld at source and our US tax credits, we don't get to, if you will, recognize the value of that, and that was really accelerated in Q4. So that's really the impact there. It's all about tax. | direct | [
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ba2b2587a2cb6875b597ae06fc5cc1a9 | Got it. And then, Jim, just wanted to ask a question about SimSolid. Obviously, some pretty exciting initial results there. And you talked about I think kind of a three-year timeframe thinking that could be really significant. Is there any kind of range you'd be willing to put on the kind of revenue potential you see for this down the road? If it's -- if it's not specifically three years, just how material do you think that could be relative to your current product revenue run rate? | I guess I'd rather not put a very specific figure on there. Yeah, I'd rather not do that. I apologize, Rich. | fully_evasive | [
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94ff7ba180f5964e558d372d435f3f91 | Another thought on that. Just you've -- sounds like as a stand-alone product, it's getting a lot of uptake. But I think you alluded to the potential for that to be used more in a design environment and integrating it into the Inspire products. So have you looked at also just sort of integrating that into other perhaps third-party 3D CAD tools as kind of an embedded simulation engine? Is that -- just wonder where you're thinking on that front? | So we're open to that actually, but we haven't specifically explored (ph) that yet. We're not close to it, but it's (multiple speaker) for us. | direct | [
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2f0cd04532b1c4a7fc80ae684cea790f | Got you. And then just one final question on kind of the general environment -- sort of general demand environment relative to the last couple of quarters and where you guys are in kind of the process of increasing your go-to-market capacity, which you really started I think a couple years ago. But can you just give us a sense, any change -- it sounds like the environment continues to be very good, so my sense is no changes if I had to reach your tone. But if you could give us a sense on that and sort of where you are in kind of that sales force ramp-up you've been undertaking? | So we are -- we are still pretty focused on growing the capacity for sure. One of the key things we are focused a lot on, though, is process. And so we are looking to, if you will, structure the sales process a little more and actually the Datawatch acquisition's helpful for us. They were very organized and very process-centric group, and we see a lot of learning from them, particularly the way they do inside sales. And we've made some moves including a recent executive that we brought in who has, let's say, more process orientation to his sales experience. So that, combined with some other things we've been doing over the last couple years. Also on the tools that we use, we see continuing to grow the capacity, but also grow the structure, if you will, around and the infrastructure around sales. | intermediate | [
"direct",
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] | B |
42a5e0fe54239fadd758e007398e77c7 | Jim, I know it's really early days here, but can you comment on kind of the early reaction you're getting from your installed base on Datawatch and how that's kind of impacted your ideas around cross selling? | It is very, very early days. We created this sort of SWAT team, just a few people. And they've been out to several of the regions already. We've had a lot of interest, actually more than I might have even expected. And there's a lot of interest from my own organization as well, and we want to manage that carefully. So the reaction in general is pretty positive. I think we have to take our time a bit, get our arms around. Some of the go-to market there, we're just learning and exploring, but by middle of the year, I think we're going to be able to go much faster. | intermediate | [
"direct",
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] | B |
006aae390c6c724946603d1e7257765c | That's great. And then -- and then it was also great to hear about all the large auto deals that you won in Europe. Just kind of looking at the general PMI data recently, it seems like there might be a little general manufacturing softness in the EMEA region. Have you noticed anything, customer conversations? It sounds like generally things are looking good, but (inaudible) see any macro specific concerns in the region? | We're not seeing that and we have a particularly strong organization, I would say, in the EMEA region. Sometimes a downturn actually helps us. I've talked about that before. But right now, frankly, we're still seeing a lot of strength. So I don't know what will happen next year, but this year things look very solid. | direct | [
"direct",
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] | A |
a62c2531f21048e0913d92d547fe7017 | In regards to the go-to-market strategy for Datawatch within the Altair customer base, is there a plan to expand beyond this overlap theme (ph)? And then how fast can the sale force ramp behind the strategy? | So there's two -- there's two pockets, if you will, in the existing customer base: one is traditional Datawatch customers which is financial organizations and data scientists; and then the second is some of the engineering opportunities and the synergies that we've talked about. So it's a mix. We are beginning to train and we're going to build some materials to bring our own account executives up to speed, and they are joining some of the meetings little by little and that's how they're learning. Frankly speaking, the products I think are quite good. Under the Units model, I think it's going to be a very compelling story. And I think we're going to be able to communicate pretty effectively what the strengths and weaknesses of these products are very soon. | intermediate | [
"direct",
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] | B |
b692e47e6e582560ad07c17017cbc31f | Kyle, you mentioned in your prepared remarks about derisking the company. I understand it's probably more focused on the heavy construction division, but maybe a sense of, like, in the derisk -- like on the core business, on the vertical integration, transportation and water and specialty side, is there much adjustment required there to achieve what your perception will be for margins and growth based on the tailwinds going forward? And having said that, the time frame of HCD and the rapidness you can get through that, is that something that will start to blend away and not be so significantly impactful to, say, 2022 in margin beyond, given what I'm sure the drag will be in 2021? | Okay. So thanks, Mike. Let me start with really the first question, and it's really around our vertically integrated business, Water and Mineral Services business and the risk associated with those business lines. And those inherently are less risky, obviously, than what we've seen with the Heavy Civil Group. The project sizes are drastically different. I think our vertically integrated business average job size is really less than around $5 million, if not lower in certain markets. In Water and Mineral Services, the average job size is less than two relative to the Heavy Civil Group, where the average job size is significantly larger, as we know. And so I don't think -- as we look at derisking our portfolio, it's really around the Heavy Civil group and how we transition away from really the way we were looking at bidding and what type of projects we're pursuing and transitioning that into what we want to look like in the future in terms of the size of projects, the duration of projects, where we're building work and who we're building work for. And the contract method in which we're getting the work. So that's really where we're headed from a companywide portfolio standpoint. The second question was really around the Heavy Civil group and what does it look like in terms of timing of that backlog. So as we ended 2020, our Heavy Civil group backlog was just over $1 billion. And we want to look at things a little bit different in terms of we have maybe under our old risk profile work versus our new risk profile work. So of that $1 billion of Heavy Civil group backlog we would say there's roughly 60% was under the old risk profile. As we kind of move the time line forward into 2021 through the end of this year, we think we'll be sitting on around $331 million of backlog or $350 million or so at the end of 2021. And then, of course, as we get later out in the year to 2022, the end 2022, the backlog is just over about $50 million. So you can start to see the kind of the winding down of those projects. And that assumes new work within the Heavy Civil group. And of course, we anticipate they will procure work within the Heavy Civil group. It will just be under the new risk profile. So hopefully, that answers the question, Mike. | direct | [
"direct",
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] | A |
cae63bec72a21dbe740ba49d01129075 | You talk about the overall positive tailwinds from post pandemic. Can you maybe characterize how the states and municipalities have come through from the pandemic? And do you get the sense from them that with all the stimulus discussion in Washington and away from the federal highway build, but just more improvement to state and local areas and economy picking up, is there an ability or a need or I guess a want or desire for these to start to reaccelerate and get projects let quicker and start working through the opportunities to get the -- kind of take advantage of the opportunity into funding? And do you think those DOTs and such are prepared, the Caltrans, or what have you are prepared to get that work out and get it to you, so you guys can start to accelerate your backlog and your revenues? | Yes. So there might be maybe two parts to that question. I think certainly, what we saw in 2020, funding was there at the initial in the beginning. I think some of the agencies, states held back. They were challenged to actually get projects out the door under the COVID environment or they just -- they held back in terms of lettings for that period of time. So there is a little bit of pent-up lettings that are coming out as a result of really what we saw with the COVID impacts in 2020. As we move forward in terms of funding, obviously, we're interested to see how the COVID relief spending impacts our business. And when those projects are going to come out for us to pursue. So more to come on that. We do think that's going to give several of the states that we operate in confidence to put work out on the street. And then, of course, we're looking at with some sort of federal bill will look like later in the year that would impact us more long-term into 2022. At the state and local funding level, I think for the states, they're all a little bit different. Certainly, we highlighted California. We see that the California Caltrans to SB1 is still looking like it's going to continue funding at very high levels for the entire state, which is great. But we are seeing a little bit of softening in some other states within the Northwest operating group. Nothing significant. I think initially, we were getting some feedback, there were some bigger concerns. But I think those states are even gaining more confidence that the funding levels are going to be relatively strong moving forward. So there's still a lot of state and local funding that's out there, at least with the kind of the smaller agencies that we operate in that have some local self-help funding. We think those are still in place. So all in all, we think there is the pent-up demand in terms of letting that were kind of held off during the COVID environment. And we think that the funding levels moving forward are still looking very strong. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
c989a76c26edb0c69a6bf3c7f57d27e8 | Maybe jumping into SG&A. How much of SG&A year-to-date 2020 was due to costs for the investigation and associated work? And maybe thinking on go-forward SG&A, if it will remain elevated on a permanent basis to some degree? Or should we expect it to subside over time? | Yes, Steven, I'll take that question. So for SG&A, if you take out the costs, the accounting and legal costs related to the investigation, year-over-year, year-to-date September, SG&A was relatively flat. Now obviously, there were some puts and takes throughout the year. Of course, travel and entertainment was down during the year due to COVID-related impacts. But there was a -- with the heavy civil work that's being done, there were some increases in personnel that offset that a little bit. So when we had the Water acquisition, the Layne Christensen acquisition in 2018, that cost structure is a little bit higher than the average run rate for Granite. So that's definitely an area that we're going to be looking at and focused on, on a go-forward basis. So going into 2021, we'll be taking a look at it, but we expect by the time we get to 2022 to be at a more -- what we hope to be a more normalized level on a go-forward basis. | direct | [
"direct",
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"fully_evasive"
] | A |
15fc8f86604cf1a9fc7ce70378b13eb4 | Great. And can you share normalized level as then a percentage of sales? Or just any thoughts on what normalized looks like? | Yes. So we're really -- as Kyle mentioned in his earlier -- that we're looking at our strategic plan on a go-forward basis. So we definitely have more work that we want to do in that level. So it's really kind of to be determined. We're looking at the historical levels, 8% to 8.5%. So really kind of more to come. We'll be able to talk with you again toward the end of March. So... | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
dd5d79ad7a3e38daf6a22808fde78081 | Okay, great. And then a quick one on the specialty segment, the site development strength. Is that primarily data centers thus far in 2020? Or is renewables picking up maybe kind of a sense of order of magnitude of data centers and renewables as a percentage of maybe revenue or CAP for specialty? | Yes. And I don't know if I have the numbers completely in front of me, but I would say that it's kind of across the board. Our specialty encompasses a whole lot of commercial development, wherever is the subcontractor, oftentimes the vertical builders. Obviously, the data center work that we talked about in the renewables. And we think the renewables has actually been a highlight. We've seen a whole bunch of renewable activities from battery stores to solar fields that we've been working on across the country. And so that's been actually very exciting for us. And we do believe moving forward, there's tremendous opportunities in renewables market for us. I would say, in general, the revenues for those specifically for the data centers and renewables are under 5% for the company today. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
f29df54e8a98aad2cb68d4f596df6d2c | Hi. This is Adam Beavis on behalf of Jerry Revich today. Congratulations on the round. Really impressive. But wanted to talk about some of the implemented rate across the business, particularly in Civil. Can you talk about the relative size of the Heavy Civil business that you'll be comfortable with going forward? And how does that compare with the size of the business year-to-date? | So you broke up a little bit, Adam. But I think if I heard the question correctly, it was kind of getting back. I think in Q3 of '19, we talked about the Heavy Civil group being roughly 15% of our overall revenue of the company. I think your question was about what do we see in the future for the Heavy Civil group. And I think that's a good follow-up question to our strategic review back in 2019, and we've made progress from where we were in 2019 and kind of where we are today. We've made a lot of changes, certainly around I think our project selection, primarily in our approval process. So it might be good for me to highlight what that looks like today for us. We go through on these projects and how we select them to group leadership approval, goes up to a large project committee, which is comprised of our executive team. And it also goes through our newly formed Board Risk committee if it hits a certain criteria. Those criteria around size, duration, home market, contract terms, etc. And we also want to make sure that as we price work, it really reflects the risk associated with different types of projects. We've shifted away back in '19, I think we were still talking about projects over $500 million. I think today, we're not looking at those. We're shifting away from what I would call maybe a mega project. We're targeting projects under $500 million. We're still -- would entertain design-build projects, but they have to be very small in size, by our home markets and we have to be able to price to work accordingly. Bid build is obviously still a focus, but this value-based selection opportunities for us is really where we want to head in many of the markets that we're in. So we're really changing the Heavy Civil group. I can tell you, what's interesting is our average projects that we're pursuing today within the Heavy Civil group range from $20 million to $500 million. So a very different type of work that we're pursuing within the Heavy Civil group regions as we kind of descale or derisk that business. So the average job size today is only $225 million in terms of pursuit size for the Heavy Civil group as an average. So I think the teams are doing a really nice job of moving and transforming that business into the right work in the right market. So getting back to your question around the 15% or what percentage. It's hard to say because -- and that was an easier number to come up with when we're looking at our Heavy Civil group is simply large projects, significant size and risk profile. And now that we're transforming that business and it's starting to look a lot like our other businesses in many ways, I don't think it's applicable. So I'm not sure we can come out today and tell you what that percentage is. But I think we're kind of moving away from that being a necessary need for us to identify. So hopefully, that makes sense, Adam. | intermediate | [
"direct",
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] | B |
76b60e04f59542e0cc48fca665759b79 | No, that makes sense, and that's very helpful. Thank you. And so then in the past before these charges, your earnings have ranged from slight losses to just over $3 at the peak of 2008. What do you view as your peak earnings potential this cycle? | Well, that might be a question that we come back in March and revisit. I think it would probably be more appropriate than us trying to come up with that number for you here on this call today. | fully_evasive | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | C |
d7bb09c3ea3f0f09484afa18c8f5b1fc | Okay. Sure. And so just one last question, if I may. It's nice to hear about the legal settlements that you've reached. Can you talk about how many projects reach settlements and what the cash flow and income statement benefit was? | Yes. I can update you. I mean we sit on multiple claims in 2020. It's generated increased to our cash balance of around $66 million. All in all, from a net income standpoint, it was relatively flat. We still have several claims that are outstanding, I think, in excess of about $100 million to Granite. If we were to get some sort of settlement along the way, again, we see that more as from a cash front, not necessarily from a net income front. But obviously, these needs take a long time to resolve. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
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] | B |
438bf5fba0a217bc50e20326435ceed5 | Hello. Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I'm curious, is Granite entertaining any possibility of divesting itself of the Heavy Civil Operations Group? | No, Eugene, but not at this time or not in any sort of discussions in terms of sale with the Heavy Civil group. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
e51d69d8f4aaad80a05d96851cdc92aa | Kyle, how would you characterize the competitive nature of the markets, primarily in the vertically integrated business, in the small project side? Maybe translate that to the other specialty and Water. Is it different from prior to the pandemic trends? You were talking about numbers through September 30, but now we're almost into March. Have trends and visibility improved? Or how would you characterize that as we think about what 2021 and beyond could be like? | Yes. I mean, that's a good question. And I think there's post pandemic and pre pandemic. And then there's just kind of the normal cycle that our business goes through in general. And so as we look at kind of the bid environment, normally, contractors tend to pick up work late Q4, Q1. As they start to put work on their books, we see the competitive landscape, I'm being very general, start to back off a little bit in the summer months, while our contractors are busy building work. I think the pandemic may have shifted things a little bit. As I mentioned before, that lettings were delayed in some markets. So that kind of moved things around for contractors in order to put backlog on their books. But in general, I think we're seeing the market a little more competitive than it's been in the past. I think as there was a little bit of a slowing in lettings of the contractors went through some backlog. And I think they're looking to put more on their books. So I think -- I'm being very broad brush across a big organization. But in general, we're seeing a little bit more bid activity than we were probably pre pandemic. | intermediate | [
"direct",
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"fully_evasive"
] | B |
313b204353a0da2df1e42b0c1acf16ef | I mean in the sense of more competition than pre pandemic, and -- is that what you're referring to? | Yes. It's probably both. I mean, I think it's probably both a little bit more competition. And obviously, our competitors are looking for a little bit of work early in the year. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
ba4c0e932a58550bc052c6f8ee5f360e | And would some of the stimulus or funding that flows through to these -- the six states that you're talking about could -- as seasonally, things get better, it could be more helpful as you're looking to bid some of the work for the second half of the year in 2022? | Yes. We think it will absolutely be helpful. I think it will allow some confidence for those agencies that are going to receive the money to put more work out, to bid. And that's what we're looking for later this year. | direct | [
"direct",
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] | A |
def7aa4f9788f9acf228326c65948eb3 | Thanks good morning. Maybe wanted to talk a little bit about the core business in the U.S., so a somewhat measurable deceleration in terms of the year-over-year growth from the second quarter. But I don't -- I'm not sure if there is some other -- some year-over-year things that you guys are lapping or anything that might, explain that. | Hi Dillard. Thank you for the question. I think all-in-all, we do see quite interesting increase of the quartz penetration in the U.S. And we are quite encouraged by the continuous penetration of this category in the U.S. in which we are continue to -- with our efforts to have a bit of go-to-market platform, we continue to invest behind our sales team and actually all the initiatives that we put in our Global Growth Acceleration Plan, are implants regarding the U.S. I think all that has been kind of -- I mean effected itself in this quarter increase in -- sorry, growth in our revenue with 4.6% in our core business | intermediate | [
"direct",
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] | B |
7b1bfd651a9e16aacc27dc6ca0fe7335 | Okay. And on the sales team, I know that that's sort of a process to get everyone hired in, ramped up. How far along are you in terms of either the number of people or the markets you're targeting or any of those type of metrics? | All-in-all, it's a few years journey, we are really building new foundations for our business in the U.S. We are in line with our expectations for and manpower and capacity this year. And I think we have quite a robust plan for next year. All our [Indecipherable] going quite well and we are -- I think bringing quite a lot of new talent to our business. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
0caa16b43b3d9c3f0f2e58b0e91eb072 | Okay. And then I guess you know IKEA, I know it's tough to answer questions about specific customers to do headwinds from a year-over-year standpoint, start to ease, whether it'd be due to their changes in their promotions or their comps or anything like that? What should we expect over the next couple of quarters in terms of the stuff that you cannot control as it relates to IKEA? | So -- just to repeat the numbers again our core business actually grew by 8% and all together with IKEA, it's only 4.6%. We are -- we kind of have a very close relationship with IKEA, but we can't say if it's been flatten out or not, all-in-all, I think we continue with our relationship with IKEA, supporting them in their journey and I hope that numbers will come up again. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
fee5cb28357cb50dc07535f3619a2623 | Okay. And then I guess internationally, sort of a similar story that you've seen in the past in the United States now playing out in Europe once the dumping duties have of course been put in place and therefore you need to go elsewhere. Is there anything you've learned from the U.S. that makes you feel like you can put together some sort of defensive strategy or protect yourselves or anything like that, that you basically have the benefit of some hindsight here that you can, you can use to your advantage, is this dynamic is playing out in other markets? | I think we referred, in the past, to the fact that I think most of the initiatives we should be taking are within our company to improve the way we do business. If there is a learning, this is the learning which upon that we are putting our plans going forward. It's the same to other regions as well. Competition, there will be no existing and will be in all our regions, then we mostly focus on what we can do better, how we can service our customers with newer innovative products and services. And just to make sure that we are -- at our best in each and every market. | intermediate | [
"direct",
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] | B |
780741e9459a833e8a95b3d26cd94274 | Jim, I know that when you presented, and Salim and everyone had presented the phase 3 design for zilovertamab-301 a couple of months ago, you'd also talked about a ZILO-302 aspect to that. How are you thinking about that? That's the -- I guess that's beyond for the patients that have progressive disease, the run-in patients on ibrutinib. So, just what are you thinking about that? | The 302 study you're referring to is one of the really novel aspects of our registration study design because during the four month running or enrichment portion of the study, where patients receive single agent ibrutinib, a percentage of those patients will progress on ibrutinib. And so they're already in our study. They're already well-documented with disease parameters and medical history and everything. And so, to give them the opportunity to see if their disease can be resensitized to ibrutinib with zilovertamab therapy, it's a very convenient and incrementally inexpensive way to test for impact of zilovertamab in this resistant disease. So, we're still planning to conduct that part of the study as well. And since it's open label, that would also give us an opportunity to talk about the results in real time on our medical conferences than having to wait for the blind to be broken in the main 301 study. | direct | [
"direct",
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"fully_evasive"
] | A |
711e459554b0ea7ca650313275509618 | On ONCT-808, the CAR-T therapy, you know, Jim and Salim, if you can just kind of describe once you file the IND in mid-2022, what's the sort of clinical program, you know, setups that we can look forward to? I mean, bucket study, certain tumor types, you know, hematology versus solid tumor, just what are your thoughts on that could look like in the second half of this year? | This just will be mainly in hematologic malignancies as a first-in-human study. And specifically, we're going to do a dose escalation in lymphoma, B-cell lymphoma patients. Once we reach our recommended phase 2 portion, then we can expand to other cohorts as well. In the dose escalation, we will have only B-cell lymphoma, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, MCL, and maybe excessive lymphomas. That's in the dose escalation. Now in the expansion cohorts, we will expand in those patient population for sure, but also, we may open, you know, other indication in hematological malignancies, like maybe example multiple myeloma, or others. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
075870648debb32f284de6fa169799fd | Is there any sort of pathway that you see with the CAR-T program whereby there's some tumor type you're looking at where the unmet need is high enough that, you know, if you see a good signal in dose escalation and you get into dose expansion that that could actually form the basis for potential accelerated approval type scenario? I know that's low probability, but just any thoughts there? | Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think we -- as you know, since this is going to be, again, dose escalation, open label, we're going to be looking into signal as we go. And, you know, if we see that something could be possibility to get a quick approval, or escalated approval, we will go after that for sure. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
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] | B |
0cc42624b161f14784d86f816a2ad6d9 | These will be patients that are later lined in general therapy than what the ROR1 antibody would have seen, right? Zilovertamab would have seen? | Yeah, absolutely, And as Jim mentioned, this will be in relapsed refractory hematological malignancy, which is probably a little bit later line of therapy, including patients who have failed CD19 CAR-T, where there is a huge unmet medical need there as well. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
3d5cb2ea4fc49f4b91713b054340ae08 | Just -- when you see filing the IND for ONCT-534? | So, we haven't guided to the timing of that IND yet, Hartaj. And the reason is that like other people, we're experiencing some supply chain uncertainty, including things such as slots for manufacturing activities and availability of animals and equipment for toxicology studies. So, this is an area where there's still some continuing impact from COVID. So, we just haven't been specific yet. And when we have greater clarity around timing of the IND enabling work, then we will make an -- we will lay that out. | fully_evasive | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
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] | C |
e88eccfc2d024cefeb198be3b19e79ad | With respect to ZILO-301 and 302 studies, how many sites do you anticipate recruiting or participating in those studies? I think before, you were looking at around 50. And I guess my question is, has that changed given what's going on in Eastern Europe? | Yes, I think we're monitoring this situation very closely. And, you know, the short answer is yes, we are trying to look into additional sites. And especially, Eastern Europe now it's kind of a little bit, you know, difficult to recruit there. So yes, we may go little bit beyond that. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
8e6ade2aaf2ecb62f0f4bb06fc4d0c5c | Regarding the use of zilovertamab in CRPC. Is the Wnt5a signaling pathway providing the main biology and rationale for this trial? And is it really ROR1 driven? Our understanding is that ROR2 is also our receptor for Wnt5a. | So, the ROR1 and ROR2 can actually form a heterodimer, which can act as a receptor for Wnt5a. And so the ROR2 is, for us, kind of in the background. We're not targeting it because, first of all, our antibody doesn't target ROR2. And it's also harder to target ROR2 selectively on tumors because it has a broader distribution on normal tissues. So, the ROR1 is highly expressed on prostate cancer. That's part of the rationale. The other is a very interesting data out of UC San Diego that shows that in the bone tumor micro environment, the prostate cancer bone metastasis, that Wnt5a is one of these absolutely most highly over expressed proteins. And so, we see the receptor for Wnt5a. We see Wnt5a. And that forms a nice rationale for prostate cancer. | direct | [
"direct",
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"fully_evasive"
] | A |
f50e4392e019f0085787d3e8c6c31550 | Could you provide some color to the 216 program? What is the strategy there to take it further? I mean, are you exploring collaborations or partnerships? And also, there were two patients that demonstrated CR, how are they doing now? And are there any other patients that are showing a similar response? | We still have, you know, two patients that are still in CR. One has been off treatment and continues to be in CR after eight months of therapy. And the other patient is still on CR on therapy. And we're going to continue giving the drug to these patients and maybe a compassionate use program since the CR is still durable. As far as the program is concerned, we have, as we've announced, we're focusing our clinical programs particularly on the zilovertamab phase 3 study. However, we do have an NIH grant with which we're collaborating with some academic investigators, including the discover of this form of ETS inhibition, Jeff Toretsky, to do further work on the mechanism. The puzzle for us is that we are inducing these dramatic responses, but only in a very small percentage of cases. And so, we feel that it's necessary to know more about the mechanism. And so, we have a nondilutive source of funding for that research. There is an open IND to continue to study TK216, ONCT-216 in China through our collaborator, Shanghai Pharma. And we expect that study to -- in Ewing sarcoma to open soon. And we expect they'd be doing some additional biomarker work and such to try to understand mechanistically what's occurring. | direct | [
"direct",
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"fully_evasive"
] | A |
56704a96e819441a18022bd42b7b8592 | What's the cutoff date going to be for the phase 1/2 ASCO to be carried out? And how many patients do you expect to include in that? And what are the expectations in terms of point to points, like progression for survival and so on. | As you can imagine, you know, the posters are due to ASCO on May 16th. And so, we've tried to go as late as we can and still process the information. The contents of what we're going to present are still embargoed by ASCO. But there would be updated information compared to the ASH Meeting for both CLL and mantle cell, including a more mature look at progression-free survival and also further look at interesting subset analyses. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
ec3ace9c6e63182532cca7a0d0b52b86 | Just regards to the Dana-Farber collaboration, could you please provide some color to the kind of agreement this is? And, you know, any other details with regards to the kind of capacity they have and the timelines of manufacturing? And when do you think you'll have the first batch ready? | So, it's a collaboration and manufacturing agreement. And you may recall that we're using a bench-top processing system called the Miltenyi Prodigy, and that's technology that the group at the Dana-Farber have quite a bit of experience with, and they own their own Prodigy equipment. And so, we expect that by the times that we submit our IND, that several performance-characterizing runs will have been performed at the Dana-Farber and that they will be ready to manufacture as soon as sites are open and able to enroll patients. There will be -- they have indicated that they can handle capacity, both from sites in the Harvard system and sites outside of Massachusetts. And so, we're very happy with their apparent capacity here for our phase 1 program. | intermediate | [
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"intermediate",
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] | B |
4ff09d7e4937f6a528b32cd8c0302b35 | Can you help us kind of think through what is driving that? Given that you obviously were a big benefit from people quarantining, from more work from home, and now as mobility increases, people start going back out to restaurants more, start going back to the office, even if it's part-time. How should we think about the impact of that on demand and how you see that playing out? | We have seen consumer demand shift fundamentally. We talked about that during the course of the pandemic that our consumer research said that consumers' fundamental habits of spending more time at home, spending more time cooking, and baking, and utilizing our products more frequently was a fundamental shift. And we've seen that continue. What we've seen is after the pandemic, people are staying home more frequently, part time at the office, going to restaurants perhaps more frequently, but still changing their habits and behaviors from pre-pandemic levels. So demand for our products continue to be very strong. They continued strong through the fourth quarter, and we're seeing the same through the beginning of this year. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
87e927aee54e1a0435ccbb9044423578 | It's my understanding that polyethylene inventories in the U.S. are very high. So I'm assuming that's kind of undergird your view on resins. Can you maybe talk about -- a little bit about what's going on in aluminum and remind us where -- what percentage of your business is a straight push through, cost-push through? How much hedging you do? And any other kind of factors around that, in terms of understanding what the commodity outlook looks like for you for the next six to 12 months? | Yeah. As you know, predicting commodity prices is very challenging. It's something we've faced during the course of last year. But what we have seen now, as you mentioned, is resin has stabilized. The two main resins that we use are polyethylene and polystyrene, and they have plateaued at a higher level than during the pandemic, but we do see them now moderating. Aluminum was moderating in Q4 and took a spike up in Q1, and it stayed elevated since then. So we have factored that into our guide and are obviously looking for other mitigations against that, but it is part of our plan for 2022. We do expect aluminum to moderate and come down in the back half of the year. The commodity contractual pass-through is approximately 25% of our business overall. So 75% of our business, we price to the market. And what was the last question? I forgot the -- oh, hedging. So we don't hedge any of our raw materials. We do have a physical hedge with aluminum that we've talked about previously. We have approximately between work in process, finished goods, and raw materials, we have about six months of supply in the pipeline. So, therefore, we have a physical hedge of aluminum. But none of our raw materials are financially hedged. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
8c88c27b8b79b4d52b827030b82a9b9b | You pulled back on a lot of SG&A last year in the face of all the commodity pressure. In your outlook, how much reinvestment are you assuming? | Yeah. So in our outlook, we are clearly investing further in our advertising. We reduced our investment last year as you stated, primarily due to service levels. But in 2022, we plan to return to more of our historical levels of advertising spend. So that will be up sizably. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
623ae64d17fc3049b19a9cd789ca3e88 | You're clearly putting a lot of price in the market, and we're seeing your P&L. We're seeing a lot more price come to your P&L than we are HPC peers, although I know the category mix can be different from one to the other. What do you see in terms of price gaps out there? And is there any reason to be concerned that price gaps may become unsustainably high, either would that be relative to branded competitors or private label? | The price gaps have narrowed from what they were previously in some of the categories, but it varies across different categories. Private label foil, for example, has also increased along with our branded foil. So you've got to look at it category by category. But in total, these total categories have increased in price during the course of 2021 and going into 2022. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
39d1d4e55905dd3907131c0a604c815e | I wanted to ask about the logistics and staffing issues that you talked a little bit about. So curious, I guess, as you kind of -- as you stand even today, where the things stand on that front? I know you mentioned that things are getting better, but any kind of further color you could offer would be great, be it pandemic omicron related or otherwise? And then anything you could offer on fill rates and in-stock levels during this period and how that may or may not be improving at this point? | Thank you, Lauren. Yes, staffing is a geographical challenge, right? Some plants and areas are more challenged than others, particularly in Q4 and Q1. It was omicron-related as well as just the general labor availability. We called out specifically in two segments with Presto and our Hefty waste and storage segments. Those plants and those particular geographies were the most affected in Q4. We are seeing improvement. In January with omicron, there was continued challenges. But with the cases reducing and with our changes to our wage rate structures, we've seen improvement in overall staffing levels at -- across our manufacturing locations. So we're optimistic that we're improving this. We -- from a case fill standpoint, we did take a backward step in Q4 in some of our product lines, and those are starting to improve in Q1, but it continues to be a challenge to -- from an in-stock standpoint. We do measure in stocks in our categories across all of our retail partners. And in most of our products, we're doing better or as good as our competitors in the categories. So it's a challenge across all of the categories, we do see it improving throughout the year, but staffing and logistics continues to be a challenge. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
94c7f66b5c2db247c866cf1c1ddc8860 | And so with it being comparable to others in your category, you're not seeing any impact on market share or shelf sets or those sorts of things that we should think about if there'd be sort of more lasting effect? | No. Distribution has been fairly stable across our categories throughout 2021. So it has not been an impact to share either, which I'm sure you watch the share across all of our products. In tracked channels, and you can see it's been improving or stable depending on the category. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
3ba6231d28b228797983e7c854fc661a | So I wanted to follow up on the cost impacts, but beyond commodities, but also transportation labor. Are you, Michael, assuming that you stay as current? Or you're assuming some improvement as we go. And just a follow up on what you said, Lance, on the private label. Are you seeing your retail partners asking for more private label vis-a-vis your branded just to improve affordability or we are not there yet and hopefully will not be? | Yeah. On the transportation front, we are anticipating that we'll see that those costs continue to increase. We baked that into our guide appropriately. We're taking the appropriate actions, whether it be through pricing or cost reductions initiatives to offset that. So we think we've baked all that into the overall guide, and we have coverage around that relative to the numbers we presented. And from a branded private label standpoint, things have remained stable there. We have not seen any fundamental changes in our categories between brand and private label. If anything, the brands have performed more strongly than private label in these categories through the pandemic, and that has not shifted hadn't seen any change from our retail partners. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
3904dca4416cd3d4d9100811fe2da049 | So I just wanted to ask about the future of gross margins. When you think about the gross margin compression, like have you given any thought to whether some of these costs could prove to be more structural rather than cyclical? And I guess, how does that inform your view of restoring gross margin kind of back to the mid to high 20s over time? I recognize you probably don't want to provide an outlook beyond this year, but how should we think about a potential time line in terms of getting back to those margin levels? | Yes. So as we think about gross profit dollars, we see us getting back to those previous levels in 2023. And we think we've got the plans in place to initiate that. And it's going to take it time but we're pretty structured very well to get -- recover back to those over pre-pandemic levels. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
5d2ed7e2b40dca3d94762a47265389f2 | I guess, just, Michael, following up on the phasing of top-line growth for the year. I just -- when you look at 10% to 14% growth for 1Q, I realize more pricing is going to build. But I think you said using rates of growth from here, so can you just help us understand how much easing we should really be modeling post 1Q? Because it just seems that it would be harder to hit the high end of the full year range, assuming sales moderate from 1Q, which I think at the midpoint is 12%. | So I think in my remarks, I kind of stated that we expected after Q1 that our growth rates will rise, and then over the period of the year, it would kind of decline a bit slowly as we've reached or approach Q4. Yeah. You have to think about it from the standpoint of our cost increased the course of the year and our pricing took place over the course of the year. So as we lap those additional pricing, you will see that decline a bit. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
4327dfe90064c0e343086858f955917f | If you guys don't mind talking a bit about Reyvolution cost savings where you were last year and perhaps what you're incorporating in your guide for 2022? | Yes. I appreciate that question. We delivered a little more than two points of margin improvement through Reyvolution's cost savings in 2021. And we set out to do that, and we actually beat that. We're planning to deliver a similar range this year. So we feel pretty good about our position on continue to drive Reyvolution savings. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
f9b1e480398a95aefc737d2a90fe386d | As it relates to inflation's impact on the consumer, it sounds, not just from yourselves but from many others, that price elasticity just isn't where -- it is lower than what might have been expected. What are you looking at to gauge if that's going to continue to be true or if at some point we reach an area where the consumer does indeed start to respond? | Well, we're using two tools to analyze that. The first is consumer research, which we directly reach out to consumers that are buying in our categories to determine their purchase behavior. And the second is to just monitor the overall consumer takeaway and just monitor that very closely. The consumption patterns continue to be very strong and consumer behavior is what they're telling us is that they're continuing to use our products more frequently despite the higher prices. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
9f52d4f0ab2a1c295da3fda3f1dacb81 | I guess two questions. One on just aluminum broadly. So aluminum is up another 3% today, not that you guys didn't already know that, but is kind of current levels, is that what's baked into what you refer to as stable from here? And then, I guess, kind of elaborating on previous comments, Michael, it sounds like then resin may be pricing comes down, so on products that have that as a component, that's how we should think about it. If aluminum stays where it is, should we be thinking about the Reynolds foil business continuing to have pricing go up? And is that a good way to think about it? And then obviously, how to think about the volume impact since those actual remain fairly stable? | So let's start out with the aluminum question as it relates to current levels. So our assumptions in our overall guide and our plan is that aluminum will be stable at current levels through the rest of the year. And so our overall planning and recovery actions are all around that assumption. We are planning some targeted resin -- aluminum increases because of where the prices are at now, not necessarily across the board, but on some specific products to offset that as well as some other cost reduction initiatives. From a resin standpoint, yes, it's moderated, and we've recovered the resin prices in all of our segments, except Hefty-branded waste bags. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
c06ed1b4a35c77d63e5626b07a828f62 | And then, Michael, on free cash flow conversion, I guess, broader strokes, a, how should we be thinking about that in '22? How should we be thinking about debt reduction priorities, the net debt levels are actually a little bit above where you had forecast 12 months ago at this time? And I say that in part with the commentary in the release that continues to be that you'll pursue strategic bolt-on acquisitions. So what's the capacity? And how should be thinking about that? And kind of what should we be thinking about from that standpoint in terms of what you're targeting? | So our capital allocation strategy is pretty much unchanged. We still want to get to two and 2.5 times, and we're pursuing that. Obviously, last year had its challenges. And as a result of that, we decided to invest more heavily in capital to support our growth in automation projects. And we think that's going to pay off in the long run. So overall, I mean, our strategy is the same. We're going to continue to drive that down, and that will be a focus area for us going forward. So the only thing I'm going to say is that as you think about our capital structure, we'll look opportunistically to refinance long-term debt, if that makes sense for us. And that would be the only potential change as interest rates fluctuate. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
4fe7f87c83d9c75d69c9ec0d7f89fd83 | I wanted to go back to the line of questioning kind of around the consumer and the lack of price sensitivity and just the increase in demand for your products. I mean, I think you said at the very beginning, there's been a fivefold increase. I mean that's just -- that's huge in terms of incremental usage if you will. And so my question is, as you think about the business kind of a little bit longer term, assuming these rates of usage and the lack of price sensitivity continues, does it give you kind of more license to think creatively about innovation? Can you say, oh, we can add more value to these categories or products because people certainly aren't showing the price dealing that they used to at a price resistance? And also, are you seeing any reaction from the retailers? I mean, if the retailers are seeing sustained higher velocity in your aisles, if you will, are they giving the category more shelf space, more end caps, all that kind of stuff? I'm just wondering if we really are seeing sustained higher demand, how does the category change maybe sort of from a bigger picture perspective? | Thanks, Wendy. From an innovation standpoint, certainly, and I said in our prepared remarks, this has provided us the environment to really step up innovation across these product lines. So we've got a lot of innovations going in, in 2021. Our pipeline is very strong because of the change in consumer behavior, and we're looking to introduce a lot more products as we go through 2022 and beyond. So innovation has been a significant beneficiary from the pandemic and the change in consumer behavior. From an overall category standpoint and merchandising, we've restrained that a bit because of supply capabilities. As Mike mentioned in his prepared remarks, we are returning to promotional activity. So we did not have a lot of end caps and promotions in the last two years because we significantly reduced our promotional activity because of lack of supply and case fill. As that's improving, we are seeing significant opportunities for secondary placements and improved distribution. And that is factored in also to our plans for 2022 and beyond. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
6216daa0d58188920111b72017b7831b | So thanks earlier for your comments on private label. And while I appreciate it status quo at the moment, many investors -- well and frankly, as well as myself, believe that there's a reasonable chance that private label share could begin to bounce back when spending power for the lower-income consumer begins to squeeze a bit lower throughout the course of the year. Assuming this played out in your categories and knowing that you play both sides, how do you think this would impact your P&L from a revenue, margin, bottom-line perspective? | Well, I'll talk about the trends, and I'll let Michael speculate about the P&L. The trends for the long term in these categories, because they are already highly penetrated between brand and private label, have been stable. We saw some bounce toward brands in 2020 and 2021 but not a significant shift like we've seen in some other household categories. So our expectation and forecast is it's going to continue to remain relatively stable. But as you mentioned, we do play both sides of that. So we're beneficiaries regardless of how that plays out in the long term. I would just add one thing. One of the things that we benefited from is our reliability in this environment. Although everyone was challenged, it was significantly greater than competition. So I mean, we -- so we are benefiting from potential staying power as a result of that shortages that were coming from other players. As it relates to our overall P&L implications, we've shared in the past that while there is a margin difference, I don't -- we wouldn't consider that significant. And so we still feel that there is not going to be a material impact to overall profitability picture as it mixes to change slightly. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
2e0e4b4798c36329ed796536b1a2a7de | Hey. Great. Good morning, guys. I just wanted to start on the overdraft, and as I know, you guys announced a handful of changes in late March, and you disclosed the impact that you thought NSF would have to those programs. But I know you guys are still working through determining the minimum threshold on overdraft. Just curious where that stands today, and if you guys are in a position maybe to quantify an impact there, and then maybe take it on the flip side of that conversation. Maybe just talk about some natural offsets you may have on the expense, or revenue side to sort of dampen the impact of that revenue over time. | Will, I'll start, and Tom or Tom, either can comment on where I miss, but regarding the NSF, we did quantify. We believe the NSF issue will be roughly 10% or less of overall OD or NSF total charges are forward-looking. So we're still working on the de minimis level. We've not quite finalized our position on that issue, but we look at a late fourth quarter, early first quarter implementation of those changes as we make the systematic changes to get those in place. Regarding offsets, as noted in our discussion, some of the branch closure issues and all of the overall program of optimization of our markets, expense reduction across processes, and that sort of thing we believe will more than offset the NSF or overdraft changes. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
17e7a1433c34447ab49aab7aef895084 | OK. Great. Super helpful. And then just moving over to the margin, it's really nice to see it inflect off the fourth quarter levels. I guess just twofold here. Is it fair to say that the fourth quarter was sort of a bottom on the margin? I mean, forward-looking with your new guidance and following the forward curve, how should we think about the cadence of NIM expansion as we move throughout the year? Or maybe more easily put, what would be the incremental margin pickup that you would see from maybe every 25 basis point swing in rates? | So, Will, this is Tom Owens. So, yes. Well, let me start with what's in the forecast, right? So we did increase our guidance to low double-digit year-over-year growth in net interest income XPPPP. And obviously, that increase in guidance from the prior guidance of mid-single digits reflected the substantial increase in market interest rates experienced in the first quarter, as well as the increase in market-implied forward interest rates as a result. So for example, the mid single-digit growth guidance was based on three Fed rate hikes in 2022. The updated guidance is based on the equivalent of 825 basis point rate hikes now in 2022. So in terms of the cadence of net interest margin expansion, I would say it's going to be reasonably contemporaneous with the pace of the actual Fed rate hikes. In terms of the net interest margin expansion, I would say, if you look at the low double-digit increase in NII, it's basically equally comprised, it's approximately equal parts earning asset growth and net interest margin expansion. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
baf250e5f53a366c56fea64a7dbcf1be | Hey. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Tom, maybe you just wanted to start about, I'm sort of following the guidance, maybe if you grow your loan portfolio, another half a billion dollars for here, maybe a few hundred million in securities to get you up to that 25% number. Still maybe leaves you with a $1 billion of cash or so, sitting on the balance sheet, particularly if your deposit growth kind of comes through as expected. In my thinking about that correctly, is your plan is to kind of maybe sit on more liquidity until you kind of see rates stabilize, or do you anticipate maybe deposits running out in 2023 or something? Just trying to get a sense of kind of how you're managing that, the cash portion, the balance sheet. | And yeah, it's a great question, Brad. And as you know, we've sort of strategically managed the balance sheet to remain underweight in terms of securities as a percentage of earning assets. You saw that on a book basis. We increased the securities portfolio about $200 million in the first quarter. And it is very reasonable to expect that here in the second quarter, we would probably increase, say, another $200 to $300 million. And you're right, that would still leave us with substantial excess liquidity. I would say, you get past that guidance of $200 to $300 million of growth in the securities portfolio here in the second quarter, may well turn out to be the case that we do that again in the third quarter. That's obviously going to be a function of our view. We'll be watching two things, right? Well, three things really. We'll be watching what the Fed actually does. We'll be watching how the market reacts, and what those opportunities turn out to be in the way of reinvestment. And then, as you alluded to, we'll be watching the dynamics of the deposit portfolio. It said in my prepared comments, you look under the hood. First quarter deposit growth is $26 million, doesn't seem strong. But then when you bear in mind, we had some significant public fund runoff, we continue to see very strong consumer deposit growth or personal deposit growth. And so certainly to the extent that those balances exhibit, effective durations, consistent with the back book, we would be inclined to leaning into deploying that liquidity. We're always going to prefer deploying into a lending to the extent those opportunities do exist to do that prudently. But it's very reasonable to assume that we'll continue to grow the securities portfolio. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
0fa9ede2f6d87c77b55554ec7fd58d6b | Great. Thank you. And Tom, just to follow-up, it look like your interest rate sensitivity to a 100 basis point shock was very down from where it was in the in the fourth quarter. Is that just a function of maybe already seeing one rate hike? or just other changes in your assumptions? I'm probably missing something there. But just kind of curious. | Well, it has more to do with the mix change, right. And so, you look I think on a linked-quarter basis, our excess reserves at the Fed dropped from, in round number, something like $2.1 billion, to something like $1.7 billion. And when you do the math, what you see is that we have pretty good loan growth in the first quarter. We had again, when you include the public fund decline, not very substantial deposit growth in the first quarter. And so the fact that we put that money to work in the securities portfolio, that's the dynamic that caused that decrease. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
bfdb6548a490501755f8041dff938a12 | Great. Thank you. Just kind of moving on to the share buyback. You maybe weren't as active in the first quarter as I thought you might have been doing. Do you think it's a year where you guys repurchase kind of similar to the amount you did in 2021? Or do you think you're going to be more conservative? Just kind of curious with the stock, all bank stocks down and, at fairly attractive valuations, how aggressive you might be with that remaining $90 million. | Yeah. I think right in our our calls and particularly in the fourth quarter call, we will be a little more conservative, I think moving forward than we've been in the past. I don't see us getting up to the same level as 2021. But we'll continue to be opportunistic. Our capital committee meets on a regular basis and looks at the market, looks at the overall situation, looks at our capital ratios, and all the above, and considers the opportunities there. So kind of as we sit today, we'll likely be more conservative than we've been in the past or at least in 2021 on that front. Yeah, and Brad, this is Tom. I would add, I think if my memory serves me correctly of the last call, we gave that guidance. That our run rate deployment here in 22 would be meaningfully below that of 21. That has a lot to do with earnings power, right? And so, as was alluded to here earlier on the call with the fourth quarter of 21 really being a trough, now that we've hit an inflection point in terms of net interest margin and net interest income, growth and earnings should be accelerating. So we're probably in a, I'll call it a low point here in terms of deployment of capital via repurchase. And we'll see how the year progresses in terms of profitability and opportunity. And then the final note, Brad, would be based on other uses of capital, I mean, we would rather grow organically. We still are very interested on the M&A front and would like to consider opportunities there. So again, the capital deployment will be opportunistic. And we'll see how the rest of the year unfolds here. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
a75a6b9e4ff3518c02d92d25eb1939d5 | Great. And I appreciate that. And just final Q kind of more housekeeping questions for me. I apologize. I just didn't see it in the release. But just curious, the amount of the branch or facility gain that impacted other income? And then would you expect sort of your tax rate to revert back to kind of a normal 16% or so, 15 and a half going forward is a little lower than I thought this quarter. Thanks for answering my questions. | So just I'll start the times can add to, but the gain on sale was a one time happened to be an attractive market, and we basically sold our location and relocated across the street, and that represented a $800 thousand plus pre-tax gain for the quarter. And so that was kind of a one-time deal. So Tom or Tom, anything that adds to that? what was the question, Brad? Yeah, this is Tom Chambers, Brad. As you know, our effective tax rate on a quarterly basis is based on an estimated year-end tax rate that's required by GAAP accounting. You have to forecast out your estimated year-end tax rate. So within that forecast, you've got major factors such as forecasted pre-tax net income, you have forecasted permanent differences that you can reduce your taxable expense on the tax return, etc.. So there's several factors that play into that estimated for forecasted tax rate. And right now, what you see in the quarterly effective tax rate of 13.85% during the first quarter, that's what we're looking at to see what our forecasted year-end tax rate. Obviously, that changes as we march through the year, and we have better forecasts and so on and so forth. But at this point, it's 13.85%, right around 14%. | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
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