Change Healthcare Inc. Reports First Quarter Fiscal 2021 Financial Results

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 5, 2020-- Change Healthcare Inc. (Nasdaq: CHNG), a leading independent healthcare technology company, today reported financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2021 ended June 30, 2020.

“While the first quarter reflects the impact of COVID-19, we are proud of our team members who adapted quickly to address the needs of our customers and enabled us to deliver financial results ahead of our expectations and continued to drive new innovations,” said Neil de Crescenzo, president and chief executive officer. “Given Change Healthcare sits at the center of the U.S. healthcare system facilitating more than $1.5 trillion in claims and 15 billion transactions annually, we remain committed to supporting our customers and leading researchers with data, insights, and advanced solutions to ensure access, affordability, and improved outcomes for consumers. Despite the short-term uncertainty related to COVID-19, we believe positive underlying demand across our portfolio combined with continued innovation will enable us to drive increased value for both our customers and shareholders moving forward.”

Fiscal 2021 First Quarter Highlights for Change Healthcare Inc.:

Financial Summary

• Total revenue of $694.2 million, including solutions revenue of $648.4 million
• Net loss of $58.7 million, resulting in net loss of $0.18 per diluted share
• Adjusted net income of $81.2 million, resulting in adjusted net income of $0.25 per diluted share
• Adjusted EBITDA of $196.9 million

Recent Business Highlights

• Unveiled the Connected Consumer Health™ suite, an innovative new consumer and financial engagement platform collaboration with Adobe and Microsoft for healthcare providers, which provides a modern, streamlined experience throughout the patient journey.
• Provided open access to the Clinical Network lab service, where providers can quickly order COVID-19 tests and other lab tests, to help speed up diagnostic results for patients nationwide. This new service helps providers identify lab options to improve access to testing and reduces the complexity of ordering lab tests by providing rapid connections to one of the nation’s largest lab testing networks.
• Unveiled nationwide Clinical Data Retrieval service, a new cloud-based interoperability solution that makes it possible for payers to quickly and easily retrieve patient records from the industry’s leading electronic health record systems and other systems.
• Announced that Nella Domenici, currently a member of the Board of Alliance Bernstein LP, and former chief financial officer of Bridgewater Associates, and Bansi Nagji, President, Healthcare at GoodRx, and former executive vice president and chief strategy and business development officer at McKesson Corporation, have been appointed to the board of directors.

Impact of McKesson Exit on Comparability of Results

On March 10, 2020, Change Healthcare acquired the interest in Change Healthcare LLC (“the Joint Venture”) previously held by McKesson. The transaction resulted in Change Healthcare Inc. acquiring control of the Joint Venture, which was accounted for as a business combination and resulted in a new basis of accounting, and all of the business activities of the Joint Venture are now reported by the Company. Change Healthcare Inc. financial statements for periods prior to the acquisition were primarily limited to the equity method investment in the Joint Venture, and therefore did not reflect revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and other key measures. As a result, Change Healthcare does not consider comparison of the current operating results to the reported results of Change Healthcare Inc. for the same period in the prior year to be meaningful, and instead will compare our current quarter results to the prior quarter results of the Joint Venture, which have been recast to reflect the current segment structure, including the allocation of all corporate costs to the business units. This press release includes supplemental information for the recast results of the Joint Venture for the first quarter of fiscal 2020. The recast results for all quarters in fiscal year 2019 and fiscal year 2020 are available in the appendix to the earnings presentation and will be included as an exhibit to Change Healthcare’s Form 10-Q for the three months ended June 30, 2020.

Financial Results

• Solutions revenue was $648.4 million for the current period, inclusive of the impact of the fair value adjustment to deferred revenue resulting from the McKesson exit, which reduced revenue recognized in the quarter by $55.0 million. Total revenue, which includes Postage revenue, was $694.2 million. For the first quarter of fiscal 2020, the Joint Venture reported $797.1 million of solutions revenue and $855.6 million of total revenue. Solutions revenue, including the $5.6 million net impact of acquisitions and divestitures, was negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Partially offsetting this impact were new sales volumes across all three segments.
• Net loss was $58.7 million, resulting in net loss of $0.18 per diluted share. For the first quarter of fiscal 2020, the Joint Venture reported net income of $71.9 million or $0.28 per diluted unit. Net loss was negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, partially offset by new sales volumes, productivity improvements, and cost initiatives.
• Adjusted net income was $81.2 million, resulting in adjusted net income of $0.25 per diluted share. For the first quarter of fiscal 2020, the Joint Venture reported adjusted net income of $141.5 million or $0.56 per diluted unit. Net income per diluted share and adjusted net income per diluted share for the current period is based on 320 million shares compared to 253 million units in the prior year period.
• Adjusted EBITDA was $196.9 million for the current period. For the first quarter of fiscal 2020, the Joint Venture reported adjusted EBITDA of $281.1 million. Adjusted EBITDA, including the $1.0 million net impact of acquisitions and divestitures, was negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Partially offsetting this impact were new sales volumes, productivity improvements, and cost initiatives.

Cash Flow and Balance Sheet Highlights

Net cash provided by operating activities was $169.1 million for the three months ended June 30, 2020. Free cash flow was $102.3 million for the three months ended June 30, 2020. Adjusted free cash flow was $126.6 million. For the three months ended June 30, 2019, the Joint Venture reported net cash provided by operating activities, free cash flow, and adjusted free cash flow of $84.5 million, $17.1 million, and $60.8 million, respectively.

Net cash provided by operating activities, free cash flow, and adjusted free cash flow each is affected by pass-thru funds we receive from certain pharmaceutical industry participants in advance of our obligation to remit these funds to participating retail pharmacies. Such pass-thru funds were $13.7 million for the three months ended June 30, 2020 and $12.3 million for the Joint Venture for the three months ended June 30, 2019. The increase in cash flow from operations, free cash flow, and adjusted free cash flow in the current period primarily resulted from improved working capital driven by strong collections.

The Company ended the quarter with approximately $178.4 million of cash and cash equivalents, and approximately $5,056.8 million of total debt. During the quarter, the Company repaid the full $250.0 million balance outstanding under its revolving credit facility.

Second Quarter Fiscal 2021 Guidance

Due to uncertainty around the duration of COVID-19, the Company will only be providing quarterly guidance.

For the second quarter of fiscal 2021, the Company expects solutions revenue to be in the range of $670 million to $690 million, which includes a reduction of $39 million in revenue resulting from an adjustment of deferred revenue to fair value with no impact on adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $180 million to $190 million, and adjusted EPS to be in the range of $0.20 - $0.23 per share.

The second quarter fiscal 2021 outlook reflects the Company’s current expectation that the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic will have gradual improvement throughout the remainder of the fiscal year as healthcare utilization trends improve and is also subject to risk factors such as those described in the Forward-Looking Statements.

Supplemental Forward-Looking Information and Assumptions for Fiscal 2021

While the Company is not providing guidance for the full fiscal 2021 due to the uncertainty and rapidly evolving economic environment as a result of COVID-19, the Company has determined to provide the following supplemental expectations and assumptions that the Company has made regarding its fiscal 2021 results to provide further transparency to investors into the Company’s current beliefs regarding fiscal 2021, all of which are subject to change:

• Expect full year fiscal 2021 free cash flow of $150 million to $200 million.
• Capital expenditures of approximately 7% of solutions revenue excluding the impact of fair value adjustments for the fiscal year and excluding integration related capital expenditures.
• Integration related operating expense for the fiscal year of approximately $80 million and integration related capital expenditures of approximately $20 million.
• Interest expense in the range of $250 million to $260 million.
• Adjusted effective tax rate of approximately 25%.
• Basic and fully diluted shares outstanding of 320 million.¹

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A reconciliation of the forward-looking second-quarter 2021 adjusted EBITDA outlook to net income cannot be provided without unreasonable effort because of the inherent difficulty of accurately forecasting the occurrence and financial impact of the various adjusting items necessary for such reconciliation that have not yet occurred, are out of our control, or cannot be reasonably predicted. For the same reasons, Change Healthcare is unable to assess the probable significance of the unavailable information, which could have a material impact on its future financial results in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America (“GAAP”).

Conference Call and Webcast Information

Change Healthcare will host a conference call on Thursday, August 6, 2020, at 8:00 a.m. ET. Investors and other interested parties are invited to listen to the conference call by dialing 1-(877) 279-0788 in the U.S.; 1-(270) 215-9894 from abroad, including the conference ID number: 8197142; or via a live, audio webcast on the Company's website at https://ir.changehealthcare.com/.

A webcast replay will be available for on-demand listening shortly after the completion of the call until the first-quarter fiscal 2022 earnings call, at the aforementioned URL. In addition, a digital audio playback will be available until 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, August 13, 2020, by dialing 1-(855) 859-2056 or 1-(404) 537-3406 and referencing confirmation 8197142.

About Change Healthcare

Change Healthcare (Nasdaq: CHNG) is a leading independent healthcare technology company, focused on accelerating the transformation of the healthcare system through the power of the Change Healthcare Platform. We provide data and analytics-driven solutions to improve clinical, financial, administrative, and patient engagement outcomes in the U.S. healthcare system. Learn more at changehealthcare.com.

CHNG-IR

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of federal securities laws. Any statements made in this presentation that are not statements of historical fact, including statements about our beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include information concerning possible or assumed future results of operations, including, but not limited to, our second quarter fiscal 2021 guidance, the supplemental information and assumptions regarding fiscal 2021, the potential length and impact of COVID-19 and descriptions of our business plans and strategies. These statements often include words such as “anticipate,” “expect,” “suggest,” “plan,” “believe,” “intend,” “estimate,” “target,” “project,” “should,” “could,” “would,” “may,” “will,” “forecast,” “outlook,” “potential,” “continues,” “seeks,” “predicts,” and the negatives of these words and other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the uncertainty around the length and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic; the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our operations and financial results, on our customers and on national, state and local economies; and new risks that may arise due to responses to the pandemic by the government, our customers and us; and other factors disclosed in the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 in the section entitled “Risk Factors,” as such factors may be updated from time to time in our periodic filings with the SEC, and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements in this release. All forward-looking statements are based on information currently available to Change Healthcare and are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The statements herein speak only as of the date such statements were first made. Except to the extent required by law, Change Healthcare assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements or other statements included in this release.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In the company’s earnings releases, prepared remarks, conference calls, slide presentations and webcasts, there may be use or discussion of non-GAAP financial measures. We believe such measures provide supplemental information to investors with regard to our operating performance and assist investors’ ability to compare our financial results to those of other companies in the same industry. The GAAP financial measure most directly comparable to each non-GAAP financial measure used or discussed, and a reconciliation of the differences between the comparable GAAP financial measure and each non-GAAP financial measure are included in this press release after the consolidated financial statements. These non-GAAP financial measures are calculated and presented on the basis of methodologies other than in accordance with GAAP. These non-GAAP financial measures should be considered only as supplemental to, and not as superior to, financial measures prepared in accordance with GAAP and may be defined and calculated differently by others in the same industry.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200805005755/en/

Evan Smith, CFA
Investor Relations
404-338-2225
Evan.Smith@changehealthcare.com

Kerry Kelly
External Communications
339-236-2756
Kerry.Kelly@changehealthcare.com

Source: Change Healthcare Inc.