Bentley Systems (BSY) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Sandra-Ann Morency

Good morning and thank you for joining Bentley Systems' Q2 2023 Operating Results. I'm Sandra-Ann Morency, Bentley's Investor Communications Manager. On the webcast today, we have Bentley Systems' Chief Executive Officer, Greg Bentley; Chief Operating Officer, Nicholas Cumins; and Chief Financial Officer, Werner Andre.

This webcast includes forward-looking statements made as of August 08, 2023, regarding the future results of operations and financial position, business strategy and plans and objectives for future operations of Bentley Systems Incorporated. All such statements made in or containing during this webcast, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. This webcast will be available for replay on Bentley Systems' Investor Relations website at investors.bentley.com. After our presentation, we will conclude with Q&A, which I'll moderate in Eric's absence.

And with that, let me introduce the CEO of Bentley Systems, Greg Bentley.

Greg Bentley

Good morning, and as always, thanks to each of you for your interest. I will start today by sharing my observations of some notable directions within our strong '23 Q2 operating results and then as usual, I will briefly remark upon some corporate developments.

In preview, our growth in the quarter was more broad and balanced, which I consider to be better, ranging from E365 accretion across our largest enterprise accounts, through broadening and compounding penetration within our large SMB opportunities. Among infrastructure sectors, resources by way of mining and hence sequent [ph], slowed down and lost its lead for now to strongly growing public works/utilities.

Despite the countervailing dip in global CapEx for new mines, our platform acquisition is growing considerably faster than BSY otherwise, following only our other platform acquisition, Power Line Systems. And as to our key metric year-over-year ARR growth, this all nets out, while broader and better, to a narrower full year 2023 range, considering that in China, which is where all relative security is concentrated, virtually any second half new business outcome will continue to erode our ARR there.

In '23 Q2, we were BSY busier than ever before, beating or surpassing our own expectations on all corporate outlook metrics. Of course, we all primarily focus on constant currency business performance ARR growth year-over-year, which we sustain within the robust level of 13%, our high watermark.

However, going behind this headline, I consider that our ARR growth has directionally improved. One aspect in the math is that programmatic acquisitions happen now to be contributing only minimally. But while acknowledging this year's favorable end market conditions, I think that strong rational execution by Nicholas' teams is ever broader and better. Although such balance and consistency increasingly characterize virtually every access of our business, an example is the breadth of new business momentum ranging from our largest to smallest accounts.