WILLs Inc. Q1 FY2025 earnings call

• Overall Financial Performance

  • Delivered 9 consecutive years of revenue growth, with a 20% average annual growth rate for consolidated revenue; 8 consecutive years of operating profit growth
  • FY2024 consolidated revenue hit 5.072 billion yen, up 13% year-over-year and 1% above plan; consolidated operating profit hit 1.035 billion yen, up 13% year-over-year and 2% above plan, reaching a new all-time high profit
  • Net income hit 670 million yen, up 32% year-over-year and in line with plan
  • Actively invested in human resources, including aggressive hiring and base salary increases
  • Balance sheet strengthened: retained earnings and shareholders' equity increased 279 million yen year-over-year, with higher cash and cash equivalents
  • Operating cash flow was 1.071 billion yen; adjusted real free cash flow was positive 750 million yen after excluding 1 billion yen in time deposit refund income

• IR-navi Full Renewal Milestone

  • After several years of development, Phase 1 of the fully renewed IR-navi has been released, and is positioned as a second medium-term growth driver for the firm
  • The renewed IR-navi shifts from the legacy one-way information distribution tool (only listed companies sending IR/earnings information to investors) to a two-way interactive platform that builds a global IR community connecting listed issuers and buy-side institutional investors
  • Phase 1 core features: Issues accounts to ~350 Japanese listed companies and domestic buy-side institutional investors, enabling buy-side investors to directly request IR interviews/meetings online to listed issuers, who can adjust schedules and host meetings directly on the platform, improving scheduling efficiency compared to the legacy schedule-only function

• Future IR-navi Development Roadmap

  • Phase 2 will focus on globalization, with an English-language core product. The firm will distribute accounts to overseas institutional investors to make it easier for Japanese companies to reach overseas investors
  • Phase 2 will add a fundamental information search tool for overseas investors to easily access English-language information on Japanese firms, plus a stock universe grouping function for buy-side investors to manage followed Japanese holdings, and AI-powered text transcription and storage for meeting histories
  • Phase 2 will also add a simultaneous interpretation assignment service for cross-border meetings to support Japanese companies' overseas IR activities; the core IR calendar scheduling function will be provided free of charge to institutional investors globally

1. Shareholder Management Platform Business: 4.819 billion yen in revenue, accounting for 95% of total consolidated revenue. Within this segment:
   • Premium Yutai Club: 3.5 billion yen in revenue, grew 122% year-over-year, added 6 net new clients, reaching 96 total contracted companies.
   • IR-navi: 307 million yen in revenue, added 16 net new clients, reaching 359 total contracted companies.
   • Sustainability Solutions: 931 million yen in revenue, grew 142% year-over-year, reached 539 total projects, up 16% year-over-year.
2. Advertising Business: 262 million yen in revenue, accounting for 5% of total consolidated revenue, declined 40% year-over-year due to prolonged negative impacts from search engine algorithm changes.

• For FY2025 (full year ending December 2025), management expects consolidated revenue of 5.58 billion yen, representing 10% year-over-year growth; standalone revenue of 5.324 billion yen, representing 10.5% year-over-year growth
• For FY2025, management expects consolidated operating profit of 1.155 billion yen, representing 11.6% year-over-year growth; standalone operating profit of 1.27 billion yen, representing 10% year-over-year growth
• Management expects the growth trend of Premium Yutai Club point revenue and new client revenue to continue through the full year. Q1 2025 results are expected to be relatively soft, with revenue and profit accumulating progressively from Q2 through Q4

• The advertising business has seen prolonged negative performance impacts from search engine algorithm changes, resulting in a 40% year-over-year revenue decline
• The IR-navi full renewal project took several years of development, and caused concern among stakeholders during the extended development period

No question and answer section was included in the provided earning call transcript.