Better business coming in than going out: management describes the quality of new intake visibly exceeding what it is re
The model's full reasoning — Q1 2024 call → NOWe need to determine if management conveys that the business being taken in now is of visibly higher quality than the business it is replacing, with both halves: (1) an in-versus-out quality contrast stated by management, and (2) the turnover is real, current, and already in the numbers' future. Let's examine the transcript. Management discusses various segments. They talk about sales, agent counts, premium growth, etc. They mention that they are investing in technology, and that at Liberty National they implemented a new underwriting platform which temporarily slowed policy issues, but they expect throughput to return to normal. They also discuss Direct to Consumer sales declining due to reduced marketing spend on campaigns that did not meet profit objectives. They say they will continue to focus on maximizing underwriting margin dollars on new sales by managing rising advertising and distribution costs. Is there any explicit contrast between the quality of new business being taken in versus the old business? They mention that they are reducing marketing spend on certain campaigns that did not meet profit objectives, which implies they are being more selective, but they don't explicitly say that the new business is of higher quality than the existing book. They talk about managing costs, but not about better margins on new business. They also discuss American Income Life, where they have strong agent count growth and sales growth. They mention that over 80% of premiums come from policies in force over one year, but that's about the stability of the book, not about new business being better. They discuss investment yields: they invested in fixed maturities at 5.86% yield, and they expect to invest at 5.6-5.8% for the year. They also invest in commercial mortgage loans and LPs at higher expected returns. But that's about investment portfolio, not about the insurance business itself. The question is about the business the company is taking in right now (i.e., new policies, new sales) being of higher quality than the business it is replacing (i.e., older policies that are running off). Management does not seem to make such a contrast. They talk about sales growth, agent counts, but not about the economics of new business versus old business.
| Ticker | Company | Call | Date | Call grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASB | Associated Banc-Corp | Q1 2024 | 2024-04-25 | A |
| GIII | G-III Apparel Group, Ltd. | Q4 2024 | 2024-03-14 | C |
| ALL | The Allstate Corporation | Q3 2023 | 2023-11-02 | C+ |
| SPT | Sprout Social, Inc. | Q2 2023 | 2023-08-04 | B+ |
| BRX | Brixmor Property Group Inc. | Q1 2023 | 2023-05-02 | A |
| OEC | Orion Engineered Carbons S.A. | Q4 2022 | 2023-02-17 | B+ |
| BBD | Banco Bradesco S.A. | Q3 2022 | 2022-11-09 | D |
| GFS | GLOBALFOUNDRIES Inc. | Q3 2021 | 2021-11-30 | A |
| KTB | Kontoor Brands, Inc. | Q3 2021 | 2021-11-04 | A |
| CYBR | CyberArk Software Ltd. | Q3 2021 | 2021-11-04 | B+ |
| EHTH | eHealth, Inc. | Q2 2021 | 2021-07-29 | F |
| ADSK | Autodesk, Inc. | Q3 2019 | 2018-11-20 | A |
| GECC | Great Elm Capital Corporation | Q3 2018 | 2018-11-13 | B |
| CUBI | Customers Bancorp, Inc. | Q3 2018 | 2018-10-26 | C+ |
| T | AT&T Inc. | Q3 2018 | 2018-10-24 | C+ |
| ESS | Essex Property Trust, Inc. | Q2 2018 | 2018-08-03 | B+ |
| MKC | McCormick & Company, Incorporated | Q2 2018 | 2018-06-28 | C+ |
| ALLY | Ally Financial Inc. | Q1 2018 | 2018-04-26 | B+ |
| ATI | Allegheny Technologies Incorporated | Q1 2018 | 2018-04-24 | B |
| HSTM | HealthStream, Inc. | Q3 2017 | 2017-10-24 | C |
| MTG | MGIC Investment Corporation | Q3 2017 | 2017-10-18 | B+ |
| BLKB | Blackbaud, Inc. | Q1 2017 | 2017-05-02 | B+ |
HSTM · Q3 2017 → YESThe question is about whether management conveys that the business they're taking in right now is of visibly higher quality than the business they're finishing or letting run off. YES The transcript shows management explicitly contrasting incoming business against outgoing: - Patient Experience: "Existing clients also continue to convert from a phone modality to email and SMS text surveying modality... This conversion trend to continue... expected to have a positive impact... on patient experience margins." (lower price, higher margin shift already happening) - Provider Solutions: "the move from installed software sales to software as service sales... challenge revenue growth... but not profitability growth" and "backlog of unimplemented customers... significantly reduced" - Laerdal/HeartCode: "the new product we believe is right now based on contracts.
GFS · Q3 2021 → YESThe question is about whether management conveys that the business they're taking in right now is of visibly higher quality than the business they're finishing or letting run off. YES The transcript shows management explicitly contrasting the incoming business with the outgoing: compute revenue is declining "as expected" due to customers shifting to smaller nodes, while "newer high-margin customer designs" are ramping in 2H 2022 to offset it. They tie this directly to mix improvement from "d differentiated solutions become a larger portion" and "feature-rich" platforms (FDX, RF SOI, silicon photonics) growing while feature-rich CMOS is flat or down. LTAs signed now carry "pricing improvements" baked in for 2022+, with new agreements committing future capacity at those better terms.
CYBR · Q3 2021 → YESThe question is about whether management conveys that the new business they're taking in is of higher quality than the old business they're replacing, and that as the old rolls off, results will impro...YES Management explicitly contrasts the incoming subscription business (new logos, SaaS bookings, Privileged Cloud, EPM) as higher-quality than the outgoing perpetual license business it is replacing. They describe it as delivering “faster type of value,” “higher lifetime value over time,” and “more users and more products faster ,” while noting that the current revenue and profitability headwind from the mix shift is “obscuring the P&L” and that results will improve once the transition completes.