UNITED STATES

SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

FORM 10-K

☒ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018

OR

☐TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934

For the transition period from ___to___.

Commission file number: 1-34167

ePlus inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (703) 984-8400

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.

Yes ☒ No ☐

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 of Section 15(d) of the Act.

Yes ☐ No☒

 Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.

Yes ☒ No ☐

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Website, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (Section 229.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).

Yes ☒No ☐

 

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Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§ 229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of the registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.

☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See definition of “large accelerated filer”, “accelerated filer”, “smaller reporting company”, and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act (Check one):

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act. ☐

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act).

Yes ☐ No ☒

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

The following documents are incorporated by reference into the indicated parts of this Form 10-K:

Portions of the Company's definitive Proxy Statement relating to its 2018 annual meeting of stockholders ( the “2018 Proxy Statement”) are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Annual Report on Form 10-K where indicated. The 2018 Proxy Statement will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the Company's fiscal year end to which this report relates.

 

Table of Contents

 

		Page
Cautionary Language About Forward-Looking Statements		1
Part I
Item 1.	Business	3
	Executive Officers	13
Item 1A.	Risk Factors	14
Item 1B.	Unresolved Staff Comments	24
Item 2.	Properties	24
Item 3.	Legal Proceedings	24
Item 4.	Mine Safety Disclosures	24
Part II
Item 5.	Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities	25
Item 6.	Selected Financial Data	28
Item 7.	Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations	32
Item 7A.	Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk	50
Item 8.	Financial Statements and Supplementary Data	51
Item 9.	Changes in and Disagreements With Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure	51
Item 9A.	Controls and Procedures	51
Item 9B.	Other Information	52
Part III
Item 10.	Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance	53
Item 11.	Executive Compensation	53
Item 12.	Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters	53
Item 13.	Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence	53
Item 14.	Principal Accounting Fees and Services	53
Part IV
Item 15.	Exhibits, Financial Statement Schedule	54
Item 16.	Form 10-K Summary	57
Signatures		58

CAUTIONARY LANGUAGE ABOUT FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains certain statements that are, or may be deemed to be, “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or “Exchange Act,” and are made in reliance upon the protections provided by such acts for forward-looking statements. Such statements are not based on historical fact, but are based upon numerous assumptions about future conditions that may not occur. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of forward-looking words such as “may,” “should,” “would,” “intend,” “estimate,” “will,” “potential,” “possible,” “could,” “believe,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “hope,” “project,” and similar expressions. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements made by us or on our behalf. Forward-looking statements are made based upon information that is currently available or management’s current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects upon us, speak only as of the date hereof, and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. We do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or correct any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that subsequently occur, or of which we hereafter become aware. Actual events, transactions and results may materially differ from the anticipated events, transactions, or results described in such statements. Our ability to consummate such transactions and achieve such events or results is subject to certain risks and uncertainties. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the matters set forth below:

·

national and international political instability fostering uncertainty and volatility in the global economy including exposure to fluctuation in foreign currency rates, and downward pressure on prices;

·

domestic and international economic regulations uncertainty (i.e. tariffs, NAFTA, and Tran-pacific Partnership, etc).

·

significant adverse changes in, reductions in, or loss of our largest volume customer or one or more of our large volume customers, or vendors;

·

exposure to changes in, interpretations of, or enforcement trends in legislation and regulatory matters;

·

the creditworthiness of our customers and our ability to reserve adequately for credit losses;

·

reduction of vendor incentives provided to us;

·

we offer a comprehensive set of solutions integrating product sales, third-party software assurance and maintenance with our advanced professional and managed services, our proprietary software, and financing and encounter the following challenges, risks, difficulties and uncertainties:

·

managing a diverse product set of solutions in highly competitive markets with a number of key vendors;

·

increasing the total number of customers using integrated solutions by up-selling within our customer base and gaining new customers;

·

adapting to meet changes in markets and competitive developments;

·

maintaining and increasing advanced professional services by retaining highly skilled, competent personnel, and vendor certifications;

·

increasing the total number of customers who use our managed services and professional services and continuing to enhance our managed services offerings to remain competitive in the marketplace;

·

performing professional and managed services competently;

·

maintaining our proprietary software and updating our technology infrastructure to remain competitive in the marketplace; and

·

reliance on third-parties to perform some of our service obligations to our customers;

·

changes in the IT industry and/or rapid changes in product offerings, including the proliferation of the cloud, infrastructure as a service (IaaS”), and software as a service (“SaaS”);

·

our dependency on continued innovations in hardware, software, and services offerings by our vendors and our ability to partner with them;

·

future growth rates in our core businesses;

·

failure to comply with public sector contracts or applicable laws;

·

changes to or loss of members of our senior management team and/or failure to successfully implement succession plans;

·

our dependence on key personnel to maintain certain customer relationships, and our ability to hire, train, and retain sufficient qualified personnel;

·

our ability to implement comprehensive plans for the integration of sales forces, cost containment, asset rationalization, systems integration, and other key strategies;

·

a possible decrease in the capital spending budgets of our customers or a decrease in purchases from us;

·

our contracts may not be adequate to protect us, and we are subject to audit in which we may not pass, and our professional and liability insurance policies coverage may be insufficient to cover a claim;

 

·

disruptions or a security breach in our IT systems and data and audio communication networks;

·

our ability to secure our own customers’ electronic and other confidential information, and remain secure during a cyber-security attack;

·

our ability to raise capital, maintain or increase as needed our lines of credit with vendors or floor planning facility, obtain debt for our financing transactions, or the effect of those changes on our common stock or its holders;

·

our ability to realize our investment in leased equipment;

·

our ability to successfully perform due diligence and integrate acquired businesses;

·

the possibility of goodwill impairment charges in the future;

·

our ability to protect our intellectual property rights and successfully defend any challenges to the validity of our patents or allegations that we are infringing upon any third-party patents, and the costs associated with those actions, and, when appropriate, license required technology; and

·

significant changes in accounting standards including changes to the financial reporting of leases which could impact the demand for our leasing services, or misclassification of products and services we sell resulting in the misapplication of revenue recognition policies or inaccurate costs and completion dates for our services, which could affect our estimates.

We cannot be certain that our business strategy will be successful or that we will successfully address these and other challenges, risks, and uncertainties. For a further list and description of various risks, relevant factors and uncertainties that could cause future results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements, see Item 1A, “Risk Factors” and Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” sections contained elsewhere in this report, as well as other reports that we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).

Industry and Market Data

This Form 10-K includes industry data that we obtained from periodic industry publications, which represent data, research opinion, or viewpoints published as part of syndicated subscription services.

The Gartner Report(s) described herein, (the "Gartner Report(s)") represent(s) research opinion or viewpoints published, as part of a syndicated subscription service, by Gartner, Inc. ("Gartner"), and are not representations of fact. Each Gartner Report speaks as of its original publication date (and not as of the date of this Form10-K), and the opinions expressed in the Gartner Report(s) are subject to change without notice

 

PART I

ITEM 1.

BUSINESS

GENERAL

Our company was founded in 1990 and is a Delaware corporation. ePlus inc. is sometimes referred to in this Annual Report on Form 10-K as “we,” “our,” “us,” “ourselves,” or “ePlus.”

Our operations are conducted through two business segments. Our technology segment sells information technology (“IT”) hardware products, third-party software and maintenance contracts, our own and third-party advanced professional and managed services, and our proprietary software. Our financing segment operations primarily consist of the financing of IT equipment, software and related services. Both segments sell to commercial entities, state and local governments, government contractors, and educational institutions. See Note 15, “Segment Reporting” in the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this report.

ePlus inc. does not engage in any business other than serving as the parent holding company for the following operating companies:

Technology

·

ePlus Technology, inc.;

·

ePlus Software LLC;

·

ePlus Technology Services, inc.

·

ePlus Cloud Services, inc., and

·

IGXGlobal UK, Limited

 Financing

·

ePlus Group, inc.;

·

ePlus Government, inc.;

·

ePlus Canada Company;

·

ePlus Capital, inc.;

·

ePlus Iceland, inc., and

·

IGX Capital UK, Ltd.

We began using the name ePlus inc. in 1999 after changing our name from MLC Holdings, Inc. ePlus Technology, inc. is the primary entity that conducts our technology sales and services business. ePlus Software LLC was formed on March 8, 2016 and provides consulting services, and proprietary software for enterprise supply management and document management. ePlus Capital, inc. owns 100 percent of ePlus Canada Company, which was created on December 27, 2001 to transact business within Canada. ePlus Government, inc. was incorporated on September 17, 1997 to transact business with governmental contractors servicing the federal government marketplace, and other state and local governments. ePlus Technology Services, inc. was incorporated on May 17, 2010 to provide professional and management services. We acquired IGXGlobal UK, Limited in December 2015.

 

OUR BUSINESS

We are a leading solutions provider that delivers actionable outcomes for organizations by using IT and consulting solutions to drive business agility and innovation. Leveraging our engineering talent, we assess, plan, deliver, and secure solutions comprised of leading technologies and consumption models aligned with our customers’ needs. Our expertise and experience enables ePlus to craft optimized solutions that take advantage of the cost, scale and efficiency of private, public and hybrid cloud in an evolving market. We also provide consulting, professional, managed and complete lifecycle management services including flexible financing solutions. We have been in the business of selling, leasing, financing, and managing IT and other assets for more than 28 years.

Our primary focus is to deliver integrated solutions that address our customers' business needs, leveraging the appropriate Cloud, Security and Digital Infrastructure technologies, both on-premise and in the cloud. Our approach is to lead with advisory consulting to understand our customers' needs, design, deploy and manage solutions aligned to their objectives. Underpinning the broader areas of Cloud, Security and Digital Infrastructure are specific skills in orchestration and automation, application modernization, DevOps, data management, data visualization, analytics, network modernization, edge compute and other advanced and emerging technologies. These solutions are comprised of class leading technologies from partners such as Arista Networks, Check Point, Cisco Systems, Citrix, Commvault, Dell EMC, F5 Networks, Gigamon, HP Inc., HPE, Juniper Networks, Lenovo, Microsoft, NetApp, NVIDIA, Oracle, Palo Alto Networks, Pure Storage, Quantum, Splunk, and VMware, among many others. We possess top-level engineering certifications with a broad range of leading IT vendors that enable us to offer multi-vendor IT solutions that are optimized for each of our customers’ specific requirements. Our hosted, proprietary software solutions are focused on giving our customers more control over their IT supply chain, by automating and optimizing the procurement and management of their owned, leased, and consumption-based assets.

Our scale and financial resources have enabled us to continue investing in engineering and technology resources to stay current with emerging technology trends. Our expertise in core and emerging technologies, buttressed by our robust portfolio of consulting, professional, and managed services has enabled ePlus to remain a trusted advisor for our customers. In addition, we offer a wide range of consumption options including leasing and financing for technology and other capital assets. We believe our lifecycle approach offering of integrated solutions, services, financing, and our proprietary supply chain software, is unique in the industry. This broad portfolio enables us to deliver a unique customer experience that spans the continuum from fast delivery of competitively priced products, services, subsequent management and upkeep, through to end-of-life disposal services. This approach permits ePlus to deploy ever-more-sophisticated solutions enabling our customers’ business outcomes.

Our go-to-market strategy focuses primarily on diverse end-markets for middle market to large enterprises. For the year ended March 31, 2018, the percentage of revenue by customer end market within our technology segment includes technology industry 24%, state and local government, and educational institutions 17%, financial services 15%, telecommunications, media and entertainment 14%, and healthcare 14%. Sales to Apple Inc. represented approximately 12% and 13% of our net sales for the years ended March 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively. No customer accounted for more than 10% of net sales for the year ended March 31, 2016. The majority of our sales were generated within the United States (“U.S.”); however, we have the ability to support our customers nationally and internationally including physical locations in the United Kingdom (“U.K.”), and India, which was established by acquisition in December 2015 and May 2017, respectively. Our technology segment accounts for 97% of our net sales, and 74% of our operating income, while our financing segment accounts for 3% of our net sales, and 26% of our operating income for the year ended March 31, 2018.

 

OUR INDUSTRY BACKGROUND AND MARKET OPPORTUNITY

We participate in the large and growing United States IT market, which, according to Gartner, Inc. is estimated to generate sales of over $1.17 trillion in 2018, and is expected to grow by 3.6% in calendar year 2018 and at an annual rate of approximately 3.3% for 2017 through 2022¹.

We have focused on and identified several specific trends that we believe will create higher growth in the broader U.S. IT market:

·

Multi-Cloud Strategy. Over the past several years, cloud architectures and cloud-enabled frameworks, whether public, private, or hybrid, have become the core foundation of modern IT. Our strategy is to assist our customers in assessing, defining and deploying private and hybrid clouds that align with their business needs. This strategy leverages our strength in deploying private clouds, while also incorporating elements of the public cloud. By assessing their applications, workloads, business requirements, etc., we deploy solutions that leverage the best of all technology platforms and consumption models. For example, we may build a private cloud solution to host mission critical applications, while utilizing a public cloud solution for development, collaboration, or disaster recovery. As the market continues to mature, we will continue to build and acquire skills that align with agile development (DevOps), application refactoring, and analytics. Our cloud strategy is tightly aligned with all of our key strategic initiatives, including security, and digital infrastructure.

·

Increasing sophistication and incidences of IT security breaches and cyber-attacks. Over the last decade, cyber-attacks have become more sophisticated, more numerous and pervasive, and increasingly difficult to safeguard against. Most experts believe that it isn’t a matter of if a cyber-attack will affect an organization; it’s a matter of when and how often. We believe our customers are focused on all aspects of cyber security, including intellectual property and data and business processes, as well as compliance with an increasing number of general and industry-specific government regulations. To meet current and future security threats, enterprises must implement solutions that are fully-integrated and capable of monitoring, detecting, containing and remediating security threats and attacks.

·

Disruptive technologies are creating complexity and challenges for customers and vendors. The rapid evolution of disruptive technologies, and the speed by which they impact organizations’ IT platforms, has made it difficult for customers to effectively design, procure, implement and manage their own IT systems. Moreover, increased budget pressures, fewer internal resources, a fragmented vendor landscape and fast time-to-value expectations make it challenging for customers to design, implement and manage secure, efficient and cost-effective IT environments. Customers are increasingly turning to IT solutions providers such as ePlus to implement complex IT offerings, including software defined infrastructure, cloud computing, converged and hyper-converged infrastructures, big data analytics, and flash storage.

·

Customer IT decision-making is shifting from IT departments to line-of- business personnel. As IT consumption shifts from legacy, on-premise infrastructure to agile “on-demand” and “as-a-service” solutions, customer procurement decisions are shifting from traditional IT personnel to lines-of-business personnel, which is changing the customer engagement model and types of consultative services required to fulfill customer needs. In addition, many of the services create recurring revenue streams paid over time, rather than upfront revenue.

·

Lack of sufficient internal IT resources at mid-sized and large enterprises, and scarcity of IT personnel in certain high-demand disciplines. We believe that IT departments at mid-sized and large enterprises are facing pressure to deliver emerging technologies and business outcomes, but lack the properly trained staff and the ability to hire personnel with high in-demand disciplines such as security and data analytics. At the same time the prevalence of security threats; increased use of cloud computing, software-defined networking, new architectures, and rapid software development frameworks; the proliferation of mobile devices and bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies; and complexity of multi-vendor solutions, have made it difficult for IT departments to implement high-quality IT solutions.

·

Reduction in the number of IT solutions providers. We believe that customers are seeking to reduce the number of solutions providers they do business with to improve supply chain and internal efficiencies, enhance accountability, improve supplier management practices, and reduce costs. As a result, customers are required to select IT solutions providers that are capable of delivering complex multi-vendor IT solutions.

 

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¹ Gartner, “Market Databook, 1Q18 Update,”  Spending on IT by Technology Segment and Country, 2016-2022, April, 2018 (U.S.).

 

·

Increasing need for third-party services. We believe that customers are relying on third-party service providers, such as ePlus, to manage significant aspects of their IT environment, from design, implementation, pre- and post-sales support, to maintenance, engineering, cloud management, security operations, and other services.

COMPETITION

The market for IT solutions is highly competitive, subject to macro-economic cycles and the entry of new competitors, consolidation of existing market participants which can create significantly larger competitors, and is significantly affected by disruptive technologies and other market activities of industry participants. We expect to continue to compete in all areas of our business against local, regional, national, and international firms, including: vendors, international, national, and regional resellers and service providers. Some of our competitors are direct marketers with little value add, and sell products as commodities which can place downward pressure on product pricing. In addition, many IT vendors may sell or lease directly to our customers, and our continued ability to compete effectively may be affected by the policies of such vendors. We face indirect competition from potential customers’ internal development efforts and have to overcome potential customers’ reluctance to move away from legacy systems, processes, and solution providers. As IT consumption shifts from IT personnel and legacy infrastructure to line-of-business based outcomes using off-premise, on-demand, and cloud solutions, the legacy resale model is shifting from an upfront sale to a recurring revenue model.

The leasing market is also competitive and subject to changing economic conditions and market activities of leading industry participants. We expect to continue to compete against local, regional, national, and international firms, including banks, specialty finance companies, private-equity asset managers, vendors' captive finance companies, and third-party leasing companies. Banks and other large financial services companies sell directly to business customers, particularly larger enterprise customers, and may provide other financial or ancillary services that we do not provide. Vendor captive leasing companies may use internal transfer pricing to effectively lower lease rates and/or bundle equipment sales and leasing to provide highly competitive packages to customers. Third-party leasing companies may have deep customer relationships with contracts in place that are difficult to displace; however, these competitors typically do not provide the breadth of product, service, and software offerings that we provide to our customers.

In all of our markets, some of our competitors have longer operating histories and greater financial, technical, marketing, and other resources than we do. In addition, some of these competitors may be able to respond more quickly to new or changing opportunities, technologies, and customer requirements. Many current and potential competitors also have greater name recognition and engage in more extensive promotional marketing and advertising activities, offer more attractive terms to customers, and adopt more aggressive pricing policies than we do.

OUR SOLUTIONS

Technology Segment

·

IT Sales: Our offerings consist of hardware, software, maintenance, software assurance, and internally-provided and outsourced services. We believe that our customers view technology purchases as integrated solutions, rather than discrete product and service categories, and the majority of our sales are derived from integrated solutions involving our customers’ data center, network, and collaboration infrastructure. We hold various technical and sales-related certifications from leading manufacturers and software publishers, that authorize us to market their products and enable us to provide advanced professional services. We actively engage with emerging vendors to offer their technologies to our customers. Our flexible platform and customizable catalogs facilitate the addition of new vendors’ products with minimal incremental effort.

·

Advanced Professional and Managed Services: We provide a range of advanced professional and managed services to help our customers improve productivity, profitability, and revenue growth while reducing operating costs. Our solutions and services include the following:

·

ePlus managed services offer a flexible subscription model to monitor, manage, and maximize business critical technologies—including cloud, security, data center, mobility, and collaboration;

·

Professional services focused on cloud infrastructure, unified communications, collaboration, networking, storage, hyper-converged infrastructure, and virtual desktop infrastructure, supported by security and managed services solutions;

 

·

Security solutions help safeguard our customers’ IT infrastructure through environment analysis, risk identification, best practices, governance, and the implementation of security solutions and processes;

·

Staff augmentation services provide customers with flexible headcount options while allowing them to access talent, fill specific technology skill gaps, or provide short-term or long-term IT professional help, which also includes services, such as Virtual Chief Information Officer (vCIO) and Virtual Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO), used to help complement existing personnel and build three-to-five year IT roadmaps;

·

Server and desktop support provides outsourcing services to respond to our customers’ business demands while minimizing overhead; and

·

Project management services enhance productivity and collaboration to enable successful implementations.

·

Proprietary Software: Our line of proprietary software products is called OneSource® and consists of the following products:

·

OneSource®IT is an online web based software portal for customers purchasing IT equipment, software, and services from us;

·

OneSource® Procurement is a complete web-based software tool to facilitate procurement of any type of asset;

·

OneSource® Asset Management is a software platform for managing and tracking corporate assets including vendor maintenance contracts; and

·

OneSource® DigitalPaper is a document management software application.

Financing Segment

·

Leasing and Financing: We specialize in financing arrangements, including direct financing, sales-type, and operating leases; notes receivable, and consumption-based financing arrangements; and underwriting and management of IT equipment and assets. Our financing operations include sales, pricing, credit, contracts, accounting, risk management, and asset management.

We primarily finance IT equipment including accessories and software, communication-related equipment, and medical equipment. We may also finance industrial machinery and equipment, office furniture and general office equipment, transportation equipment, and other general business equipment. We offer our solutions both directly and through vendors.

We offer enhanced financing solutions, and our business process services approach automates a significant portion of the IT procurement process and reduces our customers’ cost of doing business. The solution incorporates value-added services at every step in the process, including:

·

Front-end processing, such as eProcurement, order aggregation, order automation, vendor performance measurement, ordering, reconciliation, and payment;

·

Lifecycle and asset ownership services, including asset management, change management, and property tax filing; and

·

End-of-life services such as equipment audit, removal, and disposal.

OUR COMPETITIVE STRENGTHS

Large Addressable Market with Substantial Growth Opportunities Driven by Increasing IT Complexity

We participate in the large and growing IT market with specific focus on the data center, network, cloud, security, virtualization, and mobility segments of the industry, facilitated by our professional and managed service solutions. We believe we are well-positioned in the complex high-growth IT solutions segment and can achieve outsized growth relative to the overall IT market.

 

Our products and services are targeted at large and the approximately 50,000 middle market companies, state and local governmental organizations and educational institutions in the United States and at international companies through our operations in the U.K. We believe IT organizations within these companies are facing pressure to deliver higher service levels with fewer resources, increasing their reliance on third-parties who can provide complex, multi-vendor technology solutions, such as our company.

Broad and Diverse Customer Base across a Wide Range of End Markets

We have a broad and diverse customer base of over 3,200 customers across a wide range of end-markets, including education, financial services, healthcare, media and entertainment, state and local government, technology, and telecommunications.

Differentiated Business Model Serving Entire IT Lifecycle – Procurement, Solutions, Services, Software, Financing

We believe we are a trusted IT advisor, delivering differentiated products and services to enable our customers to meet increasingly complex IT requirements. We are able to provide complete, turn-key solutions serving the entire IT lifecycle – procurement, products, services, software, and financing. We provide upfront assessments, configuration capabilities, installation and implementation, and ongoing services to support our customers’ solutions.

Deep Expertise in Advanced Technology to Address Cloud, Security, Digital Infrastructure and other Emerging IT Trends

We believe our customers choose us for their complex IT infrastructure needs based on our track record of delivering best-of-breed solutions, value-added services, and close relationships with both established and emerging vendors.

Strategic Ability to Design and Integrate Cloud Solutions Across Multiple Vendors

We believe our relationships with vendors focused on the design and integration of cloud systems allow us to provide differentiated cloud offerings. We have developed long standing, strategic partnerships with leading cloud systems vendors, including Cisco Systems, Dell EMC, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, NetApp, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and VMware.

Our vendor agnostic approach allows us to provide the best customer-specific solutions. Our experienced professionals are trained in various product lines across vendors and have achieved top-level certifications with multiple strategic partners. In addition to providing initial products, our vendor certifications allow us to contract the assumption of many of the day-to-day maintenance and servicing functions for these products.

Proven Track Record of Successfully Integrating Acquisitions and Accelerating Growth

We view acquisitions as an important factor in our strategic growth plan. Since 1997, we have successfully integrated 20 acquisitions. Most recently, we have been active in tuck-in acquisitions to broaden our product offerings, sector reach, and geographic footprint, with recent acquisitions including:

·

Integrated Data Storage, LLC (“IDS”) an advanced data center solutions provider focused on cloud enablement and managed services, including its proprietary IDS Cloud. The acquisition expands ePlus’ footprint in the Midwest and enhances its sales and engineering capabilities in cloud services, disaster recovery and backup as a service, storage, data center, and professional services.

·

OneCloud Consulting, Inc. (“OneCloud”). The acquisition, based in Milpitas, California, provides us with additional ability to address customers’ needs in cloud-based solutions and infrastructure, including DevOps, OpenStack, and other emerging technologies, to our broad customer base.

·

Consolidated Communications IT services and integration business ("Consolidated IT Services"), providing data center, unified communications, networking, and security solutions, as well as expanded our sales presence in the upper Midwest.

·

IGX Acquisition Global, LLC , and IGX Support, LLC, including IGX Acquisition’s wholly-owned subsidiary, IGXGlobal UK Limited (collectively, "IGX") – Expanded our sales presence in New York and New England, as well as an operating branch in London that serves the U.K. and global customers.

 

We generally integrate acquired firms into the ePlus platform immediately, which allows us to maintain customers and vendor relationships, retain key employees from acquired firms, and accelerate growth.

We continue to review new acquisition opportunities to expand our global footprint and expand our offerings.

Financial Performance Characterized by Growth and Profitability

We have focused on achieving top-line revenue growth while maintaining industry-leading gross margins – with a compound annual growth rate of 7.5% on net sales and 9.6% for consolidated gross profit, respectively, from April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2018.

Through our organic expansion and acquisitions, we have increased our employee base by 41.6% from April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2018 while increasing adjusted gross billing per employee by approximately 14.8%. The increase in our employee base has largely been in customer facing roles.

GROWTH STRATEGY

Our goal is to continue to grow as a leading provider of technology solutions. The key elements of our strategy include the following:

Be Our Customers’ Partner of Choice for Comprehensive IT & Lifecycle Solutions, Including Consulting, Managed and Professional Services, and Financing

We seek to become the primary provider of IT solutions for each of our customers, whether on-premise, cloud, or managed services-based. We strive to provide excellent customer service, pricing, availability, and advanced professional and managed services in an efficient manner. We believe the increasing complexity of the IT ecosystem and the emergence of new technologies and vendors are factors that will lead to a growing demand from existing customers. We have a large number of experienced pre-sales engineers who are able to engage with customers about the most advanced technologies. Our account executives are trained on our broad solutions capabilities and to sell in a consultative manner that increases the likelihood of cross-selling our solutions, and are supported by experienced and professional inside sales representatives. We believe that our bundled offerings are an important differentiating factor from our competitors.

We focus on gaining top-level engineering certifications and professional services expertise in advanced technologies of strategic vendors. This expertise helps our customers develop their cloud capabilities including private, public, and hybrid infrastructures. We are providing virtual desktop infrastructure, unified communications, collaboration, networking, security, storage, big-data, mobility, converged and hyper-converged infrastructures, and managed services offerings, all of which remain in high demand. We believe our ability to deliver advanced professional services provides benefits in two ways. First, we gain recognition and mindshare of our strategic vendor partners and become the “go-to” partner in selected regional markets as well as the national market. This significantly increases direct and referral sales opportunities for our products and services, and allows us to offer competitive pricing levels. Second, within our existing and potential customer base, our advanced professional services are a key differentiator against competitors who cannot provide services or advanced services for these key technologies or across multiple vendor product lines.

During the last fiscal year, we have expanded our managed services offerings to include support for certain Palto Alto products, expanded our unified communications offerings to include call recording and support of Software Defined Networking with LiveAction performance analytics. We broadened our partner network to include additional security operations services, managed desktop services, and patch management.

Build Our Geographic Footprint

We intend to increase our direct sales and go-to-market capabilities in each of our geographic areas. We actively seek to acquire new account relationships through face-to-face field sales, electronic commerce, leveraging our partnerships with vendors, and targeted demand-generation activities to increase awareness of our solutions. We also seek to broaden our customer base, expand our geographic reach, and improve our technology and professional services delivery capabilities.

 

Recruit, Retain and Develop Employees

Based on our prior experience, capital structure, and business systems and processes, we believe we are well positioned to take advantage of hiring experienced sales people and engineers, make strategic acquisitions that expand our customer facing talent, broaden our customer base, expand our geographic reach, scale our existing operating structure, and/or enhance our product and service offerings. Part of our growth strategy is to hire purposefully, and evaluate strategic hiring opportunities if and when they become available. During the year ended March 31, 2018, as part of our expansion strategy, our customer facing sales and professional services team grew from 893 to 965.

Improve Operational Efficiencies

We continue to invest in our internal technology infrastructure and software platforms to optimize our operations, and engage in process re-engineering efforts to become more streamlined and cost effective.

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

We incur software development costs associated with maintaining, enhancing, or upgrading our proprietary software, which may be performed by internal IT development resources or by an offshore software-development company that we use to supplement our internal development team.

SALES AND MARKETING

We focus our sales and marketing efforts on becoming the primary provider of IT solutions for each of our customers. We seek to acquire new account relationships through face-to-face field sales, leveraging our partnerships with manufacturers and targeted direct marketing to increase awareness of our solutions. We target commercial enterprises, primarily middle market companies with annual revenues between $20 million and $2.5 billion and large companies, as well as larger state and local governments and educational institutions. We currently have over 3,200 customers. We undertake direct marketing campaigns to target certain markets in conjunction with our primary vendor partners, who may provide financial reimbursement, outsourced services, and personnel to assist us in these efforts.

Our sales representatives are compensated by a combination of salary and commission, with commission becoming the primary component of compensation as the sales representatives gain experience. To date, we acquired a majority of our customers through the efforts of our direct sales force and acquisitions. We market to different areas within a customer’s organization, including business units as well as the IT department, or finance department, depending on the solutions.

As of March 31, 2018, our sales force consisted of 499 sales, marketing and sales support personnel organized regionally in 39 office locations throughout the United States, United Kingdom, India, and Singapore.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Our success depends in part upon proprietary business methodologies and technologies that we have licensed and modified. We own certain software programs or have entered into software licensing agreements to provide services to our customers. We rely on a combination of patents, copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secret protection, confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements and licensing arrangements to establish and protect intellectual property rights. We seek to protect our software, documentation and other written materials under trade secret and copyright laws, which afford only limited protection.

For example in the United States we have six catalog management patents, a patent for collaborative editing of electronic documents over a network, a hosted asset information management patent, and an eCatalog supplier portal patent, among others. The earliest of the catalog management patents is scheduled to expire in 2024; and the patent for collaborative editing of electronic documents over a network is scheduled to expire in 2025, provided that all maintenance fees are paid in accordance with USPTO regulations. We also have certain patent rights in some European forums, Japan, and Canada. We cannot provide assurance that any patents, as issued, will prevent the development of competitive products or that our patents will not be successfully challenged by others or invalidated through the administrative process or litigation.

 

Our trademarks in the United States include e+ ®, ePlus®, eCloud ®, Procure+®, Manage+®, Docpak®, Viewmark®, OneSource®, and Where Technology Means More®. We intend to use and protect these and our other marks, as we deem necessary. We believe our trademarks have significant value and are an important factor in the marketing of our products. In addition to our trademarks, we have over 20 registered copyrights and additional common-law trademarks and copyrights.

Despite our efforts to protect our proprietary rights, unauthorized parties may attempt to copy aspects of our products or to obtain and use information that we regard as proprietary. Policing unauthorized use of our products is difficult and can be expensive, and while we are unable to determine the extent to which piracy of our software products exists, software piracy could be expected to be a persistent problem. Our means of protecting our proprietary rights may not be adequate, and our competitors may independently develop similar technology, duplicate our products or design around our proprietary intellectual property.

FINANCIAL AND RISK MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

Inventory Management: We have drop-shipment arrangements with many of our vendors and distributors, which permit us to offer products to our customers without having to take physical delivery of the equipment. Arrow Enterprises, Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Westcon-Comstor, and Synnex Corporation are our largest distributors. Using the distribution systems available, we frequently sell products that are shipped from the vendors or distributors directly to our customers’ location, which allows us to keep our inventory of any product and shipping expenses to a minimum. For the year ended March 31, 2018, our five largest distributors accounted for 33% of our purchases related to our technology segment net sales.

Sales of products manufactured by Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and HP, Inc. (collectively, “Hewlett Packard companies”), and NetApp, whether purchased directly from these vendors or through distributors, represented 43%, 6%, and 4%, respectively, of our technology segment net sales for the year ended March 31, 2018. Our flexible platform and customizable catalogs facilitate the addition of new vendors with minimal incremental effort.

Risk Management and Process Controls: We use and maintain conservative underwriting policies and disciplined credit approval processes in both our technology and financing segments. We have an executive management review process and other internal controls in place to evaluate transactions’ potential risk.

In our technology segment, we manage our risk by using conservative credit quality analysis and periodic monitoring of customer financial results or third-party risk evaluation tools; monitoring customer accounts receivable balances and payment history; proactively pursuing delinquent accounts; ensuring we have appropriate contractual terms and conditions; perfecting security interests when practicable; requiring prepayment or deposits if indicated; performing fraud checks for new accounts; and evaluating general economic as well as industry specific trends. Our systems automatically decrease trade credit lines based on assigned risk ratings.

In our financing segment, we manage our risk in assets we finance by assigning the contractual payments due under the financing arrangement to third-parties. We also use agency purchase orders to procure equipment for lease to our customers and otherwise take measures to minimize our inventory of financed assets. When our technology segment is the supplier of the assets being financed, we retain certain procurement risks. Our financing arrangements with our customers are generally fixed-rate.

Credit Risk Loss Experience: During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018, we increased our reserves for credit losses by $462 thousand, and incurred actual credit losses of $3,190 thousand. During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017, we increased our reserves for credit losses by $277 thousand, and incurred actual credit losses of $78 thousand. During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016, we decreased our reserves for credit losses by $272 thousand, incurred actual credit losses of $188 thousand, and had $30 thousand in recoveries.

BACKLOG

We rely on our vendors or distributors to fulfill a large majority of our shipments to our customers. As of March 31, 2018, we recorded customer commitments to purchase products or services that remain open until either executed or canceled (“open orders”) of $148.2 million and deferred revenue of $51.8 million. As of March 31, 2017, we had open orders of $184.1 million and deferred revenues of $70.0 million. We expect that the majority of open orders as of March 31, 2018 will be recognized within ninety days of that date. We also expect that 75% of the deferred revenues as of March 31, 2018 will be recognized within the next twelve months.

 

EMPLOYEES

As of March 31, 2018, we employed 1,260 employees who operated through 39 office locations, home offices and customer sites. No employees are represented by a labor union and we believe that we have good relations with our employees. The functional areas of our employees are as follows:

 

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION REPORTS

Our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and all amendments to those reports, filed with or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), are available free of charge through our Internet website, www.eplus.com, as soon as reasonably practical after we have electronically filed such material with, or furnished it to, the SEC. The public may read and copy any materials filed by us with the SEC at the SEC’s Public Reference Room at 100 F Street, NE, Room 1580, Washington, DC 20549. The public may obtain information on the operation of the Public Reference Room by calling the SEC at 1-202-551-8300. The SEC maintains an Internet site that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC at www.sec.gov. The contents on or accessible through these websites are not incorporated into this filing. Further, our references to the URLs for these websites are intended to be inactive textual references only.

 

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

The following table sets forth the name, age and position of each person who was an executive officer of ePlus on March 31, 2018. There are no family relationships between any directors or executive officers of ePlus.

The business experience of each executive officer of ePlus is described below:

Phillip Norton - Executive Chairman

Phillip G. Norton joined the company in March 1993 as Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, and became its Executive Chairman in 2016. Mr. Norton focuses on corporate strategy, acquisitions, and transactions within the financing segment as well as engages with customers. An entrepreneur who has successfully managed large companies, he started Systems Leasing Corporation in 1978 and sold it to PacifiCorp in 1985. At the time of his departure in 1990, PacifiCorp held assets of more than $800 million and was one of the largest third-party lessors in the country. Mr. Norton is a 1966 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.

Mark Marron - Chief Executive Officer and President, ePlus inc.

Mark P. Marron became the Chief Executive Officer and President of ePlus inc. on August 1, 2016. He began his career at ePlus in 2005 as Senior Vice President of Sales and became COO in 2010. A 30-year industry veteran, he was formerly with NetIQ where he held the position of Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Services. Prior to joining NetIQ, Mr. Marron served as General Manager of Worldwide Channel Sales for Computer Associates International Inc., a provider of software and services that enables organizations to manage their IT environments. Mr. Marron has extensive experience throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Montclair State University.

Elaine Marion - Chief Financial Officer

Elaine D. Marion joined us in 1998. Ms. Marion became our Chief Financial Officer on September 1, 2008. From 2004 to 2008, Ms. Marion served as our Vice President of Accounting. Prior to that, she was the Controller of ePlus Technology, inc., a subsidiary of ePlus, from 1998 to 2004. Ms. Marion currently serves on the Advisory Board of the School of Business at the University of Mary Washington and a member of the George Mason University School of Business Dean’s Advisory Council. Ms. Marion is a graduate of George Mason University, where she earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting.

 

ITEM 1A.

RISK FACTORS

General economic weakness may harm our operating results and financial condition.

Our results of operations are largely dependent upon the state of the economy. Global economic weakness and uncertainty may result in decreased sales, gross margin, and earnings or growth rates from our United States based customers and also from customers outside the U.S. For example, there continues to be substantial uncertainty regarding the economic impact of the Referendum on the United Kingdom’s Membership of the European Union (“EU”) (referred to as “Brexit”). Potential adverse consequences of Brexit such as global market uncertainty, volatility in currency exchange rates, greater restrictions on imports and exports between U.K. and EU countries and increased regulatory complexities could have a negative impact on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. In addition, material changes in trade agreements between the United States and other countries may, for example, affect our ability to purchase product, our product pricing and availability of product. Adverse economic conditions may decrease our customers’ demand for our products and services or impair the ability of our customers to pay for products and services they have purchased. As a result, our sales could decrease, and reserves for our credit losses and write-offs of receivables may increase.

If we lost one or more of our large volume customers, our earnings may be affected.

The contracts for the provision of products and services from us to our customers are generally non-exclusive agreements without volume purchase commitments, and are terminable by either party upon 30 days’ notice. The loss of one or more of our largest customers, the failure of such customers to pay amounts due to us, or a material reduction in the amount of purchases made by such customers could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial position, results of operations and cash flows.

For the years ended March 31, 2018 and 2017 sales to a single large technology customer was approximately 12% and 13% of net sales, respectively. For the year ended March 31, 2016, no single customer’s sales were greater than 10% of net sales.

Changes in the IT industry, customers’ usage or procurement of IT, and/or rapid changes in product standards may result in reduced demand for the IT hardware and software solutions and services we sell.

Our results of operations are influenced by a variety of factors, including the condition of the IT industry, shifts in demand for, or availability of, IT hardware, software, peripherals and services, and industry introductions of new products, upgrades, methods of distribution, and the nature of how IT is consumed and procured. The IT industry is characterized by rapid technological change and the frequent introduction of new products, product enhancements and new distribution methods or channels, each of which can decrease demand for current products or render them obsolete. In addition, the proliferation of cloud technology, IaaS, SaaS, platform as a service (“PaaS”), software defined networking, or other emerging technologies may reduce the demand for products and services we sell to our customers. Cloud offerings may influence our customers to move workloads to cloud providers, which may reduce the procurement of products and services from us. Changes in the IT industry may also affect the demand for our advanced professional and managed services. We have invested a significant amount of capital in our strategy to provide certain products and services, and it may fail due to competition or changes in the industry or improper focus or selection of the products and services we decide to offer. If we fail to react in a timely manner to such changes, our results of operations may be adversely affected. Our sales can be dependent on demand for specific product categories, and any change in demand for or supply of such products could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.

We depend on continued innovations in hardware, software and services offerings by our vendors, as well as the competitiveness of their offerings and our ability to partner with new and emerging technology providers.

The technology industry is characterized by rapid innovation and the frequent introduction of new and enhanced hardware, software and services offerings, such as cloud-based solutions, including IaaS, SaaS and PaaS. We depend on innovations in hardware, software and services offerings by our vendors, as well as the acceptance of those innovations by our customers for the offerings we sell. A decrease in the rate of innovation by our vendors, or the lack of acceptance of innovations by our customers, or a shift by customers to technology platforms that we do not sell, could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations or cash flows.

 

In addition, if we are unable to keep up with changes in technology and new hardware, software and services offerings––for example by not providing the appropriate training to our account managers, sales technology specialists and engineers to enable them to effectively sell and deliver such new offerings to customers––our business, results of operations or cash flows could be adversely affected.

We also depend upon our vendors for the development and marketing of hardware, software and services to compete effectively with hardware, software and services of vendors whose products and services we do not currently offer or are not authorized to offer in one or more customer channels. In addition, our success depends on our ability to develop relationships with and sell hardware, software and services from new emerging vendors and vendors that we have not historically represented in the marketplace. To the extent that a vendor's offering that is highly in demand is not available to us for resale in one or more customer channels, and there is not a competitive offering from another vendor that we are authorized to sell in such customer channels, or we are unable to develop relationships with new technology providers or companies that we have not historically represented, or we partner with a vendor that is not in demand or demand significantly decreases, our business, results of operations, or cash flows could be adversely impacted.

We rely on a small number of key vendors, and do not have long-term supply or guaranteed price agreements or assurance of stock availability with our vendors.

A substantial portion of our revenue within our technology segment depends on a small number of key vendors including Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard companies, and NetApp. Products manufactured by Cisco Systems represented approximately 43%, 47% and 49% of our technology segment net sales for the years ended March 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016, respectively. Products manufactured by Hewlett Packard companies represented approximately 6%, 6% and 7% of our technology segment net sales for the years ended March 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016, respectively. NetApp products represented approximately 4%, 5% and 5% of our technology segment net sales for the years ended March 31, 2018, 2017, and 2016, respectively.

Our industry frequently experiences periods of product shortages from our vendors as a result of our vendors’ difficulties in projecting demand for certain products we sell; additional trade law provisions or regulations; additional duties, tariffs or other charges on imports or exports; natural disasters affecting our suppliers’ facilities; and significant labor disputes. As we do not stock inventory that is not related to an order we have received from our customer, we depend upon the supply of products available from our vendors to fulfill orders from our customers on a timely basis. The loss of, or change in business relationship with, any of these or any other key vendor partners, the diminished availability of their products, or backlogs for their products leading to manufacturer allocation could reduce the supply and increase the cost of products we sell and negatively impact our competitive position.

The loss of a key vendor or changes in its policies could adversely impact our financial results. Violations of a contract that results in either the termination of our ability to sell the product or a decrease in our certification level with the vendor could adversely impact our financial results. In addition, a reduction in the trade credit lines or the favorable terms granted to us by our vendors and financial partners could increase our need for and cost of working capital and have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

We may experience a reduction in incentives offered to us, and earned by us, from our vendors that would affect our earnings.

We receive payments and credits from vendors, including consideration pursuant to volume incentive programs, shared marketing expense programs, and early pay discounts. These programs are usually of finite terms and may not be renewed or may be changed in a way that adversely affects us. Vendor funding is used to offset inventory costs, costs of goods sold, marketing costs and other operating expenses. Certain of these funds are based on our volume of purchases, growth rate of purchases, and marketing programs. If we do not grow our sales over prior periods, or if we do not comply with the terms of these programs, or do not sell certain products that earn the incentive, there could be a material negative effect on the amount of incentives offered or paid to us by vendors. We may not continue to receive such incentives or may not be able to collect outstanding amounts relating to these incentives in a timely manner, or at all. Any sizeable reduction in, the discontinuance of, a significant delay in receiving, or the inability to collect such incentives, particularly related to incentive programs with our largest vendors, including Cisco Systems and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition. If we are unable to react timely to any fundamental changes in the programs of vendors, including the elimination of funding for some of the activities for which we have been compensated in the past, such changes could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

 

We depend on third-party companies to perform certain of our obligations to our customers, which if not performed could cause significant disruption to our business.

We rely on arrangements with third-parties to perform certain professional services, managed services, warranties, configuration services, and other services for our customers. If these third-parties do not perform these in accordance with the terms of our agreement and of a professional standard customary for the services, or if they cause disruption of or security weaknesses in our customers’ businesses, legal claims, or costs to our organization could result, including monetary damages paid to our customers, an adverse effect on our customer relationships, our brand, and our reputation, and our results of operations or cash flows could be affected.

We rely on independent shipping companies to deliver products from us and our vendors to our customers. The failure or inability of these shipping companies to deliver products, or the unavailability of their shipping services, even temporarily, could have an adverse effect on our business. We may also be adversely affected by an increase in freight surcharges that may result from economic, supply-chain, geopolitical, or other disruptions.

We may not have designed or maintained our IT systems to support our business.

We depend heavily upon the accuracy and reliability of our information, telecommunication and other systems including the operation of redundant systems if and when there are failures in our primary systems, which are used for sales, distribution, marketing, purchasing, inventory management, order processing, customer service and general accounting functions. We must continually maintain and improve our systems. The protections we have in place address a variety of threats to our information technology systems, both internal and external and human error. Poor security practices or design of our IT systems or IT systems from third-parties which we utilize, or third-party service providers’ failure to provide adequate services could result in the disclosure of sensitive of confidential information or personal information or cause other business interruptions that could damage our reputation and disrupt our business. Interruption or poor design of our information systems, Internet, telecommunications systems or power failures could have a material adverse effect on our business, our reputation, financial condition, cash flows, or results of operations.

Our managed services business requires us to monitor our customers’ devices on their network in varying levels of service. If we have not designed our IT systems to provide this service accurately or if there is a security breach in our IT system or the customers’ systems, we may be liable for claims.

We rely on the competency of our internal IT personnel. Our failure to hire, train and supervise competent IT personnel to secure our data, design redundant systems, or design and maintain our technology systems including our data and voice networks, and applications, could significantly interrupt our business causing a negative impact on our results.

Breaches of data security and the failure to protect our information technology systems from cybersecurity threats could adversely impact our business.

Our business involves the storage and transmission of proprietary information and sensitive or confidential data, including personal information of our employees, customers and others. In addition, we operate data centers for our customers that host their technology infrastructure and may store and transmit both business-critical data and confidential information. In connection with our services business, some of our employees also have access to our customers’ confidential data and other information. We have privacy and data security policies in place that are designed to prevent security breaches; however, as newer technologies evolve, and the portfolio of the service providers we share confidential information with grows, we could be exposed to increased risk of breaches in security and other illegal or fraudulent acts, including cyberattacks. The evolving nature of such threats, in light of new and sophisticated methods used by criminals and cyberterrorists, including computer viruses, malware, phishing, misrepresentation, social engineering and forgery, are making it increasingly challenging to anticipate and adequately mitigate these risks.

 

We may not adequately protect ourselves through our contract vehicles, or our insurance policies may not be adequate to address potential losses or claims.

Our contracts may not protect us against the risks inherent in our business including, but not limited to, warranties, limitations of liability, indemnification obligations, human resources and subcontractor-related claims, patent and product liability, data security and privacy, and financing activities. Also, we face pressure from our customers for competitive pricing contract terms. Despite the non-recourse nature of the loans financing certain of our activities, non-recourse lenders may file suit if the underlying transaction turns out poorly for the lenders. We are subject to such claims and the cost of defending such claims due to the nature of our business.

We also are subject to audits by various vendor partners and customers, including government agencies, relating to purchases and sales under various contracts. In addition, we are subject to indemnification claims under various contracts.

If we fail to perform sufficient due diligence prior to completing an acquisition, or entering into a strategic alliance, or fail to integrate a completed acquisition our earnings may be affected.

Our ability to successfully integrate the operations we acquire, reduce costs, or leverage these operations to generate revenue and earnings growth, could significantly impact future revenue and earnings. Integrating acquired operations is a significant challenge, may divert management’s attention from other business concerns, and there is no assurance that we will be able to manage the integrations successfully. Failure to successfully integrate acquired operations may adversely affect our cost structure thereby reducing our gross margins and return on investment. In addition, we may fail to perform adequate due diligence and acquire entities with unknown liabilities, fraud, cultural or business environment issues, or that may not have adequate internal controls as may be required by law.

If we acquire a company that does not fit culturally, strategically, or in some other fashion, the acquisition may not produce the expected results or may negatively affect our reputation, which may negatively affect our business, results of operations, or cash flows.

In addition, our financial results could be adversely affected by financial adjustments required by generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America (“GAAP”) in connection with these types of transactions where significant goodwill or intangible assets are recorded. To the extent the value of goodwill or identifiable intangible assets with indefinite lives becomes impaired; we may be required to incur material charges relating to the impairment of those assets

We depend on having creditworthy customers to avoid an adverse impact on our operating results and financial condition.

Our financing and technology segments require sufficient amounts of debt or equity capital to fund our equipment purchases. If the credit quality of our customer base materially decreases, or if we experience a material increase in our credit losses, we may find it difficult to continue to obtain the required capital for our business, and our operating results and financial condition may be harmed. In addition to the impact on our ability to attract capital, a material increase in our delinquency and default experience would itself have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, and financial condition. We are also subject to changes, if any, in our lenders’ willingness to provide financing for different, particularly lower, credit quality lessees.

As of March 31, 2018 and 2017, we had reserves for credit losses of $2.7 million and $5.4 million, respectively. Our reserve for credit losses as of March 31, 2017 included a specific reserve of $3.2 million due to a customer that filed for bankruptcy in May 2012, which was written-off during our fiscal year 2018.

We may be liable for misappropriation of our customers’ or employees’ information.

Third-parties, such as hackers, could circumvent or sabotage the security practices and products used in our product and service offerings, and/or the security practices or products used in our internal IT systems, which could result in disclosure of sensitive or personal information, unauthorized procurement, or other business interruptions that could damage our reputation and disrupt our business. Attacks may range from random attempts to coordinated and targeted attacks, including sophisticated computer crime and advanced persistent threats.

 

If third-parties or our employees are able to penetrate our network security or otherwise misappropriate our customers’ information or employees’ personal information, or other information for which our customers may be responsible and for which we agree to be responsible in connection with service contracts into which we may enter, or if we give third-parties or our employees improper access to certain information, we could be subject to liability. This liability could include claims for unauthorized access to devices on our network; unauthorized access to our customers’ networks, applications, devices, or software; unauthorized purchases with credit card information; and identity theft or other similar fraud-related claims. This liability could also include claims for other misuses of personal information. Other liability could include claims alleging misrepresentation of our privacy and data security practices. Any such liability for misappropriation of this information could decrease our profitability. In addition, federal and state agencies have been investigating various companies regarding whether they misused or inadequately secured information. We could incur additional expenses when new laws or regulations regarding the use of information are enacted, or if governmental agencies require us to substantially modify our privacy or security practices.

Advances in computer capabilities, new discoveries in the field of cryptography, or other events or developments may result in a compromise or breach of the security practices we use to protect sensitive customer transaction information and employee information. A party who is able to circumvent our security measures could misappropriate proprietary information or cause interruptions in our operations. Further, third-parties may attempt to fraudulently induce employees or customers into disclosing sensitive information such as user names, passwords, or other information or otherwise compromise the security of our internal networks and/or our customers’ information. Since techniques used to obtain unauthorized access change frequently and the size and severity of security breaches are increasing, we may be unable to implement adequate preventative measures or stop security breaches while they are occurring.

We may be required to expend significant capital and other resources to protect against security breaches or to alleviate problems caused by such breaches. Our security measures are designed to protect against security breaches, but our failure to prevent such security breaches could cause us to incur significant expense to investigate and respond to a security breach and correct any problems caused by any breach, subject us to liability, damage our reputation, and diminish the value of our brand. There can be no assurance that the limitations of liability in our contracts would be enforceable or adequate, or would otherwise protect us from any such liabilities or damages with respect to any particular claim. We also cannot be sure that our existing insurance coverage for errors and omissions will continue to be available on acceptable terms or in sufficient amounts to cover one or more large claims, or that our insurers will not deny coverage as to any future claim. The successful assertion of one or more large claims against us that exceeds our available insurance coverage, or changes in our insurance policies, including premium increases or the imposition of large deductible or co-insurance requirements, could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

We may not be able to hire and/or retain personnel that we need.

To increase market awareness and sales of our offerings, we may need to expand our sales operations and marketing efforts in the future. Our products and services require a sophisticated sales effort and significant technical engineering talent. For example, our sales and engineering candidates must have highly technical hardware and software knowledge to create a customized solution for our customers’ business processes. Competition for qualified sales, marketing and engineering personnel fluctuates depending on market conditions and we may not be able to hire or retain sufficient numbers of such personnel to maintain and grow our business. Frequently, our competitors require their employees to agree to non-compete and non-solicitation agreements as part of their employment. This makes it more difficult for us to hire, and increases our costs by reviewing and managing non-compete restrictions. Additionally, in some cases our relationship with a customer may be impacted by turnover in our sales or engineering team.

 

Failure to comply with our public sector contracts or applicable laws and regulations could result in, among other things, termination, fines or other liabilities, and changes in procurement regulations could adversely impact our business.

Revenues in our public sector are derived from sales to state and local government and educational institution (“SLED”) customers, through various contracts and open market sales of products and services. Sales to SLED customers are highly regulated. Noncompliance with contract provisions, government procurement regulations, or other applicable laws or regulations could result in civil, criminal, and administrative liability, including substantial monetary fines or damages, termination of SLED sector customer contracts, and suspension, debarment, or ineligibility from doing business with the government and other customers in the SLED sector. In addition, contracts in the SLED sector are generally terminable at any time for convenience of the contracting agency or upon default, and are subject to audits. The effect of any of these possible actions could adversely affect our business, results of operations or cash flows. In addition, the adoption of new or modified procurement regulations and other requirements may increase our compliance costs and reduce our gross margins, which could have a negative effect on our business, results of operations, or cash flows.

Loss of services by any of our executive officers or senior management and/or failure to successfully implement our succession plan could adversely affect our business.

The loss of the services by our executive officers or senior management and/or failure to successfully implement a succession plan could disrupt management of our business and impair the execution of our business strategies. We believe that our success depends in part upon our ability to retain the services of our executive officers and senior management and successfully implement a succession plan. Our executive officers are at the forefront in determining our strategic direction and focus. The loss of our executive officers’ and senior management’s services without replacement by qualified successors could adversely affect our ability to manage effectively our overall operations and successfully execute current or future business strategies, and could cause other instability within our workforce

We face substantial competition from other companies.

In our technology segment, we compete in all areas of our business against local, regional, national, and international firms, including other direct marketers; national and regional resellers; and regional, national, and international service providers. In addition, we face competition from vendors, which may choose to market their products directly to end-users, rather than through channel partners such as our company, and this could adversely affect our future sales. Many competitors compete based principally on price and may have lower costs or accept lower selling prices than we do and, therefore, our gross margins may not be maintainable. Our competitors may offer better or different products and services than we offer. In addition, we do not have guaranteed purchasing volume commitments from our customers and, therefore, our sales volume may be volatile.

In our financing segment, we face competition from many sources including much larger companies with greater financial resources. Our competition may originate from vendors of the products we finance or financial partners who choose to market directly to customers through the vendors’ captive leasing organization or large or regional financial institutions such as banks with substantially lower cost of funds. Our competition may lower lease rates to increase market share.

We rely on inventory and accounts receivable financing arrangements for working capital and our accounts payable processing.

The loss of the technology segment’s credit facility could have a material adverse effect on our future results as we rely on this facility and its components for daily working capital and the operational function of our accounts payable process. Our credit agreement contains various covenants that must be met each quarter. There can be no assurance that we will continue to meet those covenants and failure to do so may limit availability of, or cause us to lose, such financing. There can be no assurance that such financing will continue to be available to us in the future on acceptable terms.

 

Failure to comply with new laws or changes to existing laws may adversely impact our business.

Our operations are subject to numerous U.S. and foreign laws and regulations in a number of areas including, but not limited to, areas of labor and employment, immigration, advertising, e-commerce, tax, import and export requirements, anti-corruption, data privacy requirements, anti-competition, and environmental, health, and safety. Compliance with these laws, regulations, and similar requirements may be onerous and expensive, and they may be inconsistent from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, further increasing the cost of compliance and doing business, and the risk of noncompliance. We have implemented policies and procedures designed to help ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations, but there can be no guarantee against employees, contractors, or agents violating such laws and regulations or our policies and procedures.

Changes in accounting rules, or the misapplication of current accounting rules, may adversely affect our future financial results.

We prepare our financial statements in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. These accounting principles are subject to interpretation by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the SEC, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (“AICPA”) and various other bodies formed to interpret and create appropriate accounting policies. Future periodic assessments required by current or new accounting standards may result in noncash charges and/or changes in presentation or disclosure. In addition, any change in accounting standards may influence our customers’ decision to purchase from us or finance transactions with us, which could have a significant adverse effect on our financial position or results of operations.

We are required to determine if we are the principal or agent in all transactions with our customers. The voluminous number of products and services we sell, and the manner in which they are bundled, are technologically complex. Mischaracterization of these products and services could result in misapplication of revenue recognition polices. We use estimates where necessary, such as allowance for doubtful accounts and the cost to perform professional and managed services, which require judgment and are based on best available information. If we are unable to accurately estimate the cost of these services or the time-line for completion of contracts, the profitability of our contracts may be materially and adversely affected.

If we publish inaccurate catalog content data, our business could suffer.

Any defects or errors in our electronic catalog content data could harm our customers or deter businesses from participating in our offerings, damage our business reputation, harm our ability to attract new customers, and potentially expose us to liability. In addition, from time to time vendors who provide us electronic catalog data could submit to us inaccurate pricing or other catalog data. Even though such inaccuracies are not caused by our work and are outside of our control, such inaccuracies could deter current and potential customers from using our products or result in inaccurate pricing to our customers.

We may not be able to realize our entire investment in the equipment we lease.

The realization of the residual value of the equipment we lease, predominantly at the end of the term of a lease, as well as during the life of the lease, is an important element in our financing segment. At the inception of each lease, we record a residual value for the leased equipment based on our estimate of the value of the equipment at the expected disposition date.

A decrease in the market value of leased equipment at a rate greater than the rate we projected, whether due to rapid technological or economic obsolescence, excessive or unusual wear and tear on the equipment, or other factors, would adversely affect the recoverability of the estimated residual values of such equipment. Further, certain equipment residual values are dependent on the vendor’s warranties, reputation, rules regarding relicensing of software to operate the equipment, and other factors, including market liquidity. In addition, we may not realize the full market value of equipment if we are required to sell it to meet liquidity needs or for other reasons outside of the ordinary course of business. Consequently, there can be no assurance that we will realize our estimated residual values for equipment.

 

The degree of residual realization risk varies by transaction type. Direct financing leases bear less risk because contractual payments typically cover 90% or more of the equipment’s lease cost at inception. Operating leases have a higher degree of risk because a smaller percentage of the equipment’s value is covered by contractual cash flows at lease inception.

Our earnings may fluctuate, which could adversely affect the price of our common stock.

Our earnings are susceptible to fluctuations for a number of reasons, including, but not limited to, the risk factors discussed herein. In the event our sales or net earnings are less than the level expected by the market in general, such shortfall could have an immediate and significant adverse impact on the market price of our common stock.

We may be required to take impairment charges for goodwill or other intangible assets related to acquisitions.

We have acquired certain portions of our business and assets through acquisitions. Further, as part of our long-term business strategy, we may continue to pursue acquisitions of other companies or assets. In connection with prior acquisitions, we have accounted for the portion of the purchase price paid in excess of the book value of the assets acquired as goodwill or intangible assets, and we may be required to account for similar premiums paid on future acquisitions in the same manner.

Under the applicable accounting principles, goodwill is not amortized and is carried on our books at its original value, subject to annual review and evaluation for impairment, whereas intangible assets are amortized over the life of the asset. Changes in the business itself, the economic environment (including business valuation levels and trends), or the legislative or regulatory environment may trigger a review and evaluation of our goodwill and intangible assets for potential impairment outside of the normal review periods. These changes may adversely affect either the fair value of the business or our individual reporting units and we may be required to take an impairment charge.

If market and economic conditions deteriorate, this could increase the likelihood that we will need to record impairment charges to the extent the carrying value of our goodwill exceeds the fair value of our overall business. Such impairment charges could materially adversely affect our net earnings during the period in which the charge is taken. As of March 31, 2018, we had goodwill and other intangible assets of $76.6 million and $26.3 million, respectively.

We face risks of claims from third-parties for intellectual property infringement that could harm our business.

We may be subject to claims that our products and services, or products that we resell, infringe on the intellectual property rights of third-parties. The vendor of certain products or services we resell may not provide us with indemnification for infringement; however, our customers may seek indemnification from us. We could incur substantial costs in defending infringement claims against ourselves and our customers. In the event of a claim of infringement, we and our customers may be required to obtain one or more licenses from third-parties. We may not be able to obtain such licenses from third-parties at a reasonable cost or at all. Defense of any lawsuit or failure to obtain any such required license could significantly increase our expenses and/or adversely affect our ability to offer one or more of our services.

Our results of operations are subject to fluctuations in foreign currency.

Our subsidiaries IGXGlobal UK Limited. and IGX Capital UK, Ltd. were formed and operate in the U.K. We also have an Indian subsidiary, Cloud Uno Ltd, which operates in India and a Singapore subsidiary, Cloud Uno, which operates in Singapore. As result of these foreign presences, we have additional exposure to fluctuations in foreign currency rates resulting primarily from the translation exposure associated with the preparation of our consolidated financial statements. We also have a Canadian subsidiary, ePlus Canada Company, which owns property in Canada. While our consolidated financial statements are reported in U.S. dollars, the financial statements of our subsidiaries outside the U.S. are prepared using the local currency as the functional currency and translated into U.S. dollars. As a result, fluctuations in the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar relative to the local currencies of our international subsidiaries in Canada and the U.K. could cause fluctuations in our results of operations. We also have foreign currency exposure to the extent net sales and purchases are not denominated in a subsidiary’s functional currency, which could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations, or cash flows.

 

Our software products and services subject us to challenges and risks in a rapidly evolving market.

As a provider of a comprehensive set of solutions, which involves the bundling of direct IT sales, advanced professional and managed services, and financing with our proprietary software, we expect to encounter some of the challenges, risks, difficulties, and uncertainties frequently encountered by companies providing bundled solutions in rapidly evolving markets. Some of these challenges include our ability to increase the total number of users of our services, adapt to meet changes in our markets and competitive developments, or continue to update our technology to enhance the features and functionality of our suite of products. Our business strategy may not be successful or successfully address these and other challenges, risks, and uncertainties.

In the software market, a number of companies market business-to-business electronic commerce solutions similar to ours, and competitors are adapting their product offerings to a SaaS platform. We may not be able to compete successfully against current or future competitors, and competitive pressures faced by us may harm our business, operating results, or financial condition. We also face indirect competition from potential customers’ internal development efforts and have to overcome potential customers’ reluctance to move away from legacy systems and processes.

In all of our markets, some of our competitors have longer operating histories and greater financial, technical, marketing, and other resources than we do. In addition, some of these competitors may be able to respond more quickly to new or changing opportunities, technologies, and customer requirements. Many current competitors may have, and potential competitors may have, greater name recognition, engage in more extensive promotional marketing and advertising activities, offer more attractive terms to customers, and adopt more aggressive pricing and credit policies than we do. We may not be successful in achieving revenue growth and may incur additional costs associated with our software products, which may have a material adverse effect on our future operating results as a whole.

If our proprietary software products contain defects, our business could suffer.

Products as complex as those used to provide our electronic commerce solutions or cloud automation solutions, such as scripts, often contain unknown and undetected errors, performance problems, or use open source code. We may have serious defects immediately following introduction of new products or enhancements to existing products. Undetected errors or performance problems may not be discovered in the future and certain errors we consider to be minor may be serious to our customers. Our software products, or automation solutions, may be circumvented or sabotaged by third-parties such as hackers, which could result in the disclosure of sensitive information or personal information, unauthorized procurement, or cause other business interruptions that could damage our reputation and disrupt our business. Attacks may range from random attempts to coordinated and targeted attacks, including sophisticated computer crime and advanced persistent threats. In addition, our customers may experience a loss in connectivity by our proprietary software solutions because of a power loss at our data center, Internet interruption, or defects in our software. This could result in lost revenues, delays in customer acceptance, security breaches, and unforeseen liabilities that would be detrimental to our reputation and to our business.

We may be unable to protect our intellectual property and costs to protect our intellectual property may affect our earnings.

The success of our business strategy depends, in part, upon proprietary technology and other intellectual property rights. To date, we have relied primarily on a combination of copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret laws, and contractual provisions with our customers, subcontractors and employees to protect our proprietary technology. It may be possible for unauthorized third-parties to copy certain portions of our products or reverse engineer or obtain and use information that we regard as proprietary. Some of our agreements with our customers and technology licensors contain residual clauses regarding confidentiality and the rights of third-parties to obtain the source code for our products. These provisions may limit our ability to protect our intellectual property rights in the future that could seriously harm our business and operating results. Our means of protecting our intellectual property rights may not be adequate.

 

The legal and associated costs to protect our intellectual property may significantly increase our expenses and have a material adverse effect on our operating results. We may deem it necessary to protect our intellectual property rights and significant expenses could be incurred with no certainty of the results of these potential actions. Costs relative to lawsuits are usually expensed in the periods incurred and there is no certainty in recouping any of the amounts expended regardless of the outcome of any action.

If securities analysts do not publish research or reports about our company, or if they issue unfavorable commentary about us or our industry or downgrade our common stock, the price of our common stock could decline.

The trading market for our common stock depends in part on the research and reports that third-party securities analysts publish about us and our industry. One or more analysts could downgrade our common stock, or issue other negative commentary about us or our industry. If one or more of the analysts that covers us cease coverage, we could lose visibility in the market or such discontinuance may be viewed negatively by the market. As a result of one or more of these factors, the trading price of our common stock could decline.

Future offerings of debt or equity securities, which would rank senior to our common stock, may adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

If, in the future, we decide to issue debt or equity securities that rank senior to our common stock, it is likely that such securities will be governed by an indenture or other instrument containing covenants restricting our operating flexibility. Additionally, any convertible or exchangeable securities that we issue in the future may have rights, preferences and privileges more favorable than those of our common stock, and may result in dilution to owners of our common stock. We and, indirectly, our stockholders, will bear the cost of issuing and servicing such securities. Because our decision to issue debt or equity securities in any future offering will depend on market conditions and other factors beyond our control, we cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing, or nature of our future offerings, if any. Thus, holders of our common stock will bear the risk of our future offerings reducing the market price of our common stock and diluting the value of their stock holdings in our common stock.

 

ITEM 1B.

UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS

None.

ITEM 2.

PROPERTIES

As of March 31, 2018, we operated from 39 office locations, and a number of home offices or customer sites. Our total leased square footage as of March 31, 2018, was approximately 280 thousand square feet for which we incurred rent expense of approximately $429 thousand per month. Some of our subsidiaries operate in shared office space to improve sales, marketing and cost efficiency. Five of our office locations include dedicated or shared space configuration centers; which include two locations in California, and locations in Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia. Some sales and technical service personnel operate from either home offices or space that is provided for by another entity or are located on a customer site.

Our largest office location is in Herndon, Virginia. The leasing contract extends to December 31, 2020, and contains a renewal option to extend the lease through December 31, 2022.

ITEM 3.

LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

ITEM 4.

MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES

Not Applicable

 

PART II

ITEM 5.

MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

MARKET INFORMATION

At March 31, 2018, our common stock traded on The NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “PLUS.” The following table sets forth the range of high and low sales prices for our common stock during each quarter of the two fiscal years ended March 31, 2018, and 2017. Per share amounts for the dates presented in the table have been retroactively restated to reflect the stock split. See Note 1 “Organization and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” and Note 10 “Stockholders’ Equity” in the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this report for additional information on the stock split.

 

On May 22, 2018, the closing price of our common stock was $90.45per share. On May 22, 2018, there were 144 stockholders of record of our common stock. We believe there are approximately 8,900 beneficial holders of our common stock.

DIVIDEND POLICIES AND RESTRICTIONS

We did not pay any cash dividends on our common stock during the fiscal years ended March 31, 2018 and 2017. Holders of our common stock are entitled to dividends if and when declared by our Board of Directors (“Board”) out of funds legally available. Generally we have retained our earnings for use in the business. We currently intend to retain future earnings to fund ongoing operations and finance the growth and development of our business. Any future determination concerning the payment of dividends will depend upon our financial condition, results of operations, capital requirements and any other factors deemed relevant by our Board.

 

PURCHASES OF OUR COMMON STOCK

The following table provides information regarding our purchases of ePlus inc. common stock during the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018. The numbers of shares and price per share for the prior periods presented in the table have been retroactively restated to reflect the stock split. See Note 1 “Organization and Summary of Significant Accounting Policies” and Note 10 “Stockholders’ Equity” in the consolidated financial statements included elsewhere in this report for additional information on the stock split.

 

(1)

All shares acquired were in open-market purchases, except for 54,546 and 3,179 shares, which were repurchased in June and July 2017, respectively, to satisfy tax withholding obligations that arose due to the vesting of shares of restricted stock.

(2)

The share purchase authorization in place for the month ended April 30, 2017 had purchase limitations on the number of shares of up to 1,000,000 shares. As of April 30, 2017, the remaining authorized shares to be purchased were 1,000,000.

(3)

The share purchase authorization in place for the month ended May 31, 2017 had purchase limitations on the number of shares of up to 1,000,000 shares. As of May 31, 2017, the remaining authorized shares to be purchased were 1,000,000.

(4)

The share purchase authorization in place for the month ended June 30, 2017 had purchase limitations on the number of shares of up to 1,000,000 shares. As of June 30, 2017, the remaining authorized shares to be purchased were 1,000,000.

(5)

The share purchase authorization in place for the month ended July 31, 2017 had purchase limitations on the number of shares of up to 1,000,000 shares. As of July 31, 2017, the remaining authorized shares to be purchased were 1,000,000.

(6)

As of August 18, 2017 the authorization under the then existing share purchase plan expired.

(7)

On August 15, 2017, the board of directors authorized the company to repurchase up to 500,000 shares of our outstanding common stock commencing on August 19, 2017 through August 18, 2018. As of August 31, 2017, the remaining authorized shares to be purchased were 500,000.

(8)

The share purchase authorization in place for the month ended September 30, 2017 had purchase limitations on the number of shares of up to 500,000 shares. As of September 30, 2017, the remaining authorized shares to be purchased were 500,000.

(9)

The share purchase authorization in place for the month ended October 31, 2017 had purchase limitations on the number of shares of up to 500,000 shares. As of October 31, 2017, the remaining authorized shares to be purchased were 500,000.

(10)

The share purchase authorization in place for the month ended November 30, 2017 had purchase limitations on the number of shares of up to 500,000 shares. As of November 30, 2017, the remaining authorized shares to be purchased were 443,293.

(11)

The share purchase authorization in place for the month ended December 31, 2017 had purchase limitations on the number of shares of up to 500,000 shares. As of December 31, 2017, the remaining authorized shares to be purchased were 374,395.

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