CCC Intelligent Solutions at Citi’s 2025 Conference: Strategic Expansion Insights

On Thursday, 04 September 2025, CCC Intelligent Solutions Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:CCCS) took the stage at Citi’s 2025 Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference. The company provided a strategic overview of its operations, highlighting the positive momentum in its SaaS platform’s expansion into new markets, alongside challenges posed by evolving consumer behaviors and delayed deal implementations.

Key Takeaways

• CCC’s acquisition of EvolutionIQ aims to expand its footprint in workers’ comp and disability, focusing on cross-selling opportunities.
• The company reaffirmed its long-term organic growth target of 7% to 10%.
• CCC’s Estimate STP tool is gaining traction, with plans to increase adoption beyond the current 4% of claims.
• Despite a decline in claims volume, CCC maintains that these are not structural and are influenced by consumer behavior.
• The company is targeting a 100 basis points margin expansion annually, with a focus on operational performance and strategic acquisitions.

Financial Results

• CCC reported approximately $1 billion in run rate revenue, with a gross dollar retention rate near 99%.
• Margins are currently in the forties, with a target to reach mid-40s.
• Organic growth for Q1 was 7%, increasing to 8% in Q2.
• Claims volume experienced a year-over-year decline of 9% in Q1, slightly improving to 8% in Q2.

Operational Updates

• The EvolutionIQ acquisition is expected to enhance efficiency in claims departments, with cross-selling potential to CCC’s auto casualty clients.
• CCC’s business model is predominantly subscription-based, contributing to stability in revenue.
• Emerging solutions, like Estimate STP, are a focus area, currently contributing about 4% to total revenue.
• Casualty claims are on the rise, with the casualty business aiming to reach similar penetration levels as the APD side.

Future Outlook

• CCC is concentrating on scaling its emerging solutions and growing the casualty business.
• The company anticipates more significant contributions from emerging solutions in 2026.
• Strategic M&A is prioritized for product expansion and international opportunities.
• Capital allocation balances between M&A and share buybacks to enhance shareholder value.

Q&A Highlights

• Implementation of EvolutionIQ takes longer due to client data requirements, but the potential revenue impact is substantial.
• Current declines in claims volumes are attributed to consumer behavior, not structural changes.
• P&C customers show an increasing interest in automation and digital transformation, aligning with CCC’s strategic initiatives.

For a detailed discussion, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Citi’s 2025 Global Technology, Media and Telecommunications Conference:

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Day two of the Citi Tech Conference. I’m Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software. And to kick things off, we’re, excited to have the the CCC team. We got Brian Erb, the CFO, and Bill Warmington from Investor Relations. Gentlemen, thanks for for joining us again this year.

And for those, you know, listening along, I thought it’d be great, Brian, if you could just give an overview of the CCC business for those who aren’t familiar.

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. Sounds good. Thanks for having us again this year. It’s great to be here. Yeah.

So CCC, we’re a SaaS platform. We serve the insurance economy. So the business has largely been focused through auto claims and helping to facilitate, an auto claim process. And so our software, our platform tools in AI, we connect a multisided network. So we have our software into insurance companies, about 300 insurance companies.

We connect them to body shops. We have 30,000 body shop clients, over 30,000. We connect them to part suppliers, over 5,000 part suppliers. And so that software in our workflow connects those trade partners to help facilitate, the resolution of an auto claim, and that’s where the business has been largely focused. We have expanded, more recently with an acquisition, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that.

But we closed a deal in January, a company called EvolutionIQ, and it expanded us into workers’ comp and to disability. So software, again, using AI and software, helping insurance companies facilitate and process a disability claim or a workers’ comp claim. So that business was acquired this year. When you think about the financial profile of the business, we’re about a billion dollars of run rate revenue. We have margins in in the forties.

We have software is very sticky along with the multisided network. We keep clients for a very long time on the platform. We have a gross dollar retention of of around 99%. So that hopefully gives you to an overall profile of of what we do and kind of the sizing of of the business. I don’t know, Bill, anything to add?

Bill Warmington, Investor Relations, CCC: I would just add that I think one of the really unique things about CCC is that it’s this combination of a vertical software company and a network, you know, with very high levels of subscription revenue and and 99% retention. It’s it’s really an outstanding business.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Yeah. You know, particularly for, you know, the auto repair side, which is a lot of small businesses. You know, you don’t see that type of retention rate in in SMB software. So maybe as you as you we just think about what’s top of mind for customers. Right?

And, obviously, you have a interesting purview into a variety of of customers within the base. You just talked about, you know, auto repair shops, PNC insurers, and some of the suppliers. But what is top of mind for them as it relates to running their business in in terms of, you know, efficiencies thereafter, and how are you thinking about what you can help them out with in terms of the CCC platform?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So the couple of macro trends that that are on our clients’ minds. I mean, first is just the rise of complexity.

So when you think about an auto claim and a car getting repaired, you know, there’s just increased complexity around that, and that can be complexity of the car. It can be complexity of medical procedures with bodily injury related to an auto claim. The ecosystem continues to expand, and there’s more and more players that are helping facilitate a a claim, and that drives complexity as well. So, our software helping to address that complexity is as, you know, insurers and auto body shops work through a a claim. The second is just a shift in workforce.

So we’re seeing a lot of our clients, and it’s both on the carrier side and the shop side, where some of the more experienced staff workers are retiring out, and they’re bringing in a whole another a a new level of of more inexperienced workers. And so that they’re losing a lot of history, a lot of knowledge in that transition, and our software also helps through that transition. And then the third is just inflationary cost pressures that’s in the ecosystem. So that’s, the cost to repair a car, the the cost of parts are rising, medical inflation for bodily injury that’s related to a auto claim, those are all rising. And one of the things that we really do across our clients is help them with operational efficiency and start to help them address some of the cost pressures that they have.

So those are some of the the macro trends that our clients are facing.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Got it. And you you hit on this in your opening remarks around the acquisition of EvolutionIQ, but talk to us. I mean, this was a a certainly larger acquisition, you know, in terms of the the price paid. Obviously, pretty interesting space, high growth asset and everything. But just walk us through the thought process on on that acquisition and and how it fits into the technology stack.

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. I mean, we we touched on a little bit, but just if if you step all the way back and you think at the most basic level, you know, core CCC is helping our clients facilitate and process an auto claim. And EvolutionIQ, what they do is they use AI to help insurers process a disability claim or a workers’ comp claim. And so at the most basic level, there there’s consistency in software driving efficiency through the claims departments, and helping them get to resolution in a seamless and effective and efficient way of of a claim. And so that’s that’s at the the most basic level.

From just a a fit perspective, it’s a, you know, fantastic technology stack, a really strong leadership team, great, team overall. And so from a cultural fit, it it was a really good, meshing as well. And then there’s a really impactful opportunity as we think about some of what they do and porting those capabilities over to our clients. So when you think about our auto casualty clients, some of Evolution IQ’s AI and software would be incrementally incremental, opportunities to to cross sell into that base. And so that becomes really impactful for us as well.

And one example is a platform called MedHUB. So what MedHUB is, it’s a medical summarization, medical synthesis platform that takes in both unstructured and structured medical data and and brings it all into a portal and helps the claim handler process that information in a really effective way and also highlights the things that the claim handler should be focused on. We don’t have that capabilities, and those capabilities certainly are very relevant for our p and c clients that are dealing with auto casualty claims. And so the opportunity there is to bring that technology and cross sell it into our casualty base as one example. And there’ll be other examples of other technology from EvolutionIQ that we can cross sell into our clients.

But that cross selling opportunity is a material part of our acquisition rationale and and why we’re so excited about the deal.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Right. And is there a way to frame just on that cross sell opportunity? Obviously, you have most of the large p and c carriers as as customers today, but how big could EvolutionIQ be at those customers? Are we talking, you know, tens of millions of dollars in in revenue at each customer? How do you just sort of think about that that cross sell opportunity?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. I mean, when when they sell into their modules, I mean, those those are meaningful deals. I mean, those can be you know, they’re they’re certainly 7 figure deals. Some of them can push up to 8 figure deals depending on how Mhmm. Many modules that they adopt.

And so, yeah, these are meaningful size opportunities that we have with our casualty clients to cross sell in into, EvolutionIQ or bringing EvolutionIQ capabilities. Right now, when we start with Medhub, it’s a pretty narrow sales opportunity. But as that expands and they continue to build out capabilities that are relevant for, the auto side, auto casualty, and and roll out more modules, it will become a more, a larger opportunity and and have some sizable deals sizable opportunities. Okay. Got it.

So last quarter,

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: you talked about some delayed deal timing, which which impacted the revenue recognition. Could you expand on that? And is is this something that you think is kind of more of a a go to market thing you you need to clean up? Or is this just sort of, you know, the nature of of selling something new and and and AI technology into a pretty conservative industry?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. I mean, there’s two dynamics that played out. So one was they had a couple meaningful deals that were closed and signed at the end of last calendar year. We were expecting implementation to take four to six months, the clients to go live and revenue to start. And so they do have a longer implementation time.

It’s it’s more like six months, and ours is kind of weeks or or months. And so that implementation has shifted back. Part of what happens is they need client data, to build their AI models off of it. And so if the clients are delayed in getting that data, that slows implementation. So, the deals were already signed.

It really was an implementation cycle time that has impacted when revenue will start. And so it’s it’s a 25 impact and doesn’t really play into to ’26 because those clients are signed. The the second dynamic that played through is there’s a couple deals we expected to close in Q1. They ended up closing in Q2. And again, that just shifted the revenue out.

But it’s not revenue leakage beyond ’25. And so as we think about ’26 and beyond and the impact that businesses have, We remain consistent with where we’ve been at the time of the acquisition. And as I said, we remain really excited about the strategic fit and the opportunity and the early discussions we’re having with our existing clients about the Evolution IQ capabilities, it it’s certainly driving a lot of excitement. And so we we remain really enthusiastic about the opportunity in front of us.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Got it. In recent quarters, you talked about the claims volume headwinds out there in the space and that impact on at least part of your business. Could you just frame for investors the dynamics you’re seeing on the claim volume side? And when do you expect things to get better and normalize?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. Happy to. And I’ll just make a couple comments. I mean, one, on the claims themselves, I mean, what we’re seeing is we’re seeing a decline in claims being filed. We don’t believe there is a decline in frequency of accidents that that is driving that.

It’s really around consumer behaviors. And at the lower end of accidents, consumers are choosing not to file a claim. And you can see that in the data. If you look at ISS data, casualty claims were up in 2025. So you’re seeing where claims discretionary.

They’re more expensive. They have medical bills. Those claims continue to get filed, and you’re seeing those claims actually grow. And what you’re seeing decline are the smaller claims where it’s more discretionary for the And so that’s the dynamic that that is happening.

Our business is 80% subscription based, which doesn’t move with claim volume and 20% is transactional. Some of that transactional revenue is directly tied to claims and some of it is correlated to claim volumes, but not directly tied. As an example, our parts business, a component of our parts business goes with percent of GMV. That’s not tied directly to a claim, but it certainly is correlated to how many claims are filed and how much work goes into the repair shop. So that’s the dynamic that’s playing out.

We saw in Q1 9% claim decline year over year. That’s slightly modified to 8% in q two. And when you think about kind of the impact it has on our business model, you know, 9% or 8% has about a one point of revenue drag for us of growth. So we’re absorbing that drag as we go through the year. Your question around when we expect it to moderate, and come back to more normalized levels, it’s hard for us to predict that.

We do we’re continuing to monitor it. As I said, there’s a slight moderation in Q2, and we’ll just continue to focus on it. Overall, when you think about the shape of our revenue and the size of the business, a one point of drag is not overly material. So even though this has an impact on the growth, it’s not a material part of overall revenue growth equation. Got it.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: So we do hear, though, some investors worried about maybe a more structural decline in claims volumes, whether that’s from, you know, ADAS, autonomous vehicles, and and certainly, you have seen multiple quarters now of clean volume pressure. Like, how do you think about the risks around more of a structural decline, and what would that look like theoretically for for the CCC business?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. I mean, back to the the earlier point, I’d say what we’re seeing now at at these heightened levels of decline, we don’t believe this is structural. We believe it’s a consumer behavior. So that that’s our our view. When you step back and you look at ADAS and the impact ADAS has had on accidents over time, you know, it’s been moderating frequency for years.

And so that is just an ongoing trend that the business has seen and the business continues to grow through. There’s a stat. I mean, if you look back from 2014 to 2024, claim volume is down 4% over that long period. So that’s just an example of kind of the trend line that’s been happening. And our business has grown over 100% during that same time.

So again, there’s not this direct correlation that we need claims growth to grow the business. Our business model really is around addressing complexity. Certainly, severity is going up, and severity is somewhat offsetting frequency declines. And what we really do is we focus on cross selling our clients and making them more efficient and effective and deploying more and more software. And so we think about kind of our attachment rate on how our software attaches to each claim.

And so our growth on our long term model and how we think about the growth of the business is not, attached to claims growing. It’s really around how do we improve the operational performance of the business or of our clients and deploy more and more software.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: And you’ve talked about a 7% to 10% long term organic growth rate for the business. This year, it’s closer to the lower end of that spectrum. What do you need to do to get it back towards 10%?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just to put it in perspective, so we’ve been public for four years now. The first two years of public, we were in the teens of organic growth rate. So we were above the long term target that we had.

Last year, we did 9%, so kind of towards the higher end of the long term range. When you strip out Evolution IQ this year and you just look at the organic performance, Q1 was 7%, Q2 was 8%. So you’re right. We have kind of come down, and we’re trending towards the lower end of of the the range. I’d say there’s a couple things playing out.

One of it is just deal cycle and deal timing. So new business is not perfect linear. It’s not perfectly linear in a year. It’s not perfectly linear quarter to quarter. It will move around in those you know, the the timing of new business plays through why one quarter is really strong or what why why one year could be stronger than another.

That that’s point one. Point two is we’re really focused on these emerging solutions and really see a lot of growth on the back of scaling those up. Today, emerging solutions, about 4% of our total revenue. It contributed just under two points of growth. It was just under two points of growth in Q1.

It was just under two points of growth in Q2. But it continues to scale in absolute dollars. And we’re also seeing some some momentum on some larger clients moving from testing and piloting to signing up and turning into production and starting to drive revenue. So that gives us confidence around emerging and starting to scale as we go through the second half of the year and get into next year. So that’s a real important part of our growth going forward.

And then one of our more established products, like casualty, is is another important part of our growth as as we think about the opportunity going forward.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Got it. Okay. And and we talked a lot about EvolutionIQ earlier, but could you just maybe refresh for investors your m and a strategy going forward? Should we expect kinda more of these, you know, midsized deals, or or is kind of the the the small tuck in the the way you’re thinking about it?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. I mean, we’ve done both. We we did a small tuck in back in ’21 when we bought a subrogation. It’s actually early twenty two. SafeKeep, which is our subrogation platform, that that was a small deal.

That was a product expansion. It was it was basically instead of building it to buy it to speed to market. So we think about kinda m and a in three buckets. I mean, one bucket is product expansion, so we can take new products and cross sell them to our clients. We can either build those or we can buy those, and the segregation was an opportunity to to buy.

We then have adjacency, which is more like the EvolutionIQ. It’s around the insurance economy, but moving us into new adjacent market markets like workers’ comp and disability, incremental to kind of P and C insurance. So adjacency is an area. And then third, we’ll we’ll continue to evaluate international opportunities. You know, the sizing will just depend on on the opportunities against those three kind of acquisition themes.

And so it’s you know, we’re not calling they’re gonna be small or they may medium. It’s it’s more do they fit kind of those rationale and is how how is the strategic fit for for the business?

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Got it. Okay. So so shifting gears a little bit to the the product side of the equation. So I think you you’ve talked about casualty reaching the size of APD, and, obviously, you know, EvolutionIQ is is part of that. But just walk us through the journey in terms of where casualty is and reaching the size of APD.

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yes. So casualty today is around 10% of our revenue, so roughly $100,000,000 If it we have 50 clients ish on casualty. Our insurance business on the APD side is more like 400,000,000 with 300 clients. And so we’re just saying if we get similar levels of penetration, that has an opportunity to be a 400 plus million dollar business for us outside of EvolutionIQ being incremental to that. That’s how we think about the sizing.

It’s really around cross selling our APD clients into our casualty solution. We’ve made, you know, significant investments over the past several years around, the tech stack for casualty. We believe we have a very differentiated solution than what’s what’s in the market today. We’ve invested in new leaders coming in and on the product side and really driving that as well. We have a strong pipeline, really good engagement with clients.

It’s growing faster than the core business. And so we’re feeling good on the momentum. But it’s certainly going to be multiyear journey to scale the business. It’s not going to just overnight, one year to the next get to that size, but certainly, the opportunity is in front of us, and we feel really good on on the momentum that’s in the business.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: And and what are the the the sales cycles and implementations like in in casualty? I mean, are these kind of multiyear things where you have to dislodge, you know, some well established incumbent? Or just give us a sense on how easy it is to get in there.

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. I mean, the those deals are typically, those sales cycles can be longer than our auto physical damage sales cycles. Some of them are on longer term deals with competitors. So those play out. There is more switching costs from what the internal IT team needs to do to kind of move from one provider to another.

So all of that is contemplated. And so that’s why part of this is a longer term journey, and it’s not going to just be flipping the switch. But we feel good on where we are, how we’re positioned in the pipeline that this will continue to be opportunities to scale as we go forward. Got it. And and maybe zooming out a little high level just as you think about your your P and C customers.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: We we’ve certainly heard a lot of commentary on P and C customers, you know, investing in automation, migrating to cloud. Obviously, Guidewire, one of your your peers, has seen pretty strong cloud growth. And I know I was at a dinner last night with a database company, and they talked about one of the larger insurance underwriters kind of replatforming their their their underwriting platform. So it does feel like that digital transformation, AI transformation is is is happening. What what are you all seeing just just at a high level?

Is there kind of a greater willingness to engage, adopt new products, or is it still kinda business as usual?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: No. I I I think that’s right. I I think there is a trend of clients that they recognize that they need to digitize and to improve operations and to provide a a better end process for for policyholders. And so I I think there is more willingness to to drive change. I I’d say, you know, we’ve had engagements with our emerging solutions and some of our AI, solutions for for a period of time, and we’re we are seeing some of those testing and piloting moving into production, turning into revenue, and getting implemented.

So we are seeing that, the momentum picking up there and and moving from kind of the the evaluation stage to the buying stage and implementing. And so I I would agree with that overall sentiment and and kinda how how the trend feels with our clients.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Right. And I know that was something Jitesh hit on on the last call, but do you think the timing of those deals, that’s kinda still more a 2026 event, but maybe seeing the initial green shoots and Yeah. Excitements.

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: I I I’d say that’s right. I mean, we’re we’re starting to see some deals come over the line. We talked about them in q two and then moving into production starting to drive revenue. Those individual deals will continue to scale as the clients expand the use case of those products. And then we believe adoption will drive adoption.

So as more clients come on to those new solutions, other clients will engage and continue to drive progress and momentum against it. So yeah, I think Gitesh highlighted last quarter, you know, feeling good about some of those wins and the momentum that’s putting into the business, and we just see that continuing as we go through the the second half and into next year. As we talk about it, SaaS revenue is gonna build. It’s not gonna just they’re not large lumpy deals individually, but it is more the momentum and what we’re seeing with clients engaging in in buying behavior. Got it.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: I wanted to hit on estimate STP. I think, you know, that that’s been an interesting product. I remember a few years ago, the demos and Yeah. Kind of the the value it can can provide for your customers. But where are we at in terms of that penetration?

And, you know, how how is that sales motion going?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was kind of our flagship AI product that that we brought into the market. And and for those that don’t know what it does, it it basically is using computer vision AI to help insurance companies write a line item estimate for repairing a car, and it’s using the AI from the photos to write a line estimate, including, you know, part prices, labor rates, the hour of labors it will take to repair it.

And so through photos, it comes up with an estimate for the policyholder and for the insurance company. And that was a process that could have taken half an hour to an hour. Now it’s happening in minutes and goes to the carrier for them to look at and approve, and it makes a much more seamless process. So that’s a product that we’ve had in market. Today, we have over 40 clients that are using it.

We have several top 10 over the majority the top 10 are deploying it. I would say it’s still early in the scale of adoption on the claim count. So about 4% of claims are running through the estimate STP channel. And so we see that we’ll just continue to scale. So we’re seeing the carriers adopt it.

It’s just low in kind of how much volume they’re running through it. We are seeing kind of ranges of outcomes. So we do have a top 10 carrier that has adopted and are putting about 20% of their claim volume through. You have some nonstandards that are much higher than that. They could be in the 30s or 40s putting claims through.

But then you have a lot of other clients that are in the 1% or 2% and just kind of putting a toe in the water and testing it. So we’re just in different stages. But that 4% of claim count, we expect to continue to scale as we go forward. And that’s part of the emerging solutions. And and as we think about emerging solutions contributing more in ’26, that that’s part of the the driver of it as well.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Got it. And what what are the biggest inhibitors Because, again, I think in a lot of ways, you you see the demo. You just I mean, it’s it’s very clear ROI. Right?

Fewer labor hours, much more efficient claims processing. What is it is it just sort of, you know, compliance or or legal legal things? Or what what’s the main road?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. I mean, it it is different carrier by carrier. I mean, some of it can come down just to how are they operationally gonna deploy it. Right? They have thousands of staff today that are servicing policyholders and helping them process an accident where they’re now gonna deploy software, and how do they change their operation around that software that’s getting deployed?

It’s not kind of switching from existing software to new software. It it’s re it’s it’s changing how they operate and how they they process the claims. So some of it’s the operational change management. Some of it is around them getting comfortable using AI to make recommendations. They’re ultimately approving those recommendations, but they still have to get comfortable that, you know, the AI is is right.

And so they do testing between kinda having their staff do it versus our AI and getting comfortable with it as well. So there’s a couple different drivers. As I said, we are seeing some large carriers start to pick it up and adopt and really are kind of highlighting that it’s the opportunity that’s there as they get to, you know, 20% of volume going through and then beyond. And we know it’s scalable and and can work at at large scale. And so we just we’re excited to see other clients kind of follow that that lead.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Got it. And what other big product or new products, I should say, you most excited about in terms of being able to cross sell or positively contribute to growth?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yes. I mean one of the things that we talked about, Estimate STP kind of being the flagship AI using computer vision to help write an estimate. We have some of that similar or that same computer vision AI and putting on different parts of the claim process, and that is kinda being sold as, you know, different use cases. So one use case is at the initial claim handler looking at it to determine if it’s repairable or if it is a total loss, putting AI to help make recommendations on that, putting AI on how the carrier communicates with the body shop and looking at reinspection of the repair order. So it’s using that similar same computer vision AI models, but we’re putting them into new use cases.

In each of those use cases, we’re kind of selling as individual items. So we think about kind of this intelligent layer that we’re putting on top of our APD software, that remains exciting opportunity for us. So that’s we think of a large growth opportunity across not just estimate STP, but this broader AI on top of our APD solutions. Got it. And then in the final few minutes, I did want

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: to hit on margins and how you’re thinking about capital allocation. So just you know, this this past year, obviously, the EvolutionIQ, there are emerging parts of the business you are investing more in. How should we think about margin expansion going forward, especially in the context of the emerging solutions bucket being a bigger driver of of the growth?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. We we’ve talked about margin progressions being about 100 bps per year. And if if you go back from 2020 to to this year, we’ve improved margin about 600 basis points over that period of time. This year, we’re going backwards on margin because we’re absorbing the moderate loss that EvolutionIQ has. When you strip out EvolutionIQ, we’re still improving our core margins about 100 bps this year as well.

So when we turn the page and we go from ’26 and beyond, we’re highlighting that we expect to continue to move towards that 100 basis points and get towards the mid-40s. The mid-40s is not a ceiling. It’s just a midterm target that we feel good about delivering. The mix of emerging versus established really doesn’t play that much into our margin progression. We we feel when when when we get to scale on emerging, they’ll have similar margin attributes as our more established solutions.

It’s really about the investment in getting them to scale. So overall, the the margin story, we we’re we’re feeling good about.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Okay. And then, yeah, lastly, on on capital allocation. Obviously, the EvolutionIQ deal this year, know, used up a good amount of cash. But how are you thinking about buybacks and and just the percentage of of of cash flow that that goes, you know, to shareholder returns versus paying down debt, etcetera?

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yes. I mean, I think you’ve seen kind of how we think about our use of cash. I mean, we’ve done the Evolution IQ, which was a mix of cash and stock. But then we also announced a $300,000,000 buyback program at the beginning of the year that we’re fulfilling against. We’re about $170,000,000 or so through that $300,000,000 buyback.

So we have used it for M and A. We have used it to buy back shares. For us, it really comes down to just shareholder value and how we think about what’s the best opportunity in front of us to deliver that. M and A is lumpy, and it kind of is time specific. If there aren’t deals to do, and we have the balance sheets in a strong place, that allows us to do buybacks.

If there’s deals to do, we’ll allocate if there’s a strong strategic fit into M and A as well.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Awesome. Great. Well, I know we’re running out on time, but just wanted to hand it back over to you if there was any final messages you wanted to get across to the audience and close us out.

Brian Erb, CFO, CCC: Yeah. No. I appreciate you hosting us. This is a great conversation. I think we covered the the high points, and look forward to day four of meetings.

Tyler Radke, Citi’s co head of US Software, Citi: Yeah. Thank you, everyone.

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