Aspen Technology Inc (AZPN) Q2 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Aspen Technology Inc (AZPN) Q2 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Karl Johnsen, Chief Financial Officer.. Antonio will discuss business highlights from the second quarter and then I'll review our financial results and provide our guidance for fiscal year 2020.. We expect announcement of the Phase 1 trade agreement between the US and China and a better economic outlook in calendar 2020 will improve the macro environment for these customers.. While APM growth has always been expected to be back-end loaded in fiscal year '20, we're somewhat behind where we expected to be at the midpoint of the year.. During the second quarter, we had several transactions we expected to close in the quarter that pushed out to the second half of the fiscal year.. Our confidence is driven by the following factors we expect to happen in the second half of the fiscal year.. Overall, we are pleased with our business performance in the first half of the year.. A North America based chemical customer selected are soon to be released latest generation, planning and scheduling solution after a detailed evaluation of the capabilities of this new product and one of our competitors.. And fifth and final,