DTLK Datalink Corp.

Revenues Affected by Late Orders & Shipments; Flash Storage & Services Sales Continue to Increase

Datalink (Nasdaq: DTLK), a leading provider of IT services and solutions, today reported first quarter 2016 financial results. Revenues for the quarter ended March 31, 2016, declined 6% to $164.6 million compared to $175.4 million for same period in 2015. Results were affected by approximately $10 million of delayed shipments from three of our primary vendors. Shipment of those orders, as expected in the first quarter, would have produced revenues comparable to the first quarter of 2015. The delayed shipments created a record backlog going into our second quarter.

On a GAAP basis, the company reported a net loss of $433,000 or $0.02 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2016. This compares to a net loss of $14,000 or $0.00 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2015. Non-GAAP net earnings for the first quarter of 2016 were $1.2 million, or $0.05 per diluted share, compared to non-GAAP net earnings of $2.4 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2015. A detailed reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP information is contained in the tables included herein.

“Our first-quarter performance was impacted by both unfulfilled orders and the unusually slow early-quarter spending cadence that has also been reported by other major industry manufacturers, but we believe those are anomalies that will be corrected in the second quarter. Our sales momentum has been strong since late March and both our flash storage business and the number of large projects in our pipeline continue to grow,” said Paul Lidsky, Datalink’s president and CEO. “We still face the challenges created by the shift in IT spending habits away from regular technology refreshes to business-driven IT investments, but we continue to rebalance our workforce skill sets to address that shift. We also have a strong balance sheet that enables us to invest in new services and next-generation technology that meets the evolving needs of our clients and allows us to take advantage of new strategic acquisition opportunities.”

First-Quarter Highlights

• A 149% year-over-year increase in sales of all-flash storage, with flash now representing 56% of Datalink’s storage sales compared to 22% in 2015. Flash storage yields lower gross margins than traditional storage but helps to offset continued declines in traditional storage revenues and also drives migration and other consulting services.
• An 8% year-over-year increase in total services revenues, including an increase in managed services that are a source of recurring income. Services comprised 45% of revenues during the quarter compared to 39% in the comparable quarter of 2015.
• Industry recognition, including placement on the 2016 CRN Tech Elite 250 and 2016 CRN Elite 150 Managed Service Provider lists.
• Strong balance sheet with the company ending the quarter with over $66 million of cash and investments and no debt.
• Stock re-purchase program, the company repurchased 600,000 shares of common stock at an average price of $6.98 per share in the first quarter. The company has re-purchased a total of 1,229,000 shares at an average price of $7.33 per share since the inception of the program in September 2015.

Outlook

“Based on our current sales momentum, the major transformational projects currently in our pipeline, and growth drivers like flash storage and our new security practice, we believe the 4% to 6% growth rates that we projected in February are still attainable. That is double the annual 2% to 3% growth predicted for the industry overall,” Lidsky said. “This remains a challenging time, but our initiatives over the past few years to help clients utilize IT to support business objectives have positioned the company to adapt to the new ways in which organizations want to consume IT services and technologies.”

As previously reported, the company has discontinued near-term quarterly guidance because of the volatility of current IT spending patterns, revenue fluctuations from quarter to quarter related to variable delivery timetables for complex consulting services and associated products, and a transition to annual guidance that has been adopted by other IT companies.

Conference Call and Webcast Today

Datalink will hold a conference call shortly after 4:00 p.m. Central Time during which time Datalink’s president and chief executive officer, Paul Lidsky, and chief financial officer, Greg Barnum, will discuss company results and provide a business overview. Participants can access the conference call by dialing (855) 826-6150. Participants will be asked to identify the Datalink conference call and provide the designated identification number (40502972). A live webcast of the conference call can be accessed here or via Datalink’s investor relations website at www.datalink.com.

About Datalink

Datalink is a complete IT services provider that helps companies transform their technology, operations, and service delivery to meet business challenges. Combining extensive experience, a full lifecycle of services and a comprehensive approach to producing IT innovations that empower positive business outcomes, Datalink delivers success across cloud IT transformation, next generation technology, and security. For more information, call 800.448.6314 or visit www.datalink.com.

The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a "safe harbor" for certain forward-looking statements. This press release contains forward-looking statements, including (i) anticipated margin pressure and plans to drive profitable growth, and (ii) Datalink’s projections of certain anticipated 2016 results, which reflect our views regarding future events and financial performance. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, including those identified below, which could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or those anticipated. The words "aim,” "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "intend," "estimate," "should" and other expressions which indicate future events and trends identify forward-looking statements. Actual future results and trends may differ materially from historical results or those anticipated depending upon a variety of factors, many of which are included under “Risk Factors” in our annual report on Form 10-K for our year ended December 31, 2015, including, but not limited to: the level of continuing demand for IT services and solutions including the effects of current economic and credit conditions and the ability of organizations to outsource data center infrastructure-related services to service providers such as us; the migration of organizations to virtualized server environments, including using a private cloud computing infrastructure; the extent to which customers deploy disk-based backup recovery solutions; the realization of the expected trends identified for advanced network infrastructures; reliance by manufacturers on their data service partners to integrate their specialized products; customers switching to solid state storage solutions; continued preferred status with certain principal suppliers; competition and pricing pressures and timing of our installations that may adversely affect our revenues and profits; fixed employment costs that may impact profitability if we suffer revenue shortfalls; our ability to hire and retain key technical and sales personnel; continued productivity of our sales personnel; our dependence on key suppliers; our ability to adapt to rapid technological change; risks associated with integrating completed and future acquisitions (including a failure of anticipated synergies to materialize); the ability to execute our acquisition strategy; fluctuations in our quarterly operating results; future changes in applicable accounting rules; and volatility in our stock price. Furthermore, our revenues for any particular quarter are not necessarily reflected by our backlog of contracted orders, which also may fluctuate unpredictably. We cannot assure you that we can grow or maintain our revenue and backlog from current levels. Additional factors that may cause actual results to differ from our assumptions and expectations include those set forth in our most recent filing on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this press release is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date on which it is made. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise.

Non-GAAP Details

Non-GAAP financial measures exclude the impact from acquisition accounting adjustments to deferred revenue and costs, stock-based compensation expense, amortization of acquisition intangible assets, integration and transaction costs related to acquisitions, severance costs and the related effects on income taxes. These non-GAAP measures are not in accordance with, or an alternative for measures prepared in accordance with, GAAP and may be different from non-GAAP measures used by other companies. In addition, these non-GAAP measures are not based on any comprehensive set of accounting rules or principles. We believe that non-GAAP measures have limitations in that they do not reflect all of the amounts associated with our results of operations as determined in accordance with GAAP and that these measures should only be used to evaluate our results of operations in conjunction with the corresponding GAAP measures.

These non-GAAP financial measures facilitate management's internal comparisons to our historical operating results and comparisons to competitors' operating results. We include these non-GAAP financial measures in our earnings announcement because we believe they are useful to investors in allowing for greater transparency with respect to supplemental information used by management in its financial and operational decision making, such as employee compensation planning. We believe that the presentation of these non-GAAP measures when shown in conjunction with the corresponding GAAP measures provides useful information to investors and management regarding financial and business trends relating to our financial condition and results of operations.

    DATALINK CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS (In thousands, except per share data) (Unaudited)   Three Months Ended March 31,

2016

2015

  Net sales: Products $ 90,675 $ 106,736 Services   73,957     68,616 Total net sales   164,632     175,352   Cost of sales: Cost of products 73,099 85,782 Cost of services   60,061     54,402 Total cost of sales   133,160     140,184 Gross profit   31,472     35,168 Operating expenses: Sales and marketing 15,635 17,422 General and administrative 6,870 6,989 Engineering 8,032 8,242 Integration and transaction costs - 450 Amortization of intangibles   1,405     2,073 Total operating expenses   31,942     35,176 Loss from operations (470) (8) Interest income 165 71 Interest expense (73) (67) Other, net   (50)     (19) Loss before income taxes (428) (23) Income tax expense (benefit)   5     (9) Net loss $ (433)   $ (14)   Loss per common share: Basic $ (0.02) $ (0.00) Diluted $ (0.02) $ (0.00) Weighted average common shares outstanding: Basic 21,158 21,949 Diluted 21,158 21,949   DATALINK CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (In thousands, except share data) (Unaudited)     March 31, December 31,

2016

2015

  Assets Current assets Cash and cash equivalents $ 30,128 $ 39,397 Short-term investments 35,974 20,579 Accounts receivable, net 111,960 163,900 Lease receivable 3,816 3,895 Inventories, net 9,399 7,997 Current deferred customer support contract costs 123,280 124,705 Inventories shipped but not installed 16,498 16,616 Income tax receivable 691 - Other current assets   3,176   3,251 Total current assets   334,922   380,340 Property and equipment, net 8,324 7,963 Goodwill 47,101 47,101 Finite-lived intangibles, net 7,851 9,256 Deferred customer support contract costs, non-current 58,533 60,240 Deferred tax asset 9,177 9,177 Long-term lease receivable 6,513 7,017 Other assets   735   703 Total assets $ 473,156 $ 521,797   Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity Current liabilities Floor plan line of credit $ 25,159 $ 24,340 Accounts payable 42,312 73,959 Lease payable 3,882 3,643 Accrued commissions 1,729 3,687 Accrued sales and use taxes 2,204 3,782 Accrued expenses, other 5,961 6,998 Accrued income tax payable - 4,492 Customer deposits 4,122 4,398 Current deferred revenue from customer support contracts 149,766 151,619 Other current liabilities   451   1,050 Total current liabilities 235,586 277,968 Deferred revenue from customer support contracts, non-current 70,123 72,262 Long-term lease payable 5,105 5,857 Other liabilities non-current   1,739   942 Total liabilities   312,553   357,029     Stockholders' equity Common stock, $.001 par value, 50,000,000 shares authorized, 22,577,888 and 22,627,322 shares issued and outstanding as of March 31, 2016 and December 31, 2015, respectively 22 23 Additional paid-in capital 110,700 114,431 Retained earnings   49,881   50,314 Total stockholders' equity   160,603   164,768 Total liabilities and stockholders' equity $ 473,156 $ 521,797     DATALINK CORPORATION RECONCILIATION BETWEEN GAAP AND NON-GAAP NET INCOME (In thousands, except per share data) (Unaudited)     Three Months Ended March 31, 2016 2015     Loss from operations on a GAAP basis $ (470) $ (8) GAAP operating margin -0.3% 0.0%   Non-GAAP Adjustments: Purchase accounting adjustment to StraTech deferred revenue and cost, net   1   12 Total gross margin adjustments 1 12   Stock based compensation expense included in sales and marketing 265 418 Stock based compensation expense included in general and administrative 369 433 Stock based compensation expense included in engineering 409 591 Integration and transaction costs - 450 Amortization of intangible assets   1,405   2,073 Total operating expense adjustments   2,448   3,965   Non-GAAP earnings from operations 1,979 3,969 Non-GAAP operating margin 1.2% 2.3%   Interest & other income (expense), net 42 (15) Income tax expense impact including Non-GAAP items   849   1,593   Non-GAAP net earnings $ 1,172 $ 2,361   Non-GAAP net earnings per share - Basic $ 0.06 $ 0.11 Non-GAAP net earnings per share - Diluted $ 0.05 $ 0.11   Shares used in non-GAAP per share calculation - Basic   21,158   21,949 Shares used in non-GAAP per share calculation - Diluted   22,115   22,466   DATALINK CORPORATION CONSOLIDATED STATEMENT OF CASH FLOWS (In thousands) (Unaudited)     Three Months Ended March 31,

2016

2015

  Cash flows from operating activities: Net loss $ (433) $ (14) Adjustments to reconcile net earnings to net cash provided by operating activities: Change in fair value of trading securities 37 - Benefit for bad debts (49) (94) Depreciation 756 843 Amortization of finite-lived intangibles 1,405 2,073 Stock-based compensation expense 1,043 1,442 Changes in operating assets and liabilities: Accounts receivable, net and leases receivable 52,572 30,298 Inventories (1,284) 8,687 Deferred costs/revenues/customer deposits, net (1,136) 2,299 Accounts payable and leases payable (32,160) (41,917) Accrued expenses (4,573) (3,316) Income tax receivable (691) (284) Income tax payable (4,492) - Other   240     1,649 Net cash provided by operating activities   11,235     1,666   Cash flows from investing activities: Purchases, sales and maturities of trading securities, net (15,432) 22,994 Purchases of property and equipment   (1,117)     (1,216) Net cash (used in) provided by investing activities   (16,549)     21,778   Cash flows from financing activities: Net payments under floor plan line of credit 819 1,991 Repurchase of common stock (4,191) - Excess tax (benefit) from stock compensation (277) 179 Tax withholdings related to stock-based awards   (306)     (639) Net cash (used in) provided by financing activities   (3,955)     1,531   Increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents (9,269) 24,975 Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period   39,397     27,725 Cash and cash equivalents, end of period $ 30,128   $ 52,700   Supplemental cash flow information: Cash paid for income taxes $ 5,463 $ 97 Cash received for income tax refunds $ - $ 2 Cash paid for interest expense $ 73 $ 21

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DatalinkCompany Contacts:Investors & AnalystsGreg BarnumVice President and CFOPhone: 952-279-4816Email: gbarnum@datalink.comorPressJill SchmidtJill Schmidt Public RelationsPhone: 847-921-1295Email: jill@jillschmidtpr.com