FirstService Corp

TSX:FSV

Earnings Call Transcript 2018-Q4

[Operator]

Welcome to the fourth quarter and year-end investors conference call. Today's call is being recorded.Legal counsel requires us to advise that the discussion scheduled to take place today may contain forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results may materially differ from any future results, performance or achievements contemplated in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in the forward-looking statements, as filed with the Canadian Securities Administrator and the company, as an annual report on Form 40-F as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. Today is February 6, 2019.I would now like to turn the call over to Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Scott Patterson. Please go ahead, sir.

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

Thank you, Tasha. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our fourth quarter and year-end conference call. Thank you for joining.As usual, Jeremy Rakusin, our CFO, is here with me. And together, we will walk you through the results we released earlier today, a very strong fourth quarter. And we will also speak to some of our full year financial metrics. Let me kick off by saying that we are extremely pleased with the way our operations finished the year. The fourth quarter results exceeded our expectations and capped off another excellent year for FirstService Corporation. Revenues for the quarter were up 13% in total with a robust 8% generated organically, largely driven by double-digit organic growth at FirstService Brands.EBITDA was up 23% over the prior year, with consolidated margin expanding by 80 basis points, supported by margin improvement at FirstService Residential and lower corporate costs at the FirstService level. Jeremy will provide more detail around the margin expansion in a few minutes.Both of our divisions had strong quarters. At FirstService Residential, revenues grew 7% in total, 5% organically, which again is in the mid- to low single-digit range that we have generated with consistency over the last 2 years. Organic growth was broad-based geographically and driven primarily by new contract wins.During the quarter, we announced the acquisitions of Condominium Concepts Management, headquartered in Atlanta and with operations in Nashville and Florida; and Community Management Group based in Charleston, South Carolina. Condo Concepts and Community Management hold market-leading positions in Atlanta and Charleston, respectively, and significantly increased our presence in both markets.In addition, Condo Concepts provides us with a larger footprint in the fast-growing Nashville market, which we believe we can quickly capitalize on post integration, after introducing our systems and differentiators. These 2 companies have long tenures, they're highly respected organizations with great cultures and strong teams, and we are very excited to welcome them into the FirstService family.Moving down to FirstService Brands. Revenues were up 25% versus the prior year comprised of very strong organic growth of 14% and the balance from tuck-under acquisitions completed in the past year in restoration, in fire service and relating to our company-owned acquisition strategy at California Closets. The organic growth of 14% for the division exceeded our expectations primarily due to the very strong results at Paul Davis Restoration. The large loss claim activity from hurricanes Michael and Florence, plus the wildfires in California, led to revenues at Paul Davis National which matched the significant revenues we generated in the fourth quarter of last year from Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. In addition, our company-owned operations in the Mid-Atlantic, the Northeast region and Florida all experienced higher levels of claims and revenue versus the prior year, which drove double-digit organic growth for our restoration operations in total.This was supported by double-digit organic growth at our home improvement brands, especially CertaPro Painters and California Closets. And we also generated double-digit organic growth at Century Fire, very strong activity across the board in this division.Our focused investments on recruiting talent and increasing capacity over the last 24 months enabled us to capitalize on strong markets. During the quarter, we completed 2 acquisitions under Century Fire. We added Commercial Fire & Communications, which operates across Southwest Florida, plus Allied Fire Protection, based in Raleigh, North Carolina. These 2 acquisitions expand our footprint in key strategic markets and, importantly, bring 2 talented young leaders onto the Century team. We have now added 5 tuck-unders in the Southeast U.S. to the Century platform, since we partnered with Scott Tutterow and his team in 2016.In the fourth quarter, we also made the strategic decision to exit our Service America business. We've been clear over the last few years that Service America was a small noncore business for us. We thoroughly explored all exit alternatives, and at the beginning of Q4, we decided on an orderly wind down, which was largely executed and complete by the end of the quarter. Jeremy will add more detail in his prepared comments. Looking forward for FirstService Brands, the hurricane and wildfire claims response did not carry into Q1 of this year. For the most part, we have moved out of those affected areas. Also while the home improvement market remains solid, it does appear to be easing off slowly due to reduced sales of existing homes and slowing home price gains versus a year ago. As a result, we expect organic growth in our Brands division to return to the mid- to high single-digit range, which is what we've averaged over the past couple of years.Before I hand over to Jeremy, I want to reiterate how pleased we are with our fourth quarter and full year results. 2018 proved to be another excellent year for us, with revenues up 12%, EBITDA up 20% and earnings per share up 31% over the prior year.This continues an impressive run for FirstService since our spin-off into a separate public company in early 2015. Revenues are up 71% and EBITDA has increased 250% in the 4 years since. Our long-term goal is to grow our revenues at an average rate of at least 10% per year, with incremental growth at the EBITDA line. We've achieved and exceeded this goal for many years, including 2018, and we feel confident that 2019 will bring more of the same.I want to take this opportunity to thank our operating partners and teams for all they do to drive our success. We have a great company, and it is a direct result of the 33,000 engaged employees we have that make a difference every day.On that note, I will transfer over to Jeremy.

[Jeremy Alan Rakusin, Chief Financial Officer]

Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. As highlighted in our press release this morning and reinforcing Scott's earlier comments, we had a very strong fourth quarter finish to 2018, which largely mirrored our full year results. More specifically, during the fourth quarter, our consolidated results included revenues of $503 million, up 13% versus the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $48.7 million, up 23%, and adjusted EPS was $0.62, up 27% versus Q4 2017.For the full year of 2018, consolidated financial results showed a similar strong year-over-year growth path. Annual revenues were $1.93 billion, up 12%, including 6% organic growth. Adjusted EBITDA was $190.6 million, up 20% with our margin expending by 70 basis points to 9.9%. And adjusted EPS was $2.61, up 31%.As disclosed in this morning's press release, certain adjustments have been made from GAAP operating earnings and per share earnings to arrive at our adjusted EBITDA and EPS results, each of which are consistent with the approach adopted in prior periods.Furthermore, as in all prior quarters of the 2018, our press release noted that prior year 2017 results have been recast to reflect the U.S. GAAP revenue recognition standard, which came into effect January 1, 2018, with relatively insignificant impact to our consolidated financial results and no impact on our cash flow.I'll now walk through the fourth quarter performance of our 2 reporting divisions, FirstService Residential and FirstService Brands. Starting with FirstService Residential. Revenues were $312 million during the quarter, up 7% versus the prior year period. Our EBITDA increased 11% to $25.9 million, driven by 30 basis points of margin expansion quarter-over-quarter, reflecting our continued effective labor cost management. For the full year, revenues grew by the same 7%, including 4% organic growth. The division also reported improved profitability for the year with a 9% margin, 50 basis points higher than the 8.5% level in our 2017 full year results and benefiting from particularly strong margin expansion in the first half of the year.Moving on to our FirstService Brands division. We reported fourth quarter revenues of $191 million, up 25% versus the prior year period, and EBITDA grew by 24%, to $23.9 million. For the full year, the division generated very similar robust performance of 22% total revenue growth, including a 9% increase, on an organic basis, along with 23% growth in EBITDA. Our margins for both the fourth quarter and the year were relatively comparable to prior year periods. These very strong results in the FirstService Brands division were achieved notwithstanding the wind down of our Service America business during the fourth quarter.As Scott noted earlier and as we have commented on previously, Service America was small and had been noncore for us over the past few years. The decision to wind down operations, while not taken lightly, did not have a significant impact on our financial performance for the quarter or the year and will not impact our outlook for 2019.Service America's revenues in 2018 were less than 1% of our consolidated revenues and the business was generating modest operating losses at the time of the wind-down decision. In Q4, we incurred $4.9 million of nonrecurring charges related to the wind down, roughly equal amounts of shutdown transaction cost and accelerated asset depreciation. While these expenses negatively impacted our GAAP operating earnings, they are added back, and therefore, excluded in the calculation of adjusted EBITDA.Shifting back to our consolidated financial results, I wanted to also call out the corporate cost line for the fourth quarter, which was $1.2 million, significantly lower than the $3 million in the prior year quarter and the roughly $3 million quarterly run rate for the first 3 quarters of 2018. The almost $2 million decline in Q4 was largely attributable to our foreign exchange pickup, driven by a combination of a significantly weaker Canadian dollar and higher Canadian dollar-denominated net liabilities during the quarter. This pickup, which contributed to the 9.7% consolidated margin for the quarter, is an anomaly, and we expect future corporate cost to be more in line with prior period trends.Now on to our cash flow, where FirstService ended the year with more than $150 million in operating cash flow before working capital changes, an increase of 24% over 2017. The fourth quarter cash flow before working capital of $37.5 million increased at a similar pace, up 26% over the prior year quarter. Due to a large increase in working capital requirements to fund the strong growth of our Paul Davis and Century Fire company-owned operations, our cash flow from operations experienced a year-over-year decline after taking into account this working capital usage.Capital expenditures for 2018 came in at slightly over $40 million, right on the mark with the guidance we've previously provided during the year. And on the acquisition front, we deployed almost $60 million on 13 transactions reflecting 50% higher activity versus 2017.The deals provide broad-based contribution across our operations, with 3 within FirstService Residential, 6 adding to our Paul Davis and California Closets company-owned platforms, and 4 helping to drive further growth at Century Fire protection.In aggregate, these tuck-unders generate in the order of $100 million in additional revenue on an annualized basis, and the deal pipeline today continues to remain solid.Turning to our balance sheet, year-end net debt was $268 million, resulting in leverage of 1.4x net debt to 2018 adjusted EBITDA, a tick higher than the 1.3x level at both the end of the prior third quarter and 2017 year-end. We were able to keep our leverage ratio in line even with a higher acquisition spending and working capital investments, I mentioned earlier, a testament to our ability to generate strong free cash flow, which internally funds our growth.Yesterday, we also announced the approval by our Board of Directors of an 11% increase in our dividend to $0.60 per share on an annualized basis in U.S. dollars, up from the prior $0.54. This is the fourth consecutive annual dividend hike of 10%-plus since our spin-off into a separate public company in mid-2015, with a cumulative 50% increase to the $0.60 level from $0.40 at the time of our spin-off. Our balance sheet remains strong, leverage is conservative and liquidity in terms of remaining available to draw on our revolver and cash on hand at year-end was in excess of $130 million.We have significant capacity and flexibility to fund the $22 million of increased annual dividends and drive our growth opportunities, both internal and by our tuck-under acquisition program. Let me finally finish by providing you with a sense of our outlook for 2019. With both macro indicators and our operational metrics continuing to be positive, the themes supporting our growth expectations remain intact. Consistent with the track record we demonstrated over the past 4 years, since our spin-off, we anticipate consolidated organic top line growth to be in the mid-single digits. To deliver our targeted total revenue growth of at least 10%, we will look to add several more tuck-under acquisitions during 2019 together with benefiting from deals recently completed within the past several months. These guideposts for 2019 are consistent with our off-sighted longer-term goal of compounding annual total revenue growth at 10% or more.We will also aim to increase our consolidated EBITDA margin over 2018, but we expect margin improvement, if any, in both our FirstService Residential and FirstService Brands divisions to be incremental. Our consolidated margin should benefit from divisional mix if the higher-margin FirstService Brands segment continues to grow at a faster pace than the FirstService Residential segment, which is our expectation provided home improvements spending and tuck-under acquisition activity levels remain strong. Our tax rate is likely to be in the order of 25% to 26% going forward, higher than the 22% effective rate we realized in 2018, when we benefited from a tax shelter on pre-spin-off stock-based compensation.Finally, we expect maintenance capital expenditures to tally approximately $45 million, a modest increase from last year, as we continue to invest in our 3 biggest growth engines, the Paul Davis and California Closets company-owned platforms and our Century Fire operations.This concludes our prepared comments, and I would please ask the operator to open the call to questions. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Stephen Sheldon of William Blair.

[Stephen Hardy Sheldon, Analyst]

First, great to see organic revenue growth acceleration in each segment. You provided some good detail on the Brands side. But can you maybe walk through what drove the fourth quarter acceleration in the Residential segment and maybe how you're thinking about potential organic growth there in 2019?

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

Sure. Stephen, really, there's nothing of note that drove a number of 5%. The way we're looking at it is that it continues in that same range that we have been averaging over the last 2 years, in the mid to low single digit. As you know, it's a stable recurring revenue business model that grows through net new contract wins, sales net of losses. And the way this business model is built and the competition that we're facing, we see the 3% to 5% mid- to low single-digit range is one that will continue for us. No particular region, no property type or service line really stood out as a particular influencer or driver in Q4. It was broad-based. So…

[Stephen Hardy Sheldon, Analyst]

Okay. And then can you maybe provide an update on what you're seeing in terms of the labor shortage? You've talked some over the last few quarters about investing and recruiting and retention efforts. So can you maybe provide some detail on that? And has there been any broader strategic change in how you're trying to find labor to fulfill contracts, especially on the residential side?

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

It continues to be very, very tight. I don't see that there's been any loosening or improvement over the last few quarters. But I do think that we are better internally at managing in this type of environment. We are able to bring on talent. There's no strategic shift we've made. I think those are the words you used. It's much more tactical. And as I have said, we've invested in recruiting, onboarding and the development of people to ensure that we keep people in this type of environment. And I think that, certainly relative to a year ago, we're much better across the board at that and able to deal with it more effectively.

[Stephen Hardy Sheldon, Analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. And then last one for me, pretty big sequential increases in accounts receivable throughout 2018. And it sounds like some of that was driven by the restoration business. And I'm assuming there's probably some impact from acquisitions. So is that more of a timing issue, where that could reverse some in 2019 and provide some benefit to free cash flow? I guess just how should we be thinking about that?

[Jeremy Alan Rakusin, Chief Financial Officer]

Yes, Stephen, clearly the biggest drivers of that working capital usage accounts receivable were particularly at Paul Davis company-owned and Century Fire as they had significant top line growth. Part of the contributor on the Paul Davis side is also that type of work. Scott alluded to it. It's the hurricane activity and the California wildfires, you're dealing a lot with insurance companies and certain types of work that will drive a little bit longer days on the receivables. And then there's also further investment in inventory at Century Fire in support of their sprinkler installation businesses, investing, buying forward in front of price increases and tariffs. So those would be the biggest drivers. We expect some normalization that working capital usage for the year would be higher than would be typical in years 2019 and beyond.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Stephen MacLeod from BMO Capital Markets.

[Stephen MacLeod, Analyst]

I apologize if I missed it in your prepared remarks, but I just wanted to just ask a follow-up call around the strong organic growth rate in the FirstService Brands. Considering that last year was so strong on the back of some PDR strength, just wondering where you saw relative strength and weakness in your company-owned operations that you cited in your press release.

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

Sure. I think, first and foremost, it relates to the large loss activity, and initially it did not look like the work out of Florence and Michael would match the large -- or, the significant work we did last year and the fourth quarter. But it ended up being more than we expected, and with the addition of the California wildfire work, we ended up matching our last year large loss revenue. And then the 9 company-owned operations that we have that are primarily located in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and also in Florida were all much higher than last year. And it's -- I think, claims, in general, were up, but our operations are also getting a higher share of claims. We have invested and improved our positioning with regional and national customers. We have deeper relationships and it's showing up in the organic growth in these operations, and we saw that in the fourth quarter. So certainly, Paul Davis. I think, the other area was California Closets company-owned. And we talked for couple of years about our investment in adding capacity in those businesses, adding installers, adding designers to ensure that we are able to capitalize on the strong home improvement markets. And again, that showed up for us in the fourth quarter.

[Stephen MacLeod, Analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. And then just as you think about, I think, in the past you, sort of, talked about the metrics around the home improvement market, while continuing to be favorable or sort of slowing somewhat. Is that reflective of what you're seeing in the market and what you expect going forward?

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

We expect a tempering for it, certainly, in 2019. I think it's primarily driven by the slowing in home price gains. Increasing home equity value, in our experience, is the biggest driver of our business. And those increases are definitely slowing, and we expect that, that will show up and reduce leads for us later this year.

[Stephen MacLeod, Analyst]

Right. Okay. And then maybe just finally, could you talk a little bit about -- obviously, you continued to execute against your company-owned strategy of rolling in PDR and California Closets franchisees. Can you just talk a little bit about whether the pipeline for that strategy has accelerated or remains the same relative to where you were previously?

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

I think largely, it remains the same. Certainly, at California Closets, it remains the same. We would expect to do couple, 3 of those add-ins every year. Paul Davis is still a new strategy for us, and the experience of the operators that have joined our company-owned has been very positive. And that word is starting to get around the system. So I would say that we are seeing more activity on the Paul Davis side but not significantly more, but more than this time last year, I would say.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Marc Riddick from Sidoti.

[Marc Frye Riddick, Business and Consumer Services Analyst]

I wanted to touch on a couple of things. First, one of the things I thought was kind of interesting, at least, I've seen lately and you can -- and wanted to get your thoughts on this is kind of where you are with your marketing efforts around your brands. Just anecdotally, it seems as though I've -- it feels as though I've seen more commercials for your brands lately than we have in the past. And I was wondering if you could sort of give us an update on what you're doing there and where you see that going?

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

Okay. That is interesting. I don't think there's been any significant change. There's been some tweaks in the tactics, in the mediums that we're using. I think, particularly at Paul Davis, we're doing more TV and radio advertising. CertaPro is doing perhaps more radio advertising. But the spend is not up. It's just being allocated differently. Is there anything in particular that has struck you?

[Marc Frye Riddick, Business and Consumer Services Analyst]

Well, now that you actually, basically answered the question because, I think, I've kind of noticed more television commercials, and so maybe that's kind of where it lies. But if that's the -- if it's just netting out, kind of, the dollars that's great to see. One of the other things I wanted to touch on is if you can sort of give us a bit of an update on the progress with national accounts and kind of where you feel you are and getting to where you want to be on those efforts?

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

2018 was a very strong year for us. We added a number of significant accounts, and to support that, we brought on a lot of capacity, built up our call center, expanded our vendor network. We continue to work on the vendor network to support these national and regional accounts. So it is very much a work-in-progress for us, and it will continue to be. We've grown the service side at Century Fire, which includes the national account program, significantly over the last 3 years. It's a big driver in that business in terms of influencing the overall organic growth. But it's still early days, and we'll continue to be focused on that over the next number of years.

[Marc Frye Riddick, Business and Consumer Services Analyst]

Okay. And then I guess the last question for me. I was wondering if you could sort of touch a little bit on -- we've heard you talk about some of the efforts that you have as far as pricing discipline, particularly, as you're sort of looking at when renewals come up and sort of trying to be a little more firm on that. I was wondering if you could sort of give an update as to maybe what you're seeing there or receptivity, pushbacks? Kind of how you feel that process is going so far?

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

There really isn't anything of note in terms of an update. It's a price-competitive business. There's no change, and we don't expect that to change. It's really a function of a market structure. We have hundreds of small competitors that need to compete with us on price. And several years ago, we, I think, became a little bit more focused on not competing on price, not chasing these low-cost competitors. And so it has resulted in our retention ticking down a bit. But with that focus, we're more focused on our larger communities, high-rise, national plan communities that require more complex service requirements, and net-net in reallocation of our labor to communities where we're better able to compete and differentiate ourselves. I think you see some of that in our margins over the last few years.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Smith from RBC Capital Markets.

[Michael Smith, Analyst]

Most of my questions have actually been answered, but I just wanted a little bit of clarification on the California Closets or the home improvement market. And I guess what you're suggesting is that there is a definite correlation between housing pricing -- house price gains and the amount of business you get. Are you -- that's your expectation with slowing house price gains. That's your expectation. But are you actually starting to see it in your operations over the last few months?

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

We're not, Michael. No, we're not.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Frederic Bastien from Raymond James.

[Frederic Bastien, Senior Vice President]

Are you seeing further opportunities to accelerate the growth of your Century Fire business?

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

It's, I would say, consistent really, Frederic. Since 2016, when we acquired Century, it's a big, big market. It's very fragmented. When we came out of the gates, strategically we wanted to fill out our service lines at the 13 operations we have, become full service within each operation and we wanted to add tuck-unders in Florida, in Texas, in North Carolina, and in the Southeast. And since that time, we've added 5 tuck-unders, 2 in Florida, 1 in North Carolina, 2 in Georgia. The acquisitions in Georgia were really about filling out our service line, the 2 in Florida, the 1 in North Carolina, were about expanding our geographic footprint. So we're executing on the strategy. We feel very good about our experience with this team and in this market and feel very, very good about our prospects in the future.

[Frederic Bastien, Senior Vice President]

Okay. But in terms of size of deals you're looking at, are they -- would they be significantly larger than sort of the typical California Closets and Paul Davis restoration businesses?

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

No, they're tuck-unders, small single-digit revenue tuck-unders.

[Frederic Bastien, Senior Vice President]

Okay. And how's the landscape for kind of the new service lines? I would assume it's still quite competitive.

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

In terms of us building out our service lines or adding -- oh, are you talking about adding different platforms?

[Frederic Bastien, Senior Vice President]

Yes. Yes, the latter.

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

Okay. Yes. There's nothing that we're targeting right now.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time.

[D. Scott Patterson, President, CEO & Non]

Thank you, Tasha. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We -- our first quarter call is scheduled for April 24, and we look forward to chatting then.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the fourth quarter and year-end investors conference call. Thank you for your participation and have a nice day.