Tracy K. Price
Analyst · Piper Jaffray
Thank you, Jim. Continuing on Slides 7 and 8, I will provide an update on our Building & Energy Solutions segment, which includes ABES, Government Services and HHA Services. This was truly a breakout quarter for my team and I'm pleased to be able to share these results. Starting with revenue. We accomplished a 33% increase to $114.8 million. Excluding acquisitions and the Government business, we achieved organic growth of nearly 27%, as we benefited from an increase in energy retrofit projects, service and maintenance contracts and our franchise business. Another excellent quarter for the ABES team and reflective of the record backlog in sales we mentioned on our previous calls this year. In fact, all of our ABES business service lines have achieved roughly 20% combined annual growth rates on both the top and bottom lines since being acquired by ABM. With year-over-year growth in revenue by ABES, contributions from HHA and continued improvement in margins associated with our Government Services, Building & Energy Solutions generated operating profit of $8.6 million, which included depreciation and amortization expense of $2.9 million. This was the second consecutive quarter where we achieved an increase of over 80% on a year-over-year basis. These are outstanding results, and based on the strength of our pipeline, we believe we're well positioned as BEST moves into 2014. Even though our Government business continues to face a challenging revenue environment, they continue to deliver solid operating earnings that are in line with expectations. Recent awards reflect positive momentum for this business unit. Pertaining to recent acquisitions, HHA and Calvert-Jones contributed $18.7 million this -- to this quarter's revenue. We continue to make excellent progress integrating the HHA acquisition and remain very pleased with the amount of business they've added since we've acquired them. Their client retention has remained at 100%, a significant accomplishment and reflective of the quality of the people in our Healthcare Services organization. With the recently announced formation of ABM Healthcare Support Services, there is significant opportunity to grow this vertical in coming years as the combined HHA, ABM Health and Healthcare Parking Systems of America businesses evolve and leverage each other's domain expertise. Our vertical strategy in Healthcare and Aviation were anchored by our acquisitions of HHA and Air Serv. Each company has exceeded our expectations. In the case of Air Serv, when we acquired the company, the revenue run rate was $312 million. Using their results for the fourth quarter, their annualized revenue number is $342 million. For HHA, when we acquired the company, the revenue run rate was $42 million. Using their results for the fourth quarter, the annualized revenue number is $56 million. Compelling results for each company and part of the reason behind our excitement were the initial results of the vertical strategy we discussed in March at our Analysts and Investors conference. Turning to Slide 9, I want to mention a couple of the sales and marketing highlights from the past quarter. We recently announced that BMW of North America selected ABM as its preferred electric vehicle charging station installation and service partner for its BMW i Centers across the U.S. and Canada. With federal, state and utility incentives, along with consumer demand driving the buildup of America's EV infrastructure, ABM is one of the few companies that are well positioned to meet this growing demand for the installation, service and maintenance of charging stations. We continue to feel this is a very good long-term opportunity for us. In October, we announced that the Harris County Public School District in Georgia selected us to install energy-efficient lighting, improve indoor air quality, install energy management control systems and increase water conservation. As a result of the improvements, Harris County is expected to save more than $10 million in energy and operating costs over a 20-year period. And just recently, we announced that ABM's Energy business has successfully commissioned a 1.2-megawatt solar array in Baltimore, Maryland, representing one of the largest solar installations to date in the Baltimore metropolitan area. In addition to being responsible for construction, ABM will also maintain the 4,150-panel array under a long-term contract. We continue to make significant progress on our sales and marketing initiatives and the enthusiasm and collaboration continue to remain high, as investments we've made in helping to drive the increase in our revenues and profitability are evidenced in our results. And with that, I'll turn the call back to Henrik.