Earnings Labs

The Brink's Company (BCO)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 26, 2017

$108.49

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to The Brink’s Company’s First Quarter 2017 Earnings Call. Brink’s issued a press release on first quarter results this morning. The company also filed an 8-K that includes the release and the slides that will be used in today’s call. For those of you listening by phone, the release and slides are available on the company’s Web site at brinks.com. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Now for the company’s Safe Harbor statement. This call and the Q&A session will contain forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from projected or estimated results. Information regarding factors that could cause such differences is available in today’s press release and in the company’s most recent SEC filings. Information presented and discussed on this call is representative as of today only. Brink’s assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. The call is copyrighted and may not be used without written permission from Brink’s. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ed Cunningham, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Mr. Cunningham, you may begin.

Ed Cunningham

Analyst

Thank you, Denise. Good morning, everyone. Joining me today are CEO, Doug Pertz; and CFO, Ron Domanico. This morning, we reported results on both the GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP results exclude certain retirement expenses, reorganization and restructuring costs, acquisitions, dispositions, and tax-related adjustments. In addition to these items, our non-GAAP results exclude Venezuela, due to a variety of factors, including our inability to repatriate cash, Venezuela’s fixed exchange rate policies and continued currency devaluations, and the difficulties we face operating in a highly inflationary economy. We believe the non-GAAP results make it easier for investors to assess operating performance between periods. Accordingly, our comments today including those referring to our guidance will focus primarily on the non-GAAP results. Reconciliations of non-GAAP to GAAP results are in the press release and the appendix of the slides we’re using today, in this morning’s 8-K and on our Web site. Finally, please note that Page 1 of the press release provides a summary of our 2017 guidance with additional details on Page 2. I’ll now turn the call over to Doug Pertz.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thanks, Ed, and good morning, everyone. This morning we reported much improved year-over-year first quarter non-GAAP results, including organic revenue growth of 7%, the 62% increase in operating profit and an 84% increase in earnings per share. These results reflect organic revenue growth above our 2017 full year guidance and strong operating profit leverage in each of our three geographic segments. I’m especially pleased to report that the U.S. operations are continuing to improve with revenue growth of 8%, operating profit of $5 million and a margin of 2.6%. This compares with a year-ago loss of $2 million in the U.S. So the $7 million swing in profitability was an important contributor to the company’s overall profit growth. Our full year margin goal in the U.S. remains in the 4% to 5% range compared to less than 1% last year. We expect additional margin ramp up in our improvement initiatives and our investments as they kick in, and our overall stronger second half will also take hold to improve our margins. Results in Mexico also improved over the year-ago quarter with our organic revenue growth of 7% and an operating margin of about 6%, up from 5% last year. The improved results reflect growing revenue from retailers, improved productivity and strong progress in our efforts to address labor-related issues that have historically tilted against Brink’s. Mexico’s 10% margin goal for 2017 has not changed and similar to the U.S., we expect productivity initiatives to have increasing impact throughout the year. While the U.S. and Mexico are on track, our first quarter results also included organic revenue growth in all segments and more importantly strong operating leverage in all segments and in most countries and lines of business. In South America, Argentina and Colombia are good examples of operating leverage and…

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Thanks, Doug, and good day, everyone. In the United States, it’s Administrative Assistant Day and before I begin I would like to thank the professionals who support us 24/7. At our Investor Day on March 2, we laid out Brink’s value creation strategy. The first building block of that strategy is to grow credibility. Credibility is developed by reducing complexity, increasing transparency, setting aggressive targets and meeting or exceeding those targets consistently over time. Our earnings release this morning was designed to achieve those objectives and incorporated the feedback we received from many of our stakeholders. We’ve reduced complexity by reporting how we managed the business in three segments; North America, South America and rest of the world. And we significantly reduced the size of the press release. We increased transparency by adding condensed balance sheet and cash flow information to the press release by isolating the impact of foreign exchange, M&A and accounting changes focusing commentary on business drivers and corporate expense and we continue to provide clear reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP results. The targets we set are aggressive but they are necessary for Brink’s to close the gap to meet and then exceed the performance of our most successful competitors. Our first quarter results are early confirmation that focusing on a few breakthrough initiatives is the correct strategy and that our execution is gaining traction. Please direct your attention to Slide 11. Adjusting for ForEx, acquisitions and the businesses we exited, revenue in the first quarter increased $50 million from $690 million in 2016 to $740 million in 2017, an organic increase of 7%. South America delivered 17% organic growth driven by price increases in Argentina and solid growth in Brazil. North America revenue grew organically 6% with the U.S. up 8% and Mexico up 7%. The…

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thanks, Ron. Please turn to Slide 18. As a still relatively new management team, one of our goals is to build confidence among investors and that means meeting or exceeding expectations on a consistent basis. As we demonstrate progress towards achieving our financial goals, our credibility with investors should increase and so should our trading multiple and overall valuation. We’re off to a good start this year and we expect another year of solid profit growth. We’ve increased our full year earnings guidance and our strategic plan is beginning to agree with results that we believe will lead to accelerated revenue growth and earnings leverage. Internally, we have broad-based buy-in among our operating leaders who’s interest are more aligned more than ever with shareholders, and in the first quarter our results demonstrated broad-based gains. I can assure you that more than ever I’m excited about the future of Brink’s. Brink’s is the global market leader in our industry with the premier brand. We have strong incentivized management and leadership and that management is already in the execution mode. Several of our strategic initiatives are starting to produce results with many other initiatives just starting implementation, and we have now added to our base strategy with acquisitions. We’re early in our execution and we’ve got a lot of work to do but I see no reason while we can’t meet and eventually surpass industry margins and growth rates. It’s all about leadership, culture, strategy and execution. I firmly believe that we have the right leadership, the right strategy and a financial flexibility to drive superior shareholder returns over the next three years. Denise, let’s open it now for questions. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Pertz. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. The first question will come from Jamie Clement of Macquarie. Please go ahead.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Good morning, Jamie.

Operator

Operator

Mr. Clement, your line is open. It may be muted on your side. We’ll move on to the next question from Ashish Sinha of Gabelli. Please go ahead.

Ashish Sinha

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I had a couple. So firstly I wanted to talk about some of the trends you are seeing in the regions specifically North America and LatAm. So starting with North America, if I kind of ex-out the large recycler business you had won, could you talk about maybe some of the organic growth you are seeing in other parts of the business what’s actually driving that? And secondly, on LatAm, the 17% organic growth, how much came from pricing which I believe you passed pricing through in the second half of last year? Could you also talk a little bit about volumes there? Then secondly on margins, I wanted to talk about the sharp pickup you’ve seen in rest of the world which is a cluster of countries and I believe France is the largest. So you did talk about some operating profit growth in France. But could you call out maybe anything else which is driving such a sharp increase in margins for that region? Thank you.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

There’s a lot of questions. In the first quarter, our organic growth in the U.S. was heavily driven by the recycler sales as well as the recurring revenue streams associated with that, as I said in the comments that recycling recurring revenue streams helped improve margins by over $2 million in the U.S. We’re starting to see some also improvements in place but that’s not the driving factor in the U.S., but we’re seeing positive price movements in the U.S. which I think is a good sign. And that’s supported from our standpoint in particular by our improved service levels that I think is beginning to be noticed by our key customers, especially our large financial institutions. We think that will include – that will help to drive some pricing and help our competitive positioning that we’ll see over the balance of this year improvements in some of our account share. And then with the additional sales people that we put in place both for the FI and the retail, we’ll see an improvement in our organic that goes beyond what we’ve seen in the first quarter primarily focused on recyclers. In LatAm, we saw a combination of place and as I tried to provide some, and I think Ron did as well, if you will some examples around that particularly in Colombia and Argentina where we saw what I like to think is good strong leverage. So while we saw revenue improvements in both cases as well as other countries, as I mentioned before, and in every segment we not only saw revenue improvements and growth but also strong leverage that that growth in our operating income and therefore operating margins was stronger than our revenue growth, and that’s what we’re looking for across the board as part of our initiatives and part of our plans. Leverage is certainly important as we do that as we grow. Examples, as I said before, Hong Kong was a great example of that. India was another example. France, the revenue growth was not where obviously we want it to be but we still improved operating profit there. I think that’s what Ron alluded to as well. I think that covers most of the questions, Ashish.

Ashish Sinha

Analyst

Yes. But if you could talk about LatAm, how much was pricing out of the 17%?

Ron Domanico

Analyst

It’s kind of hard to say. There’s a wide range of inflation in the region with Argentina having the highest amount. That being said, the devaluation of the Argentine peso has moderated significantly so that our price increases are real impacts for the increase of Brink’s revenue. More importantly, Ashish, that our cost increases especially in Argentina were at a much lower rate than our price increases, so we had margin expansion. I will tell you that there was real volume growth throughout South America especially in Brazil, especially in Colombia. But we saw it broadly across the region. So without having a more specific answer, it quite frankly is difficult for us to tell how much is pure pricing and how much is volume especially in Argentina. I would say that we had a very good lift from price increases. It could be as much as a little bit more than half, maybe up to two-thirds of the increase was due to pricing but the rest was real organic growth.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

And dependent by country as well.

Ashish Sinha

Analyst

Okay, that’s helpful. The color is very helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question will be from Jamie Clement of Macquarie. Please go ahead.

James Clement

Analyst

Hi, gentlemen, sorry about the technical difficulties before, I apologize.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

You found the mute button?

James Clement

Analyst

Yes. So Ron, let me just ask a quick follow up there about the volume increases in South America. Is this in your opinion market share gains or is the macro backdrop and I’m particularly asking about Brazil here, is that kind of continuing to improve off of a low bottom?

Ron Domanico

Analyst

So, Jamie, as you know, the Brazilian macro environment is improving significantly, especially over the last couple of years but in the last year as well. So the overall market is growing and that is rising all boats, including ours. At the same time, we have been making improvements in our CompuSafe sales in Brazil. So it’s a combination of both market and share. But overall we’re very encouraged with the progress there both for the overall general economic environment but also about our ability to grow a business organically.

James Clement

Analyst

Okay, thanks a lot. And Doug if I could ask you about the U.S., your Investor Day it seems like with respect to organic revenue growth you all stressed retailers and CompuSafe and some of the smaller financial institutions.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

That’s right.

James Clement

Analyst

As your service levels improved, however, at what point in time does perhaps the strategy also involve more of a recapture of some market share losses that you probably have lost for the last, say, 10 to 15 years?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Well, I think that’s a great question and frankly a good lead in. And one of the things we have unfortunately over the last several years is loss on what I’d call market share or account share with especially our larger financial institutions. And one of the things that I think Ron and I described when we joined the business was that pushback if you will from customers related to that. And we’ve seen a much more open friendly desire and response from our large financial institutions in particular as a result of the improved service levels and I think improved relationship not only on the service levels but on working with our customers to find additional creative new solutions for their businesses as well. So I think as I said in my statements and we said before that will help us gain back some of that account share that market share but then strengthen that further with the investment that we made. And these 18 new sales people, these hunters, are just coming on in the first quarter. They were just brought on at the end of last year and they’re specifically focused on the lower tier financial institutions as well as CompuSafe and recyclers. So we should start seeing the ramp up of not only the benefits associated with the financial institution account shares as a result of the better services and the focus on customers but also as a result of the specific investments that we saw some of the cost associated with that in the quarter. But we should see the benefits as we go throughout the rest of this year. I hope that --

James Clement

Analyst

Yes, that’s terrific color. And if I could ask just one more follow up. The process of getting your labor cost down in Mexico, where do you feel you’re already in that process let’s say from a nine inning baseball game perspective?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Yes, we’re into very, very early stages of that. I don’t know what innings in baseball but --

James Clement

Analyst

Batting first, second…

Doug Pertz

Analyst

First, second inning if you will on that. And what we’ve done is as a result of if you will agreements and mutual understanding is I think a good way to put it with labor in Mexico, we’re actually starting to accelerate the process from where we thought it might have initially been which was more end of the year focus. So we’ll start seeing the improvements. So we’re in the very early stages that’s why we only saw a small piece of it starting or seeing results, if you will, in the first quarter.

James Clement

Analyst

Okay, terrific. Thank you all very much for your time.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And the next question will be from Saliq Khan of Imperial Capital. Please go ahead.

Saliq Khan

Analyst

Hi. Good morning, Doug. Good morning, Ron.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Good morning, Saliq.

Saliq Khan

Analyst

Yes, just two quick questions on our end. First one is, you previously talked about the 3% reduction in France and you noted that that was related to the exit of the guarded contracts. But if I take a look at the business over the last several quarters, France certainly has been a challenging region for you guys to be able to tackle. So how do you go ahead and overcome some of these challenges? And what is your outlook for the business over the near to midterm?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Well, I think the best way to relay that is to go back to our Investor Day. We specifically talked of a fairly significant strategic plan review and implementation that we’re just starting to implement in France and I’m very pleased with the French operating team’s response to things like a change in the guarding volumes but improvements and we’re starting to even see that this quarter. There’s going to ups and downs particularly in a more mature market on the revenue side such as France. But we’ve laid out in the three-year strategic plan a clear path to get the margins that are double-digit margins and I think we specifically said 12%.

Saliq Khan

Analyst

Yes.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

I want to be cautious. We don’t give you our internal target versus what we laid out. And the team is very focused on that over this period of time. So while we may have seen the impact in the first quarter of some of the guarding revenue, we actually did see an improvement in operating margin dollars in their core percentage as well in the quarter.

Saliq Khan

Analyst

Have you gotten any feedback already? I realize that this has only been a short amount of time but have you received any feedback that gives you more confidence or tells you that there might be things that you need to tweak within France to get the type of growth that you’re looking for, or the fact that the type of growth that you have internally targeted previously maybe a bit conservative relative to what it is that you’re seeing in the marketplace now?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Well, you’re particularly focusing on France. Look, we’re always tweaking the plan and I’ll come back to that in just a moment. But we’re always tweaking plans. France just like all the other markets, they laid out the strategic plan that was presented in the Investor Day. We still have a target out there of 12. We’re not ready to modify or change that at this point especially on an external basis. But we’re always tweaking and looking for ways we can do that and always responding to the marketplace. So, no, I have a strong degree of confidence both in France and other places. But let me give you another example of that. We mentioned the global meeting we had with our top leadership about six weeks ago now, I don’t know, something like that, it all goes together. But targets were set by every one of our leaders, each of our country management at that point in time that tie together and support our strategic plan. New initiatives are being added as we share those and we review those. Ron and I visited South America a couple of weeks ago after the meetings and each of the management teams that we visited, we were very pleased to see them come back with new and additional initiatives on top of what they already put in their plans that helps support and adjust to the market conditions but helps support achieving those types of targets that were laid out and even more. So that’s the type of attitude, that’s the type of direction, that’s the type of support that will allow us on a global basis to hit and hopefully exceed our plans and support the strategic numbers that we’ve laid out to you.

Saliq Khan

Analyst

Great. Just one question, guys, was just you mentioned the two recent acquisitions. Could you go through the revenue potential and the margin profile of those relative to the underlying Brink’s business?

Ron Domanico

Analyst

To put it in perspective at Investor Day, we said we had more than 20 potential deals in the pipeline. Most of that are small. These are also small. So the potential we see is more on the execution of a pipeline of a lot of these and the more important thing for your information, Saliq, is that the return we’re getting on these investments. So as we mentioned, our incremental cost of financing is 2.7% after tax and the returns on these deals are by definition north of our 15% IRR hurdle and some of them well above that. So these deals fall in that category. We don’t want to go into a lot of detail. Some of it is because of the limitations on what we can say based on the --

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Well, it’s competitive --

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Yes, and competitive. But the reality is, is that you’ll be able to see the purchase price and our cash flow statements in the Q over time. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do a couple of quarters, so you can identify specifically for each one. That being said, they do meet and exceed our return objectives and we will continue to pursue the rest of that pipeline.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Yes, let me just add to that. We certainly don’t want to provide information that would negatively impact our competitor’s position. So that’s pretty important. But as you can see, both of these are right in the core of what we said our strategy was on acquisitions. They’re in our core businesses. They’re nicely accretive. They’re going to improve our existing businesses as well as add to both revenue and volumes on it. And I think as Ron in his comments talked about some of the expected returns on it and hopefully you should be pleased with those expected returns that we’re looking at. And so that’s consistent with obviously what was accomplished as well as what we’re looking for in the rest of the pipeline going forward.

Saliq Khan

Analyst

Great. Thank you, guys.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question will come from Tobey Sommer of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. Please go ahead.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Thank you. I had a question for you on the various kind of sales and marketing initiatives that you have. Do you have those teams fully in place now or is this still an effort in process?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Tobey, we’re primarily speaking about the U.S. as using that as an example. And so they’re mostly in place in the U.S. And again, versus last year versus December they weren’t. So these are just – have this just put in place during the first quarter and it includes, if I’m correct, 11 hunters specifically focused on the CompuSafe recycler portion of our business in the U.S. which we didn’t have in early December. And six or seven hunters focused on the smaller what we call the tier 2 and 3 and below financial institutions to help drive that business which we certainly did not have the type of coverage and account share or market share I should say in that portion of the business. So those are teams that are just starting to ramp up and have just been put on in the first quarter. I think your question is a good one. It’s costing us obviously the investment of the OpEx as we put them in place, we needed to – obviously they need to get trained and ramp up as any sales organization would. Is it our final investment? If the response and the results are good, I think we’ll continue to invest. So I’m not sure – but yes, those are now in place and we anticipate as we go throughout this year we’ll see improvements in both of those areas and hopefully that will help drive as we said before more of our organic growth particularly in the U.S.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Thank you. As a follow up on the recycler sale that you gave us some color on, what is the sales cycle like for that? And what’s kind of a reasonable amount of time for us to look other similar sizable sales of recyclers?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Yes, that’s a hard one to really answer. Certainly recyclers generally take longer than CompuSafe and the size of the recycler sale or the size of the CompuSafe sale takes longer as well. If there’s a customer that’s already in the marketplace for CompuSafe and is going out to bid or working with multiples, then chances are that the timeframe to accomplish that is going to be shorter. Generally with the recyclers just as it was with the sale that we made last year to the large grocery store chain is based on how we can work with that customer with what we call a discovery team to help define and show the return on their investment anywhere from the reduced cash in their system to the elimination of cost in their operations to the daily credit to the reduction in losses. All of those things come together. So it’s a matter of being able to work with the management to show the returns and make that happen in a way that they’re prepared to move forward with the investment. And generally that’s a longer time in the six plus month period of time at least on recyclers than it is on CompuSafe.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Thank you. Just two last questions from me. One, is the profile of the sales people that you’re hiring both for CompuSafe and for kind of mid and lower tier financial services institutions, are they seasoned or are you hiring people laterally from other industries with analogous sales experience? And then the last question is on acquisitions, should we expect a similar cadence in size to the ones that you executed in the quarter as we go forward?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

So on the first question, it’s a combination of seasoned as well as lateral. Seasoned in that they’ve had experience in our industry as well as in the financial services industry and so probably more than half I would consider seasoned executive sales people. And that’s part of what we’re saying. Some will ramp up in what we anticipate their production should be faster than others and others are going to take longer to see that ramp up. So the ramp up could anywhere to be productive for us and the six-month period for those that are highly seasoned to 18 months, if you will, on the appropriate ramp up for those that are not as seasoned. But it’s a good combination and I think we’re very pleased with the group that we have that I would consider and the majority are highly seasoned, so that’s good. The second question is, yes. I think you should anticipate acquisitions that will be in hopefully a similar cadence to this. But can we say there’s going to be two a quarter or two every four months, we really can’t say that now. It all depends on what we’re able to do but we have a pipeline that’s consistent with the strategy that has been executed and consistent with the expectations of accomplishments or closing as we started so far.

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Tobey, just on the value part of that question, I would say the first deal we did would be on the lower side. The second deal’s probably in the middle and we could go higher. But I would say that vast majority of that pipeline are deals in the 50 million plus or minus 30 million range. But every deal’s different and opportunities come and go based on the current situation.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

But I think we’ve provided with these at least indications of how it fits in with our core strategy, the synergies associated with it and our expectations for returns.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

You did. Thank you very much for your help.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question will come from Wayne Archambo of Monarch Partners. Please go ahead.

Wayne Archambo

Analyst

Good morning. Just on the single man truck transition, how is that going? Are you in the early stages of that? How is that being received? And clearly there’s cost to be saved there but – and I think at Investor Day you had mentioned on that issue that there’s only certain markets you can do that in going back to the baseball terms again, you’re in the early stages of that versus second inning of that transition or where are you in that process?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Yes, I think your question’s a good one, Wayne, and the one-person vehicle phase in and ramp up in the U.S. really depends on the availability and the launch into our system of the one-person capable vehicle as well as then the routes that we can then put those on and the percent utilization, if you will, around that. As I said in my comments, we’re above or had if you will of our targets if you prorate the number of trucks that we are bringing into our system based on what we provided as guidance of 1,000 trucks over the three-year period of time. So we’ll continue to bring new trucks on probably more in the second half of this year on top of what we already have put in place. But as we bring those trucks on, they’ll be one-person vehicle capable. And then it’s how many routes can we put them in place. We did some of that last year as you remember which gave us a starting point for this year. So maybe that’s the first or second inning, if you will, from that standpoint. We’re probably now in the third inning. I’ve never thought it necessarily directly linked to that. But clearly this year you can see the continued ramp up of that along with as we introduce the new trucks, these new trucks will have low R&M and other operational costs than the trucks that we’ll be taking out. So it’s the combination of the reduced R&M and overall costs. Increases in depreciation cost for the trucks but lower operating and other repair and maintenance cost. And the ramp up especially in the earlier innings, if you want to use that analogy again, because we’ll be able to make sure that the utilization levels will be in that two-thirds plus percent of the routes that we can put them into place.

Wayne Archambo

Analyst

And are your competitors going with a single person on the trucks or is this unique to yourself?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

No. Loomis already has one-person vehicle trucks in the U.S. and they’re probably – I really don’t know. I don’t know what their implementation percentage is. But they already have those. They’re already accepted in the industry. We wanted to make sure we have the right technology and support and security around it and hence our new vehicles have the capacity and the capabilities to do that. But if you recall, our new vehicles initial costs are substantially less than the vehicles that we’re replacing. They have longer extended warranties so that their repair and maintenance costs are lower. And the way that we’re approaching it is with separable chassis from the body so it gives us the capability of at least two-thirds of our cost which is the body to have a much longer life. And then we match them, the chassis replacement to the number of miles and the use that we get on those and we still get some residual value on those chassis as well.

Wayne Archambo

Analyst

And lastly on the 1,000 trucks over three years, is that going to be distributed equally over the next three years or is it frontend loaded, or how will that be transitioned?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Yes, so we’re going to see more this year than in subsequent years and that’s why we say we’ve already started the year beating the equal ramp up to that.

Wayne Archambo

Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

The next question will come from Jeff Kessler of Imperial Capital. Please go ahead.

Jeff Kessler

Analyst

Thank you. This is the way we tag team you here. I want to follow up on a question from Jamie with regard to trying to regain market share. When this industry began to start talking about things like bank transformation, it became clear that CIT was not the only means of inside the business. And clearly within the last three years, there are multiple ways because – I’ll just go to talk about the cash recycling today. There are multiple ways that you can go and get share in this business. So the question is, when your recurring back to clients realizing you’re probably trying to get CIT out to them to begin with, what are the areas that you’re finding the most successful in being able to penetrate them with your new talk, your new references, your new value proposition? What areas are you gaining revenue with them that are easier for you to gain back than you are with other areas?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Jeff, I’m not going to answer that directly because I think it’s all the areas. In other words, we need to be as a company viewed as equal to or better in our core business of logistics, of CIT, of money processing, et cetera. That means we need to have the service levels in our core CIT business that are equal to or better than competition. We need to have a customer service focus and responsiveness in that business that’s equal to or better. We’re getting better at that. We’re getting close to that but we’re not there yet. In money processing, we need to have equal or better than competition, more efficient, more effective and better [ph] rates where they should be and better than competition. So that’s the operational excellence. That’s what we’re improving on fairly dramatically and getting to the point where we need to be. I’m not suggesting we’re there yet. In fact, because I believe it continues to improve, we’ll never be there. But the point is we need to have that in place first which will help us improve our margins, as important our market share with our customers and our existing customers and gain as new accounts in that area at higher margins because we’ll do it more efficiently, more effectively and therefore service our customer better, at the same time we get better margins. So I know I maybe – it sounds like I’m sidestepping but that’s core and that’s critical and that’s one key that we’re working on now. But the answer overall your question is we need to be able to provide and we are providing higher value packaged solutions to our customers that reduce their costs, take away their headaches if you will of cash management and proving that for them. And that’s really the retail solutions that we’re looking at, that we’re offering combining and packaging together the CIT logistics which is the core business plus money processing that we have a great position in with all the rest of the packaged services and then working on a strategic basis with our customers to add value-added services beyond that. Hence our third objective, also taking a look at cash forecasting that manage and support our customers’ needs and desires along with that as well. Those are the things that we’re going to be working for in the future that will get our customers to say, you take our money processing, you outsource that, you also outsource the vaults. And we have a partnership going forward with that. That’s what our focus is and clearly that’s what we’re starting to see. That’s where we have the new sales organization focused on in terms of selling and that’s where we think we not get market share gains but also higher margins.

Jeff Kessler

Analyst

Okay. Finally, one quick follow up to that and that is by you using that you want to do all of these things and because it is part of this whole area, are you able to change the level of the conversation that you’re having with your clients? In order words, the person at the other end of that sales, are you doing multiple people at different levels or is there – are you getting it at the treasury level or are you basically still dealing with the cash logistics people down there, or are you dealing with all of them?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

It’s a very, very good question and it depends on the account. In order to sell recyclers you need to get in at higher levels than just saying, pick up my cash. At financial institutions it needs to be more of a partnership that says we’re going to work together to figure out what you really need in your total system. In order to outsource vaults and money processing, it needs to be at like you say a more higher level with the treasurer or other areas. My point though is on top of that is the ticket to entry on this is to assure that we have the highest level of customer service, the highest level of service levels on the core businesses before and as a part of what our overall offering is on the other value services.

Jeff Kessler

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we have time for one last question from Drew McNulty of M&T Bank. Please go ahead.

Andrew McNulty

Analyst

Good morning, Doug and Ron. Thanks for your time today. I’ve got four quick questions for you, just a follow up and then a close a loop on a lot of these issues. First of all, could I ask you to elaborate a little bit on the return on your CapEx both on the vehicles and the CompuSafe in terms of what are you looking in terms of generating a return on those?

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Drew, basically we won’t approve any project unless it has a 15% IRR and many of our projects go well above that. So that’s the minimum but we are seeing some projects at significantly higher returns.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

And Drew, I might suggest you take a look at our investor package where we did specifically I think breakout our investments in our flux and the return that we expect on those. And I think you’ll see that it’s in excess of 20% plus which is consistent with what Ron’s suggesting.

Ron Domanico

Analyst

And we have then enumerated the specific savings for the fleet which is in excess of $20 million per year in our strategic plan period in the one-person vehicle trucks and that [indiscernible] range which then adds up to our returns on the overall investment.

Andrew McNulty

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you. I will. Secondly, labor cost impacts certainly are improving; service typically comes in improved at a higher cost. Can you talk a little bit about labor cost impacts from improved service in the U.S. market?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Well, actually Drew we think differently on that. We think that if we operate correctly, the balance with achieving operational excellence or on our road to improving operational excellence, we’re more efficient, more productive but we’re also more customer focus. And if we do it right, which we think we’re starting to, we end up with actually improving our labor cost or labor efficiency if you will at the same time that we improve our service levels. And so far that’s what you’ve seen in, it’s been two quarters if you will, maybe three if you want to look at it like that. And therefore you’ve seen improvements in our service levels as well as improvements in our labor costs.

Andrew McNulty

Analyst

Yes, I certainly have. I’ve looked at it over the last six quarters really. You guys are – and certainly in the last three or four since you got there in Q2 last year that have improved dramatically. I was curious if you were looking specifically at that aspect of it, obviously you are.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Drew, the concept is not to if you will put more money into place and more headcount, it’s to do it in the right way, the more efficient customer focused, better productivity that adds to where we want to go in productivity but also improves our service levels. And the right way to do that is to be able to accomplish both of those.

Andrew McNulty

Analyst

Okay. Next question will be on near peer competitors and just your – even a multiple, congratulations on a phenomenal improvement since December of '15. When I look at that chart on Slide 16, you’re obviously on par with peer A, you’ve surpassed peer C. Do you think that your strategy between here and 2019 is going to get you close to peer B or on par with them? Obviously the goal would be to exceed that from a multiple perspective but what are your thoughts in terms of going forward.

Ron Domanico

Analyst

That’s up to you.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

That’s what I was going to say.

Ron Domanico

Analyst

The multiple is just a result of the investment community’s confidence that we have a valid strategy and that we’re executing against it consistently. And so I learned long ago that the market is the market and there are things we can control and we have head down focused on those exclusively. And we will let the market judge us as they will on whether we deserve the highest multiple or near the highest multiple and we’ll just continue executing.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

And as I said in my comments as well, it’s up to us as a management team and as a company to gain our credibility with you and to continue to drive that. I think that our Page 16 multiple is based on trailing. And one of the things I might suggest is we look at forward multiples and we’re looking at what we’ve laid out of a 20% plus compound annual growth rate that hopefully we’re going to be showing you as investors that we’re going to be hitting and beating that, and therefore you’ll start seeing that as the forward multiples will be improved and versus competition you’ll give us some credit as the marketplace at least puts us with biased of our peers going forward, we’ll see.

Andrew McNulty

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you. And the last question I have is regarding your treatment strategy of the Venezuelan segment as you go forward. Taking a look at your 2016 10-K, obviously you’ve got improvements in terms of revenue but also with just the political climate being what it is and their currency issues, what are your thoughts in terms to approach Venezuelan operations as you head into the next couple of years?

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Well, as everyone saw last week, Venezuela nationalized the General Motors business for their country and it’s a risky environment, it’s a dynamic environment and we have no justification to consolidate that business from an accounting standpoint. That being said, we have an amazing management team down there that is doing everything they can to protect their employees and the business, and we support them in almost every way possible with the exception of infusing U.S. dollars back of the country. So that being said, there’s a minimal amount we’ll put in, maybe $1 million or so a year. But they’re doing a great job running that business in an extremely difficult environment. And so right now we support them in almost every way we can and wish them the best. But there’s no justification to consolidate it or sell it or anything else at this time. So it’s wait and see with Venezuela.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

I want to reiterate that. We’ve got a great management team down there and we really feel for them, if you will, as we do with everybody in the country in a very tough, tough situation and we want to be as supportive as we can without doing something that doesn’t make good business sense because we do think it’s a great business. We have a strong market position down there. The team is only getting probably stronger under the circumstances and we want to make sure we can have something for the future both for us but for them as well.

Andrew McNulty

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you very much, Doug and Ron, really appreciate your insight today.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thank you, Drew. And thank you to everybody else. I’ll pass it back to you, Denise.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. This concludes the question-and-answer session and also concludes our conference call for today. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.