Earnings Labs

The Brink's Company (BCO)

Q3 2018 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 24, 2018

$108.49

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to The Brink's Company's Third Quarter 2018 Earnings Call. Brink's issued a press release on third 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] Now, for the company's Safe Harbor statements; 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, Drew. Good morning, everyone. Joining me today are CEO, Doug Pertz; and CFO, Ron Domanico. This morning, we reported third quarter results on both the GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP results exclude our Venezuela operations, the impact of Argentina's highly inflationary accounting, reorganization and restructuring costs, items related to acquisitions and dispositions, and costs related to certain accounting compliance matters. We also provided our non-GAAP results on a constant currency basis, which eliminates changes in foreign currency exchange rates. We believe these non-GAAP results make it easier for investors to assess operating performance between periods. Our comments today, including those referring to our guidance, will focus primarily on non-GAAP results. Reconciliations are provided in the press release, in the appendix to the slides we're using today, and in this morning's 8-K filing, all of which can be found on our Web site. Finally, page four of the press release provides the details behind our 2018 guidance, including revenue, operating profit, non-controlling interest, income taxes and adjusted EBITDA. I'll now turn the call over to Doug.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thanks, Ed, and good morning, everyone. Today, we reported our 10th consecutive quarter of year-over-year earnings growth. We're now seven quarters into our 12 quarters strategic plan and our results excluding the impact of currency continued to be well above both our original and our upwardly revised plan targets. We expect to extend this strong performance into 2019 and through our next strategic plan period. Third quarter results include reported revenue growth of 3%, operating profit growth of 25%, and a 21% increase in adjusted EBITDA. Our operating margin increased 200 basis points to 11.2%. We achieved these results despite the significant impact of currency devaluations, most notably in Argentina, that reduced our revenue by $82 million in total and operating profit by $24 million. This was more than offset by a $106 million of revenue and $42 million of operating profit through organic and acquisition-related growth. Our reported non-GAAP earnings were $0.91 per share, up 8%. The lower EPS rate compared to the 25% operating profit growth is due mainly to higher interest expense related to the refinancing completed in October of last year, which provided excess cash that has since been used for the Dunbar acquisition as well as due to the higher tax rate. Our results excluding the unfavorable impact of FX provide a better picture of our true operational performance. On a constant currency basis, revenue grew 13%, operating profit was up 55% to $119 million, adjusted EBITDA was up 44%, and earnings grew 42% to a $1.19 per share. Now the Dunbar acquisition is closed, the cash that was on our balance sheet has been fully deployed, and it's just beginning to deliver accretive returns, and as we disclosed when we announced the acquisition, we expect our current tax rate of 37% to be reduced…

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Thanks, Doug, and good day, everyone. Let's look a little deeper into our 2018 third quarter results. Reported third quarter 2018 revenue was $852 million versus the third quarter 2017 organic revenue increased 7% or $60 million and acquisitions net of dispositions drove an additional $46 million of growth. Translation Forex impacted revenue negatively by $82 million, due primarily to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar versus the Argentine peso, the Mexican peso, the Brazilian real and the euro. Of the $60 million organic revenue increase, South America grew 14% North America grew 7% and the rest of the world grew 1%. Acquisitions added $68 million with approximately $52 million attributed to Dunbar. The second quarter 2018 disposition of our French aviation guarding business reduced third quarter revenue by $22 million. On the right side of this chart, you can see that third quarter 2018 non-GAAP operating profit was $95 million. Excluding the impact of currency, operating profit in the third quarter 2018 increased 55% or $42 million. The increase was driven by $38 million of organic growth and $4 million from acquisitions net of dispositions primarily from Dunbar and Temis. In the quarter, there was $24 million in unfavorable translation ForEx, due almost entirely to weakness in the Argentine peso with some minor negative impact from the Brazilian real and the Mexican peso. Nevertheless, reported third quarter 2018 non-GAAP operating profit was up 25%. Organic profit more than tripled in the U.S. and combined with the continued revenue and margin expansion in Mexico drove the 84% organic growth in North America. South America was up 39% organically led by Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. The rest of the world was down 4% organically with the continued pricing pressure in France offsetting improvements in other EMEA and Asia-Pacific. Corporate expenses improved…

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thanks, Ron. I want to again emphasize that despite significant currency headwinds, we had another strong third quarter with reported 25% profit growth and with constant currency growth of 55%. For the three quarters year-to-date of 2018 reported profit growth is 27% and constant currency growth is 50%. Seven quarters ago, we launched our three year strategic plan with aggressive organic and margin improvement targets. We call it our strategy 1.0. These plans included breakthrough initiatives to materially improve our businesses and margins in the U.S., Mexico, Brazil and other countries. We're on track to meet or exceed these targets as well as subsequent increases in our initial targets excluding FX. Many people would have not believed our U.S. results were possible after losing money in the first-half of 2016 and doubling our margins in Mexico seemed equally implausible. Only five quarters ago, we announced the first of seven acquisitions as part of our Strategy 1.5 the approximate $1 billion investment in the seven acquisitions to-date will add it close to $130 million of EBITDA in 2019 after partial synergies are gained from route density infrastructure overlap and efficiency improvements. We're confident the combined 1.0 and 1.5 Strategies will continue to drive revenue and margin growth and continue to significantly outpace the unfavorable impact of currency translucence in the future. As one of our three strategic objectives, technology will not only help drive continued achievement of our margins and productivity targets, but will also enable offerings of new and differentiated services. We've already implemented technology to optimize routes and reduce labor and to externally monitor and manage all of our customers CompuSafe. New customer facing technologies now in the pilot stage include track and trace to provide real time customer data through customized portals, the Brink's handheld app for ordering…

Operator

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] At this time we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Tobey Sommer of SunTrust. Please go ahead.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Thank you very much. I think I'll start out by asking what are the lessons that you've learned since closing the Dunbar acquisition in terms of opportunities, positives and negatives versus your expectations prior to closing?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

It's a good question, I try to allude a little bit that in my words of some of the - first I think lessons and I'm not sure that's the right way and necessarily put it as that we have great people, they're great people at Dunbar that have been there for many, many years, they have known the industry very well, and I think will add tremendously to the combined business going forward. We've integrated a number of those senior level people into our operations and look forward to them being a key piece of where we're going forward in the future. I think if we take that a step further, and we've said this before, as well as it - is that the customer focus that they have is very strong and they're customer-focused particularly in the small to medium-sized retailer in particular has been very, very good, and we want to maintain that and build on that, and that's complementary to what we have in our business on the Brink side at least historically. I think the third area and I've alluded to this as well is, is that we think there are opportunities above and beyond both in terms of revenue opportunities, because of the complimentary nature that I just alluded to, as well as additional cost synergies particularly in the area of continuing to look at what that long-term optimized network is - will be for the combined businesses going forward. And we talked a lot about already the synergies about the combinations of some of the businesses that are - the branches and so forth that are pretty well-understood that we do in these situations. And what we can do with some of the investments in the truck fleets, modernizing the truck fleet as well as going to one-person vehicles and reducing labor cost. So those are in the kind of the base synergy numbers, but we think there are huge opportunities on top of that as we look at what our end state is for our hub and spoke network of the future, and this gives us the opportunity, this being to combine - the combination of the two business gives us the opportunity to significantly leverage and magnify that.

Operator

Operator

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

Jeff Kessler

Analyst

Thank you. And I first want to thank you guys for putting this amount of detail, particularly on the - particularly on the - on your outward looking numbers. It helps a lot. First with regard to EBITDA estimates that you've just put out for 2019 - let's call it the consensus is sitting around $6.40 and you've guided to $6.10 to $6.35. At the same time, it appears that you're talking to some extent about $50 million to $70 million of currency - let's say currency downturn for next year that you have to adjust - work against. If the Argentine peso was to remain in the $35 million to $40 million region, is there a $30 million or $40 million kick - am I doing the math right back to EBITDA if that happens?

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Yes, Jeff. I mean we believe that a highly inflationary economy will continue to experience devaluation by its very nature and because of that we feel like we have been conservative with a 40 peso estimate through the rest of this year and a 45 average for next year.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Let's be clear, the peso today is about 36.5. So that's an increase for the balance of this year and then it's taking an average of 45, which - if you go into next year starting at that 40, which is up from obviously 36.5 today, the average of 45 maybe you can exit the year - next year is substantially more than 45 and you still get that average theoretically.

Ron Domanico

Analyst

And so, an answer to your question is if the peso does not devalue further, a large portion of that negative Forex that we've built into 2019 guidance would not materialize, and we would see that be incremental to both operating profit and EBITDA.

Jeff Kessler

Analyst

Okay.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

And I guess - let me just, one other thing to add to that obviously, what we have talked about of the historical - and Ron, I think went through in pretty good summary today, of how we recapture the FX devaluation that we've seen through the inflationary price increases, which has happened for years and years as a part of the structure in the Argentine economy. That will also be something that we catch up on. And so, the question is how much will that be, and when does that happen? The normal pace is the middle of the year, and the question is how much will that be? So that's part of the other upside that we hope there will be as well.

Jeff Kessler

Analyst

Okay. Again, I want to thank you again for talking about the amount, giving some detail on the capital, your capital program for the next year or so, where you expect to spend. One of the areas where you did not spend a lot of it lately is your stock is down, let's call it 20% to 30% from its high and you bought back I see that $25 million worth of stock in the last quarter, is there a consideration to upping that if the stock remains at the level where it is now?

Ron Domanico

Analyst

We have an authorization that we received in May of 2017 for a total of $200 million in share buybacks, Jeff. So obviously, we've used about one-eighth of that. We are not going to disclose our buyback strategy, but you've now seen third quarter that we've actually exercised a portion of that authority, and we will continue to evaluate the share price based on what we believe our cash flow generation and operating income generation capabilities are going forward. We obviously believe it was a good investment last quarter and the prices lower this morning, and so it would continue to be a good investment.

Jeff Kessler

Analyst

Okay. One quick follow-up question on operations and that is - have you since this May, this is with or without Dunbar at this point, I'm assuming Dunbar has helped, but the growth that you're seeing in North America is probably not just due to increasing your business with existing clients. The question is, have you recaptured, or have you begun to take on new clients that you probably aren't going to give the name of, but can you talk a little bit about your client [indiscernible] program and what is going on in getting - winning back some of that share that was lost back in 2008-2009?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

I think the best way to characterize that is, we're in the early stages of doing that, and if we have a lot of opportunity to continue to do that and we anticipate that we'll be able to get to the 5% plus organic growth rates in the U.S. on a sustained basis over the next couple of years supported by the strong recurring revenue streams of the CompuSafe as a base for that.

Jeff Kessler

Analyst

All right. Great, thank you very much.

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Thank you, Jeff.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Ashish Sinha of Gabelli & Company. Please go ahead.

Ashish Sinha

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. So, I wanted to expand a little bit more about the cannabis opportunity you highlighted both in your presentation and press release. Just wanted to understand your thoughts, I mean, you would have done some work around signs of the market, the potential, the addressable market you could have and the opportunity. So if you could talk a little bit about that. And then secondly on the - within the cannabis market is pricing traditionally different versus normal CIT and margins, so is it accretive revenues in terms of margins. And then thirdly, within the same cannabis market, is the competition going to be slightly different maybe probably because you need to be qualified somehow to transport and not everybody can tender or bid for that business. And then secondly if I could ask the share repurchases question a bit differently, I mean you bought back shares at $74 and change and now the shares are closer to - below $65, so assuming you would have got more aggressive, or you would be more regressive in third quarter or probably going ahead with repurchases. So, my question is, have you factored in your guidance any impact from the change in share count? That's all. Thank you.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Let's address the last one first, no, we've not factored anything into our EPS, anything - any difference of that. And I want to reemphasize this and this is kind of goes to the last question about what our guidance was? Remember our guidance for next year - while we maybe a little bit disappointed that we brought down the EPS or our overall targets for next year from where we initially put them up, because we only recaptured a portion of the $120 million that we had to recapture. We're still talking about a 30% increase in EPS next year. So I'm not sure frankly. Maybe this sounds a bit defensive, but I'm not sure if you would have said we were going to be up 40% it would have made a whole lot of difference in our share price today. So I mean we're still talking about a 30% increase in our EPS next year, and then 20-plus-percent increase in both our EBITDA and our op income, but no, a difference in our share count is not indicated and that based in a share buyback of any consequence in that number. So that's not - I mean that it would be additional upside if we look at, and we clearly think that that we are undervalued. If you want to look at today at the current share price if we thought it was that the average share price that we bought back out at of 74. Cannabis business, I don't know that we necessarily are the ones to talk about the size of the market in Canada, but it's very large, it offer significant opportunity. And I think as we did state in the press release and in my comments is we are uniquely positioned to offer the…

Ron Domanico

Analyst

You had one follow-up question about competition; Brink's has globally the highest insurance coverage of any of the CIT carriers. And because of that, we know in Canada, we do have an advantage where the other major national [technical difficulty] competitor does not have a same level of insurance and then what give us a competitive advantage.

Ashish Sinha

Analyst

Understood. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Jamie Clement of Buckingham. Please go ahead

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Good morning, Jamie.

Operator

Operator

Mr. Clement, please go ahead with your question. Your line is open. Okay. We will go next to a follow-up from Tobey Sommer of SunTrust. Please go ahead.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Thanks. I wanted to ask, in the French market, you kind of said things are kind of bottomed in '18 and in '19, perhaps you see some improvements, has things already started to improve sequentially or is that a prospective comment, and I was just wondering if you could maybe give your perspective on what changes there to drive the improvement other than the expense management you talked about. Do you expect contracts to kind of be recompeted at better prices in the future? Thanks.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

I don't want to necessarily speak for the market on a future basis, but I guess the answer is yes, we do expect that, we expect that most customers will understand that the major step-down that we saw over the last year, the carry-forward this year is not something that is sustainable. And while we may not see the step-back up again, we are seeing, and we will see a prospective improvement. And so, I guess the best answer is that we weren't speaking about an improvement in the third quarter necessarily versus what we - versus last year, but we do expect the fourth quarter to be a bit better, and therefore that's your - answering sequential. And that will take us into '19 that is better. And the '19 will be better we think because of a combination of things, and you - I think let off with that, in that, we'll see implementation of our cost improvements and the full implementation of that and the full benefit to that in '19 as well as hopefully some improvement in the customer contracts in prior year comparisons as well as some pricing hopefully going forward.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Thank you very much. That's helpful.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

As I did mention in the comments and Ron did as well that, we no longer had a guarding business. So that $20 million or so or $80 million in the full-year on a revenue basis is part of the reason for the revenue drop, and we have to obviously get rid of some of the cost that was absorbed associated with that too. So that's in the process of happening.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

That makes sense. With respect to the CompuSafe and recycler business, have you learned anything over the last couple of quarters that that causes you to change your view on the addressable market or where you think that can grow over time?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Well, you asked kind of two questions there. I think on the CompuSafe side, I think we're right on track to where we thought we were, and we are still highly confident in terms of the size of the market as well as the opportunity to continue to increase that addressable market. And it's not just us, it's the whole market continuing to get more of it. So we're - where we have historically like last year I think we stated that we think that about 18% to 20% of the market is currently being addressed. We think that the market will not only grow, but will also grow in terms of the amount - the percent of the market that will be addressed. And so, we firmly believe that and continue to do that. One of the other things - that's primarily addressing the U.S. market. The other great thing is we're seeing nice successes in other key international markets as well such as Mexico, Brazil, and other South American countries in particular. So that's very encouraging. And I think that's in more the infancy in terms of the markets versus competition. That's a little bit different I think than the recycler business, which is again in the earlier stages of how much of that market of a larger retailers are truly addressed, and therefore is as a much lower percent of the total market that is addressed today. Again, future opportunity that needs to be further defined, and our plans need to be further defined around that represents a significant opportunity for the future that is not baked into many of our numbers and I think what's in the addressable market for the industry today.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Thank you. One last question for me, with respect to the company's acquisition strategy, what does the pipeline look like today? Are you seeing opportunities that are as exciting as the ones you were able to look at and some of them consummate so far in 2018?

Ron Domanico

Analyst

The pipeline is no smaller than it's been, when we've kicked off our strategic plan in March of 2017. Our local teams continue to identify candidates. Those range from a small as $2 million to much, much larger. So yes we're still excited about the potential for additional accretive M&A.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Thank you both for your time.

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Thank you.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Thanks a lot for your support. Jamie, we will try you.

Operator

Operator

Okay. We have a question from Jamie Clement. Please go ahead. Once again, we have a question from Jamie Clement of Buckingham Research. Please go ahead with your question. I cannot sure if you might have it muted in another area.

Jamie Clement

Analyst

Can you all hear me?

Operator

Operator

Yes, now. We can hear you.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Hello, yes, Yes. Yes.

Operator

Operator

Please go ahead. Thank you.

Jamie Clement

Analyst

Hello. Okay. I don't know what the heck's going on. Sorry, guys. Hey, Doug, so when you all joined I the framework of your presentations how you all talk to investors was around a three-year plan. Well, obviously that the answer your three. Would you all anticipate another three-year plan being introduced next year? How are you thinking about kind of 2020, 2021, 2022 in terms of how you're going to message to the market?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

It's a very good question, and you're correct, when we did present our first strategic plan in March of 2017 to the investor community it was a three-year plan that took us through specific and initial targets for '19, and as we talked about that was 1.0 organic only as we first talked about, we then layered on top of that the 1.5 acquisition plans and then changed and improved of new targets around that. Our intent and we are developing the new three-year strategic plan and so our intent would be to share at least portions of that plan with the investors sometime early next year.

Jamie Clement

Analyst

Okay, great, and…

Doug Pertz

Analyst

How much with you and what type of targets, we have yet to be…

Jamie Clement

Analyst

Oh, no, actually I was just - I was just more - more asking kind of bigger picture, how you're going to frame that?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

And I think as I try to say in my comments, Jamie, is we're not just resting on the plan and things are going to die at the end of '19, very much just the opposite. And as important to that thing such as acquisitions as I mentioned, you saw the numbers of the contribution, and we restated them again that the EBITDA will be contributing just from the acquisitions next year, but that's only partial year synergies. And the synergies as an example from Dunbar, our three-year synergies and you're just going to see the first year of that next year which we've implemented, we talked about $15 million out of the $45 million, 100% of the LTM EBITDA, and we think there are going to be more beyond that. We'll talk to you about what those more are going to be as we get into, as we get more definition around that but those are 2020 and 2021 and beyond. And we shared I think what we anticipate our U.S. total business will look like in 2021 and beyond which is obviously well beyond our 2018 targets and the ability to have done things like the Dunbar acquisition present huge opportunities for additional value creation well beyond 2019.

Jamie Clement

Analyst

Doug, can you remind us roughly between Dunbar and Brink's, how many U.S. branches you all have now?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Well, between the two, we have close to 200 between the two.

Jamie Clement

Analyst

Yes. I mean how would imagine that that's probably not the right number five years from now right?

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Well, it's not only not the right number, but it's not the right makeup of what they are.

Jamie Clement

Analyst

Yes.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

As the U.S. has done a very good job, I think in the last year in the initial phases, and I'd almost call it now that the test phases of our network optimization one of our four key breakthrough initiatives. The two areas of that was first of all, the high speed money processing equipment that gave us the ability to improve our efficiency and hopefully improve our error rate than in our quality. But then also put the throughput in through, through key hub locations for money processing, which constitutes the base for our hub, future network locations. And then our launch pads, which is our pure simple lowdown if you will in dirty securer launch pads for CIT only, those have been proven and tested this year helping improve some of our labor costs this year, and proving out our point of our ability for the spokes of the future. And those combined will assure that we are equal to a better coverage on a total U.S. basis, but it optimized very magnified improvement over where we are today at the combined businesses, and it will look much different than what we either of our systems look like today, and we think there will be significant benefits associated with that going forward.

Jamie Clement

Analyst

That is phenomenal color. Appreciate it. Ron, one last quick one and I'll let you guys go. I - Dunbar slide page 5, expect 2019 EBITDA of about $60 million, then page 16, which is talking about preliminary 2019 guidance, Dunbar is a $40 million number there. What am I missing?

Ron Domanico

Analyst

No, that's - yes, you're missing that we include acquisitions the trailing 12 month at the date of acquisition as the acquisition component. Any growth from that is included as organic because we are taking credit…

Jamie Clement

Analyst

So you're pass-throughing that in the $40 million to $60 million.

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Correct.

Jamie Clement

Analyst

Great, awesome. Thank you very much.

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And we have a follow up from Jeff Kessler of Imperial Capital. Please go ahead.

Jeff Kessler

Analyst

Thank you. I have a quick question on CompuSafe, your traditional market has been money center banks and retailers and obviously and the Fed as well, this is all large, you know large situations whereas CompuSafe is a - is generally geared toward smaller and mid-sized companies. The Dunbar's main line of business has been those companies where you've been trying to sell, and now obviously rent or get out in some type of SaaS service, the CompuSafe business, do you have a better chance or is there - are you going through the steps with Dunbar people to integrate them into Brink's to be able to sell or increase your penetration more quickly with CompuSafe.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Look, the best answer is yes. All that process is going on and I think a key piece of this is the sales leader at Dunbar is integral now to our combined U.S. operations. The sales force that has done such a great job at pursuing and holding onto this small to medium sized retailer at Dunbar is going to be integral to how we handle and manage things in the future which we didn't have in the past. And the key piece of this thing is integrating our CompuSafe strategies combined going forward with the right product, the right services, monitoring every one of them in a combined system and network which we'll all be using, integrating our technology that I alluded to in the slides as well is customer facing technology enabling that, we think we'll be a great driver for differentiation as well as assuring that we get growth on all sides of the small to medium sized player as well as the larger and part of our future strategy. And I don't want to say too much about it yet, but part of our future strategy will assuring - we'll be assuring that we integrate our track and trace, then we integrate Brink's app and all of the ability to monitor and use that most effectively and efficiently as well as in a differentiated fashion with a real time data to our customers and we think this will provide a competitive advantage to the smaller customers and open up the addressable market as we talked about earlier with CompuSafe with products around that, that will expand that market more aggressively, accelerated if you will and give us a competitive advantage in that marketplace as well which will continue to support a lot of the things that Dunbar has done in the past and we hope to do in the future. So that's part of our new strategy that I think will be very complementary to what Dunbar has done in the past as well.

Jeff Kessler

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

And we have a question from Marlene Pereiro of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Marlene Pereiro

Analyst

Thank you.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

Good morning, Marlene.

Marlene Pereiro

Analyst

Good morning. Hi. Most of my questions have been answered, so I just have one quick last one. Can you just tell me what roughly like your long-term leverage target is, and if like for the right deal you might be willing to go above that target?

Ron Domanico

Analyst

Well, what we've said repeatedly that I think the math shows that an ideal leverage for a company of our characteristic is probably around three turns plus or minus.

Marlene Pereiro

Analyst

Yes.

Ron Domanico

Analyst

But quite frankly, you know, even with the Dunbar acquisition, we lever up in the cash flow from that acquisition levers us back down again. So while we believe theoretically three might be the best for shareholder value, that the practical answer is, it depends on our ability to invest capital at returns that are substantially higher not only in our cost of capital but our internal rate of return target of 15% after tax. So, it's not an evasive answer. I think from a theoretical basis, we've answered it that are three plus or minus, but the reality is, we continue to generate cash that will continue to push that leverage back down.

Doug Pertz

Analyst

And Marlene, I think that's a key piece of this is that, we've not only have shown that we have a nice strong 20-plus-percent EBITDA growth and therefore strong cash flow generation, but as Ron has laid out, we're going to continue to improve that free cash flow generation based on our investments, our movements and margins. And then the investments that we've made that have been high growth, high return investments will continue to yield and we actually reduce our CapEx probably in the future as a percent of revenue will continue to yield even stronger cash flows in the future. And our business generally is less susceptible to any downturns in the future so that gives us the great characteristics of not only a typical type of industrial services business, but also a great business that would suggest that we can handle those types of multiples as well assuming that there are great returns that we get from it.

Marlene Pereiro

Analyst

Got it. Great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes The Brink's third quarter earnings call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.