Ware Grove
Analyst · CJS Securities
Thank you, Jerry and good morning, everyone. Let me take a few minutes to talk about key highlights of the second quarter and year-to-date numbers we released this morning. The second quarter numbers reflect a very strong continuing momentum in our business. Total revenue in the second quarter increased by $83.3 million, up 29.9% over second quarter a year ago. The second quarter same unit revenue was up $31.7 million or up by 11.4%, with acquisitions contributing $51.6 million or 18.5% to growth compared with last year. For the six months this year, total revenue grew by $174.3 million, up 30.1% compared with last year. Same unit revenue for the six months grew by $60.5 million or up by 10.5%, with acquisitions contributing $113.8 million or 19.6% to revenue growth for the six months this year compared with last year. Within Financial Services, for the second quarter, total revenue grew by $72.7 million, up 39%. Same unit revenue for the second quarter was up 11.1% or up by $20.7 million, with strong revenue growth spread evenly between our core advisory and government health care consulting lines of service. For the six months, total revenue within Financial Services grew by $157.3 million, up 40.3%. Same unit revenue for the six months was up 10.8%, again, spread evenly between core advisory and government health care consulting lines and service. Acquisition activity in 2021 and through the first half of this year was focused primarily within our Financial Services businesses. The newly acquired businesses are contributing to this robust total revenue growth. As we lap the first year of the mid 2021 acquisitions, these acquisitions will continue to perform well, but the total growth in revenue attributed to 2021 acquisition activity in the second half will naturally moderate. Within Benefits and Insurance, same unit revenue in the second quarter grew by 11.6%. And for the six months, same unit revenue grew by 9.2%. Every line of service within Benefits and Insurance recorded same unit revenue growth for both second quarter and for the six months. The investments we have made in recent years to hire and increase the number of new business producers has continued to gain traction. We remain committed to further enhancing growth capabilities within the Benefits and Insurance group and we will continue to make investments in hiring additional producers for the balance of the year and beyond. Bear in mind, as you look at earnings per share for the second quarter and for the six months, a year ago in the second quarter of 2021, we adjusted results to eliminate the impact of the $30.5 million settlement cost, plus we eliminated the $6.4 million gain on the sale of operations that was recorded in the second quarter last year. On an adjusted basis, in 2021, we reported $0.50 per share for the quarter, and we reported $1.43 per share for the six months. This year, in 2022, we announced the acquisition of Marks Paneth effective January 1. We estimated annual revenue of approximately $138 million this year, and we also outlined anticipated first year non-recurring transaction and integration costs associated with the acquisition. We are extremely pleased to have the Marks Paneth team on board to CBIZ, and the business is performing in line with initial estimates. Making adjustments to eliminate the impact of the non-recurring costs in the first quarter, these costs represented approximately $0.08 per share. And for the second quarter, these costs are approximately $0.03 per share or $0.11 per share for the six months. With these items in mind and with a view towards presenting meaningful comparable information, adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter this year is $0.63, up 26% compared with adjusted earnings per share in 2021 of $0.50. For the six months, adjusted earnings per share this year is $1.81, up 26.6% compared with adjusted earnings per share of $1.43 last year. Adjusted EBITDA, considering these same types of adjustments, was $148.6 million for the six months this year, up 27.9% over adjusted EBITDA of $116.2 million last year, and we expect a similar full year increase this year. Without going into detail today during this call, a table reconciling reported GAAP numbers to these adjusted earnings per share and EBITDA numbers that I'm referencing is included in the earnings release issued this morning, so you can see the detail of the items included. During last year and into the first quarter this year, after seeing artificially low levels of expenses through the pandemic, we talked about the level of health care and benefits, T&E expense and marketing expenses that are normalizing to higher levels. While we are seeing increases this year versus 2021, these expenses, most notably T&E expense, are expected to level out at over 100 basis points lower than pre-pandemic levels that we experienced in 2019. But for the first half of this year, these expenses represented a 106 basis point headwind to margin on income before tax compared with the lower levels experienced in the prior year. As we continue to enhance revenue growth with intentional outreach efforts of clients and new business prospects, we planned and expected that these costs would present headwinds this year. Of course, in addition to these discretionary costs, other variable elements in our cost structure give us the ability to manage expenses and leverage our cost structure over time. Comparing year-over-year adjusted results for the six months ended June, pre-tax income margin was down 30 basis points. The expense items I described represented 106 basis points headwind for the first half this year, so we are happy to be leveraging other costs aside from the intentional increase in T&E expense in the short list of items that I mentioned. We will continue to say that over time, we expect to achieve a 20 to 50 basis point annual increase in pre-tax margin. As you look back, in recent years, we are very pleased that our performance has exceeded the higher end of that range. For the full year of 2022 this year, we expect margin improvement near the lower end of that range, and our full year revised guidance contemplates margin improvement for the full year despite the headwinds in T&E expense and the other items I mentioned. As always, details of the impact of accounting for gains and losses in our non-qualified deferred compensation plan are outlined in the release. Because we are comparing a period in 2021 with capital markets gains compared with this year with capital markets losses, there is a significant impact to the GAAP reported numbers as you look at both gross margin and operating income. As a reminder, pre-tax income margin is not impacted by this factor. The business is performing very well this year, with robust top line growth. Cash flow from operations continues to be solid. In our first quarter conference call, we commented on the pending amendment of our $400 million credit facility to extend the maturity by five years through 2027 and upsize the facility to $600 million. This was accomplished during the second quarter. At June 30, the balance outstanding on the newly upsized $600 million unsecured facility was $266 million, with about $323 million of unused capacity. In the first half of this year, we have used approximately $81 million for acquisition purposes, including earnout payments on acquisitions that were closed in previous years. Earlier this month, we announced the acquisition of Stinnett & Associates that was effective July 1. Since the end of 2019, we have closed 15 transactions and have deployed approximately $250 million of capital for acquisition purposes, including earnout payments over that period of time. With the Stinnett transaction, combined with estimated earnout payments on previously closed transactions, for acquisition purposes, we expect to use $28.9 million over the remainder of 2022, approximately $50.1 million in 2023, $46.6 million in 2024 and approximately $27 million in 2025. In addition to using funds for acquisitions, during the second quarter, we repurchased 735,000 shares of our common stock. And through June 30, we have repurchased 884,000 shares in the open market at a cost of approximately $36 million. Since June 30, we have continued to actively repurchase shares. Under a 10b program, we have repurchased an additional 198,000 shares, making the total shares repurchased through July 27 approximately 1.1 million shares. To recap repurchase activity in recent years, since the end of 2019, we have repurchased a total of approximately 6.5 million shares, representing nearly 12% of shares outstanding compared to the end of 2019. Approximately $198 million of capital has been used towards this repurchase activity since the end of 2019. The balance sheet at June 30th is strong, with leverage of approximately 1.5 times EBITDA. This provides plenty of capacity to continue with both strategic acquisitions and to continue with share repurchases. DSO at June 30 was 88 days compared with 84 days a year ago. Bad debt expense for the first six months was 17 basis points of revenue compared to five basis points a year ago. Depreciation and amortization for the second quarter was $8.3 million versus $6.6 million last year. Year-to-date is $16.5 million versus $12.9 million last year. Capital spending for the second quarter was $2.8 million and is $3.6 million for the six months. For the full year of 2022, we're expecting CapEx to be approximately $10 million. The effective tax rate for the first six months this year was 26.3% and that was up from 24% a year ago. For the full year this year, however, we continue to expect an effective tax rate close to 25%, although this can be either higher or lower due to a number of unpredictable factors. Looking ahead, the second half of our year is seasonally more dependent upon project business and is typically subject to more uncertainty. However, we are in a very strong position to continue to report robust growth in revenue and in earnings for the following reasons. Demand for services continues to be strong. The recurring and essential nature of many of our services provides a major stability through economic cycles. At this point, we are seeing continued signs of steady and strong employment within our clients as we look at employment-driven metrics in our benefits and in our payroll businesses. As Jerry commented, the tools and systems we have put in place in recent years have enabled us to increase pricing and keep pace with underlying cost pressures, leverage costs and protect margins. The investments we made and are continuing to make in new business producers, particularly focused within our Benefits and Insurance group, have gained traction and we are seeing strong new business revenue growth, coupled with strong client retention that is driving revenue growth. First half results are very strong, and we are comfortable in increasing full year 2022 expectations as follows. We expect total revenue to increase within a range of 23% to 25% over the $1.1 billion reported in 2021, up from previous guidance projecting growth between 19% to 21%. On an adjusted basis, we expect 2022 adjusted earnings per share to increase within a range of 25% to 27% over the adjusted earnings per share of $1.66 reported in 2021. This is up from previous guidance for growth in adjusted EPS of between 20% to 22%. GAAP reported earnings per share is expected to increase within a range of 45% to 48% over $1.32 reported in 2021. The effective tax rate for the full year of 2022 is expected at approximately 25%, and of course, as I mentioned earlier, this can be impacted either up or down by a number of unpredictable factors. In light of share repurchase activity to date, fully diluted weighted average share count is expected within the range of 52.5 million to 53 million shares for the full year 2022. So with these comments, I will conclude, and I'll turn it back over to Jerry.