Ware Grove
Analyst · William Blair. Please go ahead
Thank you, Jerry, and good morning, everyone. Let me take a few minutes to talk about the key highlights of the second quarter and year-to-date numbers we released this morning. Total revenue in the second quarter increased by $36.6 million, up 10.1% over second quarter a year ago. Same-unit revenue was up $15.0 million, or up by 4.1%, with acquisitions contributing another $21.6 million or 6% to growth compared with last year. After an extraordinarily strong first quarter, as Jerry commented, with two exceptions that I will detail in a moment, the core business performed well in the second quarter and in the first half of this year. We previously commented on higher interest rate expense headwinds this year and headwinds related to the increase in our tax rate compared with prior year. In the first half, reported increase in adjusted earnings per share was up 11% compared with last year. I think it is important to know that this rate of year-over-year growth in earnings includes a $0.04 per share impact of higher tax rates and includes a $0.09 per share impact from higher interest expense headwinds for the first half. As Jerry commented, two items disproportionately impacted second quarter results. This creates optics that may naturally raise concerns. So let me jump in and provide some additional detail behind what happened and the actions we are taking. Many of you generally may be aware that the IRS granted a six-month tax filing extension this year that applies broadly -- to broadly defined areas within the state of California due to flooding and severe weather conditions that occurred earlier in the year. Our core Financial Services annual revenue in California is about $120 million, and we expected that this delay in tax work could impact second quarter and first half results. We estimate the first half impact at approximately $0.04 per share, with most of this impact occurring in the second quarter as we carried staff through this period without the revenue. This work will be done in the second half of this year. And of course, this impacts the normal seasonality of first half versus second half results that is typical within our core Financial Services Group. The second item that impacted revenue and results in our Government Health Care consulting business, which is approximately $185 million in annual revenue. The impact was a result of delays in project work that primarily impacted second quarter results. With hundreds of active engagements underway at any time, this business has been a steady performer in achieving revenue and earnings growth over many years. From time to time, for reasons beyond our control, project work gets delayed. Sometimes this can be a result of delays in the regulated contract renewal RFP process from state agencies due to administrative delays where at times, our state agency staff is not ready with the information or the data necessary for us to perform the work as scheduled. In the second quarter, we learned of a significant contract where the normal renewal cycle was expected to occur midyear. However, administrative delays are now pushing this renewal into 2024. This business typically sees a steady pipeline of new or renewing project work with a very high percentage of project proposals awarded to CBIZ. This year is no exception. Our pipeline activity is healthy and has generated new project awards that are in line with expectations. Bringing these new engagements on board would normally serve to smooth out and mitigate the impact of any delays that we may occasionally encounter. But in this year, many new projects have been slow to launch. In a manner similar to that I described for the delayed tax work in California, the delayed and, therefore, lower revenue in second quarter caused a decline in earnings contribution from this business as we carried staff necessary to perform the work that was planned. This impacted first half results by approximately $0.06 per share and with approximately $0.04 per share attributed to the second quarter. As with California tax work, this Government Health Care consulting work does not go away but will occur at a later date. Looking at the second half of the year, aside from the major contract that is now being pushed into 2024, the newly awarded contracts either have started or are scheduled to start in the third quarter. So we are projecting relatively stronger results in the second half for this business. As we project second half revenue in this business, we're also taking immediate actions to align costs with projected revenue. As a result, for this business group, we expect to achieve growth in revenue and earnings for the full year. Over time, this business has grown annually at high single-digit rates. Driven by pent-up post-pandemic demand organically, revenue in this business grew approximately 13% last year. So this year in 2023, the year-over-year comparison presents a challenge. Okay, so with these comments, I provided a level of deeper information on these two second quarter items that we referenced, and I can shift comments back to CBIZ. For the six months this year, total revenue grew by $99.4 million, up 13.2% compared with last year. Same-unit revenue for the six months grew by $53.9 million, or up by 7.2% with acquisitions contributing $45.5 million or 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 $31.6 million, up 12.2% and same-unit revenue for the second quarter was up 3.9% or up by $10 million, with revenue growth recorded within traditional core accounting as well as advisory services. For the 6 months, total revenue within Financial Services grew by $86 million, up 15.7%. Same-unit revenue for the 6 months was up 7.4% and with high single-digit revenue growth for core services and a similar high single-digit growth recorded in our national advisory services. Within Benefits and Insurance, for the second quarter, same-unit revenue grew 4.5%. And for the 6 months, same-unit revenue grew by 6.4%. We continue to see strong client retention and strong new client production. The investments we have made in recent years to hire new business producers has gained traction as we are seeing increasing new business production. We remain committed to further enhancing growth within Benefits and Insurance and we continue to make investments in hiring additional producers. As previously disclosed earlier this year, we acquired Somerset CPAs and Advisors in February of 2023 with estimated annual revenue of approximately $55 million. In 2023, we expect to record approximately $52 million of revenue from this acquisition. We are extremely pleased to have the Somerset team on board and at this early stage of the newly acquired business is performing well. There are transaction costs and closing costs plus onetime integration-related expenses associated with this transaction. In a similar manner that reported from Marks Paneth acquisition-related costs last year, we are reporting an adjustment to eliminate these acquisition-related costs from GAAP reported results so that we can report adjusted results this year. You will find a reconciliation of these items as a schedule included in the earnings release. With a view towards presenting meaningful comparable information and eliminating the impact of the items I already commented on, which are the 2 factors impacting second quarter results so you have a better understanding, for the 6 months, adjusted earnings per share this year is $2.01, up 11% compared with adjusted earnings per share of $1.81 last year. Adjusted EBITDA, considering these same adjustments, was $167.8 million for the 6 months this year, up 12.9% over adjusted EBITDA of $148.6 million a year ago. We have previously talked about the level of health care and benefits, travel and entertainment expenses and marketing expenses that are normalizing to higher levels. These expenses collectively are 140 basis points below pre-pandemic levels of 2019, but we continue to see year-over-year impacts as these expenses normalize. For the first 6 months of this year, these expenses represented a 60 basis point headwind to margin on income before tax compared with a year ago. We continue to project that these expenses will settle in lower than pre-pandemic levels, but for a period of time, the year-over-year comparison presents a headwind. For the second quarter, we reported an increase in interest expense of $3.9 million and that impacted earnings per share by approximately $0.05 per share. And for the 6 months, we reported an increase in interest expense of $6.3 million, and that impacted earnings per share by approximately $0.09 per share, and this is a headwind to margin of approximately 65 basis points. As always, details of the impact of accounting for gains and losses in our nonqualified deferred compensation plan are outlined in the release. Because we are comparing a period in 2022 with capital markets losses compared with capital markets gains this year, there is a significant impact to the GAAP reported numbers as you look at both gross margin and operating income. As a reminder, pretax income margin is not impacted by this accounting. Turning to the cash flow items, on June 30 this year, the balance outstanding on the $600 million unsecured facility was $410.6 million, with about $178 million of unused capacity. The balance sheet on June 30 this year is strong with leverage of approximately 2x adjusted EBITDA. This provides plenty of capacity to continue strategic acquisitions and provides the flexibility to continue with the share repurchases. In the first 6 months this year, in addition to the Somerset acquisition discussed above, we completed a total of 4 acquisitions, which includes 2 smaller tuck-in acquisitions. We used approximately $84.2 million for these acquisitions as well as earn-out payments on previously closed transactions. We expect to use $26.2 million over the remainder of this year and approximately $60.1 million next year in 2024, $35.6 million in 2025 and another $10.6 million in 2026 for these estimated earn-out payments. Deploying capital for strategic acquisition purposes continues to be our highest priority. Since the end of 2019, we have closed 20 transactions, and we have deployed approximately $365 million of capital for acquisition purposes, including the earn-out payments over time. Through June 30 this year, we have repurchased approximately 975,000 shares of our common stock in the open market at a cost of approximately $48.5 million. To recap, repurchase activity in recent years, since the end of 2019, we have repurchased approximately 9.1 million shares and that represents slightly more than 16% of the shares outstanding compared to the end of 2019. Approximately $325 million of capital has been used towards this open market repurchase activity over that period. Days sales outstanding on June 30 this year was 89 days, compared with 88 days the first six months a year ago. Bad debt expense for the first six months was nine basis points of revenue this year, compared to 17 basis points a year ago. Depreciation and amortization expense for the second quarter was $9.2 million, compared with $8.3 million last year. Year-to-date, depreciation and amortization is $17.8 million versus $16.5 million last year. For the full year, we expect depreciation and amortization at approximately $36 million, compared with approximately $33 million last year. Capital spending for the second quarter was $8.1 million and is $11.7 million for the six months. Greater spending is planned this year for tenant improvements related to our upcoming move to our new headquarters facilities. In any year, most of our capital spending is associated with leasehold improvements and furniture for office facilities. As a reminder, we are a major tenant in our new headquarters building with a long-term lease and a move to the new headquarters is planned later this year. We are not an owner of the building. For the full year this year, we're expecting capital spending to be approximately $15 million to $20 million. The effective tax rate for the six months this year was 27.6%, up from 26.3% a year ago. The increase in the effective tax rate is primarily a result of expiration of certain grandfathered tax benefits that were associated with stock-based compensation as provided in the Tax Reform Act of 2017. The impact of the increased tax rate in the first half was approximately $0.04 per share. With a forecasted full year effective rate of 28%, we expect the full year impact at approximately $0.08 per share. The increased effective tax rate in '23 is a headwind that is unique to this year compared with 2022. In future years, we expect the effective tax rate to be relatively level at approximately 28%. And we project no further year-over-year headwinds beyond this year. The recurring and essential nature of many of our services provide stability through economic cycles. At this point, as we look at employment-driven metrics within our Benefits and in our Payroll business, we are seeing continued signs of steady employment within our clients. Economic uncertainty continues, however, and if we were to experience more sustained pressure on revenue growth, we have a number of variable items in our cost structure and we can take measures to mitigate the impact. 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. We can leverage costs and protect margins. The investments we made 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, coupled with strong client retention and that is driving revenue growth. Now, before I turn it back over to Jerry, I want to provide you with our thoughts on full year guidance. Even with the impact of the two items we talked about, first half results are generally in line with initial expectations. With a reported 11% increase in first half adjusted earnings per share, the impact of increased interest expense was $0.09 per share, and the impact of higher tax rate was $0.04 per share. Absent these factors, you can do the math and you can see that operating results would generate a much higher growth rate in earnings. I think this tells you that our core business within both Financial Services and Benefits and Insurance are performing very well with strong first half results. Looking at full year, in the second half with the focused actions we are taking, we project a recovery of the two second quarter factors that we described earlier. We typically target a 20 to 50 basis points improvement in pretax margin each year. But in 2023, there are headwinds for all the reasons that I outlined. So to recap our full year guidance, we'll say the following. Increasing our guidance on revenue growth, we expect total revenue to increase within a range of 10% to 12% for the year, up from 8% to 10% previously. On an adjusted basis, we expect 2023 adjusted earnings per share to increase within a range of 11% to 13% over the adjusted earnings per share of $2.13 that was reported last year. GAAP reported earnings per share, is expected to increase within a range of 15% to 17% over the $2.01 reported in 2022. The effective tax rate for the full year of 2023 is expected at approximately 28%. Now this could be impacted either up or down by a number of unpredictable factors. And lastly, the fully diluted weighted average share count is expected within a range of 50.5 million to 51.0 million shares for the full year of 2023. So with these comments, I'll conclude and I'll turn it back to Jerry.