Good day and welcome to The GEO Group Fourth Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Pablo Paez, Executive Vice President of Corporate Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's discussion of The GEO Group’s fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings results. With us today are George Zoley, Executive Chairman of the Board; David Donahue, Chief Executive Officer; Wayne Calabrese, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Mark Suchinski, Chief Financial Officer. This morning, we will discuss our fourth quarter and full year results as well as our outlook. We will conclude the call with a question and answer session. This conference call is also being webcast live or on investor website at investors.geogroup.com. Today we will discuss non-GAAP basis information. A reconciliation from non-GAAP basis information to GAAP basis results is included in the press release and the supplemental disclosure we issued this morning. Additionally, much of the information we will discuss today, including the answers we give in response to your questions, may include forward-looking statements regarding our beliefs and current expectations with respect to various matters. These forward-looking statements are intended to fall within the safe harbor provisions of the securities laws. Our actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors contained in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including the Form 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K reports. With that, please allow me to turn this call over to our Executive Chairman, George Zoley. George?

Thank you, Pablo, and good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us on our fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. And I apologize for my hoarse voice this morning. I would like to welcome our new CEO, Dave Donahue, who is joining our call today along with our President and COO, Wayne Calabrese, and our CFO, Mark Suchinski. Dave has 42 years of operational experience in our industry, having previously served for 10 years as GEO's Senior Vice President for Secure Services after a distinguished career with the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Corrections in the States of Kentucky and Indiana. We are pleased to have Dave join our Senior Management Team as we embark on what we expect to be an unprecedented level of operational activity. During today's call, we will review our fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial results and operational highlights for our business segments. We will also discuss our initial financial guidance for ‘25, which is consistent with our longstanding practice and does not include any new contract awards that have not been previously announced. And we will provide an update on the latest developments across our diversified business segments, including the opportunities to expand our services for ICE and the Federal Government. Our financial performance during the fourth quarter of 2024 reflects higher overhead expenses and were partially the result of previously announced reorganization of our management team and additional professional fees we incurred in anticipation of what we expect to be an unprecedented future growth projects and related operational activity during ‘25. Our top-line revenue for the fourth quarter of ‘24 increased from our ‘24 third quarter results in line with our guidance. However, our earnings and adjusted EBITDA were below our previous expectations due to higher overhead expenses. In…

Thank you, George. And good morning, everyone. For the fourth quarter of 2024, we reported net income attributable to GEO of approximately $15.5 million or $0.11 per diluted share on quarterly revenues of approximately $608 million dollars. This compares the net income attributed with the GEO of approximately $25 million dollars or $0.17 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2023 on revenues of approximately $608 million. Fourth quarter 2024 results reflect higher G&A overhead expenses in part due to the recent reorganization of our senior management team and additional associated professional fees incurred during the quarter. Fourth quarter 2024 results also reflect pre-tax costs associated with the extinguishment of debt of approximately $1.3 million and approximately $2.1 million in pre-tax employee restructuring expenses. Excluding these unusual items, we reported fourth quarter 2024 adjusted net income of approximately $18 million or $0.13 per diluted share compared to the results of the fourth quarter of 2023 when we reported adjusted net income of roughly $37 million or $0.29 per diluted share. We also reported fourth quarter 2024 adjusted EBITDA of approximately $108 million compared to approximately $129 million for the prior year's fourth quarter. Beginning with revenues, quarterly revenues in our owned and leased secure service facilities increased by approximately 3% year-over-year. This revenue increase was offset by lower quarterly revenue from our electronic monitoring and supervision services segment which declined by approximately 10% compared to the prior year's fourth quarter. Quarterly revenue for our re-entry centers managed only and non-residential service contracts were largely unchanged compared to the prior year fourth quarter. Turning to expenses, during the fourth quarter of 2024 our operating expenses increased by approximately 1% compared to the prior year's fourth quarter. Our operating expenses for the fourth quarter of 2024 reflect higher labor costs in…

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everybody. It's my pleasure to have returned to the GEO Group to join George and the rest of our management team at an unprecedented time in our company's history. We believe the scale of the opportunity before our company is unlike any we've previously experienced and will therefore require a significant operational undertaking. My focus as the new CEO of the GEO Group will be to work with our management team and our board to ensure that we have the necessary resources to operationalize the growth opportunities we are pursuing and to support our employees as they help us achieve operational excellence across all of our service lines. Moving to our annual milestones for GEO Secure Services. During 2024, we renewed 13 secure service contracts, including nine contracts at the federal level with Immigration Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals Service. During the year, our secure services facilities successfully underwent a total of 197 audits, including internal audits, government reviews, third-party accreditations, and Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA, certifications. 11 of our secure services facilities received accreditation from the American Correctional Association, with an average score of 99.1%, and another four facilities received PREA certifications. Our GTI Transportation Division and our GEOAmey UK Joint Venture completed approximately 18.5 million miles driven in the United States and the UK during the year. Moving to the current trends for our government agency partners, during the fourth quarter of 2024, utilization at our U.S. Marshals Detention Facilities was largely consistent with utilization during the fourth quarter one year ago. Our U.S. Marshals facilities support the agency as it carries out its mission of providing secure custodial services for pretrial detainees facing federal criminal proceedings. Our U.S. Marshals facilities provide needed bed space near federal courthouses, where there's…

Thank you, Dave. I'm pleased to provide an overview of the key operational milestones for this past year for GEO Care Division. In 2024, we renewed 31 residential reentry center contracts, including 15 contracts with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Additionally, we renewed 44 non-residential day reporting center contracts. During the year, our residential reentry centers, non-residential day reporting centers, and ISAP offices successfully underwent a combined total of 311 audits, including internal audits, government reviews, third-party accreditations, and Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA, certifications. Eight of our residential reentry centers received accreditation in the last year from the American Correctional Association with an average accreditation score of 100%, and 13 of our residential reentry centers received PREA certifications. Our 35 residential reentry centers, including 14 centers under contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, provide transitional housing and rehabilitation programs for individuals reentering their communities across 14 states. Average daily census levels at these centers remain stable at approximately 5,000 individuals during the fourth quarter of 2024. Our non-residential and day reporting centers provide high-quality community-based services, including cognitive behavioral treatment for up to 9,200 parolees and probationers at approximately 98 locations across 10 different states. We expect that the implementation of the First Step Act, which was enacted under President Trump's first term, will be an area of focus for the Federal Bureau of Prisons under his second term, and we stand ready to help the agency expand the delivery of residential and non-residential reentry programs that have been proven to reduce recidivism and to improve the lives of those who have taken that first step back into our nation's communities. Moving to our enhanced rehabilitation programs, we currently deliver in-custody rehabilitation to an average daily population of approximately 2,700 individuals at 38 in-prison program sites located…

Thank you, Wayne, and we wish you the best as you transition from a full-time employee to consultant effective April 1. Your unique talents will be missed by all, but we look forward to your continued involvement on a consulting basis. We believe our company faces an unprecedented opportunity at this time to play a role in supporting President Trump's new administration policy. We've taken several important steps to be prepared to meet that opportunity. We've made significant investments, commitments of $70 million and possibly more to strengthen our capabilities to deliver expanded detention capacity, secure transportation, and electronic monitoring services to ICE and the federal government. We've also completed a reorganization of our senior management team to oversee the operation execution of this expected future growth. GEO is the largest single contractor to ICE with four decades of partnership and currently provides for approximately 40% of the detention beds for ICE. We believe we are well positioned to scale up our secure residential care housing from the current 15,000 beds to over 32,000. And GEO's 100% management of the ISEP staff program, we believe we can scale up from the present 186,000 participants to several hundreds of thousands or millions of participants if called upon. GEO's contractual relationship with CFI Aviation has allowed us to become the largest provider of secure transportation services for ICE. During 2024, we assisted in the transport and relocation travel of 160,000 persons. We believe we can scale up materially for domestic and international travel for up to 500,000 individuals or more if called upon. This is a unique moment in our company's history and we believe we are well positioned to scale up our diversified segments in secure housing, transportation, electronic monitoring to meet the changing needs of this new administration and to continue to enhance value for our shareholders. I would now like to make a final closing statement. With the unprecedented volume of new business opportunities confronting GEO, I am inclined to stay beyond the end of my present employment agreement that expires July 1, 2026 and have so notified the board. I will offer the continuation of my services to the board under a new mutually agreeable employment agreement. That completes our remarks and we would be glad to take any questions. Thank you.

We will now begin the question and answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from Jason Weaver with Jones Trading. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning guys. This is Matthew Erdner on for Jason today. Thanks for taking the question. I kind of want to touch on the monitoring and the impact of The Laken Riley Act. What all does that include in terms of monitoring there? The role it is going to take and kind of looking forward to the new contract. Are you guys assuming any changes in economics there?

I think our reading of the act is that those individuals need to be placed in detention and if there isn't capacity for that, they need to be continued in the ISEP monitoring program indefinitely.

That's helpful there. And then turning to the subsidiary BI Inc., are you guys prioritizing ankle or wrist monitors over the SmartLink app? And have you guys experienced any supply chain issues there as you guys have been expanding the footprint?

I think there's going to be a preference in the beginning for the ankle monitors which represents the high security level of monitoring which people can progress or degraph into medium level security and low level security depending with different devices contributing to the monitoring.

Got it. And then the research report -- sorry about that, go ahead.

No, we haven't really identified any supply chain difficulties. We are ramping up our inventory of ankle monitors at our Boulder, Colorado facility.

Okay, that's helpful there. And then the research report that came out of the current administration about migrants being forced to register, do you think that that has an outsized demand on a potential increase for monitoring? And then as a follow-up to that, kind of the guidance for $800 million to an incremental $1 billion in revenue there, what percentage of that is the monitoring segment?

Yeah, so let me jump in on the $850 to $1 billion. About $250 million, that's correct, about $250 million. But that's based on a participant count of approximately $450,000. So if it goes beyond that, which we think it will sometime next year, it'll be more.

Got it. That's helpful. Thank you guys.

The next question comes from Jay McCanless with Wedbush. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. So just wanted to clarify that. So you're saying of the $800 million to $850 million to $1 billion in incremental revenue, roughly $250 million of that is going to come from ATD with a participant count of 450,000? Did I get all that correctly?

Yeah. So just a point of clarification, what we've said is if we look back to two years ago, we had participant counts of approximately 370,000. If we would grow our current participant counts to 370,000, that would generate an incremental $250 million of incremental revenue. And as George just described, if the counts go higher than our previous highs, then we're looking at opportunities for that to surpass $250 million.

Okay. Great. Thank you for clarifying that. And then if I think about the $60 million that you're spending, I guess 450,000 I guess is what you think you could monitor with the current that you have. I guess how much more does that $60 million take you to? Is it 550, 650? What should we think about the outcome of that spend is going to be?

Well, the $60 million that we're investing as George described, what we're doing is we're investing in building additional inventory of GPS devices to monitor in preparation of monitoring higher counts. And a lot of that has to do with ankle monitoring. We're vertically integrated there. We've designed the ankle monitor. We purchase it and we manufacture it in our facility. So what we've done, and that started in the fourth quarter, we've started to build the inventory and procure additional materials in anticipation of that. And that $60 million that we mentioned is part of our $70 million investment plan is to get ahead and start building larger quantities of inventory in support of expected higher GPS monitoring that will be required under the ISAF contract. And there are three security levels that we propose now in this program. The highest is high security, followed by medium security, and then low security. We don't know exactly how those three buckets will be filled by the new administration as they review their congressional directives and responsibilities balanced by the funding to achieve those contractual responsibilities. So we haven't done an inventory for all 450,000, not yet. We're building a big initial inventory because ICE is kind of it's a big organization and it's trying to realign itself to these huge new law enforcement responsibilities that it hasn't had for four years under the previous administration. So people are just coming back to the office, they're starting to regroup, thinking through how are they going to achieve these new objectives, these new congressional directives and responsibilities. As we talked earlier, the Senate version of the budget is providing $170 billion. Quite a bit of money. And the House version I think is approximately $100 billion. So as those two bills that are competing between the House and the Senate merge, it could be a number somewhere in between those two. But it's a big leap and it can't happen overnight. People have to be assigned within the ICE organization to identify the possible participants in the ICE program. We would need contract adjustments to, you know, pay for the additional costs, which we will be reimbursed. But all of that is kind of a fluid situation, which is picking up pace, if I may say. We've gone from conceptual proposals by major service providers like ourselves and CoreCivic to now substantive pricing and operational discussions as to who's going to go into this particular facility, how much is it going to cost. But there is interest in every one of our idle facilities by either ICE or the Marshals Service. And I would think that CoreCivic's idle facilities would get the same level of attention. But the procurement process is moving at a speed that's unprecedented. We've never seen anything like this before.

That’s good to hear. I guess to follow on that point, have you all been surprised at how slowly the ISEP numbers have moved up since the new administration took over?

Well, I think there's probably a couple answers to that, one of which is the focus on detention and the identification of alternative detention venues like Guantanamo, which seems to have some difficulties. But the focus, I think, will return back to the historical service providers like ourselves, like CoreCivic, utilizing their idle bed capacity that can be stood up within 60 or 90 days. That's the fastest approach to increasing detention capacity. I don't think anything else comes close to that. It's probably double the time. And I think we're very cost competitive with any kind of alternative service.

And I guess if you think about the different opportunities you have for revenue growth, you called out a little bit on the halfway homes with the First Step program. Are you thinking that you're going to get growth faster through some of those, or is it mostly going to be focused on increasing bed count and increasing monitoring this year? Is that where you feel like most of the upside is going to come?

As we know it and see it today. But we believe that the Department of Justice, under the administration of Pam Bondi, is very much interested in increasing the number of reentry bed capacity around the country and is interested in improving the rehabilitation programming at those facilities. So we think there will be a lot of activity in the reentry program. We are the largest provider in that space. But a final candidate has not been proposed for the Bureau of Prisons as yet. So they're still reviewing potential candidates.

Understood. And then just one more question back to monitoring for a sec. If you did start to see a rapid increase in people going through monitoring, what do you think the upside case is in terms of how many people you could monitor with your current infrastructure? Have you tried to stress out what the upper bound looks like?

Well, we know we can do several hundreds of thousands, and we are trying to position ourselves for millions. And that will be permitted by contracting with other technical service providers that can help us reach those goals.

Okay. Great. Thank you for taking my questions.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Greg Gibas with Northland Security. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to ask what your expectations are for ICE's use of the Atlanta facility now that that court order limiting utilization before was lifted.

Well, the court order is in two parts. I think under the first ruling, we have the authorization to utilize, I think, 460 or 470 beds, something like that. And there's a hearing next month, the middle of next month, that will presumably authorize the complete utilization of the facility under the new COVID standards. So that's almost a 2,000-bed facility. It's the largest facility on the West Coast. Our Delaney Hall facility will be the largest facility on the East Coast for ICE.

Got it. That's helpful. And I guess as it relates to Delaney Hall, what level of startup costs will be associated with it, and how should we maybe think about the OpEx versus CapEx split? And maybe regarding just future facility ramp-up costs, is there a rough per-bed expense we can expect to maybe estimate for future facilities that you reactivate?

Well, the Delaney Hall may be an exception because we will receive partial payments during our 60-day startup process. But the other facilities will require the employment, including Delaney, of about 3,000 people. So you've got to pay for at least their training time, which is about four weeks. So that's going to be several millions of dollars. We haven't put that in our budget yet because we really don't know the timing of it. We haven't put the revenue in the budget because the contracts are not signed yet. We haven't put the startup costs because we don't know the timing of those startup costs. But I think here we are at the end of the first quarter. I think we're anticipating a very fast ramp-up in procurement activity where I think there will be several contract awards very possibly next month by the end of the first quarter. But if that slips a little bit because of the funding competition between the Senate and the House, which may take until May for the money to come, the realistic activation of these facilities, ours and CoreCivics, will probably be the second half of the year. And it will be on a ramp-up basis and there will be significant costs for our 3,000 employees and CoreCivics approximate 3,000. So that's 6,000 employees that have to be recruited, screened for criminal history, job history and then put into a four-week training program.

And I would just add, we haven't been specific around what's the cost per bed of reactivating a facility. But what I can tell you is when we activate those facilities in the back half of the year and we start to generate revenue and fill the populations there, there's no doubt it will be significantly accretive from a profitability standpoint. So as George said, 30 to 60, 90 days, we've got to hire people, we've got to train people. It's a cost, but the benefit from the reactivation well exceeds any of those reactivation costs. Delaney Hall is a bit unusual because it's done. It's complete. Everything is brand new inside the facility and it's ready to go. All we need to do is the recruitment, the hiring, the background screening and the training. Other facilities may be in different conditions. They are in different conditions. Some have been idle longer than others. Adelanto has no capital requirements. It's in perfect shape so we can open up the rest of the facilities up to I think approximately 1,900 beds without any capital investment there. But we have other facilities like Northlake in Michigan. We have Big Springs in Texas. We have James in Georgia, Rivers in North Carolina. It's interesting that all of those facilities are former BOP facilities that became idle because of Biden's restriction on the BOP contracting with us. But they're all high security facilities which is very much of an interest to ICE and both marshals because they're primarily cell facilities and I think they're in high demand at this time.

Right. That makes sense and very helpful. I guess lastly as it relates to your commentary on the $250 million to $300 million incrementally off of the $800 million to $1 billion in revenue, kind of over what period would we expect to see this? Would we see these rolling in post-funding like 2025 or more 2026?

Let me just jump in here and George can provide some commentary. I think we've been pretty consistent in stating that we expect the first half of 2025 to be relatively consistent with ‘24 and start to see the benefits of these contracting awards taking into effect in the back half of 2025. And as we stated before, the full benefits of reaching the full potential, we expect to see in 2026. And so the benefits will start to bear fruit in the back half of ‘25 and then we should be with the timelines of activating facilities within 90 days and the contracting that we talked about, we think the full operational benefits from a financial standpoint will take place in 2026.

Got it. Very helpful. Thanks.

The next question comes from Brendan McCarthy with Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Great. Good morning everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to start off on the detention side. I know last earnings call, there was a discussion around I think it was $400 million in incremental annualized revenue opportunity from the reactivation of 18,000 beds. But now this quarter, it sounds like that shifted up to the $500 million, $600 million revenue opportunity from roughly 17,000 incremental beds. Just curious as to what will kind of change that expectation and could we maybe see that range move higher?

I would say that we continue to look at our facilities and the capacity of those facilities in our conversations with our clients and it's just a revision of our previous statements. I would say I wouldn't expect there to be significant upside from what we've just laid out as it relates specifically to the idle facilities that we have here. So I just think it's more clarity as we've spent more time modeling the business case opportunities.

I would just add that the numbers we're talking about are numbers related to our own facilities. We are looking at other facilities that are owned by third party individuals and there's a few of them. So none of our present numbers include those potential additional facilities.

Got it. Okay, that's helpful. And then more of a broad question here, but on detention versus alternatives to detention, do you kind of see the administration maxing out detention utilization and population levels and then ramping up ATD population levels or do you think that process will be more I guess simultaneous?

As far as brick and mortar facilities in the U.S., that can be usable. I think it's presently about 75,000 to 80,000 beds before you possibly consider repurposing some of the idle Bureau of Prisons facilities. So if you're trying to get to 100,000, just the organic market place is only capable of 75,000 or 80,000 beds I think at this time before you consider soft-sided facilities as well as possibly repurposing and managing presently idle BOP facilities, which can get you to the 100,000.

Great, thanks. I guess just to clarify, I guess with the alternative to detention program, the ISEP contract, I guess do you ultimately see maybe a lag there with population increases while detention ultimately takes the priority?

No, we think the ISEP program has a separate team of individuals. They're not part of the detention team. But I think they've heard the message and they're ready to respond appropriately in a fairly significant ramp-up individuals on ISEP. And I think the initial preference will be on ankle monitors for high security and allowing them to step down to lower security levels in the future. But remain on ISEP as long as it takes for them to have their hearing and be cleared or allowed to stay in the U.S. If they're not approved to stay in the U.S., they would be scheduled for deportation. So one of the criticisms of the ISEP program is that people have stayed on it a few months and then they don't show up for their hearing. Well, the solution to that is continue their participation and monitoring under the ISEP program until they do go to their hearing and there is a decision on their case. One way or the other, either they get to stay or they have to go. That's the solution. Continue the individual's participation in the ISEP program until their deportation decision is made in the positive more than the negative.

Got it. That's helpful. That's all from me. Thanks.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Joshua Zoepfel with Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. I'm Zoepfel for Joe.

Good morning.

Hey, so, obviously in your remarks you just kind of touched on the idle facilities having some interest. Are those kind of discussions really gaining any traction? Maybe could we see idle facilities being activated in early 2025, maybe just early ‘26?

Hey, Joshua, can you repeat that again? You broke in and out.

Sure. Yeah, no, you guys touched kind of on the prepared remarks. You guys were having some conversations with ICE and the marshals. And are those kind of discussions really gaining any traction? Could we kind of see those idle facilities being reactivated in maybe ‘25, early 26?

I think the likelihood is that all of our idle facilities will be activated in 2025.

Yeah, to be a little bit more specific, we think that the contracting of the additional detention vents will all take place in 2025. It doesn't mean that they'll be all fully populated by the end of 2025, but all of that contracting should be done, and as we said before, so that we reap the full benefits in ‘26 and get some of the benefits in the back half of this year.

Even a longer view of the funding battle would allow, I think, the department to issue contracts by the end of the second quarter. Now, if it takes that long to the end of the second quarter, then you need the third quarter for activating the facilities. But I think we're hopeful and I think the administration's hopeful that the sense of awareness of how much money is available will occur early in the second quarter to allow actual contracting to take place early or mid-second quarter.

Okay, that's helpful. And obviously with the ICE investment, you guys kind of broke out, the capital expenditures over 2025 and everything else like that. Just in terms of like the sale of the facilities first off how close are you on any of those sales? And furthermore looking at that investment, when it's broken out, it kind of seems like it's about roughly around $21 million in the first three quarters of 2025. Is that kind of a fair assessment?

Well, his first question is, can we provide more detailed updates on the sale process?

Well, one of the facilities which is in the public domain is our Lawton, Oklahoma facility. It's a very large facility. Our facilities are generally the largest facilities in any state we operate in, as is the case with the Lawton facility in the state of Oklahoma. So it's a very high security facility. We've made a public request as to the purchase of the facility. An appraiser has been assigned, and I think they've made a lot of progress in their appraisal work, and we expect their assessment by next month.

Okay. That's helpful. And yeah, obviously that investment over 2025, yeah, it seems like it calculated about $21 million over the first three quarters. I don't know if that sounds about right to you guys.

That does.

Okay. Perfect. And then lastly, you guys might have gone over this in the prepared remarks, and I apologize if I missed it. But it seems like you had a pretty substantial NOI increase really for the managed-only segment, while you guys had pretty kind of steady revenue. Can I get a bit more color just kind of on the large jump?

On the managed-only, I think we've had to make some wage increases out of our own concern for staffing levels and security of the facility in advance of actual reimbursement and additional funding from our state clients. Most of the state clients are in the middle of their legislative sessions right now. We've made a request to them for additional funding, but we haven't waited for that. We've done what we think is the right operational thing to do and increase wages to higher levels to handle what is increasingly a higher security level of people in state facilities. I think to the extent they could, they've released minimum security prisoners as much as they could. That really left medium and high security individuals that we're dealing with now, and you have to be very careful that you have enough staffing to take care of that kind of situation. So we've moved forward in increasing staff wages given the operational challenges, but we are asking for reimbursement for additional funding from our state clients in several states.

Okay, that's helpful. Yeah, thank you guys for taking my questions.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Jordan Hymowitz with Philadelphia Financial. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, thanks for your questions. First of all, has there been any Bureau of Prisons populations shifted over and or do your numbers include any shift? And if I remember correctly, the peak was like 7% to 10% of the population was Bureau of Prisons in like 1914, 1915?

Well, we are not in communications with the Bureau of Prisons because a new director has not been appointed. We are awaiting that final decision and then we would be approaching them on what opportunities exist within the BOP given the probability that most if not all of our idle facilities will have been contracted to other agencies. Where we think we can be helpful is if they do a consolidation play in some of their facilities, we can take over one of their facilities that they decide to empty as well as looking at their idle facilities to see if we can make a financially viable offer to rehabilitate the facility and take over the management. So there are some opportunities that we are looking at, but the timing on that is a little bit further out, with the appointment of a new BOP director.

But what you are saying is if for some reason there is a delay in ICE or marshals, BOP is another option that we haven't factored into the equation at this point.

Yes, but I think all of our remaining six idle facilities will be contracted as I am hopeful by the end of the second quarter.

And my second question is, I mean everybody, I mean no one wants to be in jail anywhere, but at least if you are in jail in the U.S., you have three meals a day, you have access to legal representation. As you mentioned, you have some amenities. I mean if God forbid you are thrown to El Salvador or some other place, I mean you have no representation or rights or anything and I can't believe it is cheap to get legal representation to those places. Have you pointed that out when you think about the actual total cost per bed? It may not just be the amount charged per bed, but all the other services that are included in that package, so to speak. And it may make the cost effectiveness of your facilities much better than an international option.

We have four decades of experience with ICE and marshals. So they know our capabilities, they know the quality of our services. And when I think about international sites, I think maybe they will be purposed for the ultimate detention of people in those or deportation venue for those people that are deported rather than where they are going to be processed. I think logically speaking that most if not all of the individuals will be processed within the U.S., but they may be deported to some other cooperative foreign country that may want to detain them rather than just releasing them within their own country. It depends on the security level of the individuals that are deported to these cooperating countries.

And I'm sure there's got to be a fair amount of lawsuits springing up to prevent that option from even occurring because if you're deported you don't have that legal representation or rights to repeal that or it becomes much tougher. So I mean that may not even become an option, so to speak.

We don't know if that's a policy decision by the White House as well as DHS and ICE.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to George Zoley for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you all for joining us on this call. As you can tell by the length of the call, we've got a lot of questions because there's quite a bit going on in our company and the opportunities that we're looking at which are completely unprecedented. And we're proud to be in partnership with ICE and the Marshal Services and hopefully with the BOP as well and play a significant role in the new immigration policies under this new administration. Thank you.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.