Barry Steele
Analyst · Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead
Thank you, Rich, and thank you to everyone joining the call today. As Rich mentioned, during the quarter, we met our revenue and profitability expectations, while continuing to be cash flow positive and further reducing balance sheet leverage. Net revenues for the fourth quarter of 2020 totaled $24.7 million and represented an increase of $3 million or nearly 14% over the fourth quarter of 2019. The DME Services segment led the way with net revenue growth of $1.7 million or 25%. While the net revenue of a larger ITS segment increased by $1.3 million or 9%. Similar to the 2020 second and third quarters, the DME Services segment net revenue growth was favorably impacted by higher rental revenue, which increased by $1.1 million and higher equipment sales, which increased by about $0.5 million during the quarter. Much of the rental revenue growth was represented by an expansion in the market share with national home infusion service providers and the addition of new devices to our product portfolio stemming from new partnership -- partnerships with device manufacturers. In addition to increasing -- increases -- increased results -- increases resulting from the COVID-19 driven market demand, which currently shows no signs of moderating as a pandemic resides. ITS growth continued to be driven by favorable market penetration in the oncology business, resulting from an improved market competitive landscape. Pain management net revenues, which are part of the ITS segment, continued to recover during the quarter from COVID-19 shutdowns growing by 22% compared to the prior year fourth quarter and 17% sequentially from the 2020 third quarter. The higher net revenues translated into higher adjusted EBITDA, which increased by $750,000 or 14% to $6.2 million during the 2020 fourth quarter as compared to the prior year. The adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter of 20 -- fourth quarter of 2020 was 24.9%, which was about the same as the prior year adjusted EBITDA margins. This represented a sequential decrease from the 2020 third quarter, mainly due to an increase in the annual bonus accrual and higher bad debt expenses during the fourth quarter. These expenses are expected to return to lower levels during the 2021 first quarter. During the fourth quarter of 2020, the company recorded a tax benefit totaling $9.9 million. This included a benefit associated with a one-time reversal of a deferred tax valuation allowance totaling $11.2 million. The valuation allowance reversal was prompted by having generated significant pretax income on a three-year cumulative basis. We now believe that the company will realize the benefits of its significant federal and state net deferred tax assets, including our significant net operating loss carry-forwards. Also, because of valuation -- the full valuation allowance reversal, we will be recording a more normal tax provision in future reporting periods. However, these provisions are likely to be largely deferred provision, meaning that we do not expect to be a significant payer of cash taxes in the next few years. Without the valuation allowance reversal, the company would have recorded a provision for income taxes of $1.5 million, which would have represented an effective tax rate of 19.4%. This adjusted effective tax rate differed from the U.S. statuary rate mainly due to permit differences in the amount of equity compensation expense recognized for book versus tax purposes. We estimate that our regular effective tax rate for future periods will be between 25% and 30%, although there are likely to be periods where this amount is lower due to significant windfall gains currently existing in outstanding employee equity awards. During the 2020 fourth quarter operating cash flow totaled $7.6 million, which exceeded our guidance and was 75% higher than operating cash flow in the fourth quarter of 2019. The improvement was both due to much higher net income adjusted for non-cash items and due to a continued reduction in working capital with return to more normal levels after the COVID-19 related peak during the first half of the year. Net capital expenditures was totaled $3.2 million during the 2020 fourth quarter also approached normal levels. This represented a significant reduction, however, from the fourth quarter of 2019 during which net capital expenditures were $5.6 million. Finally, our outstanding debt increased by $4 million during the 2020 fourth quarter, due mainly to a $5.7 million drawdown on an open equipment line that was otherwise scheduled to close at the end of the year, offset partially by quarterly amortization payments of $1.5 million on our then outstanding term debt. The net result of all this activity, the strong operating cash flow, the normalized net capital expenditure levels and the net borrowing at our bank debt resulted in a $7.7 million increase in our cash balance during the quarter to $9.6 million at December 31st. As a result, our ratio of funded debt net debt to adjusted EBITDA as of December 31, 2020, decreased to 1.11 times down 0.1 -- down from 1.36 times as of September 30, 2020, and 2.11 times at the end of 2019. Our total available liquidity at the end of the quarter which totaled $19.7 million consisted of $10 million in availability on our revolving line of credit and $9.6 million in cash. This amount represented an increase in our available liquidity of $17.5 million at the end of this year’s third quarter. As we announced -- as announced in February this year, our available liquidity more than doubled from this amount as a result of the refinancing of our bank debt which Rich mentioned. In addition to the improved liquidity, this new all revolver credit facility provides much improved flexibility to pursue our growth strategy and capital allocation priorities by eliminating amortization payments, raising our maximum leverage covenant and by bringing in additional banking partners. With that, I will turn it back over to Rich.