Earnings Labs

Iron Mountain Incorporated (IRM)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 28, 2014

$112.62

-0.25%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Iron Mountain Q4 2013 Earnings Call Webcast. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I'll now introduce your host for today's conference, Melissa Marsden. You may begin.

Melissa Marsden

Analyst

Thank you, Nicole, and welcome, everyone, to our Fourth Quarter 2013 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Melissa Marsden, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. And this morning, we'll hear from Bill Meaney, CEO, who will discuss highlights for the quarter and strategic initiatives; followed by Rod Day, CFO, who will cover financial results and guidance. After prepared remarks, we will open up the phone for Q&A. And as is our custom, we have a user-controlled slide presentation available on the Investor Relations page of our website at www.ironmountain.com. Referring now to Slide 2. Today's earnings call and slide presentation will contain a number of forward-looking statements, most notably our outlook for 2014 financial performance. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to today's press release, the Safe Harbor language on this slide and our most recently filed annual report on Form 10-K for a discussion of the major risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ from those in our forward-looking statements. In addition, we use several non-GAAP measures when presenting our financial results. The reconciliation to these non-GAAP measures, as required by Reg G, can be found, again, on the Investor Relations page of our website, as well as in today's press release. Before I turn the call over to Bill Meaney, I'd like to add 2 things. First, registration is now open for our Investor Day to be held on March 26 at the Pierre Hotel in New York. You can find registration details on the Investor Relations website under Events. And second, I'd like to thank Stephen Golden for his years of service to Iron Mountain, Investor Relations. As many of you know, he will be leaving Iron Mountain end of March, and I know you all join me in wishing him well in his future endeavors. Also, Colton Bria [ph], our new Director of IR, is here today and looking forward to working with you moving forward. With that, Bill, care to [ph] begin?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

Thank you, Melissa, and good morning to everyone joining us today. Before I discuss the results of the quarter, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the tragic fire that burned one of our record storage facilities outside Buenos Aires earlier this month. We're deeply saddened by the death of the very first responders who rushed to save our facility, as well as their colleagues injured while fighting the blaze. As reported, all Iron Mountain employees who worked in that facility are safe and accounted for. The building was equipped with both fire detection, as well as sprinkler systems, and we continue to work with authorities in participating fully in the investigation to understand what happened. Whilst this -- that is ongoing, our collective thoughts and prayers remain with the brave firefighters and their families and those injured fighting the blaze. I also wish to thank 4 employees of Iron Mountain who rushed into the fire to fight it until they were ordered to leave by the fire brigade. Their display of bravery, selflessness has been moving to all of us, and I am proud to be one of their colleagues. Turning now to performance of our business. We had a strong finish to the year. Financial results for the fourth quarter were in line with our expectations, excluding restructuring charges related to our organizational realignment. In addition, we achieved solid operating results as we advanced our strategy plan -- strategic plan to sustain the durability of our high-return business in developed markets, expanded into high-growth emerging markets and evaluated investment opportunities in promising emerging businesses. Total revenue for the quarter was USD 769 million, excluding charges of $19 million related to our organizational restructuring, which were in line the amount previewed in our third quarter report. Adjusted OIBDA…

Roderick Day

Analyst

Thanks, Bill, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. Let's now turn to Slide 3, which highlights key messages of today's review. We had good results in quarter 4 supported by strong constant dollar storage rental growth and international profit gains, as well as benefits from recent acquisitions in Latin America and North America. Storage rental growth grew 5% on a constant dollar basis in the quarter supported by a consistent 2% gain in North America and 13% growth in International. Adjusted OIBDA performance was in line with expectations in Q4, driven by our International business, which achieved its 3-year margin improvement goal, and by sustained cost management. Included in our fourth quarter adjusted OIBDA and adjusted EPS is $19 million restructuring [ph] charges as discussed on our last earnings call. Looking at the full year, our revenue adjusted OIBDA, adjusted EPS results all landed in our guidance ranges. CapEx was a bit higher than originally expected, as we accelerated capital projects from 2014 into 2013. And free cash flow benefited from lower cash taxes due to timing of payments. Today, we are reiterating our 2014 full year guidance put forth at our Q3 earnings call. We continue to expect, call it, constant dollar growth of 2% to 4% of total revenues and 2% to 5% for adjusted OIBDA. Let's move on to Slide 4 to review our financial results in more detail. Slide 4 compares our results for this quarter to the fourth quarter of 2012. Q4 operating results were generally in line with our expectations and consistent with recent trends. Enterprise revenues were 3% on a constant dollar basis, as our International segment continues to produce strong result. International posted 10% constant dollar revenue growth supported by 13% storage rental growth, including benefits from our recent acquisitions…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Scott Schneeberger of Oppenheimer. Scott A. Schneeberger - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: Could you guys just provide us with some thoughts with regards to the margin kind of bouncing around the quarter? But congratulations on the 25% target achievement. What do you see going forward? What are the -- what could be better to help or be a hindrance as we look out into 2014 and beyond?

Roderick Day

Analyst

Is that question specifically related to International or the business as a whole? Scott A. Schneeberger - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: No, the International. I'm sorry if I didn't specify.

Roderick Day

Analyst

Yes, so on International, we expect further improvements in the International margin. Really, it's a continuation of the strategy that we've been having, and it builds leadership positions in the markets in which we operate. And from that, it enabled us to drive high margins off the back of it. So we see continued improvement on that side.

William L. Meaney

Analyst

One thing, Scott, just to give you a bit of extra flavor to that is that what we're talking about is in terms of the current portfolio. But the other side of it, which we always say on the International side, is that we're constantly adding new -- well, I shouldn't say new markets, but new acquisitions in the pipeline. So as we -- it's a portfolio play if you will. So in other words that if we look at our most pure market [indiscernible], the markets where we've established some key positions that Rod had alluded to, is those returns already mimic what we see in North America, for instance. When we actually enter a new market and -- or build out our capacity market like what we're doing in Brazil, we see a regular input [ph] in terms of those margins over time. But we also need to understand that as we actually go into new markets that we start at one end of the spectrum and then build it to the other. The only thing I would just say is in all those cases, though, is we go in to the view that we have to exceed even on the initial acquisitions our return on -- our hurdle in terms of return on capital. But over time, even beyond the initial returns on invested capital, we see the returns start mimicking what we get. North America hasn't hit those market leading positions if that makes sense. Scott A. Schneeberger - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: Switching up a bit. Service is still moving along. I've realized a little bit of headwind for paper prices. Could you speak a little bit to trends you're seeing with retrievals, with construction? And then also, evident to the special project, that could be picking up, and historically, I think you view that as potentially a precursor for more activity in the business and including [ph] the storage. Just any color you can provide along this line.

Roderick Day

Analyst

Yes, I mean, we did see some moderation in the rate of decline of service activities as we ended [ph] second half of 2013. And that continues. And as we worked our way through into Q4, I think we're nervous about calling it a big fundamental shift in the business in terms of a change in trend. But at least, there was continuation of a slightly more positive sign through Q4.

William L. Meaney

Analyst

Yes. And then coming, Scott, to your question about DMS or related service and how it drives storage, I think that there's kind of 2 parts to that. I think, first and foremost, is that our customers are much more interested in solutions that we provide around their whole information management requirement, hence the reason why, over a year ago, we started going to a much more vertical process in terms of how we align our sales force to our customers. We've talked about that on previous calls in terms of the industry verticals that we had. And one of the main reasons for that is to be able to address for our larger enterprise customers those requirements that they have around a total solution. So there, you're absolutely right. I think, especially in emerging markets, we have seen a very strong link in terms of providing those services in additional storage. But I think this is -- it's very much related to our vertical strategy in addressing a solution around information management beyond just storing the physical document or electronic information.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from George Tong of Piper Jaffray.

George K. Tong - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division

Analyst

Storage rental internal growth this quarter decelerated to 1.0% [ph], which is below your 2%-plus growth in prior quarters. Is this something we should be concerned about?

Roderick Day

Analyst

I think what we saw in Q4 was there was a number of pricing actions that we took around some contract wins and some contract renewals, which resulted in a number of payments that we did announce that will be made in the beginning of the contract. We sort of had a slight dampening effect in Q4. I think for the outlook for 2014, we're expecting to get back more to the sort of 2% range we've seen historically.

George K. Tong - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division

Analyst

Got it. That's very helpful. And then switching gears to the Wholesale Data Center business. Could you just give us a little bit of color there in terms of initiatives? How much capital you have planning -- are you planning to allocate, how much customer commitments you have lined up?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

Okay. So I think on that, George, is that -- I think we're still consistent with the guidance that we've given previously, that we're allocating about USD 40 million worth of CapEx for 2014. And the way you should think about that is about 80-20. Now the 80% of that is linked to strong or high visibility around customer commitments or requirements. 20% is, what I would call, kind of fundamental infrastructure. So we're still very much driven by making sure that we have customers that are leading the vast majority of our CapEx in that business.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Kevin McVeigh of Macquarie.

Kevin D. McVeigh - Macquarie Research

Analyst

Just to circle back to the core services. What are you modeling for paper prices in '14, number one? And then number two, was there any weather impact? Because it seems like between a $5 million headwind from paper in Q4, there was probably some weather-related impact, I'd imagine, on the service activity levels. It's probably firmer than what those numbers suggest. So I'm trying to reconcile why we're headed into, call it, a bottom, when it seems like fundamentals are improving pretty steadily there.

Roderick Day

Analyst

Maybe I'll start with the paper price. We're not calling really any up or down on that but started off as paper. We saw $133 a ton [ph] in Q4, baked in [ph] our projections. We're going to project that forward as opposed to making extrapolations up or down. SO obviously, if it was to improve, that will good. If it goes down further [indiscernible] is the negative. So that's kind of how we view the outlook. In terms of service...

William L. Meaney

Analyst

Yes. And Kevin, on the service side, we did see some weather-related impact. It's the winter that keeps giving in the Northeast, especially tough on, actually, throughout the country. So we have seen some of that, but we don't try to project much into that. I think that the -- I think that's fair to say. But I think also, if you unpack our service revenue to a certain degree, as Rod said previously, if you look at the, what we would call, kind of the retrievals and re-files, which is the kind of the core part of our service revenue, we do see a flattening out of the decreasing trend in that part of the business. The paper trend as -- is probably the biggest single impact in terms of our service revenue for Q4, which Rod highlighted, down from previous year, associated with some specific projects, which are related to our document management services. But you're right to call out that weather has put a certain amount of headwinds on our service revenue in Q4.

Kevin D. McVeigh - Macquarie Research

Analyst

Understood. And then, hey, Bill, in terms of the REIT, when is the last -- like what's the last day of 2014 where it can be retroactive to the first of the year? So I guess, said another way, what date does that PLR need to come in where it can still be effective for all of 2014?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

I was waiting for a question on the REIT. We finally got it. It's in actually, I believe, October 2015. Rod will keep me honest, because it's when we actually have to file our return for 2014 with all the normal conventions. So it's roughly, I think, October 2015. Is that -- Rod, do you agree with that?

Roderick Day

Analyst

Yes, yes.

Kevin D. McVeigh - Macquarie Research

Analyst

Got it. And then just one other thing on that. It looks like on the outlook, you pulled, for lack of a better word, in the Q3 slide deck, kind of the outlook at 2014 to 2016 across the REIT related and other expenditures. Now it's all coming into 2014. What drove that change? Is that just better visibility? Or any -- or am I overanalyzing anything there?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

I think you're probably overanalyzing it and anything there [ph]. We're just now showing guidance for 2014. And then assuming that we have a positive ruling from the IRS is there will be ongoing REIT costs associated with not just supporting the normal recording for a REIT but also as we convert more countries from a TRS to a QRS. So I think you're overanalyzing. We're just showing the guidance now for 2014.

Kevin D. McVeigh - Macquarie Research

Analyst

Helpful. And then what if -- if you do the E&P, would that be similar in mix in terms of stock versus cash as what you did the first time?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

Yes, yes, exactly.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Steinerman of JPMorgan. Andrew C. Steinerman - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: I wanted to go back to storage rental internal growth, which decelerated like a point to the 1.3. I know you anticipate it to go back to 2, 2.5 for 2014. I just don't see why the type of pricing that you're talking about, initial pricing on contract, would only affect one quarter.

William L. Meaney

Analyst

I think as Rod kind of alluded to on the first thing, Andrew, was it was related to a few specific large customer renewals and retroactive decreases we had to give associated with that, which we took the impact in Q4. So it's a -- very specific around a couple of large customers. And so we have visibility going out for the rest of the 2014 and can -- those are much more one-off adjustments. Andrew C. Steinerman - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Right. And when you're in the renewal environment, even if you have to make those type of adjustments retroactively, are there price escalators built into the out years of the long-term contract that you're seeing recently?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

It depends on the contract, Andrew. But you're right to say that, generally, we use the escalators that are high to CPI. But it depends on how long the contract is for and it's a mix. But generally, what you're saying is correct. Andrew C. Steinerman - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. And then lastly, when we talk about the fourth quarter, that's mostly just that price retroactivity that you just talked about. When you look at volume growth for storage internal growth, is there much change there?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

No. Actually, the volume growth remains on track. It clearly is related to a couple specific, large contract renewals. Andrew C. Steinerman - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. And Rod, if you'll entertain this question because I get it a fair bit. It's about AFFO. And I know we talked about it at last Analyst Day, and the company presented around that. When you look at the company free cash flow guide of $300 million to $340 million, what factors should investors take into account when trying to calculate AFFO?

Stephen P. Golden

Analyst

Andrew, Steve here. Look, you're talking about a couple of different things. But the biggest differences between what kind of a basic AFFO would and the way we report our free cash flow is obviously taxes. It is a full burden of taxes in our free cash flow does not exist, to a large extent, in an AFFO calculation. And additionally, the AFFO only subtracts out maintenance CapEx from the cash generated by the business. And in our free cash flow calculation, we subtract maintenance CapEx, as well as normal growth and other sorts of things, excluding the real estate. So those are the 2 big differences between the 2 cash flow base number. Andrew C. Steinerman - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay. And just -- I know the figure that we used in the past when talking about maintenance CapEx, but is the definition for AFFO different than Iron Mountain's previous comments, older comments on how much of your CapEx is maintenance CapEx?

Stephen P. Golden

Analyst

No, not really. The definition should be the same. We will -- in a REIT scenario, we will likely report it slightly different. We'll indicate what portion of that maintenance CapEx refers specifically to real estate and what portion refers to other on non-real estate assets. This should remain the same.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Shlomo Rosenbaum of Stifel. Shlomo H. Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, Research Division: I just wanted to ask a little bit more about the Cornerstone acquisition, and I understand that the -- usually, the first stage of the acquisition is go ahead and integrate it in order to get the cost synergies. But I was just wondering if there are initiatives right now to kind of broaden the tail space over there and to try and go after the end market, which is not historically kind of a paramount end market?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

Shlomo, this is Bill. Yes -- no, I think it's the question. I think that, that was one of the key attractiveness for us on Cornerstone. There were really kind of 2 aspects. One is the operational aspect, which we've highlighted, is that -- and we're actually nicely ahead of plan in terms of being able to get that. The other part was the fact that Cornerstone had a very good representation in the middle market part of the business. In part of our realignment of strategy, which we talked about, I think on the last call and throw in some more detail on the Investor Day, was really that is getting much more focused through the 19 regions that we've set up across North America to go after that middle market, and Cornerstone fits very nicely into that initiative. So that's where their sweet spot was. Shlomo H. Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, Research Division: So are you already -- you already started building out kind of the tails over there? Or are we still kind of early stages, it takes time to build the business?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

No. We've already done that. In fact, we've already integrated a number of their sales people into our organization, both on the -- boots on the ground, as well as some of the performance management associated with that to go after that market. That's actually already complete. Shlomo H. Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, Research Division: Okay, and then just Slide 11, the $500 million to $1 billion of estimated E&P distribution, is that a total number? Or is this kind of an incremental number? Just want to understand that. For 2014.

Roderick Day

Analyst

That's incremental. Shlomo H. Rosenbaum - Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, Research Division: So it should be a total of $500 million to $1 billion that'll come in 2014 and a similar type of mix as to what we saw years ago?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

Yes.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Dan Dolev of Jefferies.

Dan Dolev - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst

I've got one quick housekeeping question and a follow-up. So would you mind, like in previous quarters, break out North America organic storage growth versus International in Q4?

Roderick Day

Analyst

We don't have enough time. We'll get back to you on it.

Dan Dolev - Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Analyst

Another question, Recall, a big competitor of yours, reported results earlier this week. I think they had about 2.8% constant currency growth excluding M&A. Yours is probably like 1.5% or so lower in the last 2 quarters. Is there -- is that a mix issue? Is there anything else that we should be thinking about when comparing the companies? Any color would be great.

Roderick Day

Analyst

Well, obviously, Recall had less storages in America compared to International relative to what I know -- what we know without bearing on the result.

William L. Meaney

Analyst

Yes, yes, because you have to understand, their record, their pure records management size in North America is about 1/10 of ours, so it's -- as Rod said, they're more biased towards the International market.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Manav Patnaik from Barclays.

Manav Patnaik - Barclays Capital, Research Division

Analyst

I just had a question around the acquisitions pipeline. And obviously, you guys did a fair number, $320 million this year. How should we expect that based on what you're seeing today? Should that annual spend be in the next digit level relative to I think it was the 100 to 150 you guys have guided on the last Investor Day?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

I think that the -- Manav, I think that the guidance that we gave at the last Investor Day is the right general expectation. I think at Investor Day, coming up in March, we'll give you a better view in terms of where we think we're going to end up over the next 3 years in terms of our acquisition pipeline because we have built a pretty robust pipeline mainly focused at the emerging markets. So our focus is to primarily grow the emerging markets which tend to be smaller in size but in higher growth areas. So I think that the guidance that we gave last time, I think, still is the right general guidance. And I think we'll give you more color in terms of what the impact of our acquisition pipeline should look like over the next 3 years when we all meet at the end of March.

Manav Patnaik - Barclays Capital, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And just on the Chinese acquisition, I mean, could you maybe just bring in the size of either that acquisition, your market, your presence relative today and what that could mean?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

Yes. Actually, I just came back from China, so I can give you a little bit of an update on that, is that the -- first of all, it's a nice little acquisition. As we said, this is -- it's not massive, but it actually builds out our location across China and gives us a similar footprint as our other, what I would call, international competitors or a little bit bigger than some of our international competitors in China. So we feel pretty good about that. I think that the -- I think it's fair to say right now with our China footprint, we have a footprint that is attractive and meets the requirements of our international clients. But we're still not, what I would call, a buyer for SOEs, state-owned enterprise. And there, there are larger and local competitors that are serving state-owned enterprise markets. So right now, it's early days in China, but we feel good that we've now got a platform that, first of all, can satisfy our international customer base; and second, gives us a lot more intel on the ground in terms of better opportunities. But we're still what I wouldn't call a large book provider of services for the state-owned enterprise.

Manav Patnaik - Barclays Capital, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, fair enough. And just one last one just sort of on the Recall now spinning off. Have you seen any change in strategy or more competition for these acquisitions that you're going after that [ph] at all?

William L. Meaney

Analyst

I think, so far, we haven't. I mean, I know they announced a couple of acquisitions this past week. They -- I mean, they were always -- they were a good competitor before they spun out. They're, I'm sure, going to continue to be a good competitor now that they've spun out. So I can't say there'd be any change. I think that they will, I think, like us, be very disciplined in terms of the way that they allocate capital, especially now that they're a public company. So I don't see any major change or anything like that.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Jay Remig [ph] of Wall Street Journal.

Unknown Attendee

Analyst

I just wanted to see if you could fill us in on the status on the investigation in the fire at your new warehouse in Buenos Aires and if there's any kind of indication of the cause of that fire, if they're trying to -- if there was possibly arson involved or not. If you could just kind of fill us in how that's going.

William L. Meaney

Analyst

I think, first and foremost, is that we've been working with the authorities to assist in any way that we can to their investigation. So is this being led by, obviously, the local authorities. So we don't have any information other than what's already out there that has been released by the authorities. But I think it would be wrong for us to even speculate at this point. We can't really go beyond what we've said, it did have fire detection, fire suppression systems in the operation. We did have security guards on duty 24 hours, so there were people monitoring the facility. But this is clearly a very tragic event, and the only thing I would just add is that nobody spends more than we do in terms of trying to prevent these types of occurrences. But at this point, we're cooperating with the authorities. Like them, we want to find out what the root cause was.

Operator

Operator

I'm showing no further questions in the queue.

William L. Meaney

Analyst

Okay. Well, thank you very much, operator. In summary, we had a good quarter and wrapped up a solid year, underscoring the durability of our storage rental business. We began to execute on our recent organization realignment and advance initiatives to extend the durability of our business. This included acquisitions in both the emerging and the developed markets that will generate attractive returns on our capital as we integrate these businesses into our core and additional investments in the emerging data center business. These initiatives are consistent with our continued focus on prudent capital allocation and maximizing total return, and we believe they will support sustainable long-term growth and allow us to deliver durable returns to our shareholders. We look forward to sharing more details with you at our upcoming Investor Day, and thank you for joining us this morning.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude today's call, and you may all disconnect. Have a great day, everyone.