Earnings Labs

Quad/Graphics, Inc. (QUAD)

Q3 2018 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 31, 2018

$7.12

-8.72%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to today's call with Quad/Graphics' and LSC Communications. During today's call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] A slide presentation accompanies today's webcast and participants are invited to follow along, advancing the slides themselves. To access the webcast, follow the instructions posted in this morning's earnings release. Alternatively, you can access the slide presentation on the Investors' section of the Quad/Graphics' website under the Events & Recent Presentations link and on LSC Communications website under the Events & Presentations link. Following today's presentation, the conference call will be opened for questions. [Operator Instructions] Please also note, today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Kyle Egan, Quad/Graphics' Director of Investor Relations and Assistant Treasurer. Kyle, please go ahead.

Kyle Egan

Analyst

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. With me today are Joel Quadracci, Quad/Graphics' Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Tom Quinlan, LSC Communications Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President; and Dave Honan, Quad/Graphics' Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Joel and Tom will lead off today's call with a detailed strategic overview of Quad/Graphics' definitive agreement to acquire LSC Communications. Dave will follow with a summary of the financial rational for the transaction and an overview of Quad's third quarter 2018 financial results followed by Q&A. I'd like to remind everyone that this call is being webcast and forward-looking statements are subject to Safe Harbor provisions as outlined in our quarterly news release and in today's slide presentation on Slide 3. Quad's financial results are prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. However, this presentation also contains non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, free cash flow, free cash flow conversion and debt leverage ratio. We have included in the slide presentation reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures. On Slide 4 I'd like to remind everyone that information about the transaction discussed today will be available in the party's joint proxy statement. The information about parties who maybe participants in the process will also be available in the joint proxy statement. To be clear, this communication is not offered to sell or the solicitation of an operative by securities, it is also not the solicitation of a proxy from an investor or shareholder. Finally, a replay of the call and the slide presentation will be available on the Investor Section of Quad's and LSC's respective websites shortly after our call concludes today. I will now hand the call over to Joel.

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

Thank you, Kyle and good morning everyone. Today is a truly defining moment in Quad's 47-year journey. I am extremely pleased to announce our intent to acquire LSC Communications, a well-known and respected $3.9 billion leader in print and digital media solutions. LSC is a publicly-traded company on the New York Stock Exchange and has approximately 22,000 employees who served more than 3,000 retailers, catalogers, publishers and merchandisers from 46 manufacturing facilities and 13 distribution facilities in the United States and Mexico. With me today is Tom Quinlan, the Chairman and CEO and President of LSC Communications, and we look forward to walking you through the strategic rationale for Quad's acquisition of LSC and the opportunity it creates for all our key stakeholders. The combination of Quad and LSC Communications is a natural and strategic fit. Slide 7 provides a high level overview of the strategic and financial rationale for this transaction. Together with LSC Communications we will create a highly efficient print platform to fuel Quad 3.0, our strategy to create more value by leveraging our strong print foundation as part of a much larger, more robust integrated marketing solutions offering, deliver cost and time savings opportunities for our clients, maintain our long-term strategic vision by preserving my family's leadership and voting control in the company, generate synergies and additional free cash flow to create a more profitable combined company, and maintain our strong and healthy balance sheet from the all stock transactions structure. Each of these points will be expanded upon further throughout today's presentation. At this point, I'd like to pass the call over to Tom for his comments.

Thomas Quinlan

Analyst

Thank you, Joel and I'm pleased to join Joel and his team to announce this exciting combination. Since LSC Communications became a standalone public company two years ago we have added critical scale, capabilities and technologies. We've done this through acquisitions and divesting assets and through tailing [ph] unique comprehensive supply chain solutions for our clients that address the root of their strategic needs. Additionally, we have established a strong logistics network and developed critical partnerships to help us revolutionize how our clients distribute content to all channels; this has all been done to strengthen our position as a leading innovative imprint and multi-channel logistics. Like Quad, LSC is an innovative customer first focused company. We share a commitment to challenging ourselves to do better tomorrow than we did yesterday. With Quad's integrated marketing solutions offering as a base this combination will build on and create new opportunities for our businesses including book, magazine, catalog, office products, logistics and pre-media [ph]. And with our investments in innovative solutions such as HarvestView and Intercept in companies like MAZ and StoryFit, we believe as one company we will be positioned at the forefront of a new age of content distribution and consumer engagement. We are pleased that LSC shareholders will benefit from the significant projected synergies in upside potential of the combined company. As we noted in the joint press release, we expect the combined company will deliver a broader client base for cross-selling and marketing outsourcing opportunities. The combined company will also have enhanced product production and distribution efficiencies and flexibility from the greatest scale of the combined complementary platforms supported by the printing industry's most experienced operators and innovators. In addition, the combined company will increase financial scale and a strong balance sheet. Before you turn the call back to Joel, I would like to thank the thousands of LSC Communications employees who work hard every day and execute so well on our strategy. Their dedication and unwavering commitment to our clients is the reason we are a leader today. I look forward to working with Joel and his team to ensure that the combined company is set up for success. And with that, I will turn it back over to Joel.

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

Thank you, Tom and I really appreciate you joining us today. Moving on to Slide 8; you will see a snapshot of the combined company's annual revenue for the 12 months ended September 30, 2018 of approximately $8 billion broken out by product and geography. The combination of Quad and LSC creates a compelling platform to better serve our clients utilizing magazines, catalogues, books, directories and retail inserts. These clients will benefit from significant cost and time saving opportunities in several different ways, enhance production and distribution efficiencies and flexibility from the greater scale of the complementary platforms, expanded logistics services in volume driven postage savings programs such as co-mailing backed by experienced and proven leadership, strengthened print management services and business process outsourcing; and for book publishers, specifically the strength of our combined platforms will create a truly end-to-end service offering that includes front-end workflow solutions, a large-scale state-of-the-art digital printing platform complemented by an extensive offset platform, and back-end integrated systems for finishing, distribution and fulfillment. Through this offering we intend to redefine the entire book supply chain providing book publishers with increased customization and versioning capabilities, faster time to market, and reduced waste in inventories and obsolescence. The acquisition of LSC Communications will strengthen our print platform to fuel our Quad 3.0 transformation. All product categories and geographies will benefit from our integrated marketing solutions, and with an expanded list of clients we will broaden our ability to help more retailers, marketers and publishers benefit from our expanded value proposition. The LSC acquisition is an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $1.4 billion including the refinancing of LSC's debt. We have structured the deals and all stock transaction to allow us to maintain our strong balance sheet and healthy credit profile for future capital deployment opportunities. Under the…

Dave Honan

Analyst

Thanks Joel, good morning everyone. We believe the acquisition of LSC Communications will create value for both company shareholders through significant synergies and strong free cash flow generation, as well as enhanced efficiencies and solutions for our clients from the greater scale of our complimentary platform. Slide 13 shows the expected synergies and their corresponding impact on the combined companies adjusted EBITDA. On a combined basis, 2018 pro forma adjusted EBITDA will be $650 million, the pro forma combined adjusted EBITDA increases by over 20% to $785 million when taken into consideration the one $135 million of potential synergies derived from this acquisition. A couple of items to note when looking at this level of post synergy adjusted EBITDA; first, we've excluded approximately $50 million of pension income from LSC's estimated $280 million of adjusted EBITDA at the midpoint of their new 2018 financial guidance. This adjustment was made to provide consistency with how Quad reports adjusted EBITDA which is without the benefit of non-cash pension income. Second, the $135 million of net synergies are an annualized estimate of the full run rate of synergies after we complete the integration which we estimate to take less than two years. The net result is a transaction that is accretive to earnings after excluding non-recurring integration costs, as well as substantial additional free cash flow. On Slide 14, we've summarized the key components of our anticipated net synergies of $135 million and the related cost to achieve these synergies. We expect to achieve approximately $60 million of synergies through capacity rationalization by optimizing the combined manufacturing and distribution platform. Another $50 million of synergies will be realized through administrative efficiencies such as SG&A savings, and another $25 million of approximate savings through supply chain management efficiencies. These synergies will lead to a…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from James Clement from BRG.

James Clement

Analyst

Joel, first question, big picture; as you think about this integration process, you look back to Worldcolor, you look back to Virtus, you look back to Brown, all the other ones -- what were some of the lessons learned back then that give you confidence this one is going to be even more smoother sailing from an integration perspective?

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

I think you know that we're very process driven, everything we do has a process to it. You go through a massive integration like Worldcolor which was really a new twist for us in terms of switching gears and being an industry consolidator. There were -- there is a whole book of lessons that you learn through this, and each time that we've done another project we've applied those lessons to the next one. And I'll say that we feel really good about the process and the people that we have involved in this because as we've done these integrations you have to remember that were -- it's not just a couple of people doing it, we continue to build a whole team that's very deep, that knows how to deal with the process of integration. And that's why also -- I talked about our confidence, and also simultaneously executing on 3.0 because it's almost two different teams if you think about it. We have the people who know how to do this with our PMO Group combined with the structured approach that really allows this thing to operate like a machine when we're looking at integration, it's very data driven; and also we very much use our heart [ph] as we make tough decisions. And I think as we go forward, I think one thing you always learn is you can always go faster. And so in every successive one we've done, I think we've proven that we can pick up the pace as evidenced by the deleveraging nature of what we've been able to do, we couldn't do that unless we had a good process in place. And so I'd say that now more than ever I'm -- the most confident in the team and our ability to do this.

James Clement

Analyst

Obviously, their books business is certainly a relative strength, obviously you had the initial plan to buy Courier, RD [ph] came in above you; this makes you much, much bigger in books. Can you give us kind of your updated thoughts on how you view the books business and that sort of thing?

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

The book business is; I've always argued when disruption came along that that -- yes, there is digital disruption but I never believed that print would end up going into a massive freefall and I think it's being proven out overtime here. They have an outstanding book platform with an outstanding group of people, we've -- when we acquired Worldcolor, it's certainly a smaller business than what LSC has; and I have to tell you it was underinvested and we've taken the time to really ramp that up. And I think the big key here is the change in how both companies and the whole industry have approached the book industry, and that is -- it's digitally focused. We use our traditional print capacity but we've also built a whole capability as an industry to get rid of inventory for our clients and to be more customized. So as we've layered in the digital assets -- by the way one of the reasons we're so interested in Courier before my friend Tom snapped it away from me; thanks Tom. But it really is going to be I think a real powerful part of the story because I believe in this industry, but I also believe what we're bringing to our clients is very value-added and will help them manage the cost that they have outside of printing the books in terms of inventory, and time to market, and the ability to react quickly.

James Clement

Analyst

One of their business lines is something that you all have historically not had a presence in; it is -- are you committed to that business long-term or might you consider pealing that out at some point?

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

Well, look it is new to us but I will tell you if you go back to our other acquisitions, we've had a lot of new things come to us. In Virtus you wanted the big hidden gems was the media planning and placement business that we weren't in, and if you look at where we've taken that it's now -- we now buy over $750 million worth of media on behalf of our clients. We worked in in-store signage; now as we look at what 3.0 will drive in terms of the ability to drive more print, it's driving print into places we weren't before. Office products we don't know as a team -- I don't…

James Clement

Analyst

I didn't say office products Joel, I didn't mention that.

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

I thought you did.

James Clement

Analyst

I'm just kidding with you, I'm just kidding. Go ahead, sorry.

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

You're really funny. The office products business is something that LSC knows well, and it's been a good business for them. So as we kind of go down the road, we'll learn about it and we'll learn from them and we'll make our decisions on how it fits best. Tom, do you have any comments about the office products business? Do you want to…

Thomas Quinlan

Analyst

No, thank you Joel. Look, I would tell you for the quarter the non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin, it was up 20 basis points to 13.1%. Obviously as Joel has talked about synergies, the team had office products as led by Jim [ph], he's done a great job as far as getting the synergy out of the acquisition that we did of quality park; we've been able to go ahead and increase private branded -- the mix of branded versus private label products sales, so that's been good. And again, we've been able to get forth -- cover ourselves on the manufacturing material increases that have taken place in the industry. So good team, good business, great customers; so that's always a good formula for a successful business.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Dan Jacome from Sidoti & Company.

Dan Jacome

Analyst

Can you talk a little bit first about the customer mix of LSC versus your customers mix just for the investors that are not too familiar with one company or the other? I think you guys are 53% catalog, magazine, insert and then LSC if I'm not mistaken, somewhere in the high-40s; just thinking long-term, how do you guys envision maybe customer mix to change or not change once fully integrated?

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

I think we have a great slide, Slide 8 or Page 8; it kind of breaks it out. But yes, I mean we're in a lot of the same lines of business and with the exception of what we just talked about in office products. And we will continue to really build on those because what you got to remember in one of the strengths of the combination but really the strength after 3.0 approach takes to this is that regardless of what business they're in, they are a marketer in one way shape or form. And all marketers today are under a lot of pressure because even though we've seen this whole advent of the whole digital strategy, the challenge in the big disruption that's happening today in marketing which is making 3.0 accelerate is the fact that it's not integrated, the digital media on it's own is not integrated. Our clients are really struggling with how do we pull this together, so we have one horizontal approach where we can measure what really works and use one measurement to go all the way across. And so depending on what product line you're in, you're a marketer; and to me that is an entry point for our relationship and our ability to add value to our clients in helping them run their business and getting rid of their pain points of this disruption. And I'm telling you the lack of integration is real, you're seeing the larger holding companies, ad agencies under a lot of stress because they're offering and how they help people market is not integrated. And for us we are a big invoice for any of these categories therefore we tend to have the C-suite relationships which allows us to start talking about this integration; and at first they don't see it coming but as we walk through it's a very logical thing for our customers to understand because we're embedded in their business with process. They manufacture the content, we execute on making it physical or dispensing it into other media channels; and so often times we're actually creating the content for them or a part of it. And I'll remind you that even today before this and before the expansion of the client roster, we have over 1,200 Quad employees in over 70 major marketing departments of large brands helping them execute on strategy. And so as we look at 3.0 and we look at the different categories of business that these two companies have, and even though a lot of it overlaps, it is an expansion of those opportunities to bring value add to our clients who are all looking for a solution.

Dan Jacome

Analyst

Turning now to the debt; so I don't know if I missed it but did you guys -- you guided to a lot of the major metrics, obviously revenue free cash flow. Did you guide to what would be the combined company -- I mean I can back into it but the combined company interest expense last I checked -- I think LSC had blended interest rate that was just over 300 basis points higher than the 5% or so interest rate that you guys have. Any commentary there or it's just too early to tell?

Thomas Quinlan

Analyst

Well, we will go through a process we disclosed in the press release this morning and mentioned in our script that we'll be refinancing the company -- the new combined company as we go forward; so we'll have more information coming out of that. Our hope is that the power of these combined synergies the result in free cash flow coming out of it; our focus on deleveraging the company we talked about, initially when you look at the end of the year leverage that we expect that based on the debt levels we expect at the end of the year to be above our long-term range but within two years it will be well within that range as the strong free cash flows come through the business. So more to come on that but I think directionally, the way to think of this business is it's going to be a deleveraging acquisition for us that allows us to create more capital opportunity for the very growth issues that Joel just walked you through. So it's absolutely fantastic acquisition to be able to expand our scale and opportunity and provide more capital for deployment that's going to result in share creation -- share value creation for our shareholders.

Dan Jacome

Analyst

I didn't hear too much about the co-mailing; can you talk a little bit about LSCs versus yours and what sort of opportunities you guys might have done? And if I could sneak another one; can you also talk about the logistic businesses that LSC has been acquiring I think in the last 18 months? And how that might fit into your forward and long-term combined company strategy? Thank you very much.

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

I'll start, maybe Tom will chime-in on some of the logistics questions on his side but this is a really good question and a very key one to why this deal makes sense, especially for our clients. We are basically doing most of the work for the post office on behalf of our clients. Back in 1991 the post office started a work share program that allowed customers to get huge discounts, and for those who don't know, over 60% of our customers cost is postage, print tends to be 20% or less with paper being the rest of it. And so our ability to merge clients together we're all a big co-op of clients using our equipment, and the printer's ability to pull that volume together really determines how much we can actually save for them and if we can reach the full potential of the post office. Now while I'm a huge believer in print, everyone knows that we've been experiencing fairly significant decline over the past decade, and that decline puts pressure on both company's ability to execute in co-mail for our customers. And so one of the big reasons this makes so much sense is to shore-up the ability to continue to offset one of the biggest costs for our clients on a go-forward basis. And so Tom and his group have done a wonderful job over the years of developing very aggressive and capable co-mailing services just as we have. But the truth remains that we have to continue to shore-up to make sure that print has a place at the table in the marketing mix which in some of this disruption lost it's place at the table and 3.0 is bringing it back.

Thomas Quinlan

Analyst

Joel nailed it. I mean the job in addition to creating value for our clients is also to mitigate expenses, the manufacture materials continue to go up. How can we mitigate those? As Joel said, the distribution costs continue to rise. You look at what we did with Farrington Clark in [indiscernible]; we're attacking mail newsstand and e-commerce, so with our footprint that we've got from a warehouse standpoint it's going to allow this new entity to even get into e-commerce -- distribution of e-commerce more outside of physical content if you think about where Quad 3.0 is headed, all of those -- what I'll call retailers are going to need someone to go ahead and distribute their content or in fact their product. So how can we do that better for them? The USPS is still a main component of our cost structure, having the co-mail capabilities and [indiscernible]. Literally our industry helps the USPS take the content and have it form in a tray so that they can just put it on their truck and head out and deliver it. Those efficiencies are going to get even better for everyone, so a lot of opportunities as Joel talked about Virtus -- logistics is going to bring a lot of opportunities, Newsstand is a tough place right now but we think we'll bring it forward on from a newsstand standpoint, we're going to help the newsstand.

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

And some of those services that Tom has done are not only complementary but some of them will expand our services, and so we're very much looking forward to that. He's done a lot of things on the book side from a fulfillment distribution standpoint, and I'm sure we're going to learn more of that and we're only going to enhance.

Dan Jacome

Analyst

I think you said you expected to be fully integrated by early next year. That looks -- I guess I'm just going back to Jamie's terrific question on just past acquisitions; I mean what gives you confidence given the scale of the acquisition – merger, I should say that there will be no customer disruptions. Was there anything in the past acquisitions maybe with the World Book [ph] that -- momentarily there was some customer issues or disruptions? I'm just trying to think about the risks over the next six months because it is such a large acquisition.

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

Dan, just to correct on that what we said is post-closing we expect to achieve these synergies within two years. So the early next year comment, that's a little bit off in time. We're going to -- and then within new year's get there. It is not a light switch where we're just turning on this integration process if -- it bothered us over the past, what we've had a strong project management office solely focused on EBITDA enhancement in our business in which we every year geared towards taking out $60 million of cost, that's the same team that's going to work on this integration combined with the strong leaders over at LSC to take advantage of the opportunities that are out there to drive these synergies.

Thomas Quinlan

Analyst

In terms of the customer thing, that is -- like the most crucial part of an integration because moving customers from one plan to another in a -- and we're basically a job shop where no two publications are the same month after month; very process oriented, and so we're very proud that when we've done this we have actually retained an extremely high percent in the high 90's of our clients because of the lack of disruption. Again, it goes back to our ability to have a lot of visibility into the platform with a strong IT platform but also the process driven. And so I think we're going to need to move to the next caller Dan, but thank you for your questions.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Charles Strauzer [ph] from CJS Securities.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Tom or Joel, maybe both of you can share this question -- just looking near-term here, kind of the updated guidance for both companies; Tom you took down EBITDA guidance but basically kept revenue guidance intact, it seems that margins are under pressure there. While Joel, your margin seems to be holding up much better than Tom's, maybe the two of you can kind of share thoughts on the dynamics behind that?

Thomas Quinlan

Analyst

Joel, I'll take it and turn it over to you. I think -- look, we expected obviously from our last call at third quarter than what we showed you today. And I think as you look at the margins, logistics acquisition plays in that, there was about 60 basis points. When you think about the tight labor market conditions that we saw in the third quarter, we know they're going to continue in the fourth quarter or they're going to result in higher wages. We are not as automated, probably as Quad is; and that leads to lower productivity, so I think -- actually the combination of our two companies will help not only in the automation and productivity but the industry as a whole in every product line as you think about it. Book mix was solid, the amount of book work that we have is -- continues to exceed my expectations which is great, and I think as we look at '19, early indications from our clients are that '19 is going to be a real good year from a book standpoint. So getting our abduction [ph] order from a productivity standpoint will help our business, help their business and then when the combination gets together, I think there is some really good opportunities there.

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

And I'd just add to it Tom, that -- everyone's dealing with the loan employment environment right now, it's at 50-year low or whatever it is. And that puts a lot of pressure on -- in fact, one of the things that I think is helping us is we just invested in our employees with big increase in starting ways just to be able to build the pipeline. We're really attacking from an innovation standpoint of how do we create band services for intercity opportunities for talent that are looking for jobs; so it's definitely one of those things that we're all faced with but I think we're managing it well, but I'll also say that the 3.0 strategy is contributing to how we're doing. I mean last year we shared with you that we've created over $150 million in incremental revenue that goes across all product lines which by the way further proves to everyone that it's not just the 3.0 revenue, the 3.0 services actually drives down into print whether it's packaging and store, direct mail and commercial; it's affecting all products, it's actually a print creator as opposed to something else. And so that's where I want to make sure that people understand that this is a stack of services and products that all work together. And also the industry has been under a lot of pressure, and so that's why I mean the challenges that are out there makes this deal -- makes so much sense is we have to be able to rationalize the platform but most importantly, make sure we've got the right talent in the right places to really execute for our clients.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And then Joel, obviously the industry pressures you mentioned, it's a good segue for my next question which is basically just on the regulatory approvals and potential hurdles there. Do you foresee any material hurdles as they're getting in the way of approval here?

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

Look, I think one of the big obvious things going on here is that while we struggle with volume declines that marketing revenue is going somewhere. If it's coming out of print it's been going to all media channels, and I think you probably have to be living under a rock in the last decade if you don't see that our real competition is other channels. And you know, I'm a big believer that print is going to -- it is a part of it and is not going to go away but the amount of revenue that's -- or the amount of spend that marketers have that has been shifted to all these different channels is immense. And so I think at this point in time it would be hard for someone to make the case that our competition is not other forms of media. I'll also say that the acquisition is great for customers from the standpoint of our ability to offset distribution costs but more importantly, it will allow me with the free cash flows this thing creates to keep investing in them. They need me to invest in the print platform to be able to offset the challenges and make print continue to have print be a part of it; and that's not just by only just being more efficient, it's also by creating more value. So if we start converting customers who used to only do catalogues to direct mail but not dumb direct mail -- I'm talking direct mail don't at digital presses where all the content is completely variable based on what just happened yesterday online, you know, if that creates revenue and margin for us but also reduces our customers marketing cost because it's not about cost per piece, it's about cost…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Bill [ph] from Baird & Company.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

A question for Dave and Dave when you talked about refinancing the LSC debt which carries a high coupon, the senior secured -- how are you thinking about that? Are you thinking you're going to wait until the next call date in October or are you going to pay a small premium -- make whole [ph] premium and take that out maybe when the transaction closes right around mid-year?

Dave Honan

Analyst

That's a great question. And I think when you've known Quad, if you follow Quad we're very much a company that likes to be transparent but also deal with risks that are currently present. And when we look at the refinancing, we've had a history of playing in a lot of deep and diverse debt markets, we've got very strong in support of bank group, we've had term loan B market with high yield, and even in the private placement market as we were growing as a private company. So there is a lot of markets we like to look at here, and we're also going to balance that against as we see taking market risk off the table as things come about. So I think you'll see a thick action fairly quickly but will also be wise as kind of look at what's going on with the markets. But we'll have -- we'll be launching our refinancing fairly soon with our bank markets and they are making a decision beyond that which other markets will play-in but we'll probably do that fairly quickly.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And then one question which -- I'm not sure really relates to the acquisition but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts, both Joel and Tom with some of the troubles in the retail industry, obviously Bon-Ton, Toys R Us, most recently Sears, and JCPenney appears to be a little bit on the brink. How much of an impact has that had on your business or has it been a benefit because they're looking to basically outsource those services in an effort to go ahead and preserve cash flow?

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

Well, it's been both; it's been a negative impact and a positive one. Negative from when someone goes away, the volume goes away but back to my point that -- not just retailers, all marketers are under a lot of pressure and they're all trying to figure out the multi-channel mix. And so what we're finding is a much more receptive conversation about 3.0 with those clients, and willing to act faster; so that's all a good thing. But I'll tell you there is a basically a bifurcation going on in the retail experience when you think about brick-and-mortar, and it's very simple. If it's a bad experience you're in trouble, if you figured out how to make it a good experience and that you figured out how to leverage multi-channel you're going to do well. And I think everyone is calling for a pretty strong robust retail season here but long-term you're seeing the multi-channel thing try and seek it's correct water level, and people are figuring out how to compete against the Amazon's of this world. But again, it's going to be about does your customer like the experience or not? And Tom, I don't know if you have some other comments?

Thomas Quinlan

Analyst

Thank you, Joel. And look, understand as you think about our two platforms. Our percentage in what I call retail inserts is not that large. So I think as we look at it, I think what Joel said is spot on again; that the multi-channel approach what retail is trying to figure it out -- they're going to continue to look for ways to get their content to their customers; you think about what we've invest in a company called Mask [ph], they basically can take content in any form and convert it into any Social Media outlet over any device. I mean it's -- there is tremendous amount of ways that are changing the way content is being distributed, and I think having the approach of having a Quad 3.0 allows customers, clients to avail themselves to those ways as they try to figure out which way is this that they need to connect with their end customer. So as always, lots of opportunities when you get to situations like this.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Anthony [ph] from Citi. Please go ahead with your question.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

This is actually Brian Burke Myer [ph] sitting in for Anthony, thanks for taking the question. Understanding you're still in the early stages, do you see the potential for any working capital synergies either through improved inventory efficiency or improved like payable-receivable terms?

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

I do think there is, we haven't quantified that at this point. However, with the scale and the combination of these two companies, I think that provides opportunities as we kind of look at it as one process versus two process across two companies. We focused a lot in the past on working capital, it's part of the reason why you saw the decline this year versus last year because we kind of completed a lot of the benefits of a process improvement program we've done through a lean enterprise, efficiency program for working capital which we were able to reduce our days of billing outstanding from call it close to two weeks to one day; and that generated a lot of free cash flow for us over the past several years, and now we're kind of analyzing on those numbers. I think -- those types of projects where you can bring lead enterprise across two company and really combine the processes into one I think are going to provide opportunity for us, and we'll continue to assess that as we get to know kind of the processes of LSC and how those are the same or different than Quad. So I think there is opportunity for us in the working capital side as we look forward to this transaction.

Operator

Operator

And our last question comes from Jamie Clement from BRG as a follow-up.

James Clement

Analyst

Tom, in the logistics and co-mail PC business, I guess -- my understanding is Quad's got a lot more trucks than you guys did, and overtime obviously think you'd be able to pass along, increased spot rate, purchase transportation to your customers; but have you been eating a little bit of that like here in the third quarter?

Thomas Quinlan

Analyst

Not really, not too much. I mean look the hurricanes that the country's endured really haven't been that big of an impact on the cost of transportation. So I would say no, that usually hasn't been the driver. I mean, obviously driver shortage and cost of fuel impact everything but I would say we've managed through it pretty well.

Joel Quadracci

Analyst

So thank you all for joining us today, sort of in closing here. As people digest all the information here, please know that both teams, the Quad team and the LSC team are available to answer your questions offline as we always are. To the LSC employees, I want you to understand that I very much look forward to you joining our team. I think you'll find us to be a very down to earth manufacturing centric company, with approach based on the values that were created by my father that will only enhance your experience in my -- with us as part of the team. To the Quad employees, thank you, all the work that you have done over the many years has allowed us to take advantage of this opportunity to acquire such a storied name with LSC, and it's long legacy of being one of these companies as I was growing up as a kid that my father always pointed to as part of R.R. Donnelly, the original R.R. Donnelly, that we always wanted to be like. And we could not have done this unless the innovation, the hard work, and building our culture, our team on the floor and in all parts of our company have done. So with that, thank you all for joining us.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference call. We do thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.