Herb Mueller
Analyst · J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open
Thank you, Kate, and good afternoon, everyone. I will start by giving detail on our fiscal first quarter financial results and we’ll then discuss the trends we are seeing in the second quarter. I will also give further detail on the financial impact of the taskforce - Management on Demand acquisition and other strategic growth initiatives that Kate discussed a little earlier. Starting with an overview of our first quarter results, total revenue for the first quarter fiscal 2018 was $141.2 million, a 1.5% decrease from the comparable quarter a year ago. Sequentially, revenue was down 5%. On a constant currency basis revenue increased 1.4% year-over-year and 5.6%, sequentially. Our first quarter gross margin was 38%, the same as the prior year first quarter. SG&A expenses were $47.4 million, compared to $43.6 million in the fiscal quarter a year ago. Our net income was $2.1 million or $0.07 per diluted share. In Q1 adjusted EBITDA was $7.9 million or 5.6% of revenue compared to $12.2 million or 8.5% of revenue in the year ago quarter. Now let me discuss some of the highlights of our revenues geographically. As Kate mentioned, we have seen improving trends across our international business, with revenues in Europe showing improvement for the seven straight quarter. Europe is benefiting from our increase focus on large accounts across countries, as well as leveraging our U.S. connections. Our U.S. performance continues to be below our long-term expectations with gains in the majority of the U.S. being offset by the year-over-year decline in the Tri-State area, which was down 16% from a year ago. However, as mentioned, Tri-State has leveled off and is showing signs of sequential growth. We believe that the worst is behind us in the Tri-State region, while we’re still seeing weakness in the area, we have already seen some improvements over the last quarter following the recent leadership and management changes, activity levels are up and moral is improving. As Kate and I have emphasized on previous calls, we are now expecting an immediate turnaround in our Tri-State business but we are confident that new leadership in combination with our dedicated business development structure and recent SalesForce implementation will drive improve performance in the market. In two other markets where we face similar business challenges, Chicago and Houston, we are already seeing positive results from new leadership. Houston is definitely trending positively and is reaching weekly revenue not seen in several years. Both markets were up year-over-year in the quarter. For the first quarter revenues in U.S. were $113.1 million, a decrease of 2.2% year-over-year and 5.4%, sequentially, partially reflecting the impact of the summer holiday season and again, driven by the year-over-year decline in Tri-State. For the first quarter total revenues internationally were $28.1 million versus $27.7 million in the first quarter a year ago, an increase of 1.1% year-over-year, 1.8% constant currency and a decrease of 3.2%, sequentially, 6.4% constant current. International revenues accounted for approximately 19.9% of total revenues for the quarter, compared to 19.5% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017. Europe’s first quarter revenue increased 7.4% year-over-year, while decreasing 5.5% sequentially. Asia-Pacific saw first quarter revenue decrease 10.7% year-over-year and 3.7% sequentially. On the quarter-over-quarter basis, U.S. dollar was weaker against the euro but stronger against the pound. In Asia-Pacific countries where we do business the dollar were stronger. As a result, on a constant currency basis, Europe’s revenue would have increased quarter-over-quarter by 7.1% and Asia-Pacific revenue would have been down 8.3%. Turning to early revenue trends for the second quarter of fiscal 2018, weekly revenues were trending 3%, ahead of last year, excluding taskforce acquisition related revenue. This includes the impact of approximately $350,000 in lost revenue from the hurricanes. We are seeing some encouraging trends and topline revenue for the quarter ahead, Europe is continuing to do well and Asia-Pacific is beginning to rebound after getting off to a slow start in Q1. As mentioned above, revenue was trending in the $151 million to $155 million range in the second quarter compared to $147.6 million a year ago. This range includes taskforce revenue of approximately $3.3 million to $3.7 million in Q2. The high end of the range is dependent on achieving the same uptick in the second half of quarter as we have historically seen. Turning to gross margins, gross margin for the first quarter was 38%, the same as the prior year first quarter, but as expected a decrease from 39.1% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017. The sequential decrease of 110 basis points is primarily due to the impact of paid holidays in the first quarter as there were no paid holidays in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017 in the U.S. Excluding reimbursable expenses, our first quarter gross margin was 38.8%, which compares to 38.7% in the first quarter a year ago. For the first quarter our gross margin in the U.S. was 38.9% and our international gross margin was 34.6%. For the second quarter we expect our gross margin to be in the 37.7% to 38% range. The average bill rate for the quarter was approximately $121 which compares to $120 in the fourth quarter and $119 in year ago quarter. The average pay rate for the first quarter was approximately $60, the same in the fourth quarter and one year ago. As a reminder, these hourly rates are derived based on prevailing exchange rates during each given period. Now on to headcount and geographic footprint, the quarter end consultant headcount was 2,495 versus 2,570 a year ago. The total headcount in the company was 3,221 at quarter end. Internal headcount has decreased 7.3% since the end of the third quarter, reflective of the actions taken in the fourth quarter related to the restructuring program, reducing the number of front and back office personnel. At the end of the first quarter our office count was 67, 43 domestic and 24 international. Now, looking at other components of our first quarter financial results, SG&A expenses were $47.4 million or 33.6% of revenue. This compares to SG&A of $43.6 million or 30.4% of revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2017 and $48.4 million or 32.6% of revenue in fourth quarter of fiscal 2017. The year-over-year increase from last year’s first quarter relates to charges of approximately $1.4 million for severance expenses and $700,000 of acquisition related costs in the first quarter. The combined impact of these charges was $0.05 per diluted share of today’s results. The additional costs impacted our tax rate for the quarter to a greater extent because of the relatively low pretax income in U.S. to offset such costs, thus our tax rate is 58% for the quarter but would have been 49% without the expenses. The additional year-over-year increase of $1.7 million was driven primarily by the transformation expense related to our strategic initiatives as well as $700,000 license fees related to SalesForce. The transformation expense will begin the wind down towards the end of the second quarter. Now I am going to discuss the sequential change in SG&A from Q4 to Q1. The $1 million decrease sequentially is the combination of factors. We incurred charges of approximately $2.4 million related to severance expenses and office closures in the fourth quarter of 2017. We eliminated $1.7 million in compensation cost as a result of reduction in force. We incurred $700,000 of acquisition-related expense. We incurred $1.4 million of additional severance expense. Payroll taxes were up $700,000 related to our bonus payout and healthcare costs were up $300,000 in the quarter. In quarter two we expect SG&A to be in the range of $46.5 million to $47 million which will include approximately $1.8 million for spending for transformation and additional SG&A for the taskforce acquisition. Turning to other components of our financial statements, stock compensation expense was $1.6 million or 1.1% of total revenue. Depreciation was $940,000, about the same as the fourth quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA or cash flow margin which we define is EBITDA before stock compensation was 5.6% in the first quarter down from 8.5% year ago and 7.4% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017. Our pretax income was $5 million in the first quarter. During the quarter we recorded a provision for income taxes of $2.9 million representing an effective tax rate of 58%. Our GAAP tax rate for each of the upcoming quarters is difficult to predict and could be volatile as the rate will be dependent on several factors, including the operating results of our U.S. and foreign locations, each of which are taxed or benefited at a different statutory rates and the offset of the tax benefit of foreign losses in certain locations by valuation allowances. On the cash basis our tax rate was about 42% and we expect that rate to continue over the next several quarters. Our effective tax rate is impacted by our current inability to offset income and tax jurisdiction where we are profitable with losses and several tax jurisdictions where we are not. Finally, our GAAP net income was $2.1 million or $0.07 per share during the first quarter. Now, let me turn to the balance sheet, cash and investments at the end of the first quarter were $49.6 million, a $12.7 million decrease from the year end balance of fiscal 2017. The decrease seems primarily from the use of cash to pay fiscal 2017 related bonuses during the first quarter. Receivables at quarter end were approximately $99 million compared with $98 million at the end of the fourth quarter. Days of revenue outstanding were approximately 61 days, the same as during the fourth quarter fiscal 2017. Dividends paid for the quarter totaled approximately $3.3 million. Capital expenditures were $400,000 during the quarter net of landlord reimbursements. In the first quarter we did not repurchase our stock, we are continually evaluating uses of cash to reduce debt and/or facilitate our growth both organically and inorganically. Our stock buyback program has approximately $125.1 million remaining. We will continue to return cash to shareholders through our quarterly dividend, while balancing debt repayment with capital requirements of growing our business organically and inorganically in fiscal prudence. Our shares outstanding at the end of the first quarter were approximately 29.9 million. Now turning to the financial impact of the acquisition we made at the beginning of our second quarter. On September 1st we closed the acquisition of taskforce - Management on Demand as part of our effort to expand and grow our European business. taskforce is an industry leader in the German market and will enhance our ability to serve our global clients and offer more integrated solutions. We acquired taskforce for initial consideration of approximately $7.1 million in cash and restricted stock. We issued about 227,000 shares. The taskforce transaction is expected to be substantially accretive to our revenue and EBITDA from day one. We expect taskforce to contribute $14 million to $16 million annually in revenue and 10% to 12% EBITDA at its operating pace. The acquisition drove approximately $400,000 acquisition costs in Q1. As I mentioned, the transaction represents positive financial opportunities and is expected to be accretive to both revenue and EBITDA, delivering benefits to our shareholders. We are excited about our acquisition of taskforce and we are continuing to work to identify additional growth opportunities both inorganic and organic. And finally, I’d like to discuss the financial impacts of the strategic initiatives that Kate covered earlier. As a reminder, we first announced these three initiatives in April with specific goals is to reduce costs over time, enhance our revenue and improve our operating model. We are pleased with the progress we have made in the first quarter against our strategic initiatives and particular the reduction of force cost savings and the sales transformation initiative. We achieved our original goal as discussed in our Q3 earnings call in April. We reduced compensation expense by $7 million annualized, we added just under $1 million annually for SalesForce and we have increased our business development cost by approximately $2 million, yielding a net annualized savings of $4 million. We have been able to minimize loss of revenue during transformation and considering the headcount reduction allowing us to see a net revenue gain earlier than expected. On revenue enhancement, we continue to believe that the initiatives we have outlined will put us in a stronger financial position going forward. Our business development efforts are gaining great traction in opening new doors. Our improved incentive system for the field is in placed and will better reward our top performers. Our new talent pillar started in our east region last week and will drive a more efficient process. SalesForce has now gone live globally. Finally, the redesign of our operating model is well underway as we continue to prioritize building integrated solution capabilities and delivering multidisciplinary offerings to clients in three areas of focus, transaction services, technical accounting services, and data and analytics. These efforts are already delivering revenue growth and we expect them to be further supported and enhance by the client offerings of taskforce. We anticipated that this upward performance trend will continue. As Kate outlined earlier, we expected to see revenue upside and cost savings begin to have positive impact on our numbers later in FY 2018. Now I’d like to turn the call back to Kate for some closing comments.