Earnings Labs

Rollins, Inc. (ROL)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 29, 2014

$55.62

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+1.41%

1 Week

+3.47%

1 Month

+3.36%

vs S&P

-0.50%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Rollins Incorporated Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I’d like to turn the conference over to Marilynn Meek. Please go ahead.

Marilynn Meek

Management

Thank you. By now you should have all received a copy of the press release. However, if anyone is missing a copy and would like to receive one, please contact our office at 212-827-3746 and we will send you a copy and make sure that you are on the company’s distribution list. There will be a replay of the call, which will begin one hour after the call and run for one week. The replay can be accessed by dialing 1-888-203-1112 with the passcode 5152310. Additionally, the call is being webcast at www.viavid.com and a replay will be available for 90 days. On the line with me today is Gary Rollins, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Harry Cynkus, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Management will make some opening remarks and then we’ll open up the line for your questions. Gary, would you like to begin?

Gary Rollins

Management

Yes. Thank you, Marilynn and good morning. We appreciate all of you joining us for our third quarter 2014 conference call. Harry will read our forward-looking statement and the disclaimer and then we’ll begin.

Harry Cynkus

Management

Our earnings release discusses our business outlook and contains certain forward-looking statements. These particular forward-looking statements and all other statements that have been made on this call, excluding historical facts are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual risks may differ materially from any statement we make today. Please refer to today’s press release and our SEC filings, indicating the Risk Factors section of our Form 10-K for the year-ended December 31, 2013 for more information and the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ.

Gary Rollins

Management

Thank you, Harry. We’re very pleased to have reported our strongest quarter for the year with revenues growing 6.3% to $384.9 million compared to $362.2 million in last year’s third quarter. Our net income increased 13.6% to $41.1 million with EPS of $0.28 compared to $36.2 million or $0.25 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2013. Revenues for the first nine months rose 5.4% to $1.067 million. Net income grew 13% to $107.7 million or $0.74 per share compared to net income of $95.4 million or $0.65 per diluted share for the same period last year. We’re also pleased to have achieved a 35% flow through of profit before taxes from each dollar of revenue increased in the quarter. This was off a little bit from the 41% flow through year-to-date, but with greater growth comes more related upfront cost. We saw a good growth in our commercial pest control business with revenues up 7%. Residential pest control was up 4.9%. While our termite service line was up 8.2% which for the quarter includes contributions from our recent acquisitions – Allpest, Statewide and PermaTreat. With this being our last call in 2014 and our year is about over, I thought I’d take a moment and bring you up-to-date on the feel of the new initiatives we’re working that will contributing in 2015. As you may recall approximately a year ago, we established our own in-house analytics team to help us gain greater insight in the customer preferences and to enable us to better formulate our marketing plans and priorities. We felt that this capability was needed to take our company to the next level. Through this group’s efforts, we now have a better understanding of our customer base, their behaviors as well as a greater understanding of our…

Harry Cynkus

Management

Thanks, Garry. Good morning and thank you for joining us on the call. What is it about October? Last year, the financial headlines were all about the aftermath of the U.S. Government shutdown, the next looming death sealing breach and what the potential Fed tapering will do to business. This October, it’s all about global growth scares, slowdown in tech, cheap foreign imports, et cetera, et cetera. A lot of headlines. There’s something reassuring about being a pest control company. These type of events just don’t impact our business. Pest control is a recession resistant, but not recession dependent business representing a non-discretionary purchase for commercial in most consumers. But that’s not to say we don’t ever have to work hard to produce our results. As we experienced last quarter, we saw continued softness in leads through July. August saw the fourth year-over-year improvement, slight, but a gain nonetheless. Then came September. I always said that spring will come and things will pick up. I just didn’t expect to see it in September, neither did Gary. It’s hard to put an explanation of what has proven to be the best September sales month on record by far. Good weather, but not phenomenal, no particularly good economic signals, if anything the newspapers had negative headlines most of the month, no change in our marketing strategy, but the phones rang off the hook. And our sales associates executed. I’m happy to report that it looks like the positive trend is continuing into October. Last quarter, I said the last time I saw significant slowdown in leads was in 2008 and it appeared that consumers deferred making that pest control call for help for a year. This time, it appears they only deferred it until the fall. Third quarter revenues were $384.9 million,…

Gary Rollins

Management

Thank you, Harry. Harry and I will be happy to address any questions that you all might have.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) And we’ll take our first question from Jamie Clement with Macquarie. Jamie Clement – Macquarie: Harry, Gary, good morning.

Gary Rollins

Management

Good morning, Jamie.

Harry Cynkus

Management

Good morning. Jamie Clement – Macquarie: All right, two questions for me. First of all, Harry, obviously CapEx is trending a little higher than normal. But given the branch system rollouts, should higher still going into next year or is this a level you’d expect to kind of stay out or even declined over the next 18 months or so?

Harry Cynkus

Management

No, I would expect it to decline back to more historical trends in the $17 million to $20 million range for the year. Like I said, we did a very robust rollout to improve the branch operating computers which normally we do staggered over a number years. But the capacity and strength of what we needed in the branches with the rollout coming just required a unusual deceleration of that. So no, there’s no big CapEx surprises next year. Jamie Clement – Macquarie: Okay, very good. And Gary, if I could turn to you. You mentioned some of the data and the news on housing starts and the housing market in general. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you all are not making a lot of money on the actual installation of the Taexx tubes in the wall. I mean in all cases, this is really about recurring revenue from a family that moves into a house. The way I’ve always sort of looked at this is the business, the new leads that you’re generating from HomeTeam, the decision to build this homes was made many, many years ago. So I mean is that the right interpretation in your opinion, in other words, not to get too worked up about short-term stories and data and that kind of thing?

Gary Rollins

Management

Well, of course we’re using our data in other areas or all areas. But you hit it on the head as far as the cost related to installs versus the benefit to get me really turn the system on. It’s almost like the razors and razorblade phenomena that you’ve got to put the system in in order to benefit from it, but once you got it installed, we have a customer that has better retention that conventional pest control because the home owner has made an investment, in their mind as far the system, it’s something that they own. And it’s just a lot more sticky in this residential pest control account than there is the conventional account.

Harry Cynkus

Management

And it also provides a – it’s kind of interesting, I think it’s even than the razor and razorblades because five years from now the 83,000, 84,000 plus homes that we installed systems in this year, many of those homes we also did pre-treat termite work. And that pre-treat termite work comes with a five year warranty, guarantee. So five years from now, we know the homeowner, we know what the exact date that their warranty expires, we’ve been servicing probably 70% of these homes doing their pest control. So who better than to renew their termite work with than HomeTeam? So it’s an interesting phenomena that when housing turns down, you have this five year backlog of customers that will need termite work. So if you look at this past recession, during the housing downturn 2008 through 2011, we were going back to customers so we installed or did pre-treat termite work 2002 to 2006 selling room [ph] termite work. And the HomeTeam grooved through the recession because of the backlog of termite customers needing additional work. Jamie Clement – Macquarie: Guys, thank you very much as always for your time.

Gary Rollins

Management

Thank you, Jamie.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) At this time, we’ll take our next question from Dan Dolev with Jefferies. Caller, your line is open. Please check your mute button. Again, your line is open. Please check your mute button. (Operator instructions) And we’ll pause a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal.

Gary Rollins

Management

We’re on a technical problem with Dan.

Operator

Operator

And we’ll take our question from Dan Dolev with Jefferies. Dan Dolev – Jefferies: Do you hear me now?

Harry Cynkus

Management

Yes.

Gary Rollins

Management

Yes. Dan Dolev – Jefferies: Sorry about that. Quick question for the mid-sector, the nice installation revenue on the residential side and termite. How much of those is really [indiscernible] external market including any sort of execution that Rollins [indiscernible]?

Gary Rollins

Management

Well, I’d love to believe it all has to do with execution of Rollins and marketing.

Harry Cynkus

Management

Excellent management, Gary.

Gary Rollins

Management

Excellent management. But I don’t have any data to – well, I can say I don’t have any data to support it or suggest otherwise. We know whether it was good in September or was good last year in September, was it better, did that drive it some, we really think some of this as I suggested was people earlier of the year who delayed making decision and gave up waiting. You know I sense just in benchmarking and attending the national industry events as this has somewhat lacked luster. On termite season, they didn’t have swarm. Typically, that’s enjoyed in most areas. I think we’re getting a benefit from our HomeSuite application. We’re in a better position to communicate to the home owner to the kind of work that we do and why do we do we do it and specifically how that relates to their home. So I’d like to get the benefit of anything that’s new, it just takes it a while to get it into your culture and into your routine. So I believe that’s been very helpful for us. And the industry, I mean the season just really felt crazily, I mean as far as the end of the quarter is concerned. But that was more so in pest control than it was in termite. Dan Dolev – Jefferies: Got it. That makes sense. And then quickly one follow up on Home. Can you give that number, I think last time, you mentioned positive earnings about 40%. Is there an equivalent number for HomeTeam in quote this time?

Gary Rollins

Management

Yes. I don’t have it handy. But the fact that I don’t recall it says it probably was in line with prior – with what they’ve done all year. Yes, I’m trying to find it here quickly. Yes, it was in line with prior quarters in terms of their improved contribution to the company. Dan Dolev – Jefferies: So it’s contributing – it’s margin accretive for the company at this time?

Gary Rollins

Management

I’m sorry. You broke up a little there. Dan Dolev – Jefferies: It’s margin accretive for the company at this time?

Gary Rollins

Management

Are you talking about HomeTeam? Dan Dolev – Jefferies: The HomeTeam business.

Gary Rollins

Management

Yes. Dan Dolev – Jefferies: Got it.

Gary Rollins

Management

Yes, they continued to improve their margins. Dan Dolev – Jefferies: Okay. That’s helpful. Thanks, Gary. I appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

(Operator instruction) And I’ll pause another moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal. And it appears we have no further questions in queue at this time. I’d like to turn the conference back over to our speakers for any additional or closing remarks at this time.

Gary Rollins

Management

Thank you. Well, it’s been an exciting year for the company with again with a lot of enthusiasm and energy. And I think that’s just built through the year as the year progressed. And we really started to see a return on the investments that we had from a technology point of view which was very encouraging. And we really look forward to frankly to the New Year. I know this one’s not over yet, but we’re really very much involved in the plans for 2015. And I look forward as does Harry in speaking with you next time. So thanks for your attendance.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for joining today’s conference. A replay will be available today, October 29th at 12 o’clock Central, 1 o’clock Eastern and will run through November 5th. You may access the replay by dialing the 1-888-203-1112 and reference passcode 5152310. Again, you may access the replay by dialing the number 1-888-203-1112 and reference passcode 5152310. This concludes today’s conference and we thank you for your participation.