Eddie Northen
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead
Thank you, John. Growing our business in the Rollins brand is always exciting for our company. When we look back over the acquisition through the years each time we have grown our top line revenue, customer count, net income and expanded our margin. We believe with Northwest that pattern will continue in a very positive way. I would also like to add my welcome for the team members at Northwest. When our family first moved to Atlanta four years ago, it was Northwest that knocked on our door and provided excellent pest control and termite services. The only sad thing for my family about my move to Rollins was having to part way with our Northwest test technicians. But as a side note, my wife does now love for Orkin technicians, so it worked out okay. I know first-hand that they are a quality company and how incredible their team members are at serving the customer. Well growing the business this way is exciting, our bread and butter is still our consistent recurring organic growth that John mentioned and it’s a great area that Northwest has done extremely well. For the quarter all of our service lines showed balance improvement and key to the quarter included strong organic growth, continued margin expansion tied to BOSS and virtual route management and an ongoing positive tax impact due to accounting standards update ASU 2016-09 related to our stock-based compensation. Looking at the numbers the company reported second quarter revenues of $433.6 million an increase of 5.5% over the prior year’s second quarter revenues of $411.1 million. For the quarter income before income taxes increased 11.9% to $86.1 million. Net income increased 12.4% to $53.7 million with earnings per share of 13.6% to $0.25 versus $0.22 per diluted share last year in the second quarter. Our revenue for the first six months was $808.8 million and that’s a 5.9% growth rate. That number is directly in line with our 2016 full year growth rate. Income before taxes was up $143.4 million up 11.9% and net income was $94 million an increase of 17.9%. As a reminder our Q1 net income was positively impacted by the stock-based compensation tax changes. Earnings per share were $0.43 compared to $0.36 last year up 19.4%. Operation has absorbed the increased summer demand extremely well. Let’s take a look to the revenue by service lines for the second quarter. Our total revenue increase of 5.5% included 6.1% from acquisition and the remaining 4.9% was organic growth. This organic growth rate is the best Q2 growth rate in five years. In total residential pest control, which made up 42% of our revenue was up 5.9%. Commercial pest control, which made up 39% of our revenue was up 5.1%. And termite and ancillary services, which made up approximately 19% of our revenue was up 6.1%. The lapping of Murray Pest Control in Australia had a slight impact on the overall growth rate. The total revenue less acquisition was up 4.9% from that residential was up 6%, commercial increased 3.6% and termite and ancillary improved by 6%. When you take a look at the quarter, taking out the impact of foreign exchange in total we grew 5.2%, residential grew 6.1%, commercial pest control was up 3.9% and termite improved 6.4%. Well our field team performed very well this quarter, our marketing group continues to do an outstanding job creating demand and it’s a key reason for our strong organic growth. This month our Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Kevin Smith invited me to tag along for a meeting with Google in Silicon Valley to take a look at our current initiatives in the phase of digital marketing and learn about opportunities related to demand creation moving forward. We learned a lot of the visit and while we may not be adding fan volleyball courts or net pots to our Atlanta office anytime soon. We did get a chance for some other great takeaway as we assess the market while expanding our use of technology. A key takeaway was our ability to continue to enhance our digital footprint with a goal of improving access for our customers with special emphasis on enriched mobile format experience. This is a great example of the bold forward thinking by our marketing team that has sustained our growth over the past several years. As we assess these technology updates we will keep you updated. In total, gross margin improved to 52.8% for the second quarter compared to 52.3% in 2016. The margin for the quarter benefited from improved efficiencies in routing and scheduling in technology, which also helps us increase productivity and to lower payroll as a percent of revenue. The gains that we experienced were partially offset by higher fuel prices and leads to be eco-cost. While the cost per gallon increased the miles driven per vehicle were down a little over 4%. We believe this is in part the result of the improved efficiency from our enhanced routing and scheduling through the virtual route management system. We expect to continue to see these benefits overtime. Depreciation and amortization expenses for the second quarter increased $1.2 million to $13.5 million, an increase of 9.7%. This percent increase will continue to subside as we lap our 2016 rollout of the BOSS initiative. Depreciation was $6.7 million increasing $713,000 with most of that increase related to our BOSS software, iPhone and printer depreciation. Amortization was $6.9 million, which increased $484,000 with amortization of intangibles assets increasing due mostly to amortize contract – customer contract of the acquisition of Murray Pest Control, and Scientific Pest Control in Australia, as well as various Orkin acquisitions throughout the year. Sales, general and administrative expenses for the second quarter increased $3.1 million or 2.5% to 29.9% of revenues down 9.1 percentage point from 30.8% for the second quarter of last year. The decrease in the percent of revenue is due to lower administrative salaries as a percent of revenues, which continues to see incremental gains from the BOSS project. As planned the company experience increased sales salaries, sales promotion and advertising expenses directed towards increasing sales and revenue. As for our cash position for the six months ended June 30, 2017 we spent over $6 million on acquisition and $50 million on dividend, an increase of 14.7%. We had $11.2 million of capital expenditures, which was down 39.1% from 2016 primarily from the completion of the BOSS project. Rollins ended with $194.8 million in cash up 54.1% from last year. A large portion of our cash balance will be used for the Northwest acquisition, but by no means would this limit our ability or apatite to continue to pursue good quality pest control and wildlife companies like Northwest as we move forward. As you’re probably aware, we hold $175 million line of credit and a $75 million credit sub facility that we would be willing and ready to use for the right opportunity. For many years Rollins has been considered the acquirer of choice, for many family owned companies. We feel that we are in a great position to continue to deploy capital to get the best return for our shareholders. From 2004 through 2010 the majority of our acquisition opportunity was only in the U.S. with the purchases of Western IFC, HomeTeam, Crane, Waltham and Trutech all of which are still run as independent brand. By expanding our pool for M&A opportunity outside of U.S. Pest Control, we’ve been able to continue to add quality company to our portfolio services in Australia and the UK. Our entry into the wildlife industry here in the U.S. also has provided great expansion opportunities. Let’s circle back to get some further details on Northwest from a financial perspective. Northwest historic growth rate is above our overall Rollins historic growth rate and we see that continuing by increasing prices, expanding sales of general pest to existing termite customers, continuing to grow the commercial pest services business, continuing to grow the mosquito service offering and possible geographic expansion. As stated earlier, we will run Northwest as a standalone company in our specialty brand category. As we look to make margin improvement our guiding principle when assessing our cost saving synergy is to first and foremost consider what is best for our new team members and their customers. We always want to make sure we are making things better. With this in mind we will evaluate opportunities in our back office support, utilizing Rollins’ purchasing advantage on materials and supplies, and we’re appropriate using Rollins’ negotiated rates for vehicle and telephone just to name a few. As is the case in most pest control acquisition there were little intangible assets that will be acquired from Northwest. From an accounting perspective the majority of what we book, will be goodwill and customer contract. As a result, we will record an annual non-cash charge of approximately $5 million in amortization and interest expense. This will minimize our accretion in 2017, but we feel that it will add between $0.005 and $0.01 in 2018. Last night the Board of Directors declared a regular cash dividend of $0.115 per share that will be paid on September 11, 2017 to stockholders of record at the close of business August 10, 2017. The cash dividend is a 15% increase over the prior year. We are pacing to have the 15th consecutive year that the Board has increased our dividend by a minimum of 12%. Our continued organic growth coupled with our profit improvement and this excellent new partnership with Northwest have us well positioned for an excellent 2017. I’ll now turn the call back over to Gary.