Earnings Labs

SPAR Group, Inc. (SGRP)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Mon, Aug 17, 2015

$0.63

+5.06%

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

+7.03%

1 Week

-10.16%

1 Month

-16.41%

vs S&P

-11.25%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the SPAR Group 2015 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Matthew Selinger from Three Part Advisors. Thank you. Mr. Selinger, you may now begin.

Matthew W. Selinger

Analyst

Thank you, operator, and I would like to thank everyone for joining us today for the SPAR Group 2015 second quarter financial results conference call. On the call today, your presenters will be Ms. Jill Blanchard, Chief Executive Officer and President; and Mr. Jim Segreto, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I’m going to review the company’s Safe Harbor statement. Statements in this conference call that are not descriptions of historical facts are forward-looking statements relating to future events. As such, all forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially. When used in this call, the words anticipate, could, enable, estimate, intend, expect, believe, potential, will, should, project and other similar expressions as they relate to SPAR Group are such forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ from those anticipated by SPAR Group at this time. In addition, other risks are more fully described in SPAR Group’s public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which can be reviewed at www.sec.gov. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jill Blanchard, CEO and President. Jill?

Jill Blanchard

Analyst

Thanks, Matt. Welcome to the call and thank you for your interest in SPAR Group. In looking at our second quarter and year-to-date results, our performance was challenged on two fronts. First, an unfavorable foreign exchange impacted the international business and second, we had inconsistent performance in the business groups both domestically and internationally. Putting aside these results, we did see success in the markets and businesses where we have implemented new strategic initiatives, and while we expect it will take time to adopt these initiatives out across our entire footprint, we clearly have a blueprint for success and are stepping up our efforts, which should provide for more consistent results and long-term profitable growth. Before I get into more detail on our strategies and plans, I’d like to turn the call over to our CFO, Jim Segreto, who will provide greater detail on the financial results and then I’ll be back with more detail. Jim?

James Segreto

Analyst

Thank you, Jill. I will now give a quick overview of the second quarter financials. Revenue for the quarter was 29.5 million, which was down 5% from the prior year. Adjusting for foreign currency translation, revenue growth year-over-year was actually a positive 3%. Breaking down revenue by geography, our domestic revenue was 11.1 million, a 12% decline from last year, which was primarily related to underperformance with two of our small service offerings. In our assembly business, one of our large customers was acquired and is no longer doing business with us. While this has temporarily affected this business line, we believe there is an opportunity to do business with a new combined entity not only recapturing but growing this business. The nature of the revenue trend in the other domestic service offering that underperformed this quarter is fairly variable and without losing customers can periodically experience significant inclines or declines in revenue. This business is less than 10% of our domestic revenue. However, it did decline 40% during the second quarter, which was enough to move the needle in our overall domestic results. Outside of this relatively small business segment, our core business remained stable and with our seeing success in specific initiatives and customers, which Jill will review later on. For the second quarter, our international revenue at 18.4 million was relatively flat compared to last year. Again, having adjusted for FX, our international sales performance would have shown a $2.4 million increase or 13% year-over-year. Excluding the currency effect, the increase in net revenues was primarily due to incremental revenue from our acquisition in China and continued solid performance from South Africa, partially offset by lower revenue in other countries. Moving on to profitability, our second quarter gross margin performance was relatively consistent with last year coming…

Jill Blanchard

Analyst

Thanks, Jim. For those of who that maybe a little less familiar with our company, I’ll just spend a few minutes going over our strategic plans. There are three key elements to our plans. The first element of our strategic plan is to realign the value that we deliver to our customers. The world of merchandizing involving evolution requires us to be more of a strategic partner with our customers and not just a traditional lender. In the end, this is going to provide us with stronger relationships and a more measurable and predictable revenue stream. The second element calls for us to leverage our existing competencies and footprint to do more business with our current customers and new customers in existing markets. And our third elements calls for us to extend our service offering to capitalize on industry growth areas and enter into new markets. Now, I’d like to get into more detail on each element. The first element, which is the most critical for our success and where we have been spending the majority of our time, is working to change the value that we delivered to our customers and prospective customers. As our industry evolves, it is imperative that we deliver value beyond our base service and be recognized as a strategic partner with our customers better than just a service commodity. By putting the focus on delivering greater value for our customers, not only do we garner more customers and do more business with existing customers but be more profitable and more sustainable. To accomplish this goal, we need to constantly improve our value proposition and make adjustments with how we are going to market. The first step in improving our value proposition is to change our position with our customers and prospects. We need to…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Our first question is from Ben Rubenstein of Robotti. Please go ahead.

Ben Rubenstein

Analyst

Good afternoon. I was just curious, can you give any sort of break down or can you talk at all about what percent of your revenue is new business versus recurring business from previous quarters?

Jill Blanchard

Analyst

Sorry, Jim I’ll hand it over as soon as I can. We’re talking over each other, sorry about that, Ben. Thank you for the question. Yes, I’ll just start and then I’ll hand it over to Jim. The majority of our revenue is a new business revenue versus project, but I think that might be a portion of your question but I’ll hand it over to Jim to talk about new business versus existing customers. Also adding before I hand it to him that a good portion of our growth on a year-over-year basis comes from existing customers. And so we are getting some new business from existing customers as well as new business from new customers. Jim, I don’t know if you have some more to add to that.

James Segreto

Analyst

Yes, the only thing – I think that’s absolutely correct, Jill. There’s a good solid mix from both and this probably a couple of million dollars of revenue in the quarter year-over-year that came from the acquisition that we did in China, which was in the second half of 2014. Hopefully that helps you.

Ben Rubenstein

Analyst

Yes. Thank you. And then I guess just in terms of M&A, I guess can you talk a little bit about the environment in terms of what multiples if you are looking at companies, like what type of multiples do you have to pay?

James Segreto

Analyst

We are looking at acquisitions and do have a strong pipeline whether it’s on the domestic front or abroad. And it varies by country, U.S. versus outside the U.S. But the benefit to us is that when we look to partner in the locals outside the United States and we’re looking at 51-49 opportunities. And so we bring a lot of value to the companies in our software, in marketing and global clients that we bring to the venture environment. So the multiples, I’m not going to get into the specific ones, but it’s very favorable. On our behalf, it’s a good blend for us and adds a lot of strategic value for the partners. So it’s really not a multiple environment more than it is a strategic relationship with the targeted companies.

Jill Blanchard

Analyst

And if I could just add to what Jim said, another one of the values that we bring to the other countries as we look at these new partnerships that helps with the value of the multiple is the cache of being part of a global company and these companies are trying to work with big Fortune 500 global company is the ability to be part of a global company and be assured things like compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has a huge advantage to them. So that in addition to our global clients and technology that we bring to those is of great value.

Ben Rubenstein

Analyst

Thank you.

Jill Blanchard

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing comments.

Jill Blanchard

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. So, again, thank you for joining us on today’s call.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.