Steve Cooper
Analyst · BMO. Your line is open
Thank you, Derrek. Good afternoon everyone. Our quarterly revenue was right in line with the midpoint of our outlook while net income, adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA exceeded the high-end of the ranges we provided earlier. Total revenue was down 12% or a decrease of 3% excluding Amazon. PeopleScout delivered growth as did PeopleManagement on an ex-Amazon basis with PeopleReady down 7%. Our team executed well this quarter, delivering adjusted EBITDA of $18 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 50 basis points ahead of our high-end expectation due to the discipline in our pricing of our bill rate and our cost management practices. I'm especially pleased with the team's focus on gross margins. During the quarter, we experienced significant pay rate growth driven by both statutory and market increases across many local jurisdictions. Gross margin was up 120 basis points as a result of these practices as well as favorable revenue mix. We also continue to run the business more efficiently. Operating expense in the first quarter was down by $9 million due to a variety of cost control measures concentrated on non-revenue generating activities. We were off to a strong start this year and how we priced our business and managed expenses, which sets us up well first a strong operating leverage as our revenue trends continue to improve. The growing breadth of our workforce solutions increasingly positions us to meet the needs of businesses as they adapt to a constantly changing business environment. I am going to spend a little time now updating you on where we sit with our workforce solutions and where we are focusing from a strategic perspective. In Q4 2016, we began operating and reporting in three distinct segments: PeopleReady, PeopleManagement and PeopleScout. This moved to simplify our service options and clarify our branding structure, ensures that our very segments work together effectively as we provide businesses with the right people for contingent work, for permanent positions or in combination to form a total workforce solution. We're excited about the additional actions we’re taking in each of our businesses to drive future growth like. I would like to spend a minute on each, starting with PeopleReady. Our transition to this single specialized staffing brand simplifies our positioning in front of the customer and the job seeker, increases our agility in the marketplace and is an important step that will bring our full range of services to more markets. This is something we have been working on for a few years and the last step was to complete the movement of our former brands: Labor Ready, CLP and Spartan Staffing under the same set of information systems. The system conversion started in Q4 of 2016 and was completed in Q1 2017 as planned. With the heavy lifting of this transition behind us, our team can now dedicate 100% of their time to sales, recruiting and service and activities. The earlier reaction from our customers has been positive as they appreciate the simplicity and ease of having one trusted partner for all their on-demand contingent staffing needs. Our branch network staff is excited to have more services to offer and united brand in all of our markets. Another important initiative at PeopleReady is the introduction of JobStack, a mobile app that efficiently connects workers with available jobs. We're bringing technology right to our workers’ smartphones, allowing them to choose jobs from a complete electronic stack of options all tailored to their skills and qualifications. On the other side of the equation, we're bringing technology straight to our customer to ensure they are not only have more workers available, but can place and order 24/7 and immediately see when a worker accepts the job. At the same time, our branch network teams can make more efficient use of their time with more focus on growth opportunities such as recruiting and selling. In summary, JobStack is an entirely new approach to doing business. We expect it will increase bill rates, boost our client wallet share and increased our win rates on our new proposals even more powerful as our ability to recruit a more gig oriented employee, which is the perfect Canada for a variety of service based businesses. Not only will the technology increase the pool of employees we have available, but a larger pool of gig oriented employees will allow us to effectively sell in the more service based businesses. There are two key objectives for JobStack in 2017. First is to successfully deploy the technology, which is on track. Second is to acclimate our branches to the power of this technology and help them adapt their daily procedures. We have some branches that have been using a variety of mobile dispatch techniques. And they're very ready for this technology. They are very ready for this technology. We also have some branches that are accustomed to face to face interactions with employees on a daily basis and our job is to help them adapt our methods to be more suited to a digitally oriented business model. As our business adapts and learns how to harness this technology in 2017, it should set us up nicely to build value outside of our current operations in 2018. Turning to PeopleManagement. We're encouraged by our prospects for growth and margin expansion particularly as we leverage our portfolio of differentiated products that offer compelling client value and carry a higher margin. Let me touch on two areas of focus. First, we've acquired SIMOS Insourcing Solutions at the end of 2015. And we're going to fully leverage its unique productivity solutions across our existing workforce management platform. We're already achieving further penetration with our high margin SIMOS Solutions that help customers become more efficient and reduce labor costs by using a per piece rather than hourly pricing model. Our SIMOS brand helps clients save more than 15% on their per unit labor costs while at the same time improve our own operating margins. Second, e-commerce is a positive secular force that tends to be more labor intensive in the fulfillment centers. Online sales continue to expand resulting in the well publicized challenges for the conventional bricks and mortar retailers. We provide the ability to recruit and manage work forces of 100s or even 1000s of employees and we supply the drivers and logistic specialist needed to distribute goods. Indeed the fastest growing segment within e-commerce is the smaller retailers with only $25 million to $100 million in annual sales, which is one of our core strengths. Finally, I'd like to touch on the exciting opportunities for PeopleScout. To further penetrate the global RPO market that is currently experiencing double-digit growth. The European and Asian markets are rapidly developing. And at the same time, we see international corporations increasingly seeking a provider that can handle all their needs. By partnering with TrueBlue to outsource their full-time recruiting functions, companies around the globe can reduce costs by becoming more scalable and flexible and they can gain better insight into sourcing and recruiting best practices and technology. In addition to the growth opportunities in our existing footprint, we're also focused on expanding our international footprint. This will help to showcase our presence in key markets and increase our win rates on global deals as global businesses seek to reduce the number of providers they use. With higher industry growth rates than are other businesses and an adjusted EBITDA margin of nearly four times the company average, we expect PeopleScout will continue to have a positive impact on our long-term adjusted EBITDA margin. With that I’ll turn the call over to Derrek for further analysis of our results after which we will open up the call for your questions. Derrek?