Derrek Gafford
Analyst · BMO
Thank you, Patrick. Total revenue for Q1 2020 was $494 million, or down 11% in comparison with our outlook of $503 million to $528 million. There are 2 stories in our first quarter results. The first is the story that covers the first 2 months. With revenue for January down 9% and February down 6%, which was on track with our expectation. The total company revenue trend during these months was driven by PeopleReady, which posted a 7% decline in January and a 3% decline in February, with growth of 2% in the last week of February. The second story is with the month of March. During which we experienced the swiftest revenue deceleration in the company's history as society sheltered itself from COVID-19 and businesses shuttered. For March as a whole, total revenue was down 16%. For the first 3 weeks of March for our staffing businesses, which make up 90% of total company revenue, were down approximately 6%. During the last week of March, revenue was down about 30%. Turning to April. Staffing revenue for the first 4 weeks was down 41%. There are possible signs of stabilization with April weekly revenue results falling within a range of minus 43% to minus 38%. But it's admittedly hard to make a call on stabilization at this point. We posted a net loss of $150 million or $4.04 per share in comparison with our outlook of a loss of $0.07 to $0. Included in our results is a noncash impairment charge of $175 million or $152 million net of tax, which translates to $4.08 per share. About $120 million of the pretax charge was in PeopleScout and $55 million in PeopleManagement. Adjusted net loss per share was $0.01, which is less than our outlook of net income per share of $0.04 to $0.11 as a result of revenue falling short of the midpoint of our revenue outlook. Adjusted EBITDA was down 73%, primarily due to lower revenue and gross margin, which, in combination with the operating leverage in our business, contributed to a drop in adjusted EBITDA margin of 210 basis points. It's also important to note that the sharp decline in profitability is also due to the fact that Q1 is our seasonally lowest revenue quarter. Consequently, the decline in revenue has a more pronounced impact on year-over-year profitability. Gross margin of 25.5% was down 110 basis points. About 100 basis points of the decline came from our PeopleScout business due to a previously disclosed client headwind and overall volume declines, which outpaced the timing of reductions to our recruiting staff. Our staffing business contributed 50 basis points of headwind from a change in revenue mix associated with larger declines in our higher margin local accounts in comparison with our lower margin national accounts. This was offset by 40 basis points of net benefit from lower Affordable Health Care Act costs which we do not expect to reoccur, which was somewhat offset by our workers' compensation benefit in Q1 2019 associated with prior insurance carriers. SG&A expense improved by $11 million or by 8% compared to Q1 2019. We had an income tax benefit this quarter of 14% as compared to our expectation of income tax expense of 12% due to the pretax loss and permanent differences associated with certain aspects of the impairment charge. Turning to our segments. PeopleReady, our largest segment, representing 63% of trailing 12-month revenue, saw an 8% decline in revenue and segment profit was down 33%. March revenue was down 14%. Revenue declined significantly during the last 2 weeks of March due to COVID-19, with revenues dropping 20% for the week ended March 22, 32% for the week ended March 29. PeopleManagement, representing 27% of trailing 12-month revenue and 8% of segment profit, saw a 10% decline in revenue and segment profit was down 114%. March revenue was down 14%. Revenue declined significantly during the last 2 weeks of March due to COVID-19, with revenues dropping 15% for the week ended March 22 and 30% for the week ended March 29. PeopleScout, representing 10% of trailing 12-month revenue and 25% of segment profit, saw a 21% decline in revenue and segment profit was down 76%. March revenue was down 28%. The decline in revenue for the quarter was a carryover from the trend in Q4 2019 associated with client losses and lower same customer volume as well as the impact of COVID-19. As previously discussed, the client headwind created 8 percentage points of drag on revenue and 25 percentage points on segment profit. For more information on our revenue trends for the quarter as well as April, please refer to our earnings presentation filed today. Now let's turn to the balance sheet and cash flows. We entered 2020 from a position of strength given the fact that our balance sheet had 0 net debt at the end of 2019. In March, we grew substantially all of the remaining availability on our $300 million revolving credit facility to further enhance our liquidity position. At the end of Q1, we had $265 million of cash on the balance sheet and total debt of $294 million. Our debt-to-capital ratio was 41% or 4% on a net debt basis. And our total debt to adjusted EBITDA multiple stood at 3.0, which is higher than the ratio defined by our lending agreement, which includes some different adjustments, including the add-back of stock-based compensation, resulting in a ratio of 2.7. While we experienced a significant decline in adjusted EBITDA this quarter, cash flow from operations increased by roughly 25% compared to Q1 last year. Due to the accounts receivable base deleveraging, which will continue to be a source of capital with future revenue declines. We dedicated $52 million of cash towards the repurchase of common stock in February, $12 million through open market purchases and $40 million through an accelerated share repurchase program, or ASR. On February 28, we executed the ASR and $40 million of cash was provided to an investment bank. In return, $32 million of stock was delivered to the company at a price of $14.88. And these shares were removed from our outstanding share count, but the full weighted impact will not be present until Q2. The remaining $8 million of stock will be delivered no later than July 2, and the total number of shares repurchased will be trued up based on the volume weighted average price over the 4-month term of the agreement less a discount. We do not plan to repurchase additional shares until market conditions improve. Now I'd like to take a few minutes to discuss our future outlook. Given the uncertainty of when societal and business restrictions will be lifted, we're not able to provide a customary outlook for the next quarter with an appropriate amount of precision. However, we are providing a robust assortment of historical and forward-looking information to help investors form their own estimates, all of which can be found in the earnings presentation filed today. I'll provide some highlights on this information, starting with the top line. TrueBlue revenue has historically fluctuated along with changes in gross domestic product. Progression analysis suggests that TrueBlue revenue would be down approximately 9% if GDP was flat and would decline approximately 7 percentage points for every additional point of year-over-year GDP decline. For example, if the year-over-year decline for GDP was 5% for a particular quarter, this would imply a decline in TrueBlue revenue of roughly 44%. It's important to note that these are year-over-year GDP rates, that seasonally adjusted annualized rates. In addition to GDP, there are a multitude of variables that can impact the demand for our services. Consequently, we can't assure you these relationships will be indicative of future results. Also, there could be additional variation in our future results as the historical company results used in this analysis did not include periods with such swift and significant revenue declines that have occurred in the current environment. But we are using this analysis as a source of direction in our own planning, and we have provided it with the hope that it is helpful. As Patrick mentioned, we took swift and decisive action to reduce our expected operating expenses in 2020. Given the current environment, we chose to take significant action to quickly adjust the company to a new normal and reduce the risk of organizational fatigue that can ensue from round after round of cost cuts. We also attempted to be thoughtful in our actions to not only preserve our financial strength, but also preserve our operational strength so that we are well positioned when business conditions improve. Based on these actions, we expect SG&A to be about $100 million less in 2020 in comparison with 2019, including a workforce reduction charge of $1 million in Q1 and about $8 million in Q2. All in, this would produce a SG&A decrease of about 20% in 2020. Turning to fiscal year 2020 gross margin. We expect a contraction of 180 to 120 basis points. This gross margin headwind is associated with a mix shift in the PeopleReady business based on an assumption that our higher margin local account business will see bigger declines than the national account business. Pricing pressure will occur in our staffing businesses. Lower volume will occur in our PeopleScout business and the fact that a previously disclosed customer headwind at PeopleScout will not anniversary itself until Q3. For capital expenditures, we expect about $22 million for the full year. Please note that our outlook is net of $8 million in build out costs for our Chicago headquarters that will be reimbursed by our landlord in 2020. Our outlook for weighted average shares outstanding for fiscal year 2020 is 35.7 million shares. Turning to our tax rate for the year. We're not able to provide an effective income tax rate outlook due to uncertainty surrounding the amount of pretax income or loss we will incur. However, we have provided historical components of our tax rate in the earnings release deck filed today as well as a Q2 outlook for the other items I have covered. This concludes our prepared remarks. Please open the call now for questions.