Greetings, and welcome to the ABM Industries Second Quarter 2023 Earnings 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 your host, Mr. Paul Goldberg, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for ABM Industries. Thank you. You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to ABM's Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. My name is Paul Goldberg, and I'm the Senior Vice President of Investor Relations at ABM. With me today are Scott Salmirs, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Earl Ellis, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please note that earlier this morning, we issued our press release announcing our second quarter 2023 financial results. A copy of the release and an accompanying slide presentation can be found on our website abm.com. After Scott and Earl's prepared remarks, we will host the Q&A session. But before we begin, I would like to remind you that our call and presentation today contain predictions, estimates, and other forward-looking statements. Our use of the words, estimates, expects, and similar expressions are intended to identify these statements and they represent our current judgment of what the future holds. While we believe them to be reasonable, these statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. These factors are described in the slide that accompanies our presentation as well as our filings with the SEC. During the course of this call, certain non-GAAP financial information will be presented. A reconciliation of historical non-GAAP numbers, and the GAAP financial measures is available at the end of the presentation and on the company's website under the Investor tab. And with that, I would like to now turn the call over to Scott.

Thanks, Paul. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our second quarter results. ABM generated solid results in the second quarter, delivering 2.3% organic revenue growth and strong adjusted EBITDA growth. We achieved these results through our consistent focus on cost controls, implementing price escalations, and driving organic growth in our manufacturing and Distribution, Aviation, and Education segments. These factors more than offset the impacts from a still challenging labor market, continued supply chain constraints, lower work orders, and the slow recovery of office occupancy for commercial real estate. Our financial and operational performance speaks to the resilience of our business model, our end market diversification, and most importantly, the talent and dedication of our team. In all, ABM generated second quarter revenue of $2 billion, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 7.2%, which included the benefit of earnings from the prior period parking project as discussed last quarter. Despite a more challenging macroeconomic environment than we anticipated, we remain on target to achieve our 2023 financial goals. We continue to be focused on driving growth across the company and capturing our share of the many opportunities before us. In fact, for the first six months of 2023, we generated $918 million in new sales, up from $791 million last year. We also continue to invest in our future including our ELEVATE initiatives, which will enhance our operational efficiency and deliver an improved experience for both clients and our team members. I'll now discuss the demand environment for each of our industry groups. Let's begin with B&I. Office density rates in the second quarter remained at relatively stable levels at approximately 50% on a blended basis. Although commercial office space remains fairly well occupied Tuesday through Thursday, many employees continue to work remotely on Monday…

Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. For those of you following along with our earnings presentation, please turn to Slide 5. Second quarter revenue increased 4.5% to $2 billion, comprised of organic revenue growth of 2.3% and growth from acquisitions of 2.2%. Moving on to Slide 6. Net income in the second quarter was $51.9 million or $0.78 per diluted share, up 6% and 8%, respectively, as compared to last year. The increase in GAAP net income was driven by higher income from operations, especially in our Aviation segment, and tight expense controls partially offset by higher interest expense, labor costs, and lower volume of higher-margin work orders. Adjusted net income was flat at $60.2 million, adjusted earnings per diluted share was $0.90, up 1% from the prior year period. Adjusted net income and adjusted EPS primarily reflects higher income from operations and effective cost controls offset by higher interest expense. Adjusted EBITDA increased 15% over the prior year to $137 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 7.2% versus 6.5% last year. This performance was boosted by the recognition of revenue connected with the previously mentioned Aviation parking project as associated expenses were recorded in prior periods. Excluding the impact from the parking project, adjusted EBITDA was $124.4 million, up 5% over last year, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 6.6%. Now turning to our segment results beginning on Slide 7. B&I revenues declined 0.5% year-over-year to $1 billion. Organic revenue declined 2%, mainly reflecting a lower volume of work orders, including disinfection versus the prior year and expected attrition of certain client contracts from the Able acquisition. Operating profit in B&I decreased slightly to $76.2 million, and operating margin was 7.6%, essentially flat with the prior year. Aviation revenue increased 22% to $227.2 million, marking the eighth consecutive quarter…

Thanks, Earl. In late 2021, around the time we announced our initial ELEVATE targets, the average U.S. inflation rate for the full year 2021 was 4.7%. The 10-year T-bill was approximately 1.5%, and the unemployment rate has trended down to 4% from the pandemic high of 15%. Today, the 10-year T-bill rate is over 200 basis points higher. Inflation peaked at 9% in 2022 and is currently close to 5%. And the job market for blue-collar labor is as challenging as it has ever been. Despite these headwinds, we've delivered on our financial goals, expanded our business and service offerings, and achieved important progress towards our 2025 target. Today, ABM is stronger and better positioned than ever before. Our success reflects our resilient business model, the benefits from our ELEVATE investments, and consistent execution by the ABM team. As we move forward, I'm confident in our ability to build value for our stakeholders as we work tirelessly towards achieving our goals, underpinned by the strength of our core business ABM continues to evolve into a higher-growth, higher-margin facility solution provider. So, with that, let's take some questions.

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Sean Eastman with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks, for taking my question. So, I just wanted to start on ATS. It sounds like RavenVolt is blowing and going now. It sounds like the EV charging side on pace for a second half ramp. I just wanted to round that out with a discussion on the bundled energy solutions piece and just how customer decision-making is trending in light of the weak macro conditions.

Yes. No, that's a great question, Sean. Look, it's still slow, probably slower than we'd like, but it's not a reflection of our market share or sales pipeline or even the viability of the offering. It's more about the fact that what we've seen just across the board, some clients are in pause mode right now, right, the economics get a little bit more challenging in that segment because of interest rates. But we just won -- I mentioned in my opening remarks, we won a really nice job in Western Pennsylvania. And the pipeline is strong. So, I think for us, it's waiting for clients to pull the trigger because it upgrades that they know they need because if you look at the core of it, right, you're retrofitting a facility that needs retrofitting, right? So, it's a question of getting the school board together and giving the high sign to pull the trigger. So, we're as confident as ever. It's just a little bit more on the delay side, but we're hoping the back half will be stronger. And that's a nice thing about ATS because we're still diversified. And in addition to the bundled energy solutions, as you point out, we have the microgrid solution now where with RavenVolt, our EV is starting to ramp up. And we do have a core electrical and mechanical business on top of that, that we don't talk about a lot, but that's also part of the underpinning. So, it's nice to have diversification in that segment.

Okay. Thanks for that Scott. And then I guess maybe just to finish it off on ATS. I mean where should the margins be? Obviously, the first half, we've had supply chain, we've had kind of a project timing, air pocket. I mean, I'm just trying to get an expectation for where we should be run rating when everything is up on planned for ATS.

Yes. Historically, when it's humming, it's high single digit, right? And there's no reason that it won't get back to that. I think it's like that higher-margin stuff, which is the bundled energy solutions and the microgrids are the ones that just haven't kicked in yet, right? And even Sean EV, which we said is lower margin. That's really because we've been playing in the dealership market, which is like onesie, twosies, like if you have a large-scale contract with an automaker like BMW, you're putting two or three in per dealership. It's not the scale you want, we're moving more to a fleet orientation where we can go to a facility and put in 100 charges and get the scale. So that's part of our ramp-up strategy as well. So, I'm confident over time we'll squarely get back into that high single-digit margin range.

Okay. Got you. And then one more, just relative to the work order dynamic, I feel like over the past two years, we've been anchored from -- in terms of like work orders going from pandemic highs down to normalized. But now we're talking about lighter vacancy rates and maybe that normalized work order level having some downside. How should we think about that, Scott, and whether there's risk to margins around a step down to below normal work orders. What have we seen historically there?

Yes. So, look, I think we're getting back down to pre-pandemic levels and that's really a reflection right now of hybrid work. So, here's the way to think about, maybe this will give you some clarity, right? When you think about work orders, right, it ranges from people calling for the freight elevator because they're getting furniture deliveries. They're having a birthday celebration. So, they want two porters to come up because they're having a pizza party. It's spotting on staying carpets. So, all those onetime things, and now when people are in the office three days a week instead of five days a week, you get less of those calls on the Mondays and Fridays and we were still stabilized during hybrid at a higher rate than we were pre-pandemic, and we're really encouraged by that. I think the overlay now that's brought it down incrementally more is just the state of the economy. People are watching what they're spending. So, I think that's a little bit of an overhang. So, if I were to look into the future when we have a recovery, I’m willing to bet that work orders will pop back up again and pop back up again at higher than pre-pandemic levels. So, I think we have this temporary double overhang now. But just to round out the question, I do not think on a percentage basis, we're going to see much more deterioration. Now, volumetrically maybe because revenues can be compressed a little bit, but that will be on dollars, not margin percentage. I feel like we're kind of -- where we are now is kind of pretty stabilized.

Okay, thanks. I’ll turn it over. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from the line of Justin Hauke with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. I wanted to ask just to kind of big picture clarify some of the guidance moving pieces because with the margin moving up a little bit despite the -- and the EPS held despite the incremental interest expense. Just the moving pieces on that. What was a little bit better and a little bit weaker? And maybe specifically, the corporate cost control, which it seems like that's continued to kind of come in a little bit better than expected. So maybe just the outlook for what you're looking at for corporate for the back half of the year?

Sure. Absolutely. I'll take that one. So, when we look at kind of what happened throughout quarter 2, we continue to see some headwinds in the shape of lower work orders, which actually has had a dip in the margin as well as continued pressure in the labor market. So, we've continued to see labor inflation, which good news is we've been able to offset a large majority of that through price escalations. When we see -- looked at the quarter, we also had the flow-through from last year's parking project, that was able to offset that. And so, when you look at the call up in margins, part of that was actually the flow-through that we actually got from the previously deferred parking. So, what we feel really good about is that in spite of the continued challenges that we're seeing in margins, we're still able -- so if you actually even back out the flow-through of the parking project from last year, our margins for the quarter were 6.6%. And so, in spite of the continued challenges that we're actually seeing, we feel really, really pleased that we're still being able to deliver within the midpoint of our range.

Okay. And just the corporate expense, maybe like a dollar run rate, what you're kind of thinking in the back half of the year?

Yes. So, I would say that when we look at corporate expenses, I would say that the -- over the -- you expect an average of about $60 million in corporate expenses, excluding kind of like the items impacting comparability.

Great. And then I guess the second question, just on the parking segment. I mean even backing out the onetime here. Your organic growth rates there have been really strong. And it kind of sounded like in your prepared remarks that maybe you're expecting that to kind of decelerate when you talked about more market trends. I just want to understand what you mean by that and what you're thinking about for kind of the growth rate of that segment? What is the market trend for the back half of the year?

Sure. I mean look, I think generally speaking, like from an industry standpoint, I think parking revenues are kind of stable now. Like hybrid work is in place. So, it is what it is. The -- because like for us, we have our parking business in two kind of key segments, the real estate side, commercial real estate and then on aviation. And I think in both of those segments, we’re pretty stable. So, I think it's more normalized now. But what we're excited about is we have our vantage parking offering, which is something that's really -- it's a new technology, it's insightful, it works to help give insights to clients on revenue management and so for us, it's about this new productized offering that's going to help us accelerate it. So, we're hoping that in the parking segment, not only do we continue to grow, but hopefully a little bit ahead of the market because of some of the innovative stuff we're doing. But, I would say walking that back a large measure we're kind of out stabilization in the parking business as an industry.

And I apologize. I meant the aviation segment and the adjusted for the parking item, your growth rate there has been in the high single digits. I guess what I was more asking about is, what is your expectation for the deceleration from that? Or why was it so strong in the first half? Is that just kind of the recovery in aviation volumes and now you're saying those are recovered and they should kind of moderate to more low single digit, or?

That's right. That's exactly right. Travel has been well, you know, right. Anything around travel and leisure has been so up. So, I think at this point, and I think we did say a little bit in the prepared remarks, we feel like we are back to pre-pandemic levels and maybe even then some. We do think there's a bunch of people that are catching up, in terms of travel. So, I think you'll see more of a stabilization but still nice steady growth.

Great. Okay, thank you very much.

Our next question comes from the line of Faiza Alwy with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. Hi, good morning. I just wanted to follow up again on the technical solution side of the business. So, walk us through, you mentioned that you have a project backlog of $440 million, are you expecting that all of that will be recognized as revenue this year? Just walk us through the timing of what's going on with the project delays? And when do you expect to fulfill those projects?

Sure, Faiza. No, no. That will all be recognized this year. So typically speaking, ATS in general has always been the back half of the year story. And just to put some color around it, we do a lot of work in school systems. So, think about the fact that in July and August, the schools aren't occupied, especially K-12. So that's the time that you go in, and you do a lot of the infrastructure work. So that's why a lot of this is back half loaded. So, for us, backlog means, again, signed contracts that get initiated. So, a lot of that's going to happen in Q3 and Q4, really more Q4 than Q3. And that will be the initiation. So, I can't give you a precise exactly how much of 440 will be in year. But it's a really strong sign that we have backlog at that level. But it's -- think of it as initiating the projects in Q4 and they ramp through Q1 and even a little bit into Q2.

Okay. And then just so I'm clear because the delays are related. Is it more supply oriented? Or is it more demand-oriented. Because it's -- I was under the impression that it was more supply related. But some of your comments today are leading me to believe that maybe it's more on the demand side, kind of ready to…

No, actually sorry [indiscernible]. Faiza, it's a combination of both. It's a little bit on demand side on the bundled energy solutions on the microgrids, it's all about the supply chain. And specifically, batteries and some of the switch gear. Now, we are encouraged because what was happening, and I think you would see this from some of the competitors in our industry. At the beginning of the year, what would happen is something would take 10 weeks and then 10 weeks to get the item, and then maybe a month later, you'd get another order for something and you go to the manufacturer, like, "Oh, no, no, now it's taking 12 weeks. And then you'd call again, it's like, now it's taking 14 weeks. It's all starting to stabilize now. And that's the key for us. So, if something pre-pandemic took six weeks and now it's taking 10. As long as it stays taking 10, you could be planful, you can manage around it and we're seeing that stabilization. So, the majority of the problem, especially on the RavenVolt side has been supply chain oriented definitely not demand oriented. The pipeline is really, really robust.

Okay. Good. Sorry, I'm just a little unclear, that's why I just want to follow up because -- so if it is on the RavenVolt side, that wouldn't impact your organic revenue. So, explain to me a little bit more in terms of what's driving the decline in organic revenue?

Yes. So, if you -- let's just pull out RavenVolt for a second. So, there's two core segments there. There is EV and there's bundled energy solutions. And both of those are more demand side. And for different reasons, EV because we were just winding down a big project with the dealership, and we're now ramping up a big project with an automotive company. So, you're seeing that delay to the back half. So that was just timing, but demand timing, not supply chain timing. And the other one is bundled energy solutions, which is what I talked about a few seconds ago, which is really the fact that we have the backlog, we have the orders book, but clients aren't pulling the trigger because they're just doing a general pause. But again, we're starting to see that loosen up a bit. Now that I think the market is thinking that interest rates are starting to stabilize. And if it is what it is, then you start making those decisions.

Got it. Thank you, thank you for indulging me on all the detail. And then just maybe if I can follow up on the ELEVATE initiatives. You mentioned a few things. Give us a sense of how you're thinking about timing there? I know you've talked about the end state being maybe a couple of years ago, talk about how you're thinking about getting to that end state, what are some of the next initiatives that we should expect going forward?

Sure. I mean, look, we are on track with ELEVATE. And the big core in terms of infrastructure is our ERP transformation, and that's a two-year process, because we're doing it by industry group which just had the successful launch of our education group literally like a month ago, and it's gone way better than we even expected. Because the ERP implementations are always bumpy and it went really well. And now we're landing our next industry group, which will happen early next year. So, the infrastructure side is on track and going better than we hope. And then other things are all in progress. We launched hyper targeting for sales growth. You saw in -- or heard in the prepared remarks, we had another unbelievable first six months of the year of new sales. So that's a reflection not only of our sales team in terms of just the culture of our people, but the hyper targeting tool. And we're now piloting our workforce management which is going to create efficiency in the field. And this month, we're releasing our ABM Connect, which is our digital application to start connecting us in real time to the people out in the field, which is going to be a real game changer for us. And even that is probably a 12- to 18-month journey if not longer to actually get it deployed across 100,000 people, as you can imagine. But, things are going as planned. So, we're -- hopefully, you can sense the enthusiasm.

Great. Thank you so much.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of David Silver with CL King & Associates. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. Hi, good morning. Thank you. I would like to maybe just drill down a little bit on the RavenVolt performance to date. And I'm wondering if you -- maybe if you wouldn't mind discussing how the performance of the business aligns or how it compares to kind of your initial expectations? And then in particular, I noticed you booked to change to the fair value of contingent consideration. Could you just maybe talk about what drove you to make that adjustment this quarter? Thank you.

Sure. I'll take the first part of it. We're as encouraged as ever about RavenVolt. I think probably even more so than we did the transaction because, microgrids are so compelling right now. And the backlog is phenomenal, and the team is phenomenal. So, I think if there was any level -- I don't even want to use the word disappointment, it's just a supply chain and you can't control that. And it's the same thing that everyone in our industry is facing. But again, we see light at the end of the tunnel, and we're hoping for a strong back half of the year. But I'll let Earl talk to the accounting treatment because that's in his wheelhouse. So, Earl, you can take it away.

Sure, Scott. So, on a quarterly basis, we do a mark-to-market valuation on the contingent consideration. And when we look at the outlook, as Scott just mentioned, we're still very positive on the deal model. However, there's some timing challenges as we articulate in regards to supply chain timing, which has actually deferred some of the revenue and earnings that would have actually happened in year one into future years. And then just based on the GAAP accounting of that, you actually then discount that back with a high discount rate, which then resulted in this reduction in the liability. So again, I would really chalk it up to timing as opposed to anything different from a value case basis.

Yes. Thank you. That's kind of where, what I was wondering about. I appreciate you targeting that. My other question would be kind of more about the office market, the commercial market, which seems to be in the news quite a bit. You certainly addressed it right up front. But I'm just wondering if maybe you could -- Scott, if maybe you would share kind of a multiyear outlook, a two- or three-year outlook. In other words, I think what we're saying is the office market and the motivations and whatnot for the tenants has changed. And for yourself to keep growing in that area, I'm guessing you're going to have to take share or offer higher -- a bundle of higher-value services. So, from your perspective, I mean, what continued, I guess, evolution in your value proposition or in your offering into the commercial market will be necessary for you to kind of deal with the current trends towards lower occupancy rates and remote work or hybrid work arrangements in order to kind of continue to kind of maintain your position and ideally grow, grow your share, grow your profitability in there? Thank you.

Sure. Well, listen, there's certainly going to be pressure in commercial real estate. That's pretty obvious. For us, so far, as we've mentioned, it's really only been around the work order side because of hybrid and the economy. So, when you drill down into ABMs portfolio in B&I, David, don't forget that, or you may not have the insight to this, but a third of our revenues in B&I is around engineering and parking. And those are really stabilized depending on office density, because it doesn't matter how dense the floor is, you still need "engineers" in the basement, working on the mechanical and electrical business, that doesn't change. And parking, as we said, is stabilized. So, you're really talking about the janitorial piece that has some of the exposure. But then you look at ABM's portfolio, and we are way predominantly Class A buildings, newer buildings, bigger buildings, which are the ones that are going to survive the best and if anything, we've seen those have positive absorption as compared to the rest of the market because we're seeing B and C tenants from B and C buildings rather migrating into Class A buildings. So, I think for us, we're pretty protected. It will be choppy for the next several quarters, there's no question about it. Leases expire even in A buildings and as they take a little less space, the next tenant has to come in, they're going to have a year or so to build their space. So, there'll be some choppiness. But I think, again, we're so mitigated because of the portfolio that we have. And don't forget, again, as a whole, we're diversified. We've been investing in end markets like ATS, manufacturing and distribution, which is another hedge for us. And then lastly, David, what I would say is you think about the ELEVATE investments and just hyper targeting just in general for -- on the growth side to help us mitigate some of the compression in the real estate market. So, I think we're doing all the things we can and we actively manage these challenges. We've seen some of these downturns before in the segments, look at even the pandemic when schools were closed and airports were closed and B&I accelerated. So now we may be in a period where there is less acceleration in B&I, but as we talked about, aviation is doing great and ATS is doing great.

Thank you for that. I just have a quick one here, but you touched on ERP and what the history of many other companies has been with their different implementation issues. And I've certainly been an observer of a number of them. Just so I know, but in the event that maybe costs rise a little bit above expectations, with the implementation of your ERP system. Would that extra outlay be treated? Would it be capitalized? Or would it be expense? Do you have a sense of that at this point?

Yes. We're right on our target. So, we're not talking about cost overruns at this point. We feel really good and have really good line of sight into what the expense profile looks like in the next couple of years. So, that's not in our narrative cost overruns.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, our final question this morning comes from the line of Timothy Mulrooney with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.

Scott, Earl, good morning. Most of my questions have been answered, so I'll keep this quick. But last quarter, you all gave the headwinds from work orders. I think it was $35 million. And you said you'd expect that, I think, to more normalize. So, you didn't admit this quarter, is that because there really wasn't a headwind year-over-year or if there wasn't, if you can quantify it for us?

Yes. We're talking about maybe $15 million. It hasn't been much. And again, I do think we're heading into this more stabilized rate right now. So yes. I think this is -- we're actually given everything that's happening in the environment and where hybrid is and as I said, where the overall economy is, we were actually pleased that it wasn't more acute.

Yes. Because I mean, I think what we talked about last quarter was the anticipated reduction in disinfection related work orders, which that will become a non-story starting in Q3, Q4 as that kind of like precipitates. I think what the potential headwinds that we'll be seeing potentially in the future are really around just based on what Scott earlier alluded to with regards to the hybrid environment and the potential for reduction in work orders where, again, right now, we're now at kind of call it free-COVID levels, which are typically about 5% of revenue.

Yes, that's kind of how I'm thinking about it, or how I interpreted Scott's comments earlier is like, look, pre-pandemic work order of 4% to 5%. All else equal, you'd expect that to be higher on a go-forward basis. But there's some macro headwind stuff that's kind of pulling it back to that 4%, 5%. Is that the right way to think about it?

That's exactly right.

Exactly right. And again, what I would reiterate is that even during -- before the economy started turning in the last few months, even before that, with hybrid, we were still about pre-pandemic level. So, it's almost like kind of this new kind of cost control that we're seeing is what pushed us back to pre-pandemic levels. So, we're optimistic, Tim, that we're going to get back above that when the economy turns.

Understood. Last one from me, guys. Thank you. Does it make sense to prioritize your capital allocation on debt reduction near term versus M&A and buybacks and other things to help reduce that incremental interest burden? Or are you comfortable at 2.6 times? Thank you.

Yes. Good question. When we looked at our cash flow, which generally is weighted more in the back half, we do feel like it's going to provide us with ample flexibility to do both of those things, which would include paying down debt in addition to potentially doing some very small share buybacks. And when I talk about share buybacks, it really would be most likely limited to the anti-dilutive nature of our share-based compensation. But the good news is we feel that with our strong cash flows, we'll be able to limit our net leverage exposure.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question-and-answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Salmirs for any final comments.

I just want to thank everybody for participating and the interest level, again, very, very much appreciate it. We hope everyone is having a good start to -- good start to the summer, and we're looking forward to coming back to you in Q3 with an update on all things ABM. So, have a great summer, everybody.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.