Earnings Labs

Barrett Business Services, Inc. (BBSI)

Q1 2012 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 25, 2012

$31.41

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today’s conference call to discuss BBSI’s Financial Results for First Quarter ended March 31, 2012. Joining us today are BBSI’s President and CEO, Mr. Mike Elich and the company’s CFO, Mr. Jim Miller. Following their remarks, we’ll open this call for questions. Before we go further, I would like to take a moment to read the company’s Safe Harbor statement within the meaning of Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that provides important cautions regarding forward-looking statements. The company’s remarks during today’s conference call may include forward-looking statements. These statements, along with other information presented that are not historical facts, are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those implied by these forward-looking statements. Please refer to the company’s recent earnings release and to the company’s quarterly and annual reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for more information about the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ. I would like to remind everyone that this call will be available for replay through May 25, 2012 starting at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time this afternoon. A webcast replay will also be available via the link provided in today’s press release, as well as available on the company’s website at www.barrettbusiness.com. Now, I would like to turn the call over to the Chief Financial Officer of BBSI, Mr. Jim Miller. Please go ahead, sir.

Jim Miller

Management

Thank you, Marisa. And depending upon where you are dialing in from, good morning or afternoon, everyone. As you saw at the close of the market yesterday, we issued a press release announcing our financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2012. I would like to mention that yesterday’s earnings release summarizes our revenues and cost of revenues on a net revenue basis as required by generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. Most of our comments today, however, will be based upon gross revenues and various relationships to gross revenues because we believe such information is, one, more informative as to the level of our business activity; two, more useful in managing and analyzing our operations; and three, adds more transparency to the trends within our business. Comments related to gross revenues as compared to a net revenue basis of reporting have no effect on gross margin dollars, SG&A expenses or net income. Now turning to the first quarter results, total gross revenues increased 31% to $432 million, compared to the first quarter of 2011. California, which comprised approximately 86% of our overall first quarter gross revenues, increased 35% due to continued growth in PEO business. PEO gross revenues increased 34% to $406 million, compared to the first quarter of last year, primarily due to new clients as PEO business from new customers during the first quarter of 2012 more than tripled our lost PEO business from former customers as compared to the 2011 first quarter. Our PEO revenues from existing customers experienced approximately a 10% increase year-over-year. Staffing revenues for the first quarter of 2012 decreased 7% to $26 million, compared to the first quarter of 2011, primarily due to a small decline in revenues of lost business from former customers, partially offset by new business and…

Mike Elich

Management

Good morning. I appreciate you all taking time for the call. Overall, very pleased with the successful quarter. We continue to see things moving in the right direction, moving forward to plan. We are working on infrastructure, design and supporting current and future growth trends, and feel like we’re making great progress in those areas. In the quarter, we added 211 new PEO clients. That’s a new record for us in a quarter. We lost 29 clients, five due to AR reasons; 10 cancelled for non-AR, typically risk related; four businesses were sold; one left on their own due to pricing; one left, took payroll in-house; and then eight left with – to work with other resources or other competitors. Overall, that’s a net gain of about 182 PEO clients, an increase year-over-year for us in the quarter of 70 – for our quarter build, of 75%, compared to our build of, I think, 104 in the quarter last year, or in 2011. Headcount for our clients, we saw 37% of our clients add head count, 30% reduced head count and the rest, which was right at 33%, remained neutral. So, I guess we kind of see a little bit of trend to the upside as far as adding head count, but still relatively flat. Nothing robust in that area. Hours worked is flat to slightly up after removing January noise from the holiday. What happens in the first two, three weeks in January if you look at data over a full quarter is is it gets pretty choppy as companies are ramping backup and putting themselves back on track. And if you pull that up, the overall trend in the last two months has been increasing, but moderately. Overall, regionally, we still see strong momentum and strong growth momentum…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. (Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from the line of Jeff Martin with ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead. Jeff Martin – ROTH Capital Partners: Thanks, good morning, guys.

Mike Elich

Management

Good morning, Jeff.

Jim Miller

Management

Good morning. Jeff Martin – ROTH Capital Partners: Mike, I was hoping you could elaborate on the pace of client ads, if you – if there’s anything specific you can attribute that to. It sounds like your channels of referrals is really what’s driving. Is there anything beyond that that you can point to?

Mike Elich

Management

You know, I – it’s the – you’re always looking for cause and effect. And I would say that as much as anything, it’s really the maturing of our talent and maturing of our bench strength and our branches. We’re just building a better product today than we ever have, and I think that it’s resonating with our clients and also our referral partners that bring us those opportunities. And you live through enough cycles in business and people believe – start to believe that you really are the real deal. And as we’re starting to have lived through those cycles a couple of times, and we’re retaining our talent and we have the same people with the relationships and different things that it is, I believe, sponsoring an accelerated growth and that people have more confidence bringing us that referral. Jeff Martin – ROTH Capital Partners: Okay. And then, coupled with that is that the two branch openings, what point in the quarter were those opened or were they subsequent to quarter end, and how quickly should we think of those contributing to revenue?

Mike Elich

Management

They were probably more subsequent to quarter end. In the quarter, we put the infrastructure in place. I think – I want to – what we did is we looked the two markets where we had overlap where we were getting – like take, for instance, San Jose. We were getting drawn down in to the Monterey Peninsula. And we were building a pretty large block down there. Well, in doing that, it was taking capacity south as opposed to driving it more into the Bay area, which is where you have a much larger concentration opportunity. And so, what we did is we peeled off clients from several different branches and incubated a branch of around 20 clients. So that’s a net/net for us overall as an organization. But with that additional capacity, we continue to see the branches that moved on customers now using that excess capacity to add clients. And in Monterey, in particular, I think on an April 1 basis, we’ve already added a couple clients and are in the process of adding a few more. So, that will grow, and I think it’ll move faster than branches that we’ve opened in the past, mainly in the Central Valley. And we have the same scenario going on in the San Fernando Valley where we captured probably – in total we’ll capture probably close to 20, 25 clients to incubate the branch. But we already have a pipeline moving where we’re adding business that might not have otherwise gone to another branch. Jeff Martin – ROTH Capital Partners: Okay. Okay. And then, I was hoping you could elaborate on the 10% increase in the existing PEO customer base in terms of gross revenue. Was that more price-driven, or did you actually have quite a nice benefit from net hiring within some of that?

Mike Elich

Management

Well, you know, when we look at – it’s a little bit of everything, I think. We were trying to nail down where it might come on a – just looking at where 10% might have come from. I think some of it came from the net price increases that we’ve taken over the year. Some of it came from the seven – roughly 37% of our clients added versus 30% reduced. The thing we can’t – we don’t have the visibility to get down into is how big the customers were that added versus how small the customers were – how big or small the customers were that reduced. So, there’s – within that, there’s some net/net change. Some of it came from there. And then, hours worked are somewhat flat, but we see a little bit of bump up there. But it doesn’t seem to have come from any one area. It’s just more of a culmination of, I think, four or five variables that are working together to create that increase. Jeff Martin – ROTH Capital Partners: Okay. If some of that was pricing, then we should see some carry forward throughout the balance of the year. Is that the right way to think about it?

Mike Elich

Management

Correct. Correct, yeah. Jeff Martin – ROTH Capital Partners: Okay. And then, could you give us a little more insight into the staffing business and what your expectation is for it there? It’s been running around flat the past 12 months. It sounds like there were some customer losses that may trickle through the balance of the year.

Mike Elich

Management

You know, I was looking at that, and the thing is is we’re working up against such large numbers. So, to take 7% as a reduction in staffing, it was $2.1 million in overall revenue for the quarter, which would be a little over $8 million for the year. That could be a big customer. I don’t know getting down into the detail where exactly that came from or what branch or what customer that came from. But one of the things that we do know is that January was a little bit of a choppy month. When we look at coming out, it seemed like there was more volatility, and typically that’ll affect staffing more than PEO. So, you might – there might be a little bit of noise from that. But what’s really gone on too is in California, we’ve had pretty strong pipelines on the PEO front. And not that we’re looking any other way as it comes to staffing, but we’re kind of utilizing capacity to capture opportunity to where it’s most effective. The Mountain states said that January and mid-February was pretty soft (inaudible). Then getting into February and March seemed to be getting better. And we have in most recent weeks seen a little bit of an uptick when we look at the overall in just staffing build where we hadn’t seen that probably earlier in the quarter. So, will probably need a little bit more time to play out. The first quarter is always a tough quarter to measure staffing results because you always get a lot of chop for about the first six weeks of the year. Jeff Martin – ROTH Capital Partners: Okay. So, from an outsider’s perspective looking in, is the reasonable assumption to model that down 3% to 5% this year?

Mike Elich

Management

I think to be safe, you can do that. But based on the trend that we’ve seen, just in hours worked in the last, oh, probably four weeks, five weeks, we’ve seen it up – or moving up. It is – but the basis is down from – on a relative basis from a year ago. So, that’s probably fair to say, 3% to 5% down, which will probably only equate to maybe about $1 million off the mark; $1 million, $1.5 million in the quarter. Jeff Martin – ROTH Capital Partners: Got you. Okay. And then, in terms of the preferred stock repurchase, is there a chance you’ll fund some of that with existing cash, or are you looking to take all that out with a bank facility?

Mike Elich

Management

I think we’ll kind of just see how the year is going. I think that from a cash standpoint if we’ve got a more effective route to go with that, we’ll go there. But if we’re finding that we’re – the operation is running well, and we’re able to make the investments we need and it’s not going to put a pinch on cash, we’ll – we’re going to create enough flexibility in whatever credit facility that we establish that we’re not going to have to stress the organization to make it work. Jeff Martin – ROTH Capital Partners: Okay. And then, you’ve got an existing facility with pretty favorable terms, would you expect similar terms on either a larger facility or a new facility?

Jim Miller

Management

Yeah, this is Jim. Yeah, Jeff, just in kind of some initial discussions that we’ve had, I think that we will get pretty favorable terms in what we’re able to negotiate given our strong position. Jeff Martin – ROTH Capital Partners: Okay, great. And good luck, guys.

Mike Elich

Management

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And your next question comes from the line of Josh Vogel with Sidoti & Co. Please go ahead. Josh Vogel – Sidoti & Co: Thank you, good morning, Mike and Jim.

Mike Elich

Management

Good morning, Josh.

Jim Miller

Management

Good morning. Josh Vogel – Sidoti & Co: I’m just trying to get a – I want to get a better handle on the guidance here. I guess if you go apples-to-apples and you back out the tax benefit – tax rate benefit from last year and use a stable share count, looking for EPS to be up in and around 10% on 24% gross revenue growth. And I was just curious, does that really have to do with the infrastructure and human capital investments you’re looking to make?

Mike Elich

Management

I think that’s part of it, and then also part of it is our taking a more conservative approach in how we’re accruing for Worker’s Comp. Josh Vogel – Sidoti & Co: Okay. And in your guidance, you’re not including any legal or professional costs tied to the estate purchase, kind of like how you backed it out in Q1?

Mike Elich

Management

No, I think we’re pretty clean there. I think on a go-forward basis, we should be running without the noise that we’ve had in the past. Josh Vogel – Sidoti & Co: Okay. And Jim, you were talking about free cash flow before trending in line with net income for the remainder of the year. But given the timing of receivables collection in Q1, should you expect – should we expect to see an outflow in Q2?

Jim Miller

Management

Yeah, I think we probably will see an outflow. When you look at receivables at the end of the quarter, they are up only about $6.7 million, which is I think about 14% versus our revenue growth of 31%. So, we had a favorable effect right at the end of the quarter of collections. And for example, as we move towards the end of April, we’ll have our first quarter 2012 payroll taxes coming due. So that will eat up a pretty good amount of cash and actually put us probably at our tightest pinch-point of cash for the entire year. Once that date passes, then we’re building cash back at a pretty good rate. Josh Vogel – Sidoti & Co: Okay, great. And I guess just one more. You know, we’ve seen some of your competitors are offering services that seems to complement pretty well what you’re doing now like time and attendance or performance management. I was just wondering if that’s a potential strategy for you down the line.

Mike Elich

Management

We do all that stuff now, and we don’t see them necessarily as services. We see them as tools. If the tool that we’re offering the client allows them to operate more effectively, we’ll bring it to them, and we we’ll teach them how to use it. And ultimately, they’ll see value, and it’ll continue to drive a good product. What we’ve tried not to do in building our model is to get hung up on the bells and whistles and at the expense of actually getting results for our clients. Josh Vogel – Sidoti & Co: Okay, great. Thanks a lot, guys.

Mike Elich

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, I’m not showing any further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Elich, for any closing remarks.

Mike Elich

Management

Again, thank you for taking time this morning. We look forward moving for – on a go-forward basis to keeping things on track. Very pleased with how things are going. I know we’re kind of in a bit of a build stage right now. And so, as we continue to reinvest back in the organization, we’re really trying to position ourselves to be in a position of a year, year-and-a-half to be much larger. And then, ultimately, running much better with a better product offering. And so, appreciate your taking time to understand what we’re doing, and look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference call for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.