Earnings Labs

CBIZ, Inc. (CBZ)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Mon, Feb 9, 2015

$30.27

-8.71%

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

-1.28%

1 Week

-0.12%

1 Month

+5.23%

vs S&P

+4.02%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the CBIZ Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2014 Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steven Gerard. Please go ahead.

Steven L. Gerard

Analyst · First Analysis

Thank you, Amy. Good morning everyone and thank you for calling into CBIZ's fourth quarter and full-year 2014 conference call. Before I begin my comments, I would like to remind you of a few things. As with all our conference calls, this call is intended to answer the questions of our shareholders and analysts. If there are media representatives on the call, you’re welcome to listen in. However I ask that if you have questions you hold them until after the call and we’ll be happy to address them at that time. The call is also being webcast and you can access that overall our website. You should have all received a copy of the press release which we issued this morning and if you did not, you can also access that on our website. Finally, please remember that during the course of our call, we may make forward-looking statements. Those statements represent management’s intentions, hopes, beliefs, expectations and possibly predictions of the future. Actual results can and sometimes do differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements is contained in our SEC filings on Form 10-K and press releases. Joining me on the call this morning is Jerry Grisko, our President and Chief Operating Officer and Ware Grove, our Chief Financial Officer. Prior to the opening this morning, we were pleased to report our full-year 2014 results highlighted by revenue growth an excess of 6% and normalized earnings per share growth of over 17%, both of these numbers were well within the upper end of the guidance we gave a year ago. So that year 2014 came in very much on a positive note and very much the way we thought it was going to. With that let me turn it over to Ware to give you the details and then I’ll come back at the end take your questions and to you give you some color on the market.

Ware H. Grove

Analyst · First Analysis

Thanks, Steve and good morning everyone. I want to take a few minutes to run through the highlights for the number we released this morning for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2014. Bear in mind that has we look at 2014 results and compare results to the prior year, the results are restated to reflect the impact of several discontinued operations. Now thanks to the many efforts of the many CBIZ associates who are working hard to serve clients in our various offices throughout the U.S. As Steve indicated, see this reported total revenue for the full-year 2014 of $719.5 million, which is an increase of $42.3 million or up by 62.2% compared with the prior year. Same unit revenue increased by $18.6 million of 2.7% in 2014 and revenue from acquired businesses contributed another $23.7 million or 3.5% to revenue growth. The pretax income margin from continuing operations, improved by 80 basis points in 2014 and this resulted in an increase in pretax income of slightly over 20%. Eliminating the impact or the share equivalence associated with accounting for the convertible notes, the normalized earnings per share was $0.61 compared with $0.52 the prior year or an increase of 17.3% which as Steve indicated within the range of the 15% to 18% growth that we expected for 2014 compared to the prior year. Now beyond recording very good financial results from operations, we accomplished several other important things during 2014. First of all, during the year we announced six new acquisitions and we continue to have an active pipeline of potential transactions. This acquisition activity continues to strengthen our service offerings in targeted markets through the U.S. and this is an important component to our gross strategy, as we continue to combine organic same unit…

Steven L. Gerard

Analyst · First Analysis

Thank you Ware. Just a few general comments where mentioned our share repurchase program, I would like to remind our investors and shareholders that since we began our share repurchase, we have spent slightly under $500 million returning capital to shareholders in the share repurchase program since 2003. Our M&A pipeline as Ware pointed out is consistently strong, I’m confident that we will be able to do the four to six transactions we normally do. Our sense of the market today is that our clients continue to be cautious, but slightly more optimistic then they were perhaps a year ago, we think that 2015 revenue opportunities, because of the improving view of our clients has some opportunity to grow on the upside. So as Ware pointed out, we are well positioned for next year, our cash flows is expected to continue to increase and we will be able to take out the convert in October as planned. With that let me stop and ask for question of our listeners.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Jim MacDonald at First Analysis.

James R. MacDonald

Analyst · First Analysis

Yes, good morning guys.

Ware H. Grove

Analyst · First Analysis

Hey Jim.

Steven L. Gerard

Analyst · First Analysis

Hi, Jim.

James R. MacDonald

Analyst · First Analysis

Juts clarifying on financial services, so you are removing the $5.5 million Miami office from your previous results for comparison purposes?

Steven L. Gerard

Analyst · First Analysis

Yes, we are Jim. We’ll continue to report it, because it’s not really a discontinued operation for accounting purposes, but essentially it’s gone and we’ll continue to remind you as we go through 2015 that adjustment will be need to be made.

James R. MacDonald

Analyst · First Analysis

Okay, and whether other adjustment and – or maybe you could talk about the - I think there was a onetime gain on the P&L this quarter.

Steven L. Gerard

Analyst · First Analysis

Yes, when we sold the Miami operations we recorded a gain of approximately $1.2 million and that’s in the fourth quarter that certainly will not recur next year and that’s also included in our guidance.

James R. MacDonald

Analyst · First Analysis

And just in general on financial services, so I guess excluding those items as a pretty good quarter and you are still seeing good internal growth in financial services?

Ware H. Grove

Analyst · First Analysis

Yes, we are I just want to remind you that both of third and the fourth quarter are little less predictable than the first half of the year. But as we look at 2015 compared to the whole year 2014 we are very positive about the outlook and we continue to expect stronger trends in 2015 versus 2014.

James R. MacDonald

Analyst · First Analysis

Okay, moving on to employee services any comments about impact of The Affordable Care Act during this enrollment season?

Ware H. Grove

Analyst · First Analysis

No, we continue to categorize The Affordable Care Act as the gift that keeps on giving for us with new reporting requirements and new data collection requirements, we’re still essentially to our clients to help guide them through this rather complicated process. We have not seen any significant amount of migration to the exchanges in this enrollment period, we really haven’t - we’ve seen very much business as usual, but with more questions now being asked to make sure that as they get ready for the next year they can report properly as to the status of their workforce.

James R. MacDonald

Analyst · First Analysis

Great. And just a couple of other technical ones for me here. Could you tell how many shares have you repurchased in the fourth quarter?

Ware H. Grove

Analyst · First Analysis

Oh boy Jim, I don’t have that in my finger tips I would have to go back to third quarter and I can get that to you, I just don’t know off the top of my head.

James R. MacDonald

Analyst · First Analysis

Okay, great. And more on G&A line it was a little bit lighter than I expected or lighter than last year, anything unusual going on there?

Ware H. Grove

Analyst · First Analysis

No, nothing unusual in G&A. We continue to leverage G&A through process improvement and basically as we make acquisitions, we are not really growing G&A in any significant way as a result of acquisition growth, so that’s very leverageable.

James R. MacDonald

Analyst · First Analysis

Great. Thanks very much guys, good quarter.

Steven L. Gerard

Analyst · First Analysis

Thanks, Jim. End of Q&A

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And I show no further questions would you like to make any closing remarks.

Steven L. Gerard

Analyst · First Analysis

Yes, thank you Amy. Okay, to all our shareholders and all of our associates thanks for your continued support. 2014 was a good year for us, one of the best, it came in where we thought we would be with aggressive goals. I particularly want to thank all of our associates for their hard work and I am actually looking forward to a much stronger 2015. Thank you and I look forward to speaking to you all with the release of our first quarter earnings.