Welcome to the McGrath RentCorp Fourth Quarter 2015 Conference Call. At this time, all conference participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. This conference is being recorded today, Thursday, February 25, 2016. Now, I'd like to turn the conference over to Keith Pratt, Chief Financial Officer.

Thank you, Travis. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us on today's call. We are here today to discuss McGrath RentCorp's fourth quarter and full year 2015 results, which were reported today after the market closed. Joining me on the call is Dennis Kakures, President and CEO. In addition to the press release issued today, the company also filed with the SEC the earnings release on Form 8-K for the quarter and the Form 10-K for 2015. The company also announced a 2% increase of the cash dividend to $0.255 per share for the first quarter of 2016, representing on an annualized basis a 3.9% yield on the February 24, 2016 closing stock price. Please note that this call will be available for telephonic replay for up to 7 days following the call by dialing 1 (888) 203-1112 for domestic callers and 1 (719) 457-0820 for international callers. The passcode for the call replay is 4343650. This call is also being broadcast live via the Internet and will be available for replay purposes in the Investor Relations section of the company's Web site at mgrc.com. Before getting started, let me remind everyone that the matters we will be discussing today that are not truly historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, including statements regarding the company's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. All forward-looking statements are based upon information currently available to the company and the company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These and other risks relating to the company's business are set forth in the documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including…

Thank you, Keith. Now, let's take a closer look at each rental business for the quarter. Modular division wide rental revenues for the quarter increased $4.9 million or 18% to $31.7 million from a year ago. This is the 11th consecutive year-over-year quarterly rental revenue increase for our modular division. During the fourth quarter we experienced a 2% increase in division wide year-over-year first month's rental revenue bookings for modular buildings compared to a very strong fourth quarter 2014 booking levels. For all of 2015, booking levels were up 16% over 2014. We're also continue to see rental rates rise for various size products as demand exceeds readily available supply. Modular division average in ending utilization for the fourth quarter of 2015 reached 77.5% and 76.9% respectively, an increase from 74.9% and 75.1% a year ago. This is our highest quarterly modular division average utilization level since the fourth quarter of 2008. Modular division income from operations or EBIT for the quarter increased to $10.4 million or by 18% from a year ago. Gross margin on rental revenues decreased to 54% for the quarter from 57% last year. The gross margin decrease is due to 2.3 million higher building preparation expenses during the quarter compared to the same period in 2014. These higher costs were associated with favorable order demand and preparing equipment for late December 2015 and first quarter 2016 shipment. SG&A costs were higher by 7% compared to the same period in 2014. The increase was primarily related to higher sales and operations staffing levels to support this continuing recovery of our modular building rental business as well as the growth of portable storage footprint. Despite the higher inventory center and SG&A costs EBIT margin for the quarter increased to 21% compared to 20% in 2014. This is…

[Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from David Gold with Sidoti.

Hi, there. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, David.

Some couple of questions for you, first one is, note in some of your commentary, well, before that I just wanted to go over the percentage because you went through quickly upstream exposure at this point. Did you say 11% on the --

In the fourth quarter of 2015, it was 11% and that compared with 21% in the fourth quarter of 2014.

Okay. Perfect. Thanks. It's helpful. And then, second, as we think about and I know some commentary and as you think about the impact of oil leaking into your other businesses so to speak. How should we particularly obviously, more modular, how would you think about that from the distance.

When we first looked at the oil dynamic with respect to other businesses we go straight to the Texas market. It's our most oil sensitive modular market. And we look at the fact that in any kind of a depressed oil environment, and we've already seen it in Texas there is unemployment -- increases in unemployment. That can impact home buying, home building; it can impact commercial construction. So it's really impact the entire economy at various levels. And again, I think we are only starting to see their early innings of some of the impact in Texas in particular. Now, our results haven't reflected that. But, we have been to the rodeo before and these types of precipitous drops in oil prices as well as commodities are not isolated. They can really impact an economy broadly.

Got you. Okay. And then, speaking a little bit Dennis, if you can, but the -- you're thinking mobile modular the way of the California school borne, two questions, number one, obviously, the governor's on record saying he is going to oppose it, how impactful, do you think that can be? And two, timing of -- should have passed seeing those dollars translated into business?

All right. So with respect to the first question about the governor having opposed it, he actually tiring to put a different bond measure on the June ballot, if they started 2016, he tried to muster forces to do that.

Wanted to do something smaller?

Yes. He wanted to do something smaller and he was unsuccessful on that effort. Now, he is still opposed to it. However, the momentum behind the bond measure is as strong as I've ever seen it. And it has brought support from the great many legislators from -- industry group, school districts. When I look at the list of supporting entities, it's overwhelming. So I think quite frankly we will have to see how significant an effort the governor puts into it of opposing it. But I think he have some other projects that he probably has more energy and I would say at this juncture despite his opposition it looks pretty favorable to pass the November, I don't know about that really for a moment right now. But again, there is a lot of time between now and November and we have to see just how much of a opposition he wants to put up to it. My sense is, it's not going to be significant because I think with the June alternative ballot measure having not been able to get on, I think that was the most -- the easiest vehicle by which he could take focus away from November. And of course, the whole dynamic about not wanting the school facility bond on the November ballot is because he wants the tax increase that would expire here shortly to go ahead and get renewed by the voters. So he is concerned about the competition between a facilities bond of a large scale and a tax increase measure that he feels the state needs very significantly. So that's for question number one. Number two, in terms of how soon the impact of -- if the bond measure does pass, it's likely to be felt in the market. We…

Got you. Okay. Perfect. It's helpful. And then, can you just -- as we look at some of the numbers embedded in the guidance, was curious if you can comment a little bit on SG&A and those are the numbers that jumped out with -- call it 6% to 8% jump on your zero to 3% revenue jump. So, just curious what's happened in there?

A good portion of that I would say by two thirds of it is related to hiring. We have some what I call replacement positions, open positions in the company and we need to get those filled just in our normal operation. And then, two thirds of the [mine] [ph] that's related to hiring is for new positions and that's mostly focused on modulars and portable storage. And as you heard in Dennis' comments those are both businesses that are very healthy have grown significantly in 2015 and we expect further growth as we look into 2016. There is some other issues typically as you would expect that would be never related to adjustments that we have to budget for. And then, some of the variable comp programs that where we did not experience payments in 2015, we budget those at a funded level in 2016. So, really compensation, hiring at merit and variable comp driving the vast majority of the planned increase.

Got you. Okay. And then, just last one, as we think about repurchases going into the year, I mean this was a very successful half on that front. But, how are you thinking about that for 2016?

Yes. The first thing I would emphasize is, we were very active in 2015 and you observed 2.4 million shares very significant activity by the company. As you also know we tend to be opportunistic with our repurchase activities. We don't broadcast any specific plans as we enter the year. I think as is normal, we will look at our capital allocation priorities and we typically put organic investment in rental equipment at the top of the list. We need to keep some flexibility if there are any M&A opportunities for basically a good business at a fair price. The dividend is the other top priority. And then, buyback really follows those priority items. So we have capacity available. There is still 1.6 million shares authorized that has not been repurchased yet. So it's an option that's available to us. And we will continue to assess as we go through the year.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

We will take our next question from Joe Box with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Hey, guys.

Hi, Joe.

Hi, Joe.

So question for you on the first month's bookings, it sounds like it was a tough comp from the prior year, so it was up only 2%. But clearly, it was good when you average it across the entire year. Can you maybe just help us with the cadence of utilization improvement and maybe even your thoughts on rental rate improvement from mobile modulars, we go through 2016?

Well, if you look at utilization and if you've seen the numbers of the last couple of years, we've been improving steadily year-over-year and there are some dips that can occur in the fourth quarter just because of some seasonality dynamics. But we would expect to continue on up until the right. And obviously, a very essential element to how significant that up and the right movement will be the success of rentals in the California educational market because that if you look at available inventory today that is currently under utilized that's the largest portion today rest in California and in particular in Southern California. And we are very hopeful with the bond measure passing and with what we know today about pent-up demand that we can be able to utilize the great deal of that equipment for an extended period of time.

And then, I wanted to go back to a prior question on kind of the contagion effect, curious, are you guys explicitly factoring this into your forecast. You're obviously calling for a similar EPS outcome, I'm just curious if contagion actually factored in or are you basically just the issue and saying this could be something that we need to be aware of?

I can tell you when we go through our financial planning process. And we sit with our leaders as different businesses, we, of course, ask the hard questions about their points of view what are the dynamics around the numbers we talk about initially. And then, we test pretty hard about potential for negative and positive. So it's a -- these are multi-week, multi-month discussions. And we asked leaders of both our Adler and modular businesses to go back and spend more time processing the potential contagion dynamics and it's amazing. And you know that period of time between December and January, how things turned a lot darker. And I think both our leaders made appropriate adjustments in their plans accordingly. They made them downward. So, yes, it is baked into our numbers without question. And I think it was prudent.

Got it. And then, I want to go back to the SG&A guide as well. Look, I get the increase in compensation factoring that back into the numbers. Obviously, the merit increases is going to be there on an annual basis. But, Dennis, when do we get to the point where we could actually see some leverage on the existing cost structure. Is that maybe a back half 2016 thing, is it a 2017 thing, curious, your outlook on that question.

It's a fair question. It's one of the items that we scratch our heads on and when we sit down and we look at the numbers every year and look how can we reduce rather than to increase. There is a couple of things that stares right in the face. One is healthcare. And some of the challenges we had on those types of expenses. The other dynamics are in the portable storage business, we are having to built those different geographic expansion projects, there is a lot of initial overhead that goes into that and those are items there. If you kind of look at corporate overhead, you think a lot of this might be back office, it really doesn't rest here. We run a pretty Spartan operation here in Livermore, but we do have these other types of dynamics that come into play, one with expanding the business and gave me the modular business fact out as well, mean to, having sales positions et cetera. You are likely to see more leverage coming in on the operational side with gross margin on rents as we build in that larger a more business under fixed over head in those businesses. I'm going to let Keith also comment on the stuff. We can add to it.

The other comment I will make Joe and we discussed this in the past, the portable storage business that has progressed very well for us and is now a profitable and has a very attractive margin profile. The cost structure and the way we reported means that it is a more SG&A intensive business than some of our other businesses. And maybe one way to think about it is, if you look for example at the modular business, the Adler Electronics relatively speaking they have more DCRO type cost. In the case of the container business DCRO where the cost to maintain the equipment is relatively low, but the SG&A is much higher. And so part of what you see here when you focus on that SG&A is, it's funding a business that has been growing, expanding its geographic coverage and it employs people to do that. So we view that as a whole sensible investment for growth in a business that is healthy and profitable.

Got it. Thanks guys.

Thank you.

We will take our next question from Scott Schneeberger with Oppenheimer.

Good afternoon guys. This is Daniel filling in for Scott. How are you?

Hi, Daniel.

Hi, Daniel.

I'm just curious. I know you [indiscernible] pricing pressure on the non-energy or the downstream in Adler Tanks. But on the volume side, how is the visibility in non-energy end markets at the Adler?

In the non-energy market?

Yes.

I don't think we are seeing any particular weakness in any non-energy markets. I think we are in some respect a little cautious on the construction side because we -- how late we in that cycle, the question, but I wouldn't say I've seen any weakness in any areas outside of the non -- outside of energy, that I can speak to that would be of any --

Yes. I'm not going to name the segment as you know we serve various end markets. But just looking across those end markets and the rental revenues we saw in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to the fourth quarter of 2014, we had two of those markets were flat, one was up, and two, down in addition to the oil and gas. So overall, I think it's balanced and the oil and gas is where the issue is upstream oil and gas. The rest of the business whether there is some pressure, it's not in any away is pronounced as to what've seen in the oil and gas arena.

Okay. Got it. Final, one for me, CapEx keeps on by segment, can you provide some color there, how you think about that in 2016?

Sure. I will just start with the full year perspective and as you will see and what we reported, we spent growth CapEx, it was $131 million in 2015. And for 2016, in our plan as we enter the year, the number is lower. It's a number more in the 90 to 100 range. We will definitely have lower CapEx let's not say it will be zero, they will be a small amount for some specialty equipment for particular customer needs. TRS is likely to run slightly below what it did in 2015 and modulars and portable storage as we start the year, we are just being more measured in the new capital that we're releasing. And keep in mind particularly in the California market; we still have a lot of product that is not yet utilized. We do have to spend some operating expense to get it rental ready. But we have fleet there available that can allow us to grow our rental revenues without new CapEx being incurred. So as we start the year, it's a step done from the prior year. It's partly the business conditions in some of those markets. It's partly plans to utilize some of the idle fleet as we see demand in those markets look a little more healthy. But that's the outlook.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

That concludes today's question-and-answer session. At this time, I will turn the conference back to management for any additional or closing remarks.

We would like to thank everyone for joining us this evening for our Q4 call. We greatly appreciate that. And we look forward to joining back with you for our Q1 call in spring. Thank you so much.