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Maximus, Inc. (MMS)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 15, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the MAXIMUS Fiscal 2013 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Lisa Miles, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for MAXIMUS. Thank you Ms. Miles, you may begin.

Lisa Miles

Management

Good morning. Thank you for joining us on today’s conference call. I would like to point out that we’ve posted a presentation on our website under the Investor Relations page to assist you in following along with the call. With me today is Rich Montoni, Chief Executive Officer, David Walker, Chief Financial Officer and Bruce Caswell President and General Manager of the Health Services Segment. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that a number of statements being made today will be forward-looking in nature. Please remember that such statements are only predictions and actual events and results may differ materially as a result of risks we face including those discussed in Exhibit 99.1 of our SEC filings. We encourage you to review the summary of these risks in our most recent 10-K filed with the SEC. The company does not assume any obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances. Today’s presentation may contain non-GAAP financial information, management uses this information in its internal analysis of results and believes that this information maybe informative to investors in gauging the quality of our financial performance, identifying trends in our results and providing meaningful period-to-period comparisons. A reconciliation of non-GAAP measures presented in this document, please see the company’s most recent quarterly earnings press release. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to Dave.

David N. Walker

Management

Thanks, Lisa. We are pleased to report another year of solid financial results and strong growth reflecting the contributions of work coming online from new programs as well as the ongoing expansion on existing contracts. Some key highlights of fiscal 2013 include, overall solid growth in core and adjacent markets. Several new contracts related to the Affordable Care Act, and the acquisition of Health Management which broadens our footprint in the UK. Let’s move into the financial details starting with the fourth quarter. Total company revenue from continuing operations grew 28% to $384.3 million compared to the fourth quarter of last year driven by the health segment. Organic revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 was solid at 23%. Fourth quarter revenue was a little better than expected simply due to several change orders that were executed in the fourth quarter, but had previously been anticipated to occur in fiscal 2014. Operating margin in the quarter was largely as expected at 15%. And for the fourth quarter, GAAP income from continuing operations net of taxes totaled $35.6 million, or $0.51 per diluted share. For the full fiscal year, revenue increased to $1.33 billion or 27% compared to fiscal 2012. As a reminder, revenue in the full year included approximately $16 million of non-recurring revenue from a terminated contract in the second quarter that we excluded from our guidance. Excluding that revenue, we over delivered on the top-line by about $5 million compared to our full year guidance, primarily due to change orders. For the full fiscal year, revenue growth was driven by new work, the expansion of existing contracts and the acquisition of PSI and Health Management. For the full year, GAAP income from continuing operations net of taxes totaled $117.1 million, or $1.68 per diluted share. This included…

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Thank you David and good morning everyone. We are very pleased with another year of continued solid top and bottom line growth. First, thanks to our 12,000 employees for their tremendous efforts in making fiscal 2013 so successful for MAXIMUS. The operational expansion this year and the future growth trajectory we have in place are both a direct result of their contributions. The past fiscal year was defined by the significant progress we made on our long-term growth objectives and other areas where we can best maximize shareholder value. Today, I’ll share updates on our three primary goals, which include, securing our fair share and little more of work related to the health care reform in the United States, growing our U.S. federal book of business and expanding our international operations in both segments. Let’s start off with an update on our first ever long-term growth, health care reform in U.S. In fiscal 2013, MAXIMUS successfully established a leading position in the health insurance exchange market. We helped Minnesota build and launch their exchange and we supported California with some short-term work to help train customer service staff. Most importantly, we submitted our position as the leading partner for providing high quality customer service for the exchanges as we launched operations for six state-based and two federal customer contact centers. We’re delivering value to these important reform efforts and we’re proud of our work. Our exchange customer contact centers ramped up as planned and we’re already answering consumer calls in many of our operations well ahead of the October 1st go-live. As you know, from the extensive press coverage, a number of exchanges have faced a variety of challenges mostly from a technology perspective. But I’m very pleased with our performance as we delivered on the scope and requirements of…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. Please limit your questions to two. If you wish to additional questions, you may reenter the queue. (Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from the line of Brian Kinstlinger with Sidoti & Company. Please proceed with your question. Brian D. Kinstlinger – Sidoti & Co. LLC: Hi, good morning, guys. Thanks so much. The first question I had was I’d like to understand a little bit more about the Human Services segment. What was the impact – I am sorry that led to the drop in revenue? What was the impact of FX maybe? And why was the guidance flat year-over-year? I guess that leads to how large was the contract that reached successful completion?

Richard A. Montoni

Management

David N. Walker

Management

Hey, thanks Brian. Well, first of all, I’ll just talk about the drop in Human Services in Q4. The segment decreased 5% and last year’s Q4 quarter-over-quarter had some short-term work in the U.S. operations that was highly accretive drove up margins for that period. So, it’s less that this Q4 drop and the Q4 same year was extraordinarily high last year on both revenue and margins. FX is a great question and we’ve all been watching the strong U.S. dollar. And when you look at FX, for particularly in the fourth quarter, there was a currency impact. The fourth quarter is down 2% of revenue and 1% for the year, but in terms of real dollars that’s a decline of $6.7 million in the quarter and $7.2 million in the year, largely related to Human Services. So when you look at Human Services that is adversely impacted more by the currency than health, which is driving down the quarter and somewhat next year. When we talk about the guidance for Human Services and just what’s happenings there is puts and takes in any business and that’s what we’re seeing in 2014. We have a large fixed price contract that’s coming to an end, which will be offset in part by growth in our international operations. You ask about the size of that contract. For the last two years, it’s averaged about 20 million a year and it’s been very accretive. So it was a very successful contract and in fact the definition of success with this one was to prepare an operation for the client. So it ended and – in for all the right reasons. And if you look overall, the pipeline includes a lot of opportunities about Human Services. So we’re really optimistic about the long-term prospects…

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Brian, this is Rich. What I’d like to do is I’d like to share with just a couple thoughts from a summary level on the Affordable Care Act and MAXIMUS’s position. We have Bruce Caswell here, as you know he is the President and General Manager of our Health Segment. So Bruce day-in and day-out is leaving all of these dynamics, so as it relates to the impact of the enrollment numbers and the glitches I’m going to ask Bruce to respond to that, but first just a couple of comments from a summary level perspective, I think it’s important to separate the operations of the health insurance exchanges which is the role that MAXIMUS plays from the system work of others, which system work we’re seeing under the microscope on a daily basis from a headline perspective. We always said our primary focus is the operation side. And in our role of operating the contact centers that we do operate, we have delivered on our contractual commitments, we’ve supported our customers and in some cases we’re able to fill some gaps that were created because of these glitches and it’s interesting that to think back that well over a year ago, when we knew this Affordable Care Act was coming out as, we focused on capacity management, we wanted to make sure we have the right resources assigned to the right opportunities and the right clients. And frankly, it involved declining some opportunities that were out there, where we thought there was high risk of non-performance. So, today we’re very, very pleased with our performance as it relates to operations it’s really on.

Bruce L. Caswell

Analyst · Sidoti & Company

Sure. I’ll be happy too and Brian good morning, thanks for the question. In fact I’ll start I think with the question related to the glitches and then obviously since that has an impact on enrollments bridged to that. So as Rich noted, our work is largely state based and we did not have any involvement in the construction of the healthcare.gov website in that system. Clearly with the issues that they were experiencing, there have been increases initially and calls to our call center, the call center volumes were in fact quite high. And on a temporary basis, we’ve been able to add staff to adjust to that and managed really our operations accordingly in that regard. With that it’s important to note that that’s been temporary in nature. And as the issues get resolved, we’d expect that the staffing profile and those federal call centers will return to what we previously forecast under those contracts. Bridging to the state level, certainly a number of the state projects have gone quite well and others still have implementation issues that they’re addressing. And so I guess I would characterize it as a bit of the mix in the sense that while there have been some bumps, we’ve been very I think I really pride our team on the planning that they put into developing contingency plans in conjunctions with out clients. And I’m reminded of an example from day one, when there literally was a manual on the floor that we would refer to as issues arose and we’d stand with our clients and make a decision at that point in time and how to implement the contingency plan, executed immediately and do so effectively. And so, you have to be agile in this environment and I think our experience…

Lisa Miles

Management

Next question please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Carl McDonald with Citigroup. Please proceed with your question. Carl R. McDonald – Citigroup Global Markets Inc.: Great, thank you. I wanted to stick on that topic. Just understand the contractual relationships that you have either with the federal or the state exchanges. Is it purely a cost-plus relationship or is there a situation where if volumes run above expected levels you have to go back and renegotiate something? Or is it just purely cost-plus, if volumes are higher, you get paid more?

Bruce L. Caswell

Analyst · Carl McDonald with Citigroup

Good morning, Carl. It’s Bruce. Thanks for the question. So, for the federal contract and that would be the call center contact as well as the upcoming Eligibility Appeals contract, those are cost reimbursed or cost plus contracts. Similarly for one of our largest state contract, that is also cost reimbursable. So we are really able to toggle the resources that we assign on those accordingly to adjust to volume changes either positive or negative. The rest of the contracts, I would characterize as being very similar to the way we’ve done Health Services contracts in the past. And as we’ve described those they – often their performance based, but they have a fixed and a variable component. And so we structure them as such that the fixed component that we are paid for, covers the ongoing kind of structural cost to the program and the variable payments can relate to everything from call minutes to, in some instances mailings, applications completed and so forth. And as a consequence, they were able to modulate if you will our variable cost structure to accommodate volume changes accordingly. So, overall it’s been I think a very strong model for this relatively uncertain marketplace in the early days. Carl R. McDonald – Citigroup Global Markets Inc.: Great and how much of a concern is it to you if the federal website issues persist? And just for the sake of argument, instead of 7 million people enrolling in exchanges, it ends up being half of that. Just wondering about the impact that would have on the Medicare appeals revenue, presumably if enrollment is much lower, you wouldn’t end up with as many appeals down the road.

Bruce L. Caswell

Analyst · Carl McDonald with Citigroup

I guess, I’d like to maybe just call a distinction between the enrollments to the Affordable Care Act and Medicare, I think what we might be talking about is eligibility appeals. Carl R. McDonald – Citigroup Global Markets Inc.: Bruce sorry, eligibility appeals line.

Bruce L. Caswell

Analyst · Carl McDonald with Citigroup

Carl R. McDonald – Citigroup Global Markets Inc.: Great. Thank you.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

You’re welcome.

Lisa Miles

Management

Next question please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Dave Styblo with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question. David A. Styblo – Jefferies LLC: Good morning, thanks for taking the questions. First on what just – getting back to the health margins that was originally asked and those are kind of coming in at the lower end of the 10% to 15% range for fiscal 2014. I was just curious with some of the pressures going on there of new business coming online, how should we think about that over the longer term after 2014? Is that something that should trail closer to the midpoint of the 10% to 15% as you reprice business and other M&A deals that you’ve folded in there and just simply improve operations?

Lisa Miles

Management

David please can you clarify which segment you’re asking about, you said Health, but I think you might be referring to Human Services? David A. Styblo – Jefferies LLC: I’m sorry about Human. Yes, thanks.

Lisa Miles

Management

Okay, thanks.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Okay, that being the case, I’m going to ask Dave Walker to field your question David.

David N. Walker

Management

David, we talked a little bit about it, the margins came down to the lower end of the range because the large accretive contract went away. And we certainly have a bigger volume in the U.S., but we also talked about the contract going away in terms of revenue, which is why it’s flat being back filled by international work which generally tends to be more accretive. So if you look beyond 2014, I think it’s tied to how successful we are internationally. And margins are tricky and then I’ll remind you the UK contract depends on revenue recognition. So I could be really successful in getting case workload, but if it’s tied to outcomes like in the UK, where it is a six month deferral, I could get a lag in the margin, so it would be subject to some timing of the revenue recognition on those large BPOs for a contract. So, long-term, we think there is a lot of opportunities internationally, that we think will be very helpful to margin and just growth. And short-term, I think the U.S. market tends to be steady in the boat and accretive. David A. Styblo – Jefferies LLC: Okay. And if I could just have my follow-up on the guidance for 2014 here, obviously, this is the second update we’ve had on it and I’m just curious now that you have more visibility, we know the Department of Education outcome, the eligibility appeals is out. What gives you confidence in that range? Do you feel like you are biased to the upwards part of that range now that you have more visibility? Or what are the factors that could cause you to deviate from the mid-point there?

David N. Walker

Management

Well, you know, really we’re reiterating guidance and the good news about our business is it’s somewhat predictable, but the reason it somewhat predictable is when we take a look at 2014, 95% of that’s coming from backlog. So we’re pretty comfortable with the range. That being said there are transactional volumes that can cause some variability in the top-line and I think we’ve demonstrated our ability to manage our cost structure to manage the bottom line around that variability, but there will always be a range driven by those things. And I would say new business really is a big driver and something we’re very focused on, but it will drive more fiscal 2015.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

And Dave, I would add at this point while there are dynamics, the nature of our business given there is such a long lead time with new business development. It really is a sort of thing where this year we sell next year’s growth. So you’ll note that the pipeline remains very, very hardy, good portion of that is new business. I look at that as really being the drivers to growth in 2015 when we get. We may get some of those wins in 2014 and get partial years but the full year kicks in 2015. So I’m pleased to see that we’ve got growth aspirations that are solid for beyond 2014. But it also means it’s difficult to go and find real large contracts for 2014 just given the nature of the business development cycle. David A. Styblo – Jefferies LLC: Thanks guys.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Okay

Lisa Miles

Management

Next question please.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line Richard Close with Avondale Partners. Please proceed with your question. Richard Close – Avondale Partners LLC: Yes. Thank you, congratulations on a very solid fiscal year. Talking a little bit about the health services division, you talked about revenue. I think you mentioned level loaded through the year. Can you just walk us through maybe the quarterly progression, sort of the puts and takes on the revenue on a quarterly basis in health?

David N. Walker

Management

Richard Close – Avondale Partners LLC: So how do Medicare appeals factor into that? I know that was a big growth driver in the fourth quarter of outperformance. How are you thinking about that business?

David N. Walker

Management

We think they will level off. We have a lot of growth last year in those appeals, but we think those will level off and that’s what our outlook is. Richard Close – Avondale Partners LLC: And then just…

David N. Walker

Management

Relatively flat. Richard Close – Avondale Partners LLC: Okay, just as a follow-up on this revenue, with respect to I guess add-on services, that type of stuff that you’re being asked to do to fill the holes or voids with some of the initial ACA stuff, whether it’s state or federal, can you quantify any type of maybe revenue, incremental revenue opportunity? And I assume that’s part of the front-end loaded or the first and second quarter ACA contribution.

David N. Walker

Management

Well, I think the good news about our BPO business is it’s over the life cycle. So there is constant evolution of these programs, policies and I think that’s what we do very well and that’s what we are known for. But remember we have a lot of reimbursable contracts to the degree we provide that help it will provide revenue, it won’t necessary drive the bottom-line so much on a weighted average basis, but in fact in our forecast we weighted in and factored some opportunities of that nature within those existing contracts, because we do anticipate the clients have a lot of change to manage and frankly, they are happy to have MAXIMUS on their team to do exactly that.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst · Avondale Partners

It’s really the difference between the midpoint of our forecast and the 95% of which is in the form of backlog. That will give you some consolidated perspective on the quantification of it. Richard Close – Avondale Partners LLC: Sure. Okay, and then just final question for me and I appreciate the time. When we talk about pipeline and the strength of your pipeline, is there any way you could give us indication at least directionally or percentages, rough percentages in terms of how that breaks down maybe international versus health and human and sort of on a divisional basis? Or do you not want to get into that type of granularity?

Richard A. Montoni

Management

More the latter, Richard, although we’ll say directionally it’s across the board. We do have significant opportunities in both our domestic and international and health. And don’t forget Human Services, while its performance last year, this year versus last year, this quarter versus last quarter was more flattish. We still think there is long-term great opportunities for the Human Services segment as well. The other highlight is that we have noted that a substantial portion which is a qualitative direction for you of this year’s new wins happens to be in the new business category as, does and I think we used the term the majority of our sales pipeline is new work. Richard Close – Avondale Partners LLC: Great, thank you. Congratulations again.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Thank you, Richard.

Lisa Miles

Management

Next question please.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Frank Sparacino with First Analysis. Please proceed with your question. Frank Sparacino – First Analysis Securities Corporation: Hi guys. Just one question for me on the Human Services side; can you just talk a little bit longer term in terms of where you see new opportunities? But also I’m curious – I think there was an expectation the Saudi contract would come to fruition and be substantially larger than the pilot you are running. So maybe, if you can talk about that in more detail, but also what the expectation is next year in the UK?

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Glad to answer that. I think three part question, Frank. First, I’ll tackle that the Saudi situation. As it relates to the Saudi contract here is where we are. We just signed an MOU, memorandum of understanding that extends the work for another three years; I think that’s one year base and two option years, that’s three years in total. And we do see some promising opportunities as we dialog with our client in terms of what their needs are and where they need assistance. So we believe there is some real opportunity long-term. But you need to keep in mind that market takes time to move these things along, just as the nature with the business, sometimes international and in the case of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. So I see that one really is a fact that we are very focused on our existing markets and we’re looking to expand those existing markets in our land and expand mantra, which has worked very, very well on Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and we hope us to make that in KSA. Frank Sparacino – First Analysis Securities Corporation: It is. Thank you and then just UK?

Richard A. Montoni

Management

On the UK situation, we’re still excited about growth in the UK, Health and Human Services. While we don’t see great opportunities to pick up new work within a region, when the government does move forward to reallocate work between regions, we think we’re very well positioned, but the big driver there is when and if the government will move forward. They do express their intent to do so. So we’re anxious to see when that will happen, I think we’re very well positioned for it. We have identified other opportunities in the UK that our Human Service is significant opportunity as well. Frank Sparacino – First Analysis Securities Corporation: Thank you, Rich.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Okay Frank.

Lisa Miles

Management

Thanks Frank. And next question please.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Brian Gesuale with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question. Brian A. Gesuale – Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey. Good morning, guys. Nice job on the results here. Really just two quick ones; can you tell us where you put the Department of Education contract in terms of the business development or pipeline metrics? Then also I don’t recall if the Texas renewal was part of bookings this quarter.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Good morning, Brian. Thank you very much. If I understand your question, the Department of Education business and that would be the BD results that would be the forecast revenue and operating income. That work resides within our federal business in Health, which is part of our Health segment.

Lisa Miles

Management

And I think Brian to further your question because I think you’re getting to pipeline. That actually resided in the awarded signed numbers at 930. Brian A. Gesuale – Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay, perfect. That’s great. That’s very helpful. And then Texas?

Richard A. Montoni

Management

That’s what she spoke to was Texas.

Lisa Miles

Management

No, that was …

Bruce L. Caswell

Analyst · Brian Gesuale with Raymond James

DOE.

Lisa Miles

Management

DOE.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Texas spend, Texas EBIT or the Texas renewal.

Lisa Miles

Management

That sits in the awarded unsigned bucket at 930. Brian A. Gesuale – Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay, great. Then maybe if you could just comment a little bit on visibility into the guidance you guys have out there, I think you said 95% is coming from existing customers or options.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Backlog. Brian A. Gesuale – Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Backlog.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Actually backlog, Brian. Brian A. Gesuale – Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: How does that compare to previous years? And I guess with your pipeline at record numbers and also the mix of it being incremental with new business in that pipeline, how should we think about what visibility might look like versus years in the past?

David N. Walker

Management

Well, last year was about 90%. Okay, but I think generally that 90% to 95% is where it’s always been. So I would say we’re pretty consistent with I think the prior years and no surprise given the nature of the business. Brian A. Gesuale – Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Great. Thanks a lot

Lisa Miles

Management

Next question please.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Charlie Strauzer with CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question. Charles Strauzer – CJS Securities, Inc.: Hi, good morning.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Good morning, Charlie. Charles Strauzer – CJS Securities, Inc.: Two short questions, if I could. The first is on the – when you look at the pipeline of kind of the tracking proposals, any sense of the timing of when some of those proposals will be coming out and what areas might those be from kind of predominately focused on?

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Our view on it is and you need to appreciate the nature of government procurement, we say it’s glacial, which means it’s very big and very slow and also subject to pushing to the right. More likely get pushed to the right and to the left, Charlie. So you need to operate within that contact. That being said, we have what I think is a prudent policy that we don’t count anything as sales pipeline unless we have an expectation the RFP is going to come out within six months. So that kind of sets the pipeline is being something where we should be proposing a good portion of it within the next year. And that’s about as precise as we can get with those – that soft data. Charles Strauzer – CJS Securities, Inc.: That’s fair. And also too just in terms of what you think in terms of the maybe the opportunities that are in that – those dragging proposals, are they particularly larger ones or is it more federally bases, is it more Human Services or Health Services based?

Richard A. Montoni

Management

When we analyze that and I think this is good news it really is all over the map from a segment perspective, from a geography perspective and I would even say from a size perspective, we don’t want to become too dependent upon big wins to grow single, big wins to grow the company singles and doubles are very, very good in our business. Charles Strauzer – CJS Securities, Inc.: Excellent, and then just lastly on the CapEx side in terms of the applied guidance for next year, I see CapEx is coming down a fair amount next year but it still looks like it’s about $50 million for the year. Can you talk a little bit more about what is going to be in that number there?

David N. Walker

Management

I think you got exactly right. So we’ve targeted about $50 million and it’s down from last year. But that’s because we had so many new contracts launching particularly at the beginning of this year with all the health insurance exchanges. So that’s what it reflects. Charles Strauzer – CJS Securities, Inc.: Got it. Thank you very much.

David N. Walker

Management

Yes.

Lisa Miles

Management

I actually only have one other thing to add as it relates to our Texas contract and the question from pipeline, subsequent to the quarter close, the Texas contract was signed.

Richard A. Montoni

Management

Next question, please.

Operator

Operator

It seems we have no further questions at this time. So, ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.