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Insperity, Inc. (NSP)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Mon, Aug 3, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Taylor [ph], and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Insperity Second Quarter 2015 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to introduce today's speakers. Joining us are Paul Sarvadi, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer; Richard Rawson, President; and Douglas Sharp, Senior Vice President of Finance, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Douglas Sharp. Mr. Sharp, please go ahead sir.

Douglas Sharp

Analyst

Thank you. We appreciate you joining us this morning. Let me begin by outlining our plan for this morning's call. First, I'm going to discuss the details of our strong second quarter financial results. Paul will then comment on our second quarter achievements and our plans for the remainder of the year. I will return to provide our finance guidance for the third quarter and an update to our full year 2015 guidance. We will then end the call with the question-and-answer session where Paul, Richard and I will be available. Now, before we begin, I would like to remind you that Mr. Sarvadi, Mr. Rawson or myself may make forward-looking statements during today's call, which are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. In addition, some of our discussion may include non-GAAP financial measures. For a more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures please see the company's public filings including the Form 8-K filed today, which are available on our website. Now, let me begin today's call by discussing our second quarter results which included the continued acceleration and worksite employee growth and the effective management of our direct cost programs and operating costs to generate significant bottom line growth. For the second quarter, adjusted EBITDA increased 56% over Q2 of 2014 to $22.6 million. Adjusted earnings per share were $0.42, an increase of 110% over Q2 of the prior year. Revenues increased 11% over Q2 of 2014 to $628 million on a continued acceleration in paid worksite employees. Average paid worksite employees increased 12% above forecasted levels and coming off of the 9% year-over-year growth generated in the previous quarter. The recent growth in the number of business performance advisors…

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

Thank you, Doug and thanks to all of you for joining the call today. I would like to highlight several areas of progress that are gliding our planned growth acceleration and the operating leverage we are experiencing both of which are evident from our second quarter results. Our year-over-year unit growth rate in worksite employees over the last three quarters has increased from 5% in Q4 of last year to 9% in Q1 to 12% this quarter and as announced today is forecasted to be in the 13% to 14% range for the next quarter. We believe the traction and momentum we have built in our sales effort combined with historically high levels of client retention have and will continue to drive this growth acceleration. In Q2, the number of worksite employees sold increased 50% over the same period last year and came in at 125% of our internal sales budget. This was due to a step up in sales activity combined with the substantial improvement in sales efficiency. The core market sales of accounts received in 150 employees increased 32% over last year and came in 113% of budget; this was driven by a 27% improvement in sales efficiency and a 4% increase in trained business performance advisors. Activity levels have increased substantially over last year with a 23% increase in discovery calls and a 24% increase in business profiles. Corporate leads from our successful marketing programs increased more than 50% over last year helping to boost this activity. Another factor driving activity in sales efficiency gain is our loyalty program which provides us systematic way to obtain referrals from current clients and worksite employees leveraging our high satisfaction rates in our client base. Referrals from current clients have the highest closing rates and margins than any other lead…

Douglas Sharp

Analyst

Thanks, Paul. Now, before we open up the call for questions, I'd like to provide our financial guidance for the third quarter, and an update to our full year 2015 forecast. With a continued improvement in sales efficiency on a growing number of business performance advisors and a consistent high level of client retention, we expect to continue the acceleration in worksite employee growth. We are forecasting a year-over-year increase in average paid worksite employees of 13% to 14% in the third quarter. We expect the full year average to now be at approximately 12% which was the high end of our initial 2015 range. We are now forecasting an increase in adjusted EBITDA of 36% to 39% over 2014 to a range of $114 million to $117 million. This is a significant improvement over our initial 2015 guidance of $101 million to $105 million. 2015 adjusted EPS is projected in a range of $2.20 to $2.29, an increase of 52% to 58% over 2014. Our guidance takes into account the strong results for the first half of the year, continued acceleration and worksite employee growth and the effective management of gross profit and operating expenses over the remainder of the year. The improved worksite employee outlook causes some dampening in the gross profit area from our previous forecast due to the restart of payroll taxes on new business. Although this issue has historically been a drag on our earnings we just recently announced the passage of federal legislation that will allow for the avoidance of this payroll tax restart. Specific regulations and reporting requirements under legislation are targeted to be in effect in 2016, so we are hopeful that this issue will soon be behind us and in the future strong midyear worksite employee growth won’t result in a drag on gross profit. Now as for Q3, we are forecasting adjusted EBITDA of $27 million to $29 million, which is a 20%, 28% increase over Q3 of 2014. Q3 adjusted EPS is projected in a range of $0.52 to $0.56 or an increase of 33% to43% over Q3 of the prior year. In conclusion, we are very pleased with our results during the first half of 2015 and the momentum in our growth and operations heading into our strong selling season. We look forward to updating you on our further progress. Now at this time, I’d like to open up the call for questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Tobey Sommer from SunTrust.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Thank you. Regarding the cost savings, the $20 million you identified. Did you say $12 million will be folded in to the P&L sort of for the full year 2015 and $8 million for next? Did I catch that right?

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

That’s right.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

And is there – are there other actions that you anticipate, the Board and the committee being involved and taking over the next several months or was establishing the internal EBITDA margin target sort of the principle goal of the committee?

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

Yes. That was the principle stated goal of the committee. But what we’re continuing to work as I mentioned in my script, on both these top-line and bottom-line optimization. So, we’ve had an emphasis on as you can see from our results on both grow on the top-line and really gaining some operating leverage, very much so demonstrated in these very good results in the second quarter. But we want to continue that and we intend to work continuously with the Board on making sure we optimize that structure as we continue to accelerate our unit growth.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

How do you feel Paul about the company’s ability and sort of your tolerance to carry debt as oppose to the pretty substantial still working capital balance that you have historically because obviously the margins are improving and it seems like you’ve got an engine which has got a several cylinders working for growth as well? Thank

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

Yes. No question we have quite a cash machine here and operating in a nice way. And historically we’ve generate a lot of cash and we have, as you can see from the recent work in sales – not sales, but purchase share repurchases, we used our capital to continue to increase the dividend and by shares back. And as far as debt is concern we have a debt facility that is not drawn on to-date, but as we see reasons to do that going forward we’re certainly capable of doing that and wouldn’t be reluctant to do that as long as we’re adding value to our shareholders. That’s what it’s about.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Okay. Then last two questions from me and I’ll go back in the queue. One is about pricing for sort of the traditional core bundle, kind of wondering what the markup and any kind of change year-over-year. And I was also wondering if you could comment about the – just using a formal jargon and the surplus associated with healthcare and worker’s comp, and how that may have changed in the quarter? Thank you.

Richard Rawson

Analyst

Yes. This is Richard. What we experienced this quarter is what we’ve been planning to see our markup component of our service fee has continued to match the kind of business that we’re bringing on. We’ve got a certainly a mix in customers. In addition to that our allocation for all of our direct costs have been in line and better than what we expected. What you’re seeing a little bit of a dampening affect on the revenue side, because we’re seeing continued migration of participants into lower cost plans and so that automatically reduces our revenue component. But on the other side of the coin, we also have lower costs. So, it’s all working just like we’ve planned it to be for 2015.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Okay. I guess, are you going to sort of on ongoing basis describe markup in those kind of trends in context with -- or you’re going to provide numbers for those?

Richard Rawson

Analyst

No. I think what we are intending to do to act clear communication of the things that are important for investors to focus on. We’re going to continue to guide towards our unit growth and then adjusted EBITDA, because obviously there’s moving parts going up and down in the direct cost and then also on aggressive operating expense management initiatives. And what’s important is to drive that adjusted EBITDA growth and so we are planning continue to give you a flavor on what’s going on in those areas, but not focus on specific numbers of any one of those metrics to make that up.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much. I’ll get back in the queue.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Jim Macdonald from First Analysis.

Jim Macdonald

Analyst

Yes. Good morning, guys.

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

Good morning.

Richard Rawson

Analyst

Good morning, Jim.

Jim Macdonald

Analyst

Yes. Just to follow-up on Tobey’s question. So, is it fair to say that the drop in gross profit per worksite employee compared to last year’s mostly due to mix issue with more mid-market business, and I think you gave a number, I don’t know if this is a revenue number, an employee number that the mid-market was up 32%, maybe I miss heard that?

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

Yes. No, it’s actually the core market up 32%, and mid-market was also up significantly. But it is that mix in both products and services that were providing and size client that continues to be a part of our going forward strategy. And although that has like Richard just mentioned, it has affect on average markup and et cetera, but it also has a corresponding affect on costs. The other thing its affecting the gross profit for the balance of this year is what Doug mentioned, our growth is actually expected to be faster where the balance for last half for that year that we had expected a quarter ago and in our model since there is a double taxation that occurs in payroll tax when you add new account any other time other than January 1st, you have a dampening affect to the gross profit that caused by the growth which of course is good for next year as you get larger as you go into the next period. And as Doug mentioned that phenomenon on our business that has been there for 49 years, we have successful passed that piece of legislation last fall that is scheduled to eliminate that double taxation in the next year.

Jim Macdonald

Analyst

So, just to sum up here saying that drop in gross profit mostly due to mix and this faster growth issue not the other cost centers and is that right?

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

That’s correct.

Jim Macdonald

Analyst

And just one more on gross profit, you said the SPUs, I believe revenue was up 19%, can you give us a number of what the SPU gross profit was for the quarter?

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

We look at that -- that portfolio contributing at that gross profit line and it was a 19% increase.

Jim Macdonald

Analyst

Okay, great. And just one more from me, the strategic committee – was there any repurchase -- share repurchase goal or new authorization or any thoughts on repurchase levels out of the committee report and agreement?

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

Yes. After the first quarter I think in our May Board Meeting was when the committee first weighted in on capital allocation. And as you saw that time we increased both the dividend and I believe increase the share authorization and then executed on that throughout the second quarter and into the third. So their role is to continue to monitor and make recommendations in that regard through the end of the year and into next – into the first quarter of next year.

Jim Macdonald

Analyst

Okay. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mark Marcon from Robert W. Baird.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

Good morning. With regards to the expense reduction for next year what’s that primarily going to be composed of that $8 million that’s incremental to this year?

Richard Rawson

Analyst

It’s a lot of specific initiatives in sales service, all kinds of SPUs, it’s truly a deep dive into specific initiatives and it’s pretty widespread across different areas.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

Okay. So its not just one or two big line items. It’s a whole bunch of areas that are been optimized?

Richard Rawson

Analyst

Yes. Absolutely, Mark, as you can see from our results, you don’t grow the business 12% in one year with a reduction in operating expense without a pretty intense focus on across the company on operating cost. And so that’s going to continue on those initiatives and more that have been identified or going to be implemented very specific down to specific line items that are affected by initiatives we intend to have in place.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

Got it. And then, it sounds like the SPUs actually helped in terms of the gross profits for this quarter. Is that right?

Richard Rawson

Analyst

Yes. Remember that the strategy is that as we have other offerings that have a lower price per customer, so we can retain more customers and add new customers than we would have an offset at the gross profit line as the contribution from our other business performance solution contributed that line. And that’s really what’s been happening, what’s been working and we expect that will continue?

Mark Marcon

Analyst

Okay. And then for the last few quarters the healthcare benefits has been a really big help, was that a help this quarter?

Richard Rawson

Analyst

No. It was actually -- cost were just a little bit higher because we had some large loss claims in the quarter that were a little bit higher than what we were expecting. So, it really didn’t help like it has in some of the previous quarters. But as usually it had kind of ups and downs in the gross profit area or the – I’m sorry in the direct cost area. And in total things have been very stable for us for quite a period now and its tightly managed by Richard’s group and going well in that area. We barely have a 1% trend in healthcare cost year-over-year.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

So, it was probably up 1% this quarter, but I mean…?

Richard Rawson

Analyst

No. What I said is when you look at our annual trend right now year-over-year, its up about 1%.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

Okay.

Richard Rawson

Analyst

And I don’t think there’s a lot of companies that can say that. But remember that’s driven by the – we had the strong reduction in the number of people on COBRA that occurred over the last year because of health reform, and that certainly had a significant help on cost. And then we continue to have migration on to lower cost plans and all those things add up to well manage and stable program.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

That’s great. And can you give us a sense for what the gross profit for worksite employee would likely – what the likely range would be that’s implied by the overall EBITDA guidance?

Douglas Sharp

Analyst

Yes, Mark. I think again we’re guiding more to the EBITDA which is combination of the gross profit and managing the operating expenses, so I think as we’ve discussed in some previous calls with the new model we have and the contributions from the SPUs and the PEOs and the different operating within the mid-market space. We’re focusing more on those metrics going forward with our analysts and our shareholders.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

I appreciate that, but just for help in terms of modeling it out, is there any guidance you can give us?

Douglas Sharp

Analyst

I think on the gross profit for employee number, relative to what comparison were you asking?

Mark Marcon

Analyst

Just in terms of the third quarter and the fourth quarter just getting to the implied numbers for Q3 EBITDA and for year EBITDA?

Douglas Sharp

Analyst

I can talk about some of the factors that go into Q3.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

Sure.

Douglas Sharp

Analyst

Q3 if you look at historically it has been fairly level with Q2. But in Q4 it typically goes down, its deductibles have been met by our worksite employees. Those under the benefit plans and we’re picking up more of the medical cost in that area on Q4. So, I think if you look at 2014 you’re going to see a fairly similar pattern along those lines. So I think that can help you out if you look at what happened last year maybe some previous years on the seasonality of that metric.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

Great. And then with regards to the strong growth in the worksite employees any regions that particularly stand out or any other color that you can give us in terms of the strong performance there?

Richard Rawson

Analyst

Sure. We really didn’t have a regional effect so much which is good. In my views it’s more the selling system really kicking in, the tenure of the sales team. Obviously, we had successful fall selling campaign last year and that feeds into a higher confidence level. Then you couple that with boosting activity lead-generation activity et cetera. It’s a momentum and traction story that’s kind of across the board. And then the game plan is as the core business sales have these kind of results than your mid-market effort can be icing on the cake and kind of build in a permanent premium to our growth rate, which we would believe ultimately translates into higher valuations, so it’s a good plan and its working and we’re excited by where we’re going from here.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

That’s great to hear. Can just two related questions and then I’ll jump back in the queue. Can you talk a little bit about the impact of increased regulations, how much that’s helping and driving things, number one? Number two, can you talk a little bit about the competitive environment and what you’re seeing there any sort of price competition or any sort of moves that you’re seeing from them on that aspect?

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

Sure. As far as the regulatory environment we’ve talked about how the healthcare reform is cascading down from the federal level to states, to carriers and to localities and ultimately to the individual companies and that’s going to continue for couple of years. And it is incredibly complex and I would just say that health reform has business owners have to focus on that. It’s a deep reminder of the complexity, compliance and cost of all regulation of been an employer which is always been where the key drivers to why customers realize this is a better way to do business. And I think that’s helping to drive growth in the whole industry and we’ll continue to do that. As far as the competitive environment, I think our response over the last couple of years to have a wider array of offerings puts us in a great position against the competition to allowed us to bundled different packages of services to customized and meet the customer need. We’re finding that to be a differentiating factor. In the mid-market our both our service model and our go-to-market team selling approach I think puts us in a unique position against the marketplace. So, I can say, the exciting part is the addressable market, it’s so large and coming our way. As we have added products and services that our customized for these customers with the 150 to several thousand employees that literally doubled our addressable market in this model and really bodes well for our long term growth plan.

Mark Marcon

Analyst

That’s great to hear. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our final question comes from Tobey Sommer from SunTrust.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Thanks. Just a couple of follow-ups. You mentioned net hiring making contribution to growth and also summer hiring. What sort of magnitude did each of those comprise, because I don’t recall summer hiring being cited all that much previously? Thanks.

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

Hi. It’s actually been nominal, but in our world as long as it’s a tailwind instead of a headwind obviously we’re a lot better off. But our growth has been driven much more so by exceeding our sales forecast and historically high retention levels. And I think we’re trying to communicate is that typical hiring in the base has been very, very modest unless they really than what we would have expected. In every year there is a little bit a summer help comes on in May and June and goes away in August and September, but that’s all factored in. And basically the net change in the customer base has not been as significantly as we were hoping it would be, but at least has not been a headwind.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Okay. Paul, how big a catalyst is the removal of acquired payroll tax reset for growth. How should we think about that in the context of what you’ve already reaccelerated in terms of WSEE growth?

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

We are really looking forward to finding out what it’s like in that world. And we don’t have the experience of it. But our expectation is that it should certainly even after sales process. And also I think it does have the benefit of I think adding to the growth rate simply because any time you have to sell something and then delay the start for a number of months you can lose the wind in the sale when you do that and we’re expecting that with that going way the whole throughput of that process should improve and should add to the picture. So, we’re excited about figuring out what that means. But there’s a lot of things driving our confidence right now in our growth plan and there’s just tremendous upside. I always like to let people realize our business when you grow the worksite employees you are also growth the risk, you’re growing the worksite employees unit revenue, unit of profitability and unit of risk in its so important to grow those units while you are managing the associated risk and so yeah we want to continue to accelerate growth but we also know it’s a service business you can grow at a rate that’s too fast to provide the service levels you need to provide, so they are other factors, but we’re excited about being back into the team and the growth rate and worksite employees. This model just is beautiful when you get into that level. And we expect -- the main goal is to be able to do that over and over, year after year after year and really unlock value for shareholders by doing so.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Is it fair that perhaps the change to the payroll reset tax, that these type of margin reduces a little bit of the emphasis and the risk associated with year-end sales programs, I know people are still thinking about these things on a year-end basis by and large, but maybe just on a relative basis this takes a bit of the edge off?

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

Yes, that’s what I really mean by evening things out some.

Tobey Sommer

Analyst

Okay.

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

There will still be an emphasis, because it’s just a matter of people want to do first of the year doing something different, start fresh, you know some of the filing issues around being an employer, if you can avoid it for the full year that’s a benefit, so these are administrative reasons, but I believe this new law is going to help us really even things out.

Operator

Operator

And there are no more questions at this time. I’ll hand the call back over to Mr. Sarvadi.

Paul Sarvadi

Analyst

Well, once again, we want to thank everyone for participating today. And we look forward to continuing to work and improve on both topline and bottom line results and we’ll be looking forward to discussions with you next quarter. Thank you very much.