Earnings Labs

Spire Inc. (SR)

Q3 2009 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 28, 2009

$89.88

-1.09%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to The Standard Register’s third quarter 2009 conference call. Today’s conference is being recorded. As a reminder, the presentation slides for today’s conference are available by accessing the investor center section of The Standard Register website at www.StandardRegister.com/investorcenter. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Shaun Smith.

Shaun C. Smith

Management

Welcome to the company’s third quarter 2009 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Joe Morgan, President and Chief Executive Officer and Bob Ginnan, Chief Financial Officer. Please let me remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements including language concerning future projections. These projections should be considered in conjunction with the Safe Harbor statement contained in our earnings news release as well as the Safe Harbor statement that can be found by accessing the homepage of the investor center on the company’s website. In addition, we will make references to financial measures that are not in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. This information is not meant to be considered in isolation or substitution for GAAP. The use of these measures is meant to enhance our audiences understanding of the company’s financial performance. Joe has a few highlights to discuss that will be followed by Bob’s review of our financials. After Bob’s report we’ll open it up for questions. Now, let me turn it over to Joe for his opening remarks.

Joseph P. Morgan

Management

I just have a few comments that I’d like to make prior to Bob discussing our financials for the quarter. We still are participating in a very competitive and a very challenging environment. However, we are seeing progress being made as a result of the focus that we instituted at the start of this year. Actually, it began in the fourth quarter of 2008. We have solid evidence that our market focus is working and we’ve had major wins in the quarter, major wins greater than $1 million in every segment, those segments being healthcare, acute care hospitals, financial, our industrial business focused in the manufacturing sector and actually government as well which is a place we’re spending a lot of time recently as well. We have seen a dramatic improvement in retention of accounts. We know that in this very challenging environment retaining our business is very important regardless of the impact of the decline economically. So, we’ve done a very good job of retaining our core clients. That is a result of our market focus due to the repetitiveness of our capability. In each customer we were able to see more clearly what’s required in order for us to retain those accounts so we’re seeing significant improvement there. We’re also seeing an increase rate of close in deals. Our pipeline is growing quarter-on-quarter and we are starting to see customers start to make decisions. There has been a delay, I think mostly driven by the economy that has caused us not to achieve some of the revenue that we thought might occur but we’re starting to see that free up a lot and that’s encouraging as we go forward because the retention and the wins that we have brought forward are really going to contribute once spending starts…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Charles Strauzer – CJS Securities.

Charles Strauzer

Analyst

A couple of questions, if we can talk a little bit more Joe about the Novation deal and maybe shed a little bit more light on the potential kind of long term opportunity there from a revenue standpoint if you can? And also, are there other types of contracts like this out there in your competitors hands that maybe over time you could be successful in kind of garnering this away.

Joseph P. Morgan

Management

The opportunity there is greater than $50 million in overall spend. Candidly it’s a bit of a fishing license, by winning this contract it gives us an opportunity by being on the contract to do what we do so the opportunity is sizeable. To give you an example, in one relatively short time, several days, we were able to contact approximately 2,000 institutions and start to present our capability to them so it is a sizeable opportunity. Projecting it specifically is challenging but just to give you some idea as to the opportunity, it represents the potential of 20% of the current unit in healthcare just as we currently focus on it. In terms of other opportunities, if you look at our market share today in healthcare, acute care health around documents that we provide, we have a market share that’s below 25%. So, by definition there is an opportunity that is pretty sizeable. The best way to approach that is there is one way to do it which would be one hospital at a time, another way would be through organizations that are aggregated. The GPOs are one way, we have all six of those so that’s given us a great opportunity, there’s still a sizeable market that is not part of those contracts and so there are larger buying groups IDMs and all that have many hospitals that we would also be focusing on. I would also tell you that there are tangential opportunities in similar markets but not exactly the same. For example, in managed care and assisted living where we’re also pursuing some opportunities. So, I think the key to focus on honestly would be there is a large opportunity with this largest GPO no question but then also from a relative standpoint our market share is not greater than 50 so we’re less than 25 so there’s a substantial runway for us as we go forward.

Charles Strauzer

Analyst

Then with all this talk about healthcare reform and various bills being passed back and forth are you cognoscente of any opportunities that might arise from healthcare reform that could be positive for you guys?

Joseph P. Morgan

Management

I think that’s the big question. It’s not clear honestly at this point what specific opportunity is coming from healthcare reform. I will say this thought, it’s certainly accelerating the conversation around creating a paperless environment in certain clinical applications where traditionally there had been a large demand for paper. Given that we’re market focused in healthcare though and that we do actually offer some software and services to certain functions within healthcare for example in admissions, we’re actually embracing that. We have an opportunity to embrace that change because of our market share position. Where we have documents obviously there can be an impact through what I just said but where we don’t have documents we have an opportunity to reposition some of the capabilities we have around technology and services and we’re doing that with partners that are more familiar with exactly what’s going on as it relates to some of those investments you referenced HIS providers and EMR. So, while won’t be in that specific business, it is very likely that our new solutions will be adjacent to those capabilities in the spirit of high valued added applications.

Charles Strauzer

Analyst

Then shifting gears a little bit if we can, just talk about the investment in more digital platforms, kind of consolidating what sounds like larger facilities and you’re spending roughly I think you said about $10 million this year on cap ex. What are your thoughts on deploying capital next year and are there going to be larger incremental spends on the equipment next year? BB I think if you look at the $10 million we’re spending this year that’s really a historical low and I think you’ll see us return to a more normal range in the $20 million range is where we historically are. I think you’ll see it much more similar to historical levels versus this year.

Charles Strauzer

Analyst

Then with all the stressed assets that are on the marketplace I would imagine you’re taking advantage of some of those opportunities that are out there to buy relatively new equipment at pretty cheap prices.

Joseph P. Morgan

Management

Where we can, for sure.

Charles Strauzer

Analyst

Then just talk if you can about specific areas that you’re seeing Joe where you’re really kind of getting a little bit excited about potential for as the economy recovers what are the areas that you think are the ones that are poised to kind of give you a little bit more lift.

Joseph P. Morgan

Management

Well actually it’s interesting, as we went through the MyC3 process, it turns out that there are some core capabilities that we have in place around secured documents and all that still has a lot of legs to it, there’s still an opportunity. Because of some of the investments we’ve made operationally we’re in a pretty good position. So, I think as the economy comes back we’ll be in a position to take advantage of some of that. I would also tell you that in the training area, that gets me very excited because personally that’s something that we’re investing in as well and I see the leading companies spending money there because they’ve got to retain their employees and they’ve got to help them see the new transition that their own business is going through so that’s an areas that we’re investing in. We’re working with some technology partners to help us take advantage of their new technology to help deliver digitally produced documents around that space. With my background coming out of the industrial business I think we’re on to something with in-mold. I really believe in that marking technology. There’s a real potential there because of what it brings to our clients in terms of improvement in their business performance through cost improvement but also the durability capability that exists with that type of a technology is pretty substantial. So, we’re pretty excited about what can happen there. Then I’d probably add, as we go through our consolidation of our operations, we look at what we want to make versus what we want to acquire in the marketplace and there’s a really, really interesting opportunity for us to balance, our supply chain in a way that we haven’t done previously. I’m very excited about some of the things that we’re doing with key suppliers to take advantage of some of their capability through our model. We’ve been successful honestly, with our channel focus over the course of the last six months. That’s just a sampling of some of the things that I see but I will tell you this, it is a very challenging market. Market share at this stage is very important to us. Our market focus has provide us with leverage. Our customers are telling us that being a general provider of products is not of high value to them, being market focused and understanding how their business operates is really of high value so we’re encouraged more holistically about the things that we’re seeing as a result of that.

Operator

Operator

At this time I’m showing no further questions.

Shaun C. Smith

Management

This concludes our call today. Thank you for participating in our third quarter call and we look forward to reviewing our fourth quarter and full year results in late February. Thank you and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for participating on today’s conference. The conference has concluded. You may disconnect at this time.