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spk01: Anyone should require operator assistance during this conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Mr. John Nesbitt, Investor Relations. John, you may begin.
spk05: Thank you. I'd like to welcome everyone to the call. Hosting the call today, I'll high request Chief Executive Officer Rick Hermans and Chief Financial Officer David Burnett. I'd like to take a moment to read the Safe Harbor Statement. This conference call contains forward-looking statements as defined within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. These forward-looking statements and terms such as anticipate, expect, intend, may, will, should, or other comparable terms involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events, independent circumstances that will occur in the future. These statements include statements regarding the intent, belief, or current expectations of High Request and members of its management, as well as the assumptions in which such statements are based. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, including those described in the High Request periodic report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And the actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Except as required by federal securities law, HireQuest undertakes no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect change conditions. I would now like to turn the call over to the Chief Executive Officer of HireQuest, Rick Herman. Go ahead, Rick.
spk06: Thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. I'll begin by providing an overview of our financial and strategic highlights from the second quarter and year to date, and then I'll turn the call over to David who will share more details around our second quarter results. Our performance in the second quarter reflects our ability to deliver solid results despite what I think can accurately be described as a difficult economic environment. As I have frequently said, we have a unique model for the staffing industry, and the results this quarter reflect the strength of the franchise model. Our franchisees are entrepreneurial and incentivized to run a successful office no matter what the market environment, and we are seeing solid execution across the franchise base. This quarter also includes MRI network and the over 200 franchise offices we onboarded as part of that acquisition at the end of last year. MRI is the top permanent placement in executive search and professional staffing network based in the United States and one of the largest executive recruiting networks in the world. The addition of MRI allowed us to immediately scale our presence in the executive search segment and has further enhanced and strengthened our broader franchise model. In the quarter, our total revenue grew 12.4% to $9 million and franchise royalties increased 20.5% to 8.7 million compared to 7.2 million in the prior year period. System-wide sales for the quarter increased to 157 million compared to $120 million for the second quarter of 2022. While the majority of the growth in system-wide sales came from the addition of MRI, some of our small array offerings, such as DriveRequest and HigherQuest Health, also contributed. I would also like to point out that both our HigherQuest Direct and Snelling franchisees held their own despite the soft macro environment, with year-over-year declines of 4.4% and 9.2% respectively. For the six months ended June 30th, 2023, total revenue was $18.8 million, an increase of 25.3% compared to $15 million in the prior year period, and franchise royalties increased 30.7% to $18 million compared to $13.8 million for the six months ended June 30th, 2022. SG&A was $5.6 million in the second quarter of 2023, an increase of 74.5%, compared to the second quarter of 22. The increase was primarily related to ongoing costs related to the MRI acquisition and increased workers' compensation costs in the second quarter. MRI was a large acquisition for us. As we continue to integrate MRI and drive synergies across our business, we expect to bring expenses down over the balance of the year. In the second quarter, we continue to make progress in excluding the effect of workers' compensation insurance Q2 SG&A was approximately $4.9 million compared to $5.7 million in Q1. We just want to make sure that we drive synergies thoughtfully and in a sustained fashion. Our positioning continues to improve with an increasingly diverse mix of staffing options and a strong presence across key geographic areas. As we continue to drive organic growth, integrate acquisitions into our business, and drive synergies, We are confident that we will be able to drive growth and improve performance for the long term. With that, I'll pass it along to our CFO, David Burnett, who will provide a closer look at our second quarter results. David?
spk04: Thank you, Rick, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Expanding on some of the numbers Rick mentioned, let's start with total revenue, which for the second quarter of 2023 was $9 million compared to $8 million for the same quarter last year. an increase of 12.4%. Our total revenue is made up of two components, franchise royalties, which is our primary source of revenue, making up approximately 95% of total revenue, and service revenue, which is generated from certain services and interests charged to our franchisees. Other miscellaneous revenue is classified with service revenue. We did not report any revenue from company-owned operations, although at June 30, At 2023, we owned one location classified as held for sale and reported below the line as discontinued operations. For continuing operations, franchise royalties for the second quarter were $8.7 million compared to $7.2 million for the same quarter last year, an increase of 20.5%. MRI Network accounted for $1.9 million of the increase in royalties for the second quarter as royalties from pre-existing locations decreased by approximately $430,000. Underlying the growth in royalties are system-wide sales, which are not part of our revenue but can serve as a key performance indicator. System-wide sales reflect sales at all offices, including those classified as discontinued. It serves as a basis for most of our royalty revenue. System-wide sales for the second quarter were $157 million compared to $120 million for the same period in 2022, an increase of 30.8%. Similar to the growth in royalties, growth in system-wide sales was driven by the addition of MRI network, which accounted for $43.5 million of the increase in system-wide sales for the second quarter. Sales from pre-existing locations decreased by approximately $6.6 million. Service revenue, which is generated from certain interest charged to our franchisees, service fees, and other miscellaneous revenues, such as license fees, was $286,000 for the second quarter compared to $779,000 for the same quarter a year ago. Service revenue will fluctuate from quarter to quarter based on a number of factors, including changes in the volume and mix of system-wide sales, changes in accounts receivable, insurance renewals, and similar dynamics. Selling general and administrative expenses for the second quarter were $5.6 million compared to $3.2 million in the prior year period. That is an increase of 74.5%. As Rick referenced earlier, the increase was primarily driven by a few large items. The predominant item driving the increase in SG&A is compensation and benefits. Compensation-related expenses have always been the largest component of SG&A. Comp and benefits for the second quarter was 3.2 million versus 2.3 million in the prior year period. Since the acquisition, we have absorbed significant personnel costs as we integrate MRI network into our pre-existing operations. We are handling the integration in a disciplined manner in hopes of creating an annuity-like payback from cost savings over the foreseeable future. Second, we had an $878,000 swing in workers' compensation expense. For the second quarter in 2023, workers' compensation expense was approximately $690,000 compared to a $188,000 benefit in workers' compensation in the second quarter of 2022. The increase primarily relates to changes in rates that we are unable to immediately pass along to our franchisees. Generally, workers' compensation expense will fluctuate quarter to quarter based on the mix of worker classifications, the level of payroll, and claims resolution, both recent and historical. In the past, we have benefited from the runoff of older claims that were acquired in the smelling acquisition from 2021, but those have now largely been realized. In addition to increased salaries and benefits, we have also absorbed other MRI network SG&A expenses, including marketing, IT, insurance, professional fees, and the like. These increases are evident in our SG&A costs for the second quarter and more so in the year-to-date results. As we communicated in our last earnings call, we expect to carry certain transition items and associated expenses well into 2023 to support our expanded operations. The increase in SG&A can be felt in income from operations, which is total revenue plus SG&A depreciation and amortization. Income from operations was $2.7 million in the second quarter versus $4.3 million in the prior year period, a decrease of 37.4%. Net income includes income from operations adjusted for miscellaneous items, interest, income taxes, and discontinued operations. All in net income for the quarter was 2.0 million or 15 cents per diluted share. Compared to net income of 4.9 million or 36 cents per diluted share in the second quarter last year. Net income for the second quarter of 2022 includes 1.3 million of gains from the conversion of acquired operations into franchises. Adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of 2023 was 3.9 million compared to 5.8 million in the second quarter of last year. We believe adjusted EBITDA is a relevant metric for us due to the size of certain non-cash operating expenses running through our P&L. A detailed reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to net income is provided in our 10-Q, which was filed this afternoon. Moving on now to the balance sheet, our current assets at June 30, 2023 were $57.9 million compared to $51.9 million at December 31, 2022. Current assets as of June 30 included $2 million of cash and $51 million of accounts receivable, while current assets at December 31, 2022 included $3 million of cash and $45.3 million of accounts receivable. Current assets exceeded current liabilities by $17.3 million at June 30 versus year-end when working capital was $15.2 million. The increase in working capital is driven by the increase in accounts receivable offset partially by a corresponding increase in the credit line. At June 30, we had $16.5 million drawn on our credit facility and another $23.2 million inavailability, assuming continued covenant compliance. We believe our credit facility provides us with flexibility and room for short-term working capital needs, as well as the capacity to capitalize on potential acquisitions. We have paid a regular quarterly dividend since the third quarter of 2020. Continuing that pattern, we paid a $0.06 per common share dividend on June 15, 2023 to shareholders of record on June 1st. we expect to continue to pay our shareholders a dividend each quarter, subject to the board's discretion. With that, I will turn the call back over to Rick for some closing comments.
spk06: Thanks, David. To conclude, we are very pleased with our performance this quarter, especially in the face of a more challenging economic environment. Our results are a testament to the innovative franchise or model and the strength of our business initiatives that include synergistic mix of strong organic growth and accretive M&A activity. As always, I would like to thank our employees for their hard work and dedication this quarter. And as CEO of HireQuest, I look forward to continuing to drive operational success and value for our shareholders. With that, we can now open the line to questions. Thank you.
spk01: Thank you very much, Rick. We are now opening the floor for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your phone keypad now. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For any participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before you press the keys. Please pause a moment whilst we poll for questions. Thank you. Your first question is coming from Mike Baker of DA Davidson. Mike, your line is live.
spk02: Okay. Hey, thanks, guys. So it sounds like you saw a little bit of organic growth slowdown. I presume that's a function of the slowing employment growth that we've seen over the last couple months. But, you know, is that the right way to think about it, or is there something else going on? And I guess if you could help us sort of frame up how we should think about revenues for the third and fourth quarter.
spk06: Thanks, Mike. So realistically speaking, Our results are somewhat in line with the other companies that have been reported thus far. So, for example, People Ready was down, I think, 16%. And if you look at it from a perm placement standpoint, most of them are running down 25% to 30%. So that gives you an idea of what sort of the staffing and the recruiting industry is experiencing. In our instance, particularly on the staffing side, exceeded at least what's been reported thus far by our peers on the recruiting and perm placement side, we're probably right in the middle of what everybody else is reporting. That said, as I said earlier, let's say last quarter, our geographic mix is working in our favor as far as on the staffing side. I think that if you look at the overall economy, clearly there are places where jobs are, employment is softening and therefore temporary staffing definitely gets hit with that. Like I said, we're seeing a bit less of an impact because of our heavy exposure in Texas and Florida. I would expect you know, I haven't seen anything in this quarter or, and really don't see anything coming from the Fed that would get me to believe that we're going to get relief anytime before the end of the year. And so I think that, you know, I don't see that, at least from internal growth, I don't, you know, I don't see that recovering until the economy begins to recover. And you know, even I remember sitting probably in a call at the end of the year, you know, it's kind of like, look, you can't forecast what, you know, what the economy is going to do. And we are definitely susceptible to it. But all that being said is, you know, I don't expect our, you know, same store sales to improve, you know, any time before the end of the year. I'm not seeing it. But, If something happens where the economy does turn, we'll be right with it. But I do, again, want to point out that the, let's say, 6% blended decline we've seen in our existing staffing offices is actually really good comparison to our peers. So I don't know if that answers your question, but hopefully I did.
spk02: Yeah, no, that definitely helps. And, you know, I guess if I could ask one more, moving down the P&L, we understand, I think, you know, the sticky costs and MRI, which should come down over time but might take a while. You know, anyway, how should we sort of think about the expense rate in the coming quarters, excluding workers' compensation, which I understand is volatile?
spk06: So the good news is during... the second quarter, we, mostly through attrition, but basically we were able to reduce our PERM staffing costs by close to $900,000 on an annualized basis, sort of fitting within that pattern of, again, rationalizing our staff size to the revenues that we have. even during, you know, as I pointed out in my reading, there were some other, you know, in my presentation, there was a number of other costs that went away in the second quarter. And so we're not getting that far off of, you know, the Q2 still contained, obviously a lot of those costs came off during the quarter. And so I would say Q3 might still have a little bit of extra expense from the MRI acquisition, but I would say that the costs from, let's say, a legacy standpoint will pretty much be, will have flown through by the end of the quarter. So, Q3 should be a fairly reasonable number. Q4, we really should be at where we are. That can change based on, you know, Fed keeps raising rates, revenues keep softening. We may have to make other unanticipated cuts. But I guess what I'm saying is we are, you know, we have made a lot of the cuts that we had planned on making. There are still another, you know, there's a still fair bit of ones that we can make But they're more in the lines of what I would consider to be investments, meaning, and I brought this example up in the last earnings call, and I bring it up again. Let's just say that franchise sales, as an example. Well, as long as we have new units being sold, we'll keep doing that. We'll keep devoting those resources. But if we get to a point where we start thinking we're you know, we're fighting the Fed, you know, that's an area where there is still opportunities to reduce costs. But what I'm saying then is, you know, that it's going to be situational. I wish I could tell you, yeah, you know, SG&A is going to drop another, you know, it's going to drop another $2 million a year annualized, but it's really going to be based off of what we see in demand. And again, there are still a few cuts to be made. but most of them have been made. They just weren't fully reflected in Q2.
spk03: Okay. Yep. Makes sense. Understood. Thanks. I'll turn it over to someone else. Sure.
spk01: Thank you very much. Your next question is coming from Kevin Steinke of Barrington Research. Kevin, your line is live.
spk07: Thank you. Good afternoon. Uh, you know, with regard to the, uh, Revenue outlook, again, I know it's a fluid environment here. Third quarter, historically, has been a stronger quarter sequentially versus the second quarter. And I think you've talked about that effect might be muted a bit as well by MRI. But is there any reason to believe that that historical trend could continue or would maybe be disrupted due to the economy or I don't know if you have any visibility into that at this point.
spk06: So that's a great question, Kevin. The reality is that Q3 is generally our best quarter. You're absolutely right. The state of the economy is going to affect whether let's say Q3 is better than Q2. It'll probably be, but will it be, let's say, as good as it's supposed to be? Hard to completely say, because even back in April, our comparisons were, let's say, our year-over-year comparisons were probably stronger in early April than what they were, let's say, in late June. And so Q3 may be, let's say, not as pronounced of an increase as what we would normally expect. Expect to see. If that answers your question.
spk07: Yes. No, that's helpful. Good insight. And you mentioned there some of the, I guess you should call them growth-related costs that you brought on with MRI. You mentioned franchise sales. I think you've talked about training costs in the past. You know, have you seen, as I was still early on, but have you seen some of the benefits of retaining those costs thus far? And, you know, could the economy impact maybe the returns that you get from those expenses in the near term? I don't know if that, because of that, maybe you'd be willing to hang on to a little bit longer to see how they benefit you on the economy, you know, strengthens or, you know, how you would kind of think about that, that dynamic.
spk06: So, you know, there are three, to me, there's three types of, I'll say investments, right? You have, you have some that are like truly, I don't want to say frivolous. We don't do anything that's frivolous, but are ones that, You only do in a really good economy. And you know, when, when things aren't very good, you get rid of them. All of those we've, we've gotten rid of. There are other ones that the economy can absolutely kill and you can easily spin them back up once the economy is good. Franchise sales probably fits that one perfectly, right? It's, it's something that if, if, if we were to go into a full on recession, we're not going to sell a lot of franchises. And therefore, it's something that's harder to justify spending a lot of money on. But then you get to a third group of investments, let's say IT. Those are things that really pay off in the long term. They don't pay off in the short run. And frankly, unless the economy gets to be so bad to the extent that our cash flow is truly impacted, we're going to probably keep spending that money, even if it impacts our earnings in a negative way in the shorter run, because frankly, that's the, you know, that's the, that's that innovation that will keep us sort of ahead of the game. And that's what our strong balance sheet allows us to continue to do. And so we're just really going to be judicious with the cuts we, with the cuts we make. I mean, it's not, you know, it's not an easy environment out there, and yet we're still performing reasonably well. Do I wish we'd be doing better? Of course I do. And, you know, but there are certain segments of the economy that are really, you know, that are really struggling. I was reading, it was about maybe six weeks ago, where like one third of all of the jobs that have been lost in the last like six months in the United States are in the IT sector. So, you know, our, and I brought this up at our last earnings call, is how much our MRI IT-related franchisees are struggling. And when I read that after that, it's like, well, that makes sense of it. If a third of all of the job losses are in one segment, it certainly makes sense why they're struggling. All that being said, I was literally just speaking with somebody before the call, and they're starting to see it improve a little bit. My point is, is I'm not going to cut, you know, unless we were starting to really struggle from a cash flow standpoint, I'm not going to cut things that we're investing that will have a long-term impact on the profitability of the company. But I certainly will cut things that can either be easily respawn up or that are, you know, really should only be being done in a good economy. I don't know if that answers your question, really. But, you know, we're careful insofar as, you know, we're not going to spend crazy money in a down economy, but we're also not going to kill our future just to keep the next couple quarters looking good.
spk07: Yeah, I would say absolutely yes to that answer to the question. That's great insight. Lastly, I wanted to... ask about how you're thinking about acquisitions in the current environment and if this environment might present you with more opportunities as other competitors struggle maybe more than you are in this environment and what you're seeing on deal flow and pricing and those sorts of dynamics.
spk06: So first i'll just repeat one thing that i've said numerous times which is the one advantage of a recession is that it tends to create more opportunities for us and better pricing and so i will still stick by that in that there are you know more opportunities right now than what let's say there were six months ago now i'm not sitting there and saying we're beating people off with a stick who are trying to throw their businesses at us. That's not true. But there are definitely more serious opportunities for us. As far as our attitude towards buying them is that we are very much in the market to buy for two reasons, really. Beyond, let's say, just normal strategically, we've been doing it for five years now and we intend to keep doing it. So beyond the fact that it just hits our normal business process, in specific now, obviously with our current HQD and selling business down, layering on an acquisition will be easier. We have probably a bit of slack in our perm staff right now. And so we'd be able to take on an acquisition without adding as much staff as maybe we would have to in the past. We're probably running 30 to 50 million bucks on an annualized basis behind what we would have been, what I would have expected prior to the economy slowing down here. And So obviously, if we did a $30 or $40 million, and we haven't really cut perm payroll as it relates to HQD and Higher Quest Direct and Snelling yet. And so, again, we could easily layer on a $25, $30 million acquisition without adding much staff. And so from that perspective, it would be a bit more lucrative than normal. So we're very desirous of finding an acquisition that way. But the other, but that's got to be tempered with the economy is down a bit. And so, um, you know, we just have to be careful as far as sellers expectations, because obviously they're going to look back to 2022 and say, that's what the price should be based off of. And we're going to be looking more and yeah, well, we're in mid 23. Things are different now. Price is a bit different. And so that kind of puts a damper on getting a deal. done but again i would argue the good point about it too is now we know what the run rate is in an economy that isn't uh amped up by post-covid um demand and things like that so i think it gives us a fair representation of what we're buying and it gives us more upside if we if we, um, you know, because we're buying it in the midst of an uncertain economy. So we're bullish on that. And, um, again, our VP of corporate development is working diligently lining up perspective acquisitions.
spk07: Okay. Again. Yeah. Great insight. Uh, and thanks for taking questions. I'll, I'll turn it over. Sure thing.
spk04: Thank you, Kevin.
spk01: Thank you very much. Your next question is coming from Aaron Edelheit of Mindset Capital. Aaron, your line is live.
spk09: Hi, Rick. I wanted to ask you, last quarter when we talked on the earnings conference call, you kind of alluded to the fact that this was going to be a messy quarter. And when I see the workers' comp, kind of increasing, and I see the SG&A that you're kind of working through very thoughtfully. And I look out to next quarter, based on what I'm hearing, and I don't want to get a false expectation about what I'm hearing from you, is we should see a sequential increase, assuming nothing crazy happens, just from seasonal strength in terms of revenue. you're working off expenses. And so we should see, I mean, it's just your higher revenue and lower expenses. The third quarter should be a much better like EPS quarter. Am I hearing that right? Or is that the right way I should be thinking about that? Maybe this is being the messy trough and plus some of the slowing of the economy?
spk06: So, I mean, the elephant in the room is the economy itself. So I am always cautious in what I say simply because I don't know what the Fed is going to do and how that's going to impact business. And, or for that matter, you know, downgrades of regional banks. Are they going to start you know, really cutting back on lending on commercial projects and things like that. There's a lot of things that could affect what I'm saying right now. So realizing everything that I say could be totally different a week from now. That said, third quarter is our strongest quarter, typically. And sequentially, it should be better. As I said in answering one of the questions was, you know, if though that it continues to weaken, what we would have gained by a better quarter we might lose because of a weaker economy. And so I want to leave that open. It certainly shouldn't be, from a sales standpoint, it certainly shouldn't be worse than the second quarter. Worst case, it shouldn't be. And as some of the costs that we dropped in the second quarter, you know, in the midst of it, we should have the benefit in the third quarter of them being completely out. And so I definitely believe that SG&A will be with the exception of workers' comp, which is somewhat unpredictable. One of the parts of the workers' comp that has made the comparisons bad, we had benefited from the runoff of some old Snellen claims, which was in our presentations in the past. And so part of it, we had some unfavorable comparisons but those should start going away as well. We've had three quarters in a row now where workers comp has been a drag on earnings and not a positive. Well, sooner or later that should, you know, that should level off again as the benefit that we have from selling falls away. And, um, you know, we should benefit from that. There are other expenses. beyond personnel that again, we dropped in the second quarter that should be fully reflected in the third quarter. So yes, I mean, from my perspective, things should be better now, whether, you know, but I'm not suggesting it's time to break open the champagne either. There are still a lot of clouds out there from the economy and, um, you know, we're hanging in there really, I think it's really well, especially, again, you just have to look at the comparisons to our peers, and we're holding out very well. But I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to be just too celebratory right now either because, you know, things outside of our control can happen.
spk09: Gotcha. So, you know, the, the way that I have been thinking about it, and I think you just are kind of confirming it is you took on a big acquisition. You've been really thoughtful about the expense base, about how it can help you grow in the longterm. We're having a short term hit and shareholders from that SDNA, it's going to slowly start running off. Workers' comp has been elevated more than normal. Then on top, you have kind of a slowing economy. But on the positive side, I guess if I just switch into my next question, and I just want to make sure that I'm as a long-term shareholder, that I'm viewing things the right way. And I know that you're going to caution me, but I think of higher quest as building up a stream of cash flows and you acquired MRI, you kind of, use that line of credit, you can now see you paying off that line of credit every quarter, and your AR is going to peak in Q3. So after it peaks, because of just the seasonality, right, you should pay down even more of that line of credit outside of any acquisitions. And at the same time, so it's kind of like you're reloaded, for hopefully a very full pipeline. And I just wanted to ask more of, it sounds like with the slowing of the economy, what I've always thought of higher quest is that yeah, short term results may be hit a little, but it increases the odds of you getting an acquisition and because, and that you, should be able, you're now in a much, much stronger place because you're just producing cash flow to basically go out and reload. And I wanted to ask specifically about kind of the bid ask of acquisitions is that in terms of what sellers are asking and what you may want to acquire, do you feel it's closer now than it was in the past? And just a little more details about how do you feel about another kind of acquisition before year end?
spk06: So there's a lot in that. There was a lot in that.
spk09: Yeah, no, I'm sorry.
spk06: Let me go back. It's fine. Let me go back to the first part of it. As far as your long-term summation is very close to how I would view it as well. We're out there. trying to grow as much as we can organically. But in the meantime, we're also being aggressive in making accretive acquisitions. And good times, bad times, we're still ultimately building up that revenue stream, right? So we're going to be lumpy as all get up because we keep doing acquisitions. And, you know, it's not like we're sitting there and letting everything sink in for a year and a half before we move on to the next one. And so that absolutely is existing. The other part I want to make sure, because I don't know if I've properly conveyed this. The MRI, as much as we talk about the MRI expenses, I don't want you to think that the MRI deal has done anything. poorly for us. In spite of the fact that it has been more negatively impacted by the recession or at least recessionary factors than HigherQuest Direct and Snelling, frankly, it's still been a profitable acquisition for us. Despite even carrying some of the extra costs that we are now, it has been an accretive acquisition. So I just want to make sure that anybody who's listening understands that it has been a, you know, it has worked, obviously, to the extent that its sales and revenues are down, limits the upside that we would otherwise have been, you know, experiencing. But frankly, it has panned out the way, you know, the way maybe not the way it's supposed to because of the economy, but it is actually panned out well for shareholders, reasonably well given what the economy is. And that's obviously one of those things that once, you know, once the economy straightens back out, that should increase, you know, even more. Now, as far as the second part of your question, one of the, as far as like bid ask and things like that, there are kind of several ways that we can that we can benefit as a, as a buyer from this. One thing is, is a, and I keep sort of saying recession, but we're really, you know, we're, we're in recessions in certain places and in other places, we're not in a recession, at least as in my way of looking at it. And I brought this up in the last quarter, for example, Florida, Texas, there's, there's no way to look at it as being in a recession. They're, they're, they're performing very well uh at least on the higher quest direct and the snelling side and so um you know it's hard for me to sit there and say recession because it doesn't really doesn't really apply in a lot of the markets that were that were in but to the extent that it does in other markets it creates distress in some of the companies and it will absolutely bring the price down. Um, some, and obviously one of the biggest ways that we can ultimately benefit, we don't, we only hit these in one out of, you know, maybe one out of five acquisitions, but I look at something like the Snelling acquisition. Uh, you know, we had a book of $5.6 million bargain purchase agreement and we probably, you know, made another few million bucks on running off their workers comp. So I mean, That deal literally, we almost got it for free when push comes to shove. And so we're obviously hopefully going to be the beneficiary of somebody who overextended themselves and we're going to be able to sort of find them right at the right time. That being said, we don't have to do that either. If we just find a good company at a fair price, that works out okay for us as well. The tricky part for us is simply it has to fit our geography it has to fit sort of where our network is and the seller you know a lot of times and we have a whole laundry list of things that we look for and so we are pretty choosy but an uncertain economy makes it so that a lot of people are more willing to sell because they want to they want to grab what they have and maybe for the last three years, they've been making a lot of extra money and they see it starting to decline and they're more anxious to sell. And then we have an easier time getting to the, you know, getting to the right, getting to the right price. But all that being said, you know, the deals have been there for the last, available for the last four years. And so I'm not trying to say either that we have five times as many deals available to us now than what we did a year ago. But we do, but there is there are more, I will say that. And we are, we have the exact same attitude. And I want to say one last point, you brought up the point as far as our borrowings and stuff like that. And it's absolutely accurate as well that, you know, for most of the year, our borrowings have been heavier than what they have historically been. but those borrowings keep coming down. And a year ago, we were borrowing at something like 3.25% or something like that, and much smaller borrowings. But now we're borrowing at 6.5%, 7%, whatever it is, on a much higher amount. And so that has impacted our earnings as well. Even if no decent acquisitions come about, that money keeps you know, that money keeps rolling in and we will benefit from some, you know, I think our interest expense for the quarter was up, you know, $700,000 or something like that, which, you know, which makes a difference too. And if we do nothing at the rate we're going, you know, it'll be, you know, pay off in three, four quarters and that'll go away and that'll be added income that way. Of course, I would expect an acquisition before then. I'm not saying there's one now, but I'm saying that I would certainly expect one because we've done most of the work that we've needed to do on MRI, and so we're in a position where operationally, we can absolutely do an acquisition. It's just a question of coming to the right buyer and the right price, or right seller, I'm sorry, and the right price.
spk09: Well, great. Well, thank you, Rick, and happy hunting. Thank you.
spk01: Thank you very much. Just as a reminder, if anyone has any remaining questions, please press star 1 on your phone keypad now. Your next question is coming from Mike Albanese of EF Hutton. Mike, your line is live.
spk08: Yeah, hi, Rick. Thanks for taking my question here. A lot of great insights on the call, as usual. I just got a quick one for you, kind of returning back to the macro, I guess. Obviously, demand is softening. Can you just tell me what you're seeing, generally speaking, regarding wages?
spk06: So, wages have continued to go up. part of it is in many of the states that we operate in have brought you know have minimum wage escalators and while we don't typically pay minimum wage it definitely impacts particularly in the higher class direct in the snelling divisions it impacts even people who are making more than minimum wage and so there has definitely been a fair bit of pressure on wages Again, just simply because legally the minimum wage keeps going up.
spk08: Got it. Would you say, I mean, just relative or comparing to, you know, the growth you've seen in wages over the previous quarters, is it decelerating? Is it accelerating? Or is it just kind of the same trend continuing?
spk06: I would say there's still a lot of pressure upwards. Okay. Okay. Maybe not. And now that said, it's certainly not, you know, the second quarter of 2021 in particular. You know, there was a lot of upwards pressure then. I'm not suggesting that it's like that either. But again, there is just a constant, there really is a constant shortage. Look, I was on a, I was flying through Minneapolis the other day and, you know, there's You've got a restaurant in the middle of the airport. It was closed until 2 o'clock because they didn't have enough people.
spk08: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Sure thing.
spk01: Thank you very much. We have now reached the end of our question and answer session, and I will now turn the call back over to the management for closing comments.
spk06: Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us on the call. We you know, obviously wish the economy was a bit stronger and we would have had a bit better results. That said, I think, again, when you look at our results compared to our peers and you factor in the workers' comp obstacles we've had, I think you'd agree that we have performed pretty well given the circumstances. And As we try to convey every time as well, we're focused on the long term, and our results will be lumpy throughout. But that's why we retain a conservative balance sheet so that we have opportunities, that we're able to jump on opportunities. And so again, I thank you for your time and your interest, and we look forward to the future. Thank you and have a good night.
spk01: Thank you very much. This does conclude today's conference and you may disconnect your phone lines at this time. Thank you for your
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