Lincoln Educational Services Corporation

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q1 2023 Lincoln Educational Service Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising that your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Michael Polivio. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Latonia, and good morning, everyone. Before the market opened today, Lincoln Educational Services issued its news release reporting financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2023. The release is available on the investor relations portion of the company's corporate website at www.lincolntech.edu. Joining us today on the call are Scott Shaw, President and CEO, and Brian Myers, Chief Financial Officer. Today's call is being broadcast live on the company's website and replay of the call will be archived on the company's website. Statements made by Lincoln's management on today's call regarding the company's business that are not historical facts may be forward-looking statements as the term is identified in federal securities laws. The words may, will, expect, believe, anticipate, project, plan, intend, estimate, and continue, as well as similar expressions, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements should not be read as guarantee of future performance or results. The company cautions you that these statements reflect current expectations about the company's future performance or events and are subject to a number of uncertainties, risks, and other influences, many of which are beyond the company's that may influence the accuracy of the statements and the projections upon which the segments and statements are based. Factors that may affect the company's results include, but are not limited to, the risks and uncertainties discussed in the risk factor section of the annual report on Form 10-K and the quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Overlooking statements are based on the information available at the time those statements are made in management's good faith belief as of the time with respect to the future event. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement, and Lincoln takes no obligation to publicly revise or update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise after the date thereof. Now, I'll hand the call over to Scott Shaw, President and CEO of Lincoln Educational Services. Scott, please go ahead.

Thank you, Michael, and welcome, everyone. We had a great start to 2023 with revenue growing nearly 7%, starts from ongoing campuses growing 6.4%, and adjusted EBITDA from those campuses growing more than 15%. We continue to make good progress on our key growth initiatives, including implementing our hybrid teaching model, centralizing our financial aid application process, launching 10 new programs at our existing campuses, and developing our newest campus in the Atlanta area. The progress we made with starts in the first quarter follows the 4.7% student start growth we generated in the fourth quarter. Moreover, our momentum continues in the second quarter and has increased our confidence. And with this greater visibility, we are increasing our revenue and earnings outlook for the full year while still forecasting solid year-over-year student start growth. Brian will review our guidance specifics during his remarks. A few weeks ago, I read an article on Time Magazine titled, How America Started to Fall Out of Love with College Degrees. I encourage you all to read this article. It's quite fascinating and I believe supports the view that college isn't for everyone. We have discussed some of the dynamics mentioned in the article on prior calls. However, in 2019, Americans ranked preparing for college 10th on a survey conducted by Populous, a nonpartisan think tank, which asks respondents every year to rank answers to the question, excuse me, What is the purpose of education? In 2022, respondents ranked it 47 out of 57 items. We've seen both in terms of the financial meltdown in 2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic, students are continuing to question the value of a college degree, and even more so, we are experiencing conversations at the high school level that were not happening 5, 10, and 15 years ago. This is good news for organizations such as Lincoln Tech, that are an alternative to college and provide a faster, more affordable way to start a career. Key to leveraging this shift in growing our company and building returns to our stock shareholders is our new hybrid teaching model, which we began to implement at our campuses in 2022. This model delivers our programs with hands-on learning on campus, combined with a greater component of classwork delivered through online instruction. It enables our students to work part-time or manage other commitments while they pursue their Lincoln education, which will enable a higher percentage of students to graduate. The model provides greater flexibility, efficiency, and overall capacity at our existing campuses and was a major factor behind our growing first quarter revenue from campus operations by more than $5 million. Transitioning to our hybrid teaching model is going well, and as we forecasted, has resulted in increased instructional costs in the near term. We will be transitioning campuses and programs to this new model for the next 24 months. And as more and more programs complete their transition from being 100% on ground into the hybrid model, we will increasingly gain leverage from the model, starting with significant savings coming in the latter half of 2024. Our second major growth initiative is centralizing our financial aid process. Once fully operational, we believe centralizing this critical function will accelerate financial aid applications and assist in our effort to build student starts. As with the hybrid model, we are making investments during 2023, but we'll see improvements faster than with the hybrid transition. We expect to see stronger start rates later this year, followed by cost savings in 2024. The expansion of our corporate partnerships is a major factor behind the continued demand for Lincoln graduates. When we last talked with you in March, we told you about the launch of the Johnson Controls Academy at our Columbia, Maryland campus. The creation of the academy evolved from a successful five-year partnership between our two companies and aims to onboard approximately 130 or more new technicians each year for Johnson Controls. Meanwhile, the new Tesla partnership, which enrolled its first class at our Denver campus back in December, is expanding to our Columbia, Maryland campus with classes starting later this year. We also established an advanced training program for Peterbilt for our diesel graduates, and Hunter Engineering established a training center at our Denver campus with their most sophisticated alignment equipment, which our students will use as well as Hunter Engineering customers and professionals. As I've said any number of times before, our partnerships give our students greater career opportunities and help us enrich the education and training a Lincoln Tech student receives. We are currently in discussions with some of our other corporate partners to expand their relationships. Our company blazed the trail in terms of creating innovative, customized training programs for many corporations needing to add skilled talent to their workforce to meet growth objectives. and our students are directly benefiting from the expanded lucrative career opportunities created through these partnerships. In recent months, an additional potential driver of demand for our style of training and for our graduates is emerging at some of our campuses. Local governments, traditional nonprofit colleges, and industry associations have begun approaching Lincoln to explore ways we can provide training solutions to help meet the continued demand for a skilled workforce. The realization that our country and our employers need more skilled, hands-on talent is growing. And as it grows, Lincoln's position as a leader with quality programs and graduates continues to attract interest. We will explore these opportunities and move forward with those that provide the greatest benefits. As we mentioned back in March, our objective is to add 10 programs at existing campuses by the first quarter of 2025. This organic growth generates the fastest and highest return on investment as we leverage our existing infrastructure, campus management, and market knowledge. We anticipate that these 10 new programs will reach their full run rate after approximately three years of operation, at which time each is expected to provide an average of $1 million in added profitability annually. We made solid progress on this initiative during the quarter through the launch of a new medical assistant program at our East Windsor campus and electrical program at our Allentown, Pennsylvania campus. We are targeting one additional launch by the year end, with the remainder opening in 2024. In addition to the electrical and medical assisting programs I just mentioned, we are focused on adding HVAC, welding, and automotive. Combined, these five programs are some of our most successful and in-demand curriculums. Our fourth growth initiative is to develop one new campus per year for the next five years. The first such results from the initiative is our second campus location in Atlanta. The build out of this campus continues as we work through local regulatory approvals and are aiming for our first classes at this facility to begin by the first quarter of next year. We continue to expect that within four years of its opening, the 56,000 square foot facility will be generating approximately $20 million in annual revenue and $5 million in annual EBITDA. Even with the investments in our growth initiatives, our debt-free balance sheet remains strong. We continue to support our stock buyback initiative and will increase our cash balances by the end of the second quarter with the expected sale of our Nashville property. With the success we have generated from our hybrid teaching model, centralized financial aid, and program expansion, we are building a more scalable and higher return business. Continued strong demand for our programs, combined with the efficiency and growth from the investment in our operations, which includes the early contribution from our new Atlanta, Georgia campus, enable us to forecast that our adjusted EBITDA will approximately double from 2022 levels by 2025. I should note that our initiatives are predicated on the current environment of moderate economic growth high employment rates, and no recession. With that said, we are benefiting from a positive trend of individuals considering hands-on careers. Our leads are increasing as are our enrollments. And once all the changes with our centralized financial aid processes are completed, we should be better able to capitalize on this increased demand with even more new starts despite the challenging environment. Should economic growth deteriorate and historic trends from such a condition repeat, we are poised to benefit even more and with our new hybrid model can efficiently scale up to meet higher levels of demand. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2023, the headwinds of a low employment economy are tempering somewhat, although the demand for highly skilled students remains strong. As I mentioned earlier, we are well positioned to achieve all guidance metrics for the full year, which would position us to generate long-term growth for all of our stakeholders in the years ahead. Now I'll turn the call over to Brian for a review of our first quarter financial results and 2023 outlook. Brian?

Thanks, Scott. Good morning. I'll review a few operational developments before turning to our first quarter financial results and outlook for 2023. First, during the first quarter, the company repurchased 104,000 shares at an average price of $5.34 under the share repurchase plan that was extended and expanded by our board of directors earlier this year. Since May 2022, we've repurchased 10 million shares of stock buying back 1.7 million shares. Lincoln has 30 million remaining under its current share repurchase authorization available through May 2024. Second, we continue to make progress toward the opening of our new Atlantic campus, which will welcome students in early 2024. During the first quarter, we incurred approximately $250,000 of startup costs and $1.5 million of capital expenditures. Turning to our financial results. First, effective this quarter, we updated our segment reporting structure. We now have a simplified structure with one segment containing all our active campuses, our transitional segment, and corporate. The campus operations segment includes all our all of our campuses except the single campus reported under the transitional segment. The transitional segment includes any campus approved for closure. It includes our Somerville, Massachusetts campus, which will close this year. I'll note that we have no plans to close any additional campuses. Corporate, which includes unallocated expenses incurred on behalf of the entire company. Due to changes in student demand, more and more of our campuses already or in the near future will offer a combination of automotive, skilled trade, and nursing programs. As a result, our historical segment reporting in which each campus was placed in either the transportation and skilled trades or healthcare and other professional segments no longer reflects the way in which we operate the business. The new simplified reporting represents our current operations. I will note that our press release does provide information regarding student starts and population at our active campuses based on program type with the categories being transportation and skilled trades and healthcare and other professions. Since this breakdown is now based on actual programs rather than the old campus segment basis, it better reflects the trends in our student population. Now I'll review our first quarter excluding the transitional segment with our Somerville campus closure. Revenues during the first quarter increased 6.9% or $5.6 million to $86.4 million. The drivers of this increase was, one, a 9% increase in average revenue per student, two, a 6.4% increase in student starts, which improved our population as the quarter progressed, and three, higher revenue from our corporate partnerships. We are very pleased with our solid organic growth in Q1 and the student demand seen so far during the second quarter. The robust average revenue per student growth over prior year was driven by both tuition increases and our new hybrid teaching model, which increases program efficiencies and accelerate the daily rate, particularly in our evening programs. Consolidating operating expenses were at 87.3 million, up 7.7 percent over the prior year, including several one-time costs, such as our new Atlantic campus startup costs, severance, and other non-recurring expenses. Excluding one-time expenses, total operating costs would have been approximately $86 million, in line with our expectations. As a side note, on January 1, 2023, Lincoln adopted a new accounting pronouncement commonly referred to as CECL. Under the CECL standard, companies are required to develop an expected credit loss methodology based on historical data combined with both current conditions and anticipated future developments. Accordingly, the cumulative impact from the CECL adoption was recorded as a reduction to retained earnings of $7.9 million net of tax impact. Outside of this entry on our balance sheet, the change in methodology did not have a material impact to our first quarter income statement. Our adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was $2.1 million after the airback of non-cash and non-recurring items. Please refer to the adjusted EBITDA details in our non-GAAP schedules reflected our Q1 earnings reliefs. Due to the previously mentioned robust growth in revenue per student and effective expense controls, this profitability was slightly ahead of our internal plan for the quarter. We are very pleased with the financial performance of our campuses at adjusted EBITDA increased by 1.5 million compared to the prior year, representing a 15% improvement while revenue grew nearly 7%. Shifting to our strong balance sheet. At quarter end, we had total cash of nearly 60 million and continued to have no debt outstanding. While our cash flow from our operations were essentially flat, We consider this to be a strong performance as we historically see negative cash from ops during the first quarter due to our seasonality. The first quarter includes the benefit of the receipt of Title IV funds that were delayed at year end, which we discussed on the last call. We continue to explore securing a new credit facility to expand our financial resources as we identify and pursue additional growth initiatives. Lincoln Strong Financial Position is attracted to lenders and we look forward to providing an update as soon as negotiations are completed in the near future. Finally, given our strong start to the year in Q1 and the current outlook for the remainder of the year, we're making an upward revision to our previously financial guidance. For the full year 2023, our current outlook for revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted net income is as follows. Revenue in the range of $355 million to $365 million. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $21 million to $25 million. Adjusted net income in the range of $9 million to $12 million. The outlook for student starts of 5% to 10% and capital expenditures in the range of $35 million to $40 million remain unchanged. With that, I'll conclude my remarks by thanking our entire team, including our faculty and students, for their outstanding efforts. We look forward to communicating our progress finally in the second quarter, and now I'll turn the call back over to the operator so we can take your questions. Operator?

Certainly. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

One moment for our first question.

And our first question will come from Alex Paris of Barrington Research. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions, and congratulations on the beaten race.

Thanks, Alex, and good morning.

A couple questions. First off, looks like starts were strong in both programs, meaning transportation and skilled trades. healthcare and other professions up 6.2% and up 6.7% respectively. Is there anything you want to call out about that strong result? It was obviously better than I had forecast. I think you said in the prepared comments that headwinds are capering with regard to this full employment economy. Have you gotten any lift from rising unemployment? I don't know if that rising unemployment's really hit your target market yet at this point?

Yeah, I would say that we've gotten nothing from rising unemployment with certainly the ones that I've heard that have been unemployed or high-tech individuals. And as far as I know, none of them have come to us to get a good, solid career, but maybe they should. But, you know, I think that what we're seeing is maybe some of the comments I referred to were just for this greater awareness that I think that people are looking for alternatives And there is certainly a lot of discussion out there in the public domain about the shortages for electricians and other such people that I think that that is making people more receptive and aware that they should look at these careers. And as a leader, someone that's been doing it for so many years, we're a natural place for people to turn to. So we're seeing that. We are spending more in our marketing initiatives, but they're proving fruitful. The unemployment rate is still very, very low. yet we're seeing much greater success, frankly, than I would have anticipated. And as we alluded to, you know, second quarter, it all seems to be continuing quite nicely.

Great. And then I appreciate the shift towards the more streamlined reporting, you know, given the changes as a result of rolling out programs to the campuses and so on. I did appreciate the starts average population and end-of-period population by program within campus operations. Is that something that you'll be giving on a go-forward basis as well, or is that just a transitional thing that you're giving us?

Yeah, go ahead. No, we plan on doing that each quarter going forward as well.

Okay, good. Thanks.

It's a pure read, too, Alex, because we are kind of grouping the like programs, whereas As we were starting to make this transition and start blending more and more of the programs, even though we said automotive and skilled trades, there was some healthcare in that and vice versa. There were some skilled trades in our hops before. So now you'll have a much clearer picture, at least from a population standpoint, of where the demand is.

Great. And then moving on, the 10 new programs that you're going to launch over the next 21 months that included – Two programs launched in Q1, medical assisting and electrical. And then the balance, you'll only have one more before year-end and then the remainder in 2024. Is there any changing? Has there been any change to that rollout schedule at all?

Well, it is a little bit delayed. We're, to be honest, hoping to have more this year. But what we're finding is the regulatory bodies, the state agency, everyone seems to be understaffed. And things that should take three months take four, five, six months to get approvals. So it has delayed some of our rollouts, but just delayed it by a quarter to be more in the first quarter of 2024. Otherwise, things are certainly on track to get the 10 new programs up and running.

Okay, and the same question on the Atlanta campus. You expect your first class in the first quarter of 2024. Just remind me, is that the same as the most recent guidance or has that been delayed?

it's been delayed a little bit again we were anticipating at the fourth quarter of this year there's still an opportunity potentially to have it open in the fourth quarter of this year but uh it's just taken us much longer to get a sewer permit than one ever thought possible um and that's what's delayed that opening otherwise construction's moving well we we've purchased equipment in advance so we don't have those delays Again, it's at these local levels and different communities and advisory boards that seem to be slowing things down. So it could be – we safely say it will be the first quarter of next year.

And we did communicate that as well at year end that it was going to be in the first quarter of 2024. Okay, great.

That's what I thought. Last question as to timing. You still expect the Nashville sale to close here in Q2? Yes, we do. Okay. Great. Thank you very much for answering my questions. I'll get back in the queue.

Great. Thanks, Alex. One moment for our next question. And our next question will come from Stephen Frankel of Rosenblatt Securities. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thank you. Scott, could you give us some color on your incoming high school class, especially given the comments you're making about people feeling like everybody doesn't have to go to college.

Sure. Well, we definitely are seeing more receptivity. Obviously, high schools are open again. So we're out into more high schools this year than we were last year. And we're seeing certainly anticipating strong high school starts in the second quarter. And we continue to see strong interest in the third quarter. So we anticipate that our high school program will certainly be greater this year than it was last year.

Which is positive and just remind me in a normal year with. Full out code, but in a normal year, or kind of what percentage of students come directly from high school and given the dynamics you're seeing today, what do you expect it to be this year?

It's still around 20% of our population is from the high school marketplace. So I'm not anticipating, you know, frankly, dramatic increases there. Oddly enough, we're seeing stronger increases in our adult market, even though unemployment is so low.

But we're seeing good, solid interest from our high school market. Okay.

That's great. as you look at that pipeline for the rest of the year, any color on how that breaks down between healthcare and skilled trades?

Yeah. I mean, we don't get nearly as many students going into healthcare from the high school market. I don't have it in front of me, but I would guess it's probably easily 75% or 80% in the transportation skilled trades is where our high school students come from. And There are some that go into healthcare, but not nearly as many.

I'm sorry. I was talking about in general. Step back and look at your full pipeline. Oh, the full pipeline.

And those working through it. Yep. Yeah, we're continuing to see growth on both sides, just like we did this quarter, without any discipline really taking the lead over the other. We continue to see stronger lead growth and enrollment growth, frankly, in the second quarter than in the first quarter. So beyond that, you know, it's still too early for me to predict our adult market going into third and fourth quarter.

Great. Thank you.

No problem, Steven. One moment for our next question.

And our next question comes from Eric Martinuzzi of Lake Street Capital Markets. Your line is open.

When did the tuition increase go into effect and did that have any impact on the conversions?

I don't think it had any impact on conversions. We usually put it in the beginning of the year. So last year's tuition increases, they went in, you know, towards the second quarter. That's why in the first quarter of 2023, we're seeing the 2022 increases in that quarter. Similar to this year's increases, we'll start seeing that as well in the second quarter. But the second quarter should start having the prior year tuition increases in there.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And then the centralized financial aid effort, I think you said you have seven of the 22 campuses. How are we doing on bringing on board the rest of them?

Yeah, we anticipate bringing them on board before the end of the second quarter, so that they'll be in before the financial aid, I'll say, year completes on June 30th.

Okay, I'm not sure if I'll, the Q2.

It'll be done by the end of Q2. Right.

Okay, all right. They all should be on the new software. I think the exact date might be July, but they all should be in the new software by July. All schools.

All right. And then, excuse me, the... You know, the outlook for the full year, I appreciate the raise. It's always good to see a beaten guide up. But I was surprised it wasn't a little bit more incremental adjusted EBITDA on the $7.5 million of revenue bump up. Is there an expense category that is, you know, turning out to be a little bit more stubborn than you originally thought?

Yeah. Some of it is within instructional as well as books and tools. Some increases, you know, higher than our budget, but as well as when you have the better performance, pay incentives does get increased as well.

Say that last part again.

So, pay incentives, as we make, you know, as EBITDA increases and revenue increases, pay incentives does increase as well.

Gotcha. Okay. Thanks for taking my questions. No problem. Thank you, Eric.

Again, if you do have a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Again, press star 1-1. And our next question will come from Raj Sharma of V. Riley. Your line is open.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I have a couple of just sort of clarifications. A, so you still expect Nashville to close in May? Any additional color there? You still expect it to the same terms as you'd agreed on? Any change there?

Well, we expect to be very similar. We're still, frankly, having some, I'll say, final discussions with them. But yes, it should be closing in the next 30 days or so, more or less around the same terms, if not the same terms.

Got it. Great. And then you just mentioned you talked about these local government programs in addition to the Tesla, the Johnson Controls. Can you talk about the magnitude or just a little bit more color, what kind of programs this would be? Are they entirely corporate paid and not involving Title IV?

Yeah. Actually, good question. It definitely is not involving Title IV, but it's frankly some local high schools coming to us looking for building their skilled trades programs for their students because they realize that not everyone is going to go to college. And so now they want to increase the opportunities for those students. So it's a totally different market than what we serve today. And if we're successful in landing one of these, it also becomes a great feeder for our programs. So what's most exciting to me is just this greater realization that we need more skilled trades people and people at all levels of education are starting to realize that more. And the more people that do realize that, that will certainly benefit Lincoln both in the short term and the long term.

Got it. Just sensing from the commentary, it seems like there's incrementally positive, you know, results sort of expected. You obviously changed the guidance. Expenses are a little higher too. But the starts, what do you attribute the 5% to 10% rise in starts? in a still very low, record low unemployment environment?

Well, I have to give credit to our marketing folks.

Has that changed? Right.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think that, again, since we did raise guidance, certainly holding in, if not getting a little more robust, I think we are getting our message out. I think that our admissions folks are effective in conveying that message. as we look to become more streamlined and efficient. Hopefully that's adding to our ability to communicate to our students as well. And again, I think there is this general greater awareness that skilled trades and these hands-on careers are an alternative to going to college. Again, it doesn't have to be everyone that thinks this way, nor should everyone think this way. But incrementally, I think more people are realizing that there's a faster, cheaper way to get a job, and Lincoln certainly helps provide that. And that's a message we're trying to convey to the public. We're trying to convey to the people that reach out to us. We have strong results and good outcomes. We have more companies coming to us because of their dire need for people. So everything is really moving in our direction, which is a positive change.

Yes. I mean, even on the high school fronts, this seems to be a really positive development, right? High school is coming and asking you to have a program for skilled trades. When was the last time a high school did that?

Never.

Right. So is it fair to say that this – 5% to 10% growth and start actually improves if unemployment rises from here or things get a little worse in the economy?

Given history, I would say yes. It should get better.

Right. And also, I know the last call you had talked a lot about the results in fiscal 24 being impacted, you know, showing – the real run rate of the business. This rise, is it fair to say, flows through into fiscal 24 as well?

Well, certainly, as we continue to build momentum and have a larger carry in the population, that will only help us and accelerate our progress. And that will bode well for us.

Right. Great. Great. Thank you for taking my questions. I'll take it offline. Thanks.

Thanks, Raj. I look forward to being at your conference later this month.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, same here. Bye-bye.

Again, as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again.

And I'm showing no further questions.

I would now like to turn the call back to Scott Shaw for closing remarks.

Great. Thank you all for joining us today. I also would like to thank the hundreds of men and women of Lincoln Tech who strive each day to better serve our students. Our motto is put your potential to work, and it is the care and support that our employees provide that brings this motto to reality for thousands of graduates every year. 2023 is an exciting year for Lincoln Tech as we transition our company for the future And as our strong results in the first quarter demonstrate, we are on our way. Thank you again, and we look forward to sharing our continued progress later in the summer. Have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.