Aramark

Good morning and welcome to Aramark's fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2022 Earnings Results conference call. My name is Livia and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded for rebroadcast and that all participants are on a listen-only mode. We will open the conference call for questions at the conclusion of the company's remarks. I will now turn the call over to Felice Cassell, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs. Ms. Cosell, please proceed.

Thank you, and welcome to Aramark's earnings conference call and webcast. I hope all of you are doing well. This morning, we will be hearing from our Chief Executive Officer, John Dillmer, as well as our Chief Financial Officer, Tom Ondra. As a point of reference, there will be accompanying slides for this call that can be viewed through the webcast. These slides will be made available following our prepared remarks also for easy reference. Additionally, our notice regarding forward-looking statements is included in our press release this morning, which can be found on our website. During this call, we will be making comments that are forward-looking. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied as a result of various risks uncertainties, and important factors, including those discussed in the risk factors and DNA and other sections of our annual report on Form 10-K and our other SEC filings. We will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these items to U.S. GAAP can be found in this morning's press release, as well as on our website. So with that, I will now turn the call over to Don.

Thanks, please. And thanks to all of you for joining us. This morning, Tom and I will review our fourth quarter performance and briefly recap our progress throughout fiscal 22. We'll also preview the year ahead that is anticipated to build upon the strong momentum the business has established over the past couple of years. And finally, we will provide an update on the previously announced uniformed services spinoff transaction, which is expected to occur in the second half of fiscal 23. As I think about the past year, I am incredibly proud of our teams across the globe who have embodied the client-focused, profitable growth culture we set out to establish. Despite a challenging and complex operating environment, we were able to demonstrate significant value for clients and deliver on our strategic priorities. Our ability to achieve the highest annual revenue in Aramark's history, combined with a second consecutive year of record net new business, is a testament to the exceptional talent embedded throughout our organization. Aramark's strong growth performance was broad-based, coming from multiple lines of business and geographies, as well as from clients both large and small. Annualized gross new business wins exceeded $1.6 billion, representing 10% of pre-COVID fiscal 19 revenues, and retention rates were once again above 95% as we sustained a step-change improvement. and client retention. Collectively, this resulted in $790 million of net new business, which is more than 50% higher than fiscal 21 and over eight and a half times greater than the company's historical five-year average between fiscal 16 through fiscal 20. This exceptional level of net new business represents nearly 5% of our pre-COVID fiscal 19 revenues, already at the top end of the 4% to 5% range provided in our endless day financial algorithms. Again, our growth extended across all segments during the fiscal year. Our U.S. food and facilities segment delivered over $400 million of net new business, more than 40% higher than fiscal 21 and about 20 times higher than fiscal 19, driven by strong retention and significant gross new business wins, particularly in facilities, healthcare, and corrections. International also reached a new milestone with nearly $300 million of net new business, more than double last year. There have been significant wins across the portfolio, ranging in size from small startup operations to large multi-site accounts like Merlin, which you may recall was the largest win in the company's history, awarded earlier this year. Even excluding Merlin, net new business performance reflected a record result for the international segment, a testament to our growth strategies and consistent success of our team. Uniform Services continued its strong growth momentum with net new business more than 25% higher than fiscal 21, and retention rates maintained a significant improvement from last year. The continuous investment in the Uniform sales force and ongoing focus on customer experience have driven sustainable success in new business wins and vertical sales opportunities. Across the portfolio, we capitalized on greater first-time outsourcing opportunities, with over 45% of our wins coming from sell-off conversions, including six of our top ten largest wins this year in the U.S. alone. With our robust pipeline and commitment to drive profitable growth, I remain confident in our ability to achieve our growth targets and drive our business to even greater heights. I'd now like to review Aramark's financial performance in the fourth quarter. Despite unprecedented global inflation levels, our teams remain focused on providing high-quality service while simultaneously working closely with clients to mitigate costs and implement pricing increases. In the quarter, pricing contributed more than 6% to revenue growth. Moreover, we are leveraging our robust supply chain to gain real-time insights for effective pricing strategies tailored to specific clients, sectors, and geographies. The pricing environment is something we will continue to actively monitor and address as appropriate. Our results in the fourth quarter continued to build, both on the top and bottom line, reflecting record-level net growth, pricing, and effective cost management through ongoing base recovery. Organic revenue grew 26% year-over-year, reaching 113% of pre-COVID levels, and the AOI margin increased nearly 140 basis points. on a constant currency basis compared to the fourth quarter last year. Within U.S. food and facilities, organic revenue rose 26% year over year with contribution from all sectors. Education experienced its typical seasonal slowdown in the summer months and is now off to a strong start in the new academic year as we welcome back students and educators in both collegiate hospitality and student nutrition at the end of our fiscal fourth quarter. Our teams have introduced new concepts, including innovative culinary offerings, technological advances, and enhanced dining spaces. Where appropriate and possible, we've worked closely with clients to implement additional pricing actions for board plans and on-campus retail outlets. Sports, leisure, and corrections continued its positive performance trajectory. Sports and entertainment maintained high attendance levels with better than historic per capita spending across event categories. I also want to take this opportunity to congratulate our clients, the Philadelphia Phillies and Houston Astros, for both reaching the World Series. Destinations had greater guest activity year over year despite unforeseen weather and fire challenges at certain sites, and corrections reported growth led by record-level new business wins during the year. Our workplace experience group showed progress as return to office continued across the portfolio, particularly in September. We were providing clients with solution-oriented services customized to their specific needs, with the transition back to P&L contracts occurring as volumes increase. Healthcare Plus recorded increased patient and retail activity, as well as benefited from the contribution of a significantly higher net growth from newly awarded client contracts, improved retention rates, and success in providing additional services to existing clients. Facilities and other drove performance through ongoing demand in core business offerings at existing client locations and had a strong level of new wins throughout the year, largely from self-op conversions. International organic revenue grew 39% compared to the fourth quarter last year, driven by higher per capita spending at sports and entertainment venues, particularly in Europe, and increased B&I activity across the portfolio. Similar to the U.S., education internationally was largely closed in the summer, and resumed activity at high levels with the start of the fall semester. And another year of consistent net growth in international continued to drive strong results, creating additional scale across geographies. Organic revenue in the uniformed services segment increased 8% year over year, driven by both recurring rentals and adjacency services. Kim and the team remain focused on building upon their momentum and executing on strategic growth initiatives across the estimated $40 billion market in North America. We're making progress on the planned tax-free spin-off of this business into an independent company, and we'll be sharing further details in the new year regarding this strategic transaction. I also want to reiterate that we expect to be able to complete the transaction under the terms of our existing debt agreements, and we believe that with our prudent capital structure strategy in place, which Tom will review, both companies will be positioned for great success. Lastly, I'd like to spend a moment sharing some recent initiatives focused on one of our core goals, contributing to the greater good, with our focus on people and planet. First, last month, we submitted our proposed greenhouse gas reduction targets for validation by the Science-Based Target Initiative. Next, in partnership with the Humane Society, we announced our commitment that by 2025, at least 44% of our residential dining menu offerings will be plant-based. Third, we find the Pacific Coast food waste commitment as an extension of our existing pledge to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030. And finally, I want to commend the passion exhibited by thousands of Aramark teams who worked around the world on a recent Aramark Building Community Day, which consisted of service projects to reduce inequity, support and grow local communities, and protect the planet. Our people truly are the cornerstone of everything we do, and this day of impact, among many, It's just one example that speaks volumes of the special culture we have created. I will now turn the call over to Tom for a detailed financial review of the business.

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. Our results in the fourth quarter, and in fact our performance throughout the entire fiscal year, reflect the resolve of our teams across the globe to execute on our growth-driven strategy. Despite ongoing macroeconomic challenges, We continue to stay focused on delivering top and bottom line improvement and remain committed to our long-term priorities. At Analyst Day, we shared our plans to reestablish a growth culture, rebuild the hospitality field-focused mindset, build margin through scale, and de-lever through focused cash management. This strategy is yielding positive results, and it's just the beginning. As John mentioned, we signed an historic high of $1.6 billion of annualized gross new businesses in the year, and our client-focused, field-empowered approach delivered retention rates above 95% once again, resulting in record net new business levels. Revenue and profits are on the rebound, cash flow is rebuilding, and leverage is reducing, keeping us on track to achieve our fiscal 25 goals. Before reviewing our fiscal 23 outlook, I want to first provide some additional insights on our fiscal 22 financial results. In the fourth quarter, organic revenue grew 26% year over year to $4.5 billion and exceeded $16.3 billion for the full year, up 35% compared to the last fiscal year. Performance was driven by strong net new business, pricing pass-through, and ongoing recovery of COVID-related volumes, which at just over 90% of pre-COVID levels for the year, progressed each quarter from an estimated 85% in Q1 to about 95% in Q4. We expect this COVID-related volume recovery to continue to contribute to both revenue and AOI results in fiscal 23, most materially in the first half of the year. Adjusted operating income was $267 million in the quarter, a constant currency increase of 62% compared to the fourth quarter last year, resulting in an AOI margin of 6.2%. Constant currency AOI margin was 6.1% due to an approximate 10 basis point impact from FX. This performance reflects continued AOI margin recovery, with the fourth quarter closing in on 80% of the same quarter pre-COVID margins, compared to 60% in the fourth quarter last year. AOI for the full year was $780 million, resulting in an AOI margin of 4.9%, nearly 250 basis points better than last year's AOI margin on a constant currency basis. This progression was driven by our ability to contain above-unit operational costs and leverage SG&A support across higher sales volumes, as well as benefits from a stabilizing supply chain and tight in-unit cost management. Our teams and partnerships with our clients have been and continue to be actively working to mitigate inflation through the various actions available to us across food, labor, and direct cost categories, and ultimately passing through price as needed and where appropriate. Over the course of the year, we've been gradually able to transition back to preferred suppliers and products as fill rates improved. While there is still much more to go, this year was an important step for a return to normal supply chain operations. In addition, as the supply chain settles and our net new business growth significantly increases our managed spend, we'll work to renegotiate current deals to achieve next generation savings is beginning. We're encouraged by the opportunity in front of us in this area. As we've mentioned before, the significantly higher levels of new business we have delivered over the past two years tend to have a short-term drag on margins due to the related startup costs and natural account profitability ramp. In the interim, these new accounts accelerate our top-line growth and add to dollar profit today and will benefit margin as they mature over time, giving us confidence when combined with the supply chain opportunity and our ability to ultimately exceed pre-COVID AL at margin levels and stay on track to deliver our annual stay margin target. Our results in the quarter led to adjusted EPS of 49 cents on a constant currency basis versus 22 cents in the fourth quarter last year. For the full year, adjusted EPS was $1.20 on a constant currency basis compared to a loss of 29 cents in fiscal 21. FX impacted adjusted earnings per share by one penny in the fourth quarter and by four cents for the year. On a GAAP basis, Aramark reported consolidated revenue of $4.4 billion, operating income of $198 million, and diluted earnings per share of $0.29 for the fourth quarter. For the full fiscal year, consolidated revenue was $16.3 billion, operating income was $628 million, and diluted earnings per share were $0.75. Now turning to cash flow. Consistent with the typical seasonality of our business, the fourth quarter generated a significant cash inflow. Net cash provided by operating activities was $836 million, and free cash flow was $717 million. For the full year, net cash provided by operating activities was $694 million, and free cash flow was $330 million, compared to $282 million in fiscal 21. The year-over-year increase was the result of improved profit performance and slightly lower capital expenditures, partially offset by higher working capital related to net new business growth and recovering base account activity. Our strong cash flow performance combined with significantly higher earnings resulted in an improved leverage ratio of 5.3 times compared to 7.4 times at year-end fiscal 21. We remain on track to reduce leverage below 3.5 times, as mentioned at Analyst Day, and we believe we are well-positioned to navigate the current environment with a net debt portfolio of more than 80% fixed-rate instruments, inclusive of swaps, no significant maturities until 2025, and over $1.8 billion of cash availability at fiscal year-end. The planned uniform spend also creates some degree of flexibility related to our balance sheets. There are a number of different paths to execute the transaction, and we will be strategic in managing the capital structure, particularly in the current environment, in a way that we expect will maximize value for shareholders and best position each independent company for sustained success. We are confident in our ability to complete the spend under our existing debt agreement and that we will not be required to fully or partially replace the existing capital structure other than what we choose to do. We continue to make progress in completing the essential tasks necessary for the separation and look forward to sharing additional details, including distinct financial targets and leverage profiles for each company as we get closer to completing the transaction. So let me wrap up by sharing our outlook for fiscal 2023. Based on our current expectations, we project the following full year total company performance. Organic revenue growth between 11 and 13%, reflecting a slightly higher result than the approximately $18 billion mentioned during the last earnings call. We expect the components of growth to include 4.5% to 5% of net new business, 3% to 4% from recovery of COVID-related volumes weighted to the first half of the year, and 3.5% to 4% pricing, assuming the inflationary environment remains constant as we partner with our clients to balance operating costs for quality service. Adjusted operating income growth of 34% to 39%. With this target, we expect to achieve 97% to 100% of our fiscal 19 pre-COVID AOI dollar levels, inclusive of the contribution from Union Supply Group, a portion of which will remain excluded from our AOI until we lap the acquisition date in June. Following a nearly 250 basis point improvement in AOI margin in fiscal 22, our organic revenue and AOI outlook at the midpoint anticipate another roughly 100 basis point margin progression this coming year. Finally, we expect free cash flow to be in a range of $475 to $525 million before payment of the following items. First, we will make the last of two deferred FICA payments associated with the CARES Act. Like last year, and as previously articulated, we expect to make this payment of approximately $65 million in the first quarter. Second, we anticipate a cash flow impact of approximately $100 to $120 million related to restructuring charges, public company costs, and transaction fees associated with the uniform spend. After these specific items, we expect free cash flow to be in a range of 300 to 350 million. With the benefit of this strong cash flow generation, combined with expected higher operating income, we anticipate our leverage ratio to be between four and four and a half times by the end of fiscal 23. This year is the next significant step on our journey to achieve the fiscal 25 goals we established at Analyst Day. Our strategy is producing results, and we are excited to keep building on this momentum. Thanks for your time this morning. John?

Thank you, Tom. As a company, we've moved from recovery mode to growth mode very quickly, concluding our fiscal year on substantially stronger footing, and believe we are well poised to continue the strategic transformation we set out to achieve back at the beginning of fiscal 20. This year, we achieved the highest annual revenue result in company history, more than doubled our AOI margin compared to last year, and realized a second consecutive year of record net new business performance, exceeding the midpoint of our original target by nearly $200 million. I'm extremely proud of the performance milestones we've accomplished this past year as a global team. Fiscal 23 is just underway with new client wins already occurring, as well as the strong pipeline of opportunities ahead. With our planned strategic initiatives in place, We have big goals for this year and beyond, and we expect the exceptional momentum across the company will enable us to achieve them. Thank you, everyone. And operator, we'd now like to open the call for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star then 11 on your touch phone phone. If you are using a speaker phone, you may need to pick up the handset first before pressing the numbers. In order to accommodate all participants in the question queue, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question coming from the line of Heather Balsky with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Hi, thank you. Two questions on revenue. The first is when you look at your outlook for next year in terms of growth, Can you help us appreciate sort of the macro dynamic you're thinking about and if there is a tougher environment kind of sort of where you think you can, I guess the give and take in your outlook? Thanks.

Yeah. You know, I think a couple things there. We feel as though one of the tailwinds continues to be the outsourcing trend. And the net new business wins. We have an incredibly strong pipeline at the moment as we enter into fiscal 23. So we feel confident about that. The teams are really starting to get stability and sort of a pace to their process that's been built over the last couple of years. So feel good about that. Again, retention rates within our control. And so that feels solid. We actually have probably a lower level of rebid activity this year than we had in 23 than we had in 22. So that's helpful as well. Pricing is a big variable depending on what happens with inflation, as I mentioned. Certainly, we will continue to keep pace between pricing pass-through and mitigation activities. That pricing really did accelerate for us in the second half as it needed to this year. And so as inflation continues to move as it has been, we will go ahead and keep pace. If it mitigates a bit, then that might take some pressure off. And then lastly, the COVID recovery, it's getting harder and harder to track that as we get further and further away from early 2020. And with some recessionary pressures, particularly within business dining, kicking in, it's really hard to segregate those. So those would be the overall comments, I think.

Do you have anything else, John? No, I think that characterizes it well. You know, we're very excited by the revenue achievement that the company has been able to establish. Our teams are very focused on the operating side of the business. We've got great momentum on the new account sales side, very good retention activity. So we're confident in the revenue number, but there are a couple of macroeconomic factors that could impact it next year, and we'll respond aggressively as we always do.

Thank you. And as a follow-up, when you think about pricing on a longer-term basis, if it turns out that we're in a higher-than-normal inflationary environment for multiple years rather than sort of this one or two years, I guess what does that mean for your business, your ability to take price consistently in that type of environment, and your ability to kind of manage that on the margin line as well, taking into account that you did a pretty good job this year?

Yeah, that is absolutely the economic model that we've been operating in for decades. And we've seen different inflationary environments. Both Tom and I have seen it both with high inflationary environments and low inflationary environments over the years. So we expect the business to be able to adjust. Our operators in the field will be able to adjust. And pricing activity will be a significant component of that, and we've got very strong disciplines around it, very strong technology to support and tools to support the pricing initiatives. We give our frontline managers data on a monthly basis with respect to supply chain activity and food cost inflation. So they have the tools in place. in order to manage this. And as you know, we run the business with literally weekly P&L, so our frontline managers are constantly adjusting to the realities that they're operating in, and we expect to be able to continue to mitigate those inflationary pressures, whether through pricing or menu adjustments or supply chain changes. We've got a number of tools to address it, and it's just the nature of the business, and I'm confident our people will be able to manage through it.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question coming from the line of Ian Zaffino from Oppenheimer.

Hi, great. Thank you very much. Very strong results here. So congratulations on that also. Congratulations on the, it was a clean sweep on the II side and Tom, John, you know, Felice also, you know, IR, that's a big accomplishment. So congratulations to you guys. You know, John, I know when you joined, you mentioned enhancing the sales force, and that would be the driver of new business. But new business is clearly coming in better than expected. What is going on there as far as is this just the sales force? Are you putting in any other measures to get the growth that you have? And then can you comment maybe on how much is market share per se versus industry growth in like a post-COVID environment?

Thanks. Certainly. Well, there have been a number of actions taken over the last couple of years to drive this step change in terms of new business growth. You know, the first of which was, as you described, you know, working on the sales organization, adding resources, adding sales management expertise. and really giving the sales organization and the operating organization the freedom to respond to customers and develop proposals that are highly customized to meet their particular needs. So I think it's both the tools as well as the resources in order to accelerate that increased sales activity. It's also, frankly, cultural. It is the objective of the entire organization to grow. We believe that Our best pathway to improved earnings over time is to grow the business. And so we've implemented incentive programs for both the operators and the sales team that are aligned with that. So 40% of the incentive compensation for the entire leadership team is focused on growth. So it's cultural, it's resources, it's individual tactical decisions made inside the business. And it's just a focus. We wake up every day thinking about how are we going to grow the organization? And what accounts are we working on? And how are we going to achieve higher growth rates as well as higher retention rates? So it's more cultural than anything else. And we're very excited about the results over the last two years. And we have high expectations, not only for this coming year, but for the entire future of the organization. It is the way that we will do business going forward.

I think just picking up on the market share point, too, because it's an important one. You know, we're in an industry that's got tremendous opportunity, you know, a lot of insourced opportunity that, you know, as we've seen over the last couple of years has started to move and consider outsourcing. So that's really been a head, or sorry, a tailwind for us overall as an industry. And, you know, we don't focus that much on market shares. It really just depends on the line of business in the country that we're in. It varies. We believe the opportunity really for the industry is to grow and that it's just a matter of taking advantage of it and having the right tools and processes and people in place to capture it.

Okay. Thanks for that, Collar. You know, Tom, I know you touched upon P&L and, you know, the transition back to P&L from cost plus, you know, where are you in that transition? And then also, can you maybe touch upon the margin implications as you do that? And then maybe touching upon inflation as well, and then you think about P&L? Thanks.

We're not quite back to where we were in 19, where we had, particularly in business dining, we had about two-thirds P&L, maybe a little bit more. We're not back there yet, but we are moving back purposefully to the P&L. We do like that model better in the long run. It can be more profitable as we control the entire P&L and a lot of the decisions around it. But we're doing it very paced, making sure that it's driven by the volumes and the economics that they account before we make that transition so that we really, in the end, are able to manage that margin. If we do it too quickly, we would take a hit. And so we want to make sure that it's an account-by-account, case-by-case basis to transition you know, in conjunction and conversation with the client. So the margin implications should not be noticeable at all if we do it at the right time.

That's right. I would add that we're driven first by the service requirement of our clients and customers and the contractual modifications back to P&L will take place as revenues continue to increase, as customers return to their work sites. And, again, keep in mind this is predominantly a B&I phenomenon. In the other businesses, they've pretty much transitioned back to P&L. So as businesses execute their return-to-work strategies and the COVID pandemic continues to move into the past, we will transition accounts as it makes sense and as our clients need us to or want us to based on their service expectations.

Thank you. And one for next question. And our next question in queue coming from the line of Andrew Steinemmer with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Hi, it's Andrew. Tom, I just want to get the exact margin in the guide. So you said nearly 100 basis points margin expanse for fiscal 23. I assume you're using a 4.9 fiscal 22 base. And when you say nearly 100 basis points, Is there a notable difference between constant currency and reported? And so, like, what should we think of in terms of a target fiscal 23 operating margin on a reported basis?

Well, Andrew, we're going to sort of stick with that 11% to 13% top-line growth and 34% to 39% AOI dollar growth. You know, you can work with those variables to come up with a margin that – you know, at a margin range. So, you know, that's really the focus for us is to continue to grow those dollars. And again, we think that at the midpoint, that's going to drive about 100 basis point margin improvement year over year.

And is the 100 basis points reported or constant currency?

It will be reported.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. One moment, please, for our next question. And our next question in queue coming from the line of Tony Kaplan from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Hi. I wanted to ask about competition. So on this slide where you broke out the source of new wins, it looked like you're getting additional wins from the regional players. So anything to call out on that front? Are the sort of smaller players having more trouble competing because of the higher cost environment? or would you attribute it to something else? Thanks.

No, Tony, this is John. I think, you know, I think that's probably a good assessment. We are, you know, the big step change continues to be the self-op conversion activity that's increased over the norm and continues to run at a pace that's probably 10 to 15% higher than the industry norm has been over the last, you know, 10 to 15 years. So that would be the big step change. The other areas are very kind of typical. There are years where we compete against the other big three, like Sodexo and Compass, based on what they have, what kind of rebid activity exists in their contract base. This year we had a higher level of rebid activity based on the annualization of certain contracts and their expiration date. So it just cycles. I don't think there's any real change in the competitive dynamic between the big three or the regionals, but I think additional cost pressures probably do have an impact on the smaller players. Our supply chain is much more robust, and we're much more able to respond to those kind of cost pressures than the smaller competitors are. But the big tailwind for us is really in the self-op conversion mode, and that looks like it's going to continue.

Yeah, understood. I wanted to ask on the 2025 margin target of 7% to 7.5%, it sounded like from the prepared remarks, and this is consistent with prior quarters, it sounds like you're still confident in being able to achieve that. And, you know, you had put out that target before we really started to see inflation really escalate. I know there were probably some supply chain issues at the time, but, you know, I think And it sounds like supply chain is moderating now. So I just wanted to understand, just given that inflation has become a bigger factor, are there some offsets? What are the offsets needed to get to that level? Is it the negotiations that you mentioned, Tom, in the prepared remarks? Or are there other factors that we should be thinking about? Thanks.

Sure. Certainly, the inflation has been a headwind to that target from a year ago. And all things being equal, probably be towards the lower end of the range, given the inflation impact than the higher end of the range. But that said, there are, to your point, some offsets. Supply chain will continue to mitigate. We're confident of that and settle in. over the course of these next three years as we move towards that period that we talked about with fiscal 25. And then we also, you know, continue to the new business wins and the ability to leverage those wins both through our supply chain negotiations as well as, you know, our above unit overhead costs are going to be a tailwind to the margins. So we're growing, and we're actually probably a year ahead of pace in terms of trying to get to that 4.5% to 5% net new business growth number we talked about today. John and I were both very pleasantly surprised with the way the teams have gelled and delivered that result a little bit quicker than anticipated. So that, again, benefits us as we build margin through scale going forward over the next three years. So I think inflation is a headwind, but I think that some of the offsets are the pace of growth and the supply chain settling in.

Thank you.

One more for next question. And our next question coming from the line of Slo Mo Rosenbaum with Stifel, your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Hey, Tom, there's been very strong gross new business wins. And maybe you could give us a little bit more detail on what does that represent in terms of like a margin headwind in fiscal year 23, just in terms of, you know, you have the ramp up. They're not mature yet. I'm not sure where you are yet with the fiscal year, you know, 21 new deals. Is there some way to think about, you know, hey, the underlying margin is improving by X amount, but there is a, you know, a headwind from these new deals that are coming in faster than expected that is kind of limiting it a little bit? And then I have one follow-up.

Yes, well, it's a great question, and I understand, you know, from the outside looking in that it can be a little tough to dig into this area, and it is an important one, but And I hate to give you this answer, but it does depend. It just depends on the size of the account. Smaller accounts, you know, ramp to the national margin, you know, rolling very quickly, typically in the first six months to 12 months at the most. The longer ones, the bigger ones, as we talked about before, particularly in the higher ed or healthcare space, you know, can tend to take, you know, three years or so to ramp to that. Then you've got the offsets of retention and proactive retention and what happens to the margin there. So there's a lot of moving pieces to it. But typically, if you just work with that one- to three-year basis of margin maturity, that will probably put you in the right direction.

Yeah, keep in mind, this is an environment. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt there. Keep in mind, when you have these accelerating net new business wins, I remember last year it was 500, this year it's 800, so you have an accelerating growth in those new account wins, so the opening costs that are anticipated are the ramp in maturity costs that are anticipated are accelerating during that time period. So as you get to a more steady state, it normalizes and it's much more predictable as we continue this acceleration process and we continue to believe that we will ramp up sales again this year. So it's a little more difficult to predict exactly how that ramp will unfold based on the size of the accounts, the location, the geography, the type of operation it is. But, you know, we are highly confident in our ability to deliver on our analyst state targets. And, you know, we've weighed that growth into those targets as we established that program. And so everything that's unfolded here with respect to the performance of the company is very much the way Tom and I predicted it and as we established the plan. So we're confident in our ability to go ahead and hit those targets that we've identified.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question coming from the line of Neil Tyler with Redburn. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thank you. A couple of questions left, please. Firstly, on the conversion rate, the speed of conversion of some of the longer-term pipeline of new win opportunities that you see, You mentioned, Tom, that you were sort of a year ahead of the original plan. Is that basically the same size pie, but you've taken a bigger slice out of it, or has the pie grown? That's the first question. Secondly, you called out facilities playing a fairly sizable role in new wins, and I wanted to ask whether that was sort of cross-selling to existing clients or whether that's actually something that's brought new clients on board. And then finally, I'll chance one on margin as well. And just wonder if you could sort of help us understand in terms of the sequential uplift that you talk about, the 100 basis points or so, how the price versus cost and specifically the removal of some of those ramp-up costs, How those sequentially are expected to contribute 23 versus 22 into that 100 basis points?

That's a lot to unpack. Good question, all of them. Let me start with the margin. As John just talked about, the ramp, we've had some serious acceleration of net growth, obviously, from year zero. in 19 into 20 to 521, nearly 800 this year. We are, if you look at the guidance, 23 is going to be north of 800, but that's, you know, we're sort of hitting cruising speed to a degree and getting to that 4.5% to 5% annualized net growth. So the first half of the year, to your question, is going to be sort of have more of the startup costs that are new or incremental to the prior year, and then that will wane as the year goes on. And certainly in the 24 and 25, as we're hitting cruising speed and staying at cruising speed, to John's point, we're just sort of lapping prior year startup costs, and those won't become as much of a factor over those next couple of years. So I think the pace of it is going to be more so in the first half than the second half if you're just looking at 23. Okay, thanks. Any other comment on that, John? In terms of pie size, you know, unfortunately we are benefiting right now from both, you know, taking share, self-ops has continued to be a primary source for us, a little bit higher than historical norm. and then the regional players, and then, of course, the other two big players in certain markets. But the pie size has also increased a bit over the last couple of years. And so we're benefiting as an industry from both phenomena. And, again, as we've said, long may it continue, we don't feel as though we need the outsourcing technology to continue to stay at those mid-single-digit rates that we reached this year and are expecting into 2023. So we're just very pleased, again, to be in a position to be able to capture this opportunity based on the investments we made throughout the pandemic and the results that our teams are showing. And finally, you had a question about facilities. It hasn't particularly been cross-selling opportunities. They've been standalone, you know, beachhead opportunities. And we do like that because, you know, getting into an account, no matter with either service, food, or facilities, you know, is a good starting point for us. And then, you know, ultimately can build to there. And that cross-sell opportunity could be an opportunity.

yeah i would just add that the facilities wins have been broad-based across multiple industries multiple geographies um and both standalone and existing customers so it's a very significant year for them uh and um it's a it's a business we operate uh in a couple of different forms obviously we've got the standalone facilities business but we also serve facilities customers in the healthcare space managed by healthcare so It's a great segment for us, one that will continue to focus on growing. And their wins this year have been both self-op conversions as well as existing account conversions. So just a really nice year for facilities as a business unit.

Fantastic.

Thank you. One more for our next question in queue. Our next question in queue coming from the line of Andrew Whitman with Baird Yolanus Open.

Oh, great. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions, everyone. I guess I was a question on the capital structure. You mentioned that you've got the flexibility and you don't have to do anything that what you choose to do. Just hoping you could explain a little bit more about what that means. I guess with the uniform business representing probably just over $400 million of EBITDA, the company's leverage being at the end of the year around four times or so, it feels like there's at least a billion and a half of new debt. that's going to have to get reformulated somewhere. Do you have the ability to pay off your existing periods of debt impartially without having to redeem them in full? Or maybe, Tom, you could just give us a little bit more detail as to how you plan to effectuate the new capital structure over there, at least.

Well, I still prefer not to give out or go into too much detail at this point because the markets move. We're continuing to evaluate what's best. I think the key point is that there's really nothing our hands being forced to do with the transaction, Andrew, you know, that, you know, is going to put us in a position that we really don't want to be in. So how we ultimately finalize the details, what we pay off, what we refinance, you know, is all being determined. And, you know, we'll again give you more details on that as we move forward and get a little closer to the transaction.

Okay, we'll stay tuned for that. I guess my follow-up question, I wanted to ask about the international segment a little bit more. And I was hoping you could just comment on the margins in that business in particular. Obviously, this business has got a lot more of a dynamic economy, certainly, that's happening there. And I wanted to understand how that's affecting your profit margins in that segment specifically and how much more you have on variable costs to potentially manage those margins if needed, recognizing that you're coming out of COVID where you actually, you know, probably did a lot of those activities already. Maybe if you could just kind of boil it down to help us understand what the margins could be in 2023 for that thing, it would be helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, margins in international have moved forward quite nicely, actually. You know, they have a model that's been more stable. We talked about that before. Their sales growth has been more consistent, so it really is a bit of a proof source as to what's happening in the U.S. as we rebuild the growth engine and margin through scale model. The international business has really been doing that for a number of years. So they were able to move the margin north of 4%, I think, this year, And then we'll continue and reach pre-COVID levels, I think, in 23. We're very close to that. So they've got the same levers as the U.S. in terms of from an account basis in terms of what they do to drive margin. But, again, they've been able to scale through their growth both benefiting from the supply chain and managing the above-unit overheads quite nicely this past year, and we're expecting the same in 2023. And then from an inflation standpoint, they just have, you know, it's part of the DNA for them in many of their countries. And so their ability to price, you know, is part of the mix for them and part of the challenge they've faced, again, in many parts of the international business for some time.

Thank you. One more for our next question. Our next question in queue coming from the line of Faisal Alwi from Deutsche Bank. Yes, hi. Good morning. I was hoping to get an update on the labor environment.

The labor environment continues to be challenging pretty much everywhere around the world. We've got, however, we have been able to through the use of both technology and a number of tools and resources we've established for people in the businesses. We've been able to meet the staffing challenges that our units face. We have a very strong talent acquisition organization that's been in place for a number of years and is very adept at meeting the recruiting needs of the business. As you know, we have a couple of businesses that have very strong seasonal ramp-up activities, so we've built the processes for the organization in order to meet those ramp-up demands for sports and entertainment, higher education, and other businesses. And so we've been able to go ahead and meet the needs of the business. One of the tools that we put in place over the course of the last year was daily pay. That was a very strong incentive for lower wage earners to go ahead and join Aramark as they were able to access their pay on a daily basis with very little cost to them. And that's been very, very successful in terms of driving recruitment activity. And so all in all, still the pressures exist. But we do see a softening in the labor market as you've seen the announced layoffs and others were beginning to see more people return to work and a higher level of concern. So I would say our turnover numbers are kind of normalized and our recruitment activities are in very good shape.

Thank you. Now I'm showing our next question in queue coming from the line of Manav Patnaik from Barclays. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thank you. This is actually Ronan Kennedy. I'm from MNOP. May I just reconfirm for the 11% to 13% organic contributions from each of net growth, price, volume, COVID recovery? And I'd be particularly mindful in consideration of timing. I think you had said most of the COVID recovery should come in the first half. And then lastly, any insights for organic constant currency revenue expectations by segment?

Yeah, the COVID recovery we do expect to be weighted more to the first half. As we laughed, we got to 95% here in the fourth quarter, a little better than that actually. And so by the time we get to the next fourth quarter, that should be waning versus as we talked about being much less than the first quarter of last year in terms of recovery. So the first half weighted on that. On the other, no real comment on the the split by geography.

Okay, thank you. And can I ask you just to repeat the contributions from net growth price volume in our COVID recovery?

Sure. It's on one of the swaths attached to it. No problem. Four and a half to five for net growth. Three to four from COVID recovery. and three and a half to four for pricing, again, assuming a constant inflationary environment.

Okay, thank you. As a follow-up.

Thank you. And our last question coming from the lineup, Stephanie Moore from Jefferies. Your line is open. Stephanie Moore, your line is open.

Hi, good morning. I wanted to touch on the business and industry, you know, continuing to see a nice recovery there. Could you maybe speak to areas where you've seen or areas where, you know, might be lagging just versus those pre-COVID levels and other areas where you've seen some improvement here during the quarter and particularly, you know, throughout the year? And then I just wanted to get your high-level thoughts as you think about, you know, this business returning to pre-COVID levels and what that means just given you know, hybrid work schedules, you know, companies that have maybe reduced office space. At the same time, the opportunity to gain new business and kind of how all of those triangulate together. Thank you.

Yeah, you know, that business, you know, has continued to have a net new business growth year over year. It's performing very nicely. We do have varying states of recovery amongst the clients that we serve. Some are back at 100%. Obviously, the blue-collar operation is back at 100%. And still some light-collar operations lagging, particularly in the coastal environments, if you will, so-called the financial sector or the high-tech sector. But even those, over the course of the last couple of months, those have begun to improve dramatically. We saw, based on these results, a significant transition in September. We continue to see an acceleration of that return to work throughout the first quarter of the new year, which I won't comment on, but we do see that pace of change accelerating. We believe that this business will be highly profitable going forward. There's plenty of growth opportunity in this segment. And while individual client locations may be different than they were pre-COVID, that overall the business will be very strong, fundamentally a good business to be in. And so it may look a little bit different in terms of the customers we serve and the type of services that they want in individual locations. But ultimately, we see this as a core business for the company with strong growth dynamics and a very strong leadership team in place. to continue that growth.

Great. I appreciate the time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Zilmer for closing remarks.

Terrific. Thank you very much, everybody, for joining us this morning. We obviously are very excited about the performance of the company in the fourth quarter. and our prospects for fiscal 23. We're excited about the growth the company has been able to achieve in the net new business wins, and we have a strong commitment to those goals that we've established as an organization during our analyst day for both growth and margin. And we will be back together again here at the end of the first quarter to talk about to talk more about the spin and the implications for both sides of the business going forward. And we will update you then at that time. So thank you again for the time this morning and look forward to continuing our conversations in the near future. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect. Good day.

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