Brinks Company (The)

Welcome everyone to the Brinks Company's fourth quarter 2021 earnings call. Brinks issued a press release on fourth quarter results this morning. The company also filed an 8K that includes the release and the slides that will be used in today's call. For those of you listening by phone, the release and slides are available in the investor relations section of the company's website, Brinks.com. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Now for the company's safe harbor statement. This call and the Q&A session will contain forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from the projected or estimated results. Information regarding factors that could cause such differences is available in today's press release and in the company's most recent SEC filings. Information presented and discussed on this call is representative as of today only. Brinks assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. The call is copyrighted and may not be used without written permission from Brinks. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ed Cunningham, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Mr. Cunningham, you may begin.

Thank you, Jamie. Good morning, everyone. Joining me today are CEO Doug Pertz, COO Mark Eubanks, and CFO Rhonda Monaco. This morning we reported fourth quarter results on both the GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP results include a number of items, including our Venezuela operations, the impact of Argentina's highly inflationary accounting, reorganization and restructuring costs, items related to acquisitions and dispositions, and costs related to an internal loss in certain accounting compliance matters. We also provided our results on a constant currency basis, which eliminates changes in foreign currency exchange rates from the prior year. We believe the non-GAAP results make it easier for investors to assess operating performance between periods. Accordingly, our comments today will focus primarily on the non-GAAP results. Reconciliations are provided in the press release and the appendix to the slides we're using today, and in this morning's 8K filing, all of which can be found on our website. I'll now turn the call over to Doug Pertz.

Thanks, Ed, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. Today we reported record revenue and operating profits for both the fourth quarter and full year of 2021. More importantly, our fourth quarter results with organic revenue growth of 7% provide a strong jumping off point to drive continued momentum in 2022 when we expect revenue to return to at least pre-pandemic levels on a pro forma basis. We're looking forward to delivering another record year in 2022 when we expect 2022 revenue to exceed 2019 reported revenue by over $900 million, up almost 25 plus percent. Our confidence is based on expectations of continued recovery of pandemic impacted economies with improving retail markets, higher than historical price increases, continued core organic growth, and accelerating contributions from our strategy to 2.0 digital solutions. We also expect continued execution and acceleration of our productivity and efficiency initiatives, building on our 2021 operating profit margin improvement of 90 basis points. In 2022, we expect revenue growth of between eight and 11% and operating profit growth of between 16 and 23%, reflecting strong earnings leverage and a margin improvement of approximately 100 basis points. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to grow by approximately $90 million to a range of $755 to $790 million. Our 2022 guidance that we released this morning is consistent with the strong growth rates and margin improvement targets we presented at our 2021 Investor Day, updated to reflect the impact of FX based on exchange rates as of December 31st, 2021. This guidance supports our belief that 2022 will be a strong start to achieving our three-year strategic plan targets which include revenue of $5.4 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $1 billion, and free cash flow of $575 million. I'm going to review our FOIA results and then turn over the call to Mark and Ron, who will review our fourth quarter performance and more. Then I'll close with a more detailed review of our 2022 guidance and our 24 targets. First, turning to slide four. Our four-year results were very strong, with double-digit growth in revenue, operating profit, adjusted EBITDA, and EPS on both a reported and a constant currency basis. In fact, these all represented non-GAAP records for BRNCS. Four-year revenue was up 14% to $4.2 billion at the high end of our guidance, driven by 5% organic growth and 9% growth from acquisitions. As Mark will cover in more detail, organic revenue recovery accelerated throughout the years, supporting a strong jumping off point for exceeding pre-pandemic benchmark levels this year in 2022. Last year's revenue also included significant growth from the G4S and PAI acquisitions, resulting in 2021 revenue that was higher than 2019 reported revenue by almost a half a billion dollars, or up 14%. Operating profit grew 23% to $471 million, including organic growth of 18% and 90 basis points of margin improvement to 11.2%. Adjusted EBITDA grew 21% to $683 million, with a margin increase of 100 basis points. 2021 EBITDA was up $116 million compared to 2019, representing 20% growth and close to 100 basis points of margin improvement versus pre-pandemic levels. EPS was up 26% on a reported basis, which includes a 24% gain related to our equity investment in MoneyGram. Excluding that impact of the investments for both this period and prior year period, EPS was still up 25%. Note that our metrics are even stronger on a constant currency basis, as you can see in the slides. In early 2020, we set a goal to emerge from the pandemic as a stronger company than we were before the onset of the pandemic. Our record-setting results demonstrate that we have achieved that goal and more. They also clearly demonstrate the resiliency of our business and the persistence and the persistent strength of cash usage around the world. We now look forward to delivering continued acceleration in revenue and profit growth over our strategic plan period through 2024. On that note, I'll turn it over to Mark.