speaker
Operator

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Bright Horizons Family Solutions' second quarter of 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require assistance by the operator during the conference, you're welcome to press Start in Xero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Michael Flanagan, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

speaker
Xero

Thank you, Judith. And hello to everyone on the call tonight. With me here are Stephen Kramer, our Chief Executive Officer, and Elizabeth Boland, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll turn the call over to Stephen after covering a few administrative matters. Today's call is being webcast and recording will be available under the investor relations section of our website at brightrisings.com. As a reminder to participants, any forward-looking statements made on this call, including those regarding future business and financial performance, including the impact of acquisitions and COVID-19 on our operations, are subject to the safe harbor statement included in our earnings release. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual operating and financial results to differ materially and are described in detail in our 2021 form, 10-K, and other SEC filings. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as the date on which it is made, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. We may also refer today to non-GAAP financial measures, which are detailed and reconciled to the GAAP counterparts and earnings release, which is available under the IR section of our website. Stephen will now take us through the review and update of the business.

speaker
Judith

Thanks, Mike. Hello to everyone on the call, and thank you for joining us this evening. I hope that you and your families are doing well. I'll start tonight with a view of our second quarter results and provide an update on the business and plans for the remainder of 2022. Elizabeth will follow with a more detailed review of the numbers before we open it up for your questions. First, let me recap the headline numbers for the second quarter. As we pass the midpoint in the year, we remain focused on our growth strategy and delivery. In both areas, we continue to make good progress. Revenue increased 11% to 490 million and adjusted operating income of 50 million was up 48%. Adjusted net income of 42 million yielded adjusted EPS of 71 cents, up 45% from last year. In our full service segment, revenue expanded 11% in the second quarter to 371 million. We added four new centers including a center for our new client, Shannon Medical, and reopened five more centers in Q2, ending the quarter with 98% of our 1,014 centers open. Across our centers, we saw broad-based enrollment growth with sequential improvement in occupancy in the second quarter, and solid year-over-year growth. More specifically, in our lease consortium centers, occupancy increased across both urban and suburban locations. And while the suburban locations still led the more urban settings, we saw increased velocity of new enrollment in top major metro areas in the quarter, led in large part by D.C., New York City, and Seattle. We also saw solid growth in our client centers, which continue to be more highly occupied than our lease centers, with higher ed, industrial, and healthcare verticals continuing to deliver the highest occupancy levels. On the staffing front, we also continue to make progress in our recruiting and retention efforts. Increased job seeker interest combined with a streamlined candidate experience and enhanced compensation are driving positive net hiring. While we are still unable to accommodate all of the enrollment demand we have due to unfilled staff roles, we are encouraged by the hiring momentum and feel positive about the progress we have made over the last several months. Outside of the U.S., the UK is also making strides in staffing and in rebuilding enrollment levels. However, in the Netherlands, for the first time since the start of the pandemic, enrollment levels have been moderately constrained as a result of labor market challenges. In response, our Dutch team is replicating many of the recruiting and retention actions that the US and UK teams have deployed. With this as a backdrop, we started to experience some seasonal enrollment impact in June, which persisted into July. The historical summer and fall seasonal enrollment pattern created by older children aging up into elementary school and backfilled with new families has been muted during the pandemic recovery and re-ramping period. However, the persistence of our staffing shortages, particularly in the younger age cohorts, and our inability to backfill the open spaces with all of those families that had requested care has driven a more seasonal enrollment trend than we originally anticipated. This recent dynamic has led us to lower enrollment expectations for the second half of 2022, but we are confident that we will ultimately achieve full enrollment recovery. Let me now turn to backup care. Revenue increased to 92 million, or 13% over the prior year. We launched service in Q2, for new clients Exelon, Infineon, and Western Digital, to name a few. Traditional center-based and in-home use was solid, and in June we hit an important milestone as use surpassed its comparable 2019 level for the first time since the pandemic began. And encouragingly, that positive momentum has persisted into July with more families engaging with our various intermittent care solutions. Clients and their employees continue to value our expanding menu of use types within their backup care benefit. We recently expanded our virtual academic tutoring offering to teens and adults, and this fall are piloting a new use type, pet care, enabling us to reach a new segment of our client's workforce, pet owners. Pet owners also require support when care is unavailable. These are a couple of examples that illustrate our flexibility in developing new use cases that can serve the evolving and diverse needs of our clients and their employee populations. Moving on to our education advisory business, which delivered revenue growth of 7% to $27 million. Activity levels were solid at College Coach as this business continues to see high interest levels from parents needing help in navigating the college admissions and financing processes. In EdAssist, while new client interest is steady, we did see fewer participants than expected, in part due to the continued strength of the labor market. Given the strong underlying need and employer demand for upskilling and reskilling to support career development and growth, I am optimistic about our opportunity in workforce education. Before wrapping up, I want to formally welcome the team from Only About Children, along with the children and families that Oak serves to the Bright Horizon family. We are thrilled to have completed this beachhead acquisition and to now be operational in the attractive Australian childcare market. Elizabeth and I had the opportunity to visit with Oak in early July, and over the last month, our teams have been working closely and collaboratively on the integration. I couldn't be more impressed with the caliber of the organization, and I'm excited about the potential for Oak to further grow and broaden our impact on families. Furthermore, we have heard from a number of our multinational clients expressing interest in exploring employer-sponsored opportunities to support their Australian employees with new care supports. We expect Oak's 77 centers to contribute approximately $70 million of revenue over the remainder of 2022. As we spoke about on our last call, given the near-term effects of the integration, OAK's EPS contribution will be limited in 2022, with its full potential realized in 2023 and beyond. Let me now turn to our consolidated outlook for the rest of 2022. We continue to operate in an environment that has more limited visibility of enrollments, particularly over the important summer and fall transition period. And given some of the constraints we have seen year-to-date on staffing, we are leaning more heavily into wage investments this fall. Given these factors, we are revising our 2022 revenue outlook to approximately $2 billion and adjusted EPS of $2.60 to $2.75 per share, or growth of 30% to 38%. In closing, we are proud of the critical role we feel for our clients and their employees and the significant impact we have on the development and lives of so many children, families, and learners. We are focused on the critical work to be done over the near term that will most certainly fortify our foundation now and for the future. With that, I'll turn the call over to Elizabeth, who will review the numbers in more detail, and I will be back with you during Q&A.

speaker
Mike

Thank you, Stephen. As you said, I'll recap the quarter results and then provide some additional updated thoughts on our outlook for the remainder of 2022. For the second quarter, overall revenue increased 11% to $490 million. Adjusted operating income increased $16 million to $50 million, or 10% of revenue. And adjusted EBITDA increased 22% to $83 million, or 17% of revenue. In the second quarter, we added four new centers reopened five centers that had been temporarily closed, and permanently closed nine centers, ending the quarter with 1,014 centers operating. Full service revenue increased $37 million to $371 million in Q2, or 11% over the prior year, a 15% increase on a constant currency basis. As Stephen mentioned, our enrollment levels improved in Q2, and the range of occupancy continues to average between 55 and 65% of capacity across the portfolio, with a couple of points uptick this past quarter. Countering this enrollment expansion were two discrete headwinds to the revenue growth in the second quarter. The strength of the US dollar against the British pound and Euro resulted in approximately 13 million in revenue headwind compared to Q2 of 21. which was slightly higher than we had anticipated for the quarter. In addition, the ARPA government support for child care services that we received on behalf of certain client centers was higher than we anticipated and reduced the subsidy revenue that was needed from those clients by approximately $6 million in Q2. Adjusted operating income for the full service segment was $22 million, or 6% of revenue, an increase of 18 million over Q2 of 21. The 50% operating income flow through was driven by the gains in enrollment that I mentioned, as well as an increase of 12 million in ARPA government funding that we received at our P&L centers. This funding helps to offset operating costs during this re-ramping period, including the investments that we continue to make in teacher compensation. Backup revenue growth increased to 13% in the second quarter, with total revenue of $92 million. As Stephen mentioned, we're pleased with the overall use trends in the quarter as we achieved our targeted center-based and in-home use levels. Because the mix of use between capitated and pay-per-use clients differed slightly from our expectations, it had a modest impact on our projections for revenue in the quarter. That said, we are pleased with the acceleration of use in June, surpassing 2019 levels, and the continuation of that trend into July. Operating income in backup care of $25 million, or 27% of revenue, was broadly in line with our expectations for the quarter. Our educational advising segment delivered growth of 7% on contributions from new client launches, expanded use in college admissions and financing advising, and our Sitter City services. The lower than expected participant use in EdAssist that Steven mentioned resulted in slightly lower overall revenue growth for this segment. Interest expense of $8 million in Q2 was down $2 million over 2021 on comparatively lower borrowing costs in the quarter. However, in the current environment, We are expecting interest to approximate 11 million per quarter in the second half of the year on higher rates and because we will be temporarily drawn on the revolver following the closing of the acquisition of Only About Children. The structural tax rate on adjusted net income has increased to 26% for 2022 compared to 21% in Q2 of 2021. On increasing taxable income, and lower tax benefits from equity activity under ASU 2016-09. So now turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. For Q2, we generated $67 million in cash from operations and made capital investments of $8 million and executed share repurchases totaling $45 million. While we ended June 30th at 2.4 times net debt to EBITDA, this will increase due to the completion of our acquisition of Only About Children on July 1st. We paid approximately $210 million at closing, and the remaining payment of approximately $110 million is deferred until the end of 2023. So now moving on to our revised 22 outlook. Our updated guidance reflects the current operating trends and performance, as well as other market and business factors including FX movements, rising interest rates, timing and quantum of government funding supports, and general inflation, particularly on labor, energy, and food costs. In terms of the top line, we now expect 2022 revenue of approximately $2 billion. At a segment level, we expect full service to grow roughly 15%, backup to grow in the range of 12% to 18%, and Ed Advisory to increase five to 10%. In terms of earnings, this will translate into adjusted EPS in the range of $2.60 to $2.75 for the full year 22. We expect Oak to contribute roughly 70 million to revenue for the second half of 22, with limited earnings contribution this year as we integrate the business and operations. In the more immediate timeframe, our outlook for Q3 is for overall total revenue growth in the range of 12% to 16%, with full service revenue growth of roughly 12% to 15%, backup growth in the 15% to 20% range, and ed advisory, again, growing approximately 5% to 10%. In terms of earnings, we expect Q3 adjusted EPS to be in the range of $0.60 to $0.65 a share. In closing, various conditions have disrupted the timeframe to return to pre-COVID enrollment levels and operating performance in our full-service child care segment. We believe that the actions that we're taking and the investments we have made and continue to make on the wage front are critically important and will further strengthen our leadership position in our field. Our employer-sponsored business model is unique, and the strength of these relationships and the diversity of our service offerings from full-service child care to backup care, to educational advising, positions us well to capitalize on an expanding market opportunity for all of our services. And with that, Judith, we are ready to go to Q&A.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will be conducting the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation turn will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove yourself from the question queue. For participants using your speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question comes from Andrew Steinemann of JP Morgan.

speaker
Andrew Steinemann

Hi there. I was wondering if I heard you correctly, Stephen. It feels like your constraint to growth or the timing of growth recovery really is supply, staffing, recruiting. And you definitely were clear saying we're not meeting all the demand we have. But is that true in most major markets or is it mostly a supply constraint and then in some major markets it's still demand recovery?

speaker
Judith

Yeah, so first I'll start by saying, you know, at half of our centers, right, we have had the ability to get back to pre-COVID levels. And so, obviously, in those markets, we have a nice balance between our ability to attract and retain staff and the demand that exists in those markets. The flip side of that is there are certainly some of the urban markets that have been and continue to persist to be more challenging, both from a staffing perspective, as well as meeting that demand against that staff. So I would highlight, again, places like New York City, D.C., Seattle, where we are seeing progress. On the other hand, they definitely lag the overall portfolio in terms of both the constraints on supply, but also in certain age groups on the demand side. What I would say finally is we do see really nice progress in our client centers as well as in our suburban centers and then in select urban areas like a Boston, LA, San Francisco. So overall, Andrew, to answer your question, the answer is we have areas where we've been able to garner staff and to meet that demand. And then there are other places in the country where we continue to struggle on the supply side and then ultimately are not able to fulfill the demand on that side.

speaker
Andrew Steinemann

That makes sense. Elizabeth, just one really quick question. On the DNA side, depreciation and amortization, the number in the quarter just came in a little bit below my model. What should we be thinking about for DNA for the year? And if you could just highlight which piece of that comes from Only About Children.

speaker
Mike

Yeah, so we would estimate the overall to be around $80 million for the year for DNA with only about children contributing probably $2 million or so, about $1.5 million, so $3 million. Just quickly doing the translation in my head.

speaker
Andrew Steinemann

Okay, thank you very much. Much appreciated.

speaker
Operator

The next question comes from Manav Patnaik of Barclays.

speaker
Manav Patnaik

Thank you. Stephen, I was hoping, you know, these half of the centers that you said have already reached, you know, pre-COVID occupancy. Can you just give us a little bit more color on, you know, the percentages and is that off the same, you know, denominator in terms of number of spaces and kids? Because You know, you've obviously had to push back your full occupancy guidance for a while now. And I'm just wondering, like, is that – can you get to that if people just return to the office three days a week?

speaker
Judith

Yes. Well, why don't I start with the last question that you asked, Manav, which is around enrollment patterns of families. We are still seeing the vast majority of families who are registering and enrolling at our centers coming in for full time. And so that is at our onsite client centers, and that is in our lead consortium centers. So from a pattern perspective and a schedule perspective, that is identical to what pre-COVID looked like. And so ultimately, as we think about the progress that we're making, obviously it's really focused on continuing to be able to take full-time enrollment in our centers, because that is certainly what families are seeking in terms of care. In terms of thinking about the enrollment at the centers that have not achieved pre-COVID, I think we've been upfront to say that our client centers and our suburban centers, by and large, are performing better than the urban counterparts. But again, what we saw in this quarter is that in the urban markets that we had seen some significant lag, we started to see the velocity of that enrollment coming in, uh, increase. And so overall, I hope that's a fair characterization for you in terms of giving you a bit of context around where we're seeing enrollment and how we ultimately see it coming in across the, across the portfolio.

speaker
Manav Patnaik

Okay. Got it. And then just on the labor shortages, I mean, it's been going on for about three to four quarters now. Do you anticipate, I know you said you'll obviously, you know, get it done or the supply will come back, et cetera, but do you think it takes another, like, four to six quarters before you can settle that out? Just curious on, you know, how you think you can tackle the situation.

speaker
Judith

Yeah, so we, first of all, as both Elizabeth and I highlighted in the prepared remarks, we have made some labor investments and wage investments over the past call it six to nine months. We are also in the process of doing another wage adjustment for our staff teams. And so we are hopeful that with this continued focus around increasing wages that we are going to continue to unlock opportunities on the staffing side. Certainly we've been seeing that. So the number of applications continues to rise. Our ability to continue to increase the number of net new staff continues to rise. And so as we look out, we are hopeful that these actions will have an impact and continue to have an impact as it relates to our ability to staff and then ultimately enroll against that increasing staff.

speaker
Manav Patnaik

Okay, thank you.

speaker
Operator

The next question comes from George Tong

speaker
George

Hi, thanks. Good afternoon. You mentioned seasonal factors weighing on enrollment performance in June and July in a sort of a departure versus COVID performance. Can you talk a little bit more about that and then talk about how you distinguish between what may be seasonal versus what may be changes in client behaviors because of an increase in work from home?

speaker
Mike

Let me start and see what else Stephen wants to add. From a seasonal standpoint, George, what we're trying to convey in our description of this is the seasonal pattern that we've always had in our business where preschoolers are aging out and they're going to elementary school and probably on average 50% or so of our enrollment in a center is going to be preschool enrollment. The capacity may be a little bit more, but the attendance is going to be around 50%. So those children are, the older ones are aging out. And then we need to backfill them either with new families from outside of the center or with children who are aging up from the two-year-old into the preschool age group or three-year-olds into four-year-olds. So that's the normal pattern. And what we have been seeing through the pandemic is because we've essentially been re-ramping and rebuilding enrollment across the entire portfolio, that's been a much more steady and linear, rather than that decline of the older children, we've just been continuing to grow enrollment. We have seen this June and July, as we mentioned, we've seen as those preschoolers are aging out and parents are getting them prepared for elementary school, that the number of children that we're able to backfill in, either from our two-year-old category or from outside, and coming back into the childcare care system, if you will, in a post-pandemic period, that that just has not been, we have not been able to fill those spaces, and so we're seeing a little bit of that seasonality as a result of the preschoolers growing up and needing younger children to come into the ranks. And so to the extent that your question is how do we distinguish seasonality, that usual aging up from behavior and coming back to the office or other work patterns, it has certainly been a disrupter, as we said, about what decisions parents are making about care choices. And so We still don't have all parents off the sidelines. We don't have all children who had been in care before, the same levels of children in care. And so there still is some of that disruption in the system. But it is, I think, at this point, because of the cadence of what we're seeing in a good majority of our centers, we see it more as a more of a seasonal pattern than any other work from home, work from office kind of conditions.

speaker
George

Got it. That's helpful. And then could you tell us how much in government subsidies and benefits you received in the second quarter?

speaker
Mike

Sure. So we received a total of about $16 million that was attributable to our P&L centers, so that was able to defray costs in those centers in the quarter. Our cost plus clients, where we essentially returned that back to the clients, was another $6 million. So a total of about $22 in the quarter, again, of which $16 million was offsetting their costs. I cited in the prepared remarks $12 million. That was the increase over last year. So in the second quarter of 2021, we got about $4 million.

speaker
George

Got it. Very helpful. Thank you.

speaker
Mike

Oh, thank you.

speaker
Operator

The next question comes from Jeff Silber of BMO Capital Markets.

speaker
Jeff Silber

Thank you so much. I wanted to go back to some of the remarks, Stephen, you had at the beginning. I think when you were talking about full service centers, I think the quote was you're confident that the company is going to ultimately achieve a full enrollment recovery. Can we get a little bit more color what you mean by that? Are you talking about revenues? Are you talking about utilization? And roughly when do you think that will happen?

speaker
Judith

Yeah, so that was really reflective of utilization and getting back to pre-COVID levels of utilization in our centers. And obviously, you know, we're not providing any guidance as it relates to 2023, but our expectation is that within the year, that that is when we would be looking to have utilization at pre-COVID enrollment levels.

speaker
Jeff Silber

Okay. That's very helpful. I appreciate that. And then shifting gears, you talked a lot about what's going on on the cost side. I'm just wondering from a price perspective, if you can remind us what price increases you took this year and what should we expect for next year?

speaker
Mike

Yes, I'll take that, Jeff. So this year, on average, and it does vary by location, but we took price increases of around 5% to 6% on average. And there's some selective markets where we looked at some minor other mid-year increases, but that was not systemic. So average of 5% to 6% this year. As we look ahead, as Stephen just said, we're not... giving guidance yet for 2023. I think directionally given the wage investments that we have made in 2021 and we have continued to make in 22 and are making even as we speak, we would be looking at a higher than our historical average. Our historical average would have been around 4%. So obviously 22 was higher. We would expect it to be again higher than average and looking to recover as much of the sort of underlying cost inflation and cost increases that we are seeing, but we continue to balance that against our focus on rebuilding the enrollment levels first and looking at price as a follow-on action to get back to the pre-COVID center economics. So, broadly speaking, I think you'd see something north of five. but we have not landed on what that would be. It would just be threading the needle there between the enrollment levels and the overall cost structure that we see unfolding.

speaker
Jeff Silber

Great. Appreciate the call. Thanks so much. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

The next question comes from Hamza Mazzari of Jefferies.

speaker
spk11

Good morning. Thank you. My first question is, just around visibility that you have in your financial guidance today, maybe just frame for us kind of your, I guess your conviction level given, you know, we cut expectations a couple of times for obviously some issues were non-controllable like Omni. We have labor today, just curious how much buffer you have in your new guide and, and kind of the visibility today versus, you know, I don't know if you want to compare a couple quarters ago or however you want to frame that for investors.

speaker
Mike

Yeah, I mean, I think, Hamza, the visibility is challenging in a few ways. One is both the time of year. So we are in the sort of the summer turnover period that I tried to articulate earlier about seasonality. And so we are always in a sort of a building mode from an enrollment and and billing standpoint anyway. So we have good visibility on a high percentage of where we are now, but we do have additional enrollment that we are looking to gain over the rest of the year. And as children age out of the centers, that's the backfilling that we will need to do. But we do think that we've been measured about what we're expecting in terms of that enrollment. You can see from the revision to the guide that we've, you know, we've looked at the patterns of where we are now, what we are, you know, the steps we're taking now and how quickly that can convert from a, you know, sort of restarting, if you will, more of the marketing engines to follow behind the staffing actions that we're taking and having all of that bear fruit. And so we think we've been measured for the rest of the year. And even though 100% of it isn't you know, already, if you will, in the books. We do have some room to go. We think we've set a reasonable target.

speaker
spk11

That's very helpful. And maybe I missed this, but just your pro forma leverage on the balance sheet post the Australia deal and maybe as part of that, you know, how much floating rate debt exposure do you have and just thoughts on where you want leverage to end up eventually?

speaker
Mike

Yeah, so roughly speaking, you didn't miss it because I didn't explicitly say it, but roughly speaking, we'd be ticking up closer to three times than where we are at the end of the quarter at 2.4 times. In terms of overall value that we have floating, all of our debt is variable interest rate, but we do have caps on about $800 million of that billion in debt that we are carrying, so not very much of it is floating at this point, but we do have a step up to the bottom on that, and it's just comparing to a really favorable year last year as well. I think from a leverage standpoint, we've historically carried higher levels than this, certainly. Three and a half Plus, we've just done a substantial acquisition, and we've always said that that's a growth reason to be looking even temporarily at something a little bit north of 3.5. So I think our general comfort range, we're in that comfortable range, and it could tick up above 3.5 temporarily just because of the cash generation in the business.

speaker
spk11

Got it. Thank you so much.

speaker
Mike

Thank you.

speaker
Operator

The next question comes from Jeff Miller of Baird.

speaker
Jeff Miller

Yeah, thank you. So just on the summer backfill dynamic, is it that the children that have been born in the last two and a half years, roughly during the pandemic, they found other care arrangements, many are persisting in those other care arrangements, or am I oversimplifying it or missing some more important driver?

speaker
Judith

Well, no, I think that the summer backfill piece that we're talking about are currently enrolled families who the oldest age group ends up matriculating on to elementary school, right? And so really the dynamic there is a very well-worn path that we've seen historically and are certainly seeing in this summer period. I think the piece that is the dynamic that we are focused on is our ability to backfill against those levers, those expected levers. And when we think about the enrollment requests that we have, certainly our goal is to map those against staff capacity. And some of the impact becomes when the demand obviously is most significant at the youngest age groups, where ultimately we need to continue to hire incremental teachers to take that demand. versus in the age groups where, you know, we have had the levers where we either are going to garner enrollment from the outside or, to a large extent, grow our own into those older age groups.

speaker
Jeff Miller

But I guess what's the hypothesis on why the demand from those older children to backfill is lower than expected?

speaker
Mike

Well, I think there certainly is some, as you framed it, there are some conditions where we have not been able with a younger age group child, someone who is two years old, toddler two, and we have been short staffed, have not been able to take the enrollment six or nine months ago, so they are not in the system to be aging up. Families, as you said, have not yet come back in. They were born in the last couple of years, and they have not entered the child care system, or they were on a wait list for us, and we couldn't take them, and so they have found other care. There are certainly some of that dynamic, too, but it's difficult to quantify where each of those channels parents have gone down, but as you say, there is some of that dynamic that's happening.

speaker
Jeff Miller

Okay. And then for only about children, just what type of margin profile are they onboarding at? And are you going to be including the restructuring integration charges? Are you including those in your adjusted EPX? Or are you going to be backing the integration charges out?

speaker
Mike

So generally, we are... Integration costs are not something that, unless they're significantly outsized, we typically have not added those back. We would add back transaction costs. But the overlapping costs of either incremental investment that we may make because of this BCHAT acquisition and new resources that we need to bring to bear, or temporary resources that are helping with the transitional filings and statutory reporting and everything else, there's some of those costs that would just be absorbed. So we would be reporting those and that's part of why we've set the results. We are not expecting a meaningful contribution for this initial period. They are coming over to us as we talked about initially when we announced the transaction. This is similar to our full service, the rest of our full service business. operated at both, you know, from a fee level, a gross margin level, and an overhead support level similar to our other operations outside the United States where they are primarily full-service business. Prior to COVID, that business was operating the high single digits, 9%, 10% getting to that level. So, Oak is not coming over to us quite at that level. because of the, as I said, they are still in a slight recovery mode, too, from the pandemic, so they are not fully functional at their optimized run rate, if you will, but they are on track to get there. And that, coupled with some of the interest that we mentioned that we would be attributing to this, given the overall mix of cash flow in the business, And incremental, you know, just these incremental costs is what goes into it.

speaker
Jeff Miller

Okay. And then just last, we can come up with an estimate, but if you have a clean guidance bridge, so we get the plus 70 from Oak. What is the incremental FX headwind in terms of dollars of headwind in this guidance relative to the prior guidance, just so we can do the organic constant currency bridge?

speaker
Xero

Sorry, Mike, go ahead. It's about 8 to 10 million.

speaker
Jeff Miller

Okay. For the... Okay, thank you.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, you're welcome to press star and then one on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Tony Kaplan of Morgan Stanley.

speaker
Tony Kaplan

Thank you so much. Hoping we could go back to labor, are you able to clarify, I guess, what is driving the labor shortage. I think during COVID, we were thinking that it seemed to be about unemployment benefits being really strong, and it's an industry that is somewhat lower paying. I imagine that that's largely through, but correct me if that's wrong. But I guess, have caregivers just found different jobs that are higher paying, or what do you think is really driving the labor shortage here?

speaker
Judith

Yes, I think we are certainly past the unemployment benefits that we had faced in terms of a headwind previously on the labor side. But look, I think that certainly across many industries, there is a recognition that especially frontline roles, and certainly our teaching roles are frontline roles. There is a real dearth of individuals that are seeking these opportunities out, and at the same time, we have had some of our retention put under pressure throughout this period. These are difficult jobs, right? They're really important, and they're highly valued. On the other hand, they are difficult, and so we are certainly seeing within our industry categorically, and then certainly within our employee, that there are teachers who are making different decisions, who are deciding to leave the industry, and therefore we're very focused on, as we always have, hiring for attitude and training for skill. One of the most important programs that we have on offer is our Horizon Teacher Degree Program, and that is certainly an attraction for new entrants into our field, But certainly I think across the child care field and the child care industry, it is well recognized that there continues to be a shortage of individuals that are interested in doing the work that is so important to us.

speaker
Tony Kaplan

Got it. I wanted to also ask, Stephen, you mentioned the pet care that you're getting into. I guess What's the advantage? Is it that you already have the relationship with the employer, so you're offering a new service to them? And I guess, are the pet caregivers, for lack of a better term, ones that are interchangeable? And so you just have, if you don't have the in-home demand, you can shift to pet demand. I guess, how does that just work? And what's your advantage in pet care?

speaker
Judith

Yeah, so I think first and foremost, you rightly point out the fact that we have over 1,000 client relationships specifically within our backup line of service. And as we have continued to have conversations with our clients about the possibility of expanding the use cases, one of the ones that has certainly come up time and time again is this area of pet care. And the reality is that, as we all know, You know, many employees of our client organizations think of their pets in the same way that they think about their children. And therefore, when they have a breakdown in arrangements with their pet, they do need some support. And so, similar to the work that we do on the child and elder care side, we are going to be providing a service that allows for employees to utilize their pet set of use that is available through their employer directed towards their pet. And so we're going to be contracting with third parties to actually deliver that care and obviously using the backup care mechanism and benefit to fulfill that demand.

speaker
Tony Kaplan

Thank you.

speaker
Operator

The next question comes from Fiverr Olwe of Deutsche Bank. Yes, hi. Thank you.

speaker
Elizabeth

So I'm still a bit unclear around the demand versus supply dynamics. And I was thinking maybe one way we could think about it is sort of urban, sort of isolate out some of the urban areas. And I wonder if you can help us think through maybe what the enrollment was in these urban centers pre-pandemic and kind of where you're trending right now and how much of that gap is is supply driven. Relatedly, I'm curious if you're seeing these supply issues across the board, or are you seeing them more on the urban side?

speaker
Mike

Well, broadly speaking, the disparity, if you will, between enrollment in our urban versus suburban is about five percentage points. There is a distinction, but it's not a wholesale gap, if you will. I think it's these more intense areas that we've called out around New York City, D.C., et cetera, that had a bigger, a much wider gap than that compared to sort of a more generic urban-suburban comparison. And so from the standpoint of Obviously, if a center is 30 or 35 percent enrolled, in that center there's more of a demand problem than there is in a center that is 60 percent enrolled. We can't open the next final toddler room because we don't have the two teachers to open that room, similar with a preschool room. The supply-demand dynamic does change depending on how much a center is enrolled, but I think that our view is that there are supply constraints that are pretty hyper-localized. Some areas did not shut down as much, so therefore they reopened more quickly, and there is less disrupted teacher supply there. But I don't know, having looked at the patterns for us, I don't know that there's anything particular that we would call out there?

speaker
Judith

Yeah, and I think the only thing I would add is, you know, Elizabeth rightly pointed out the cities that have been more challenging, the New York cities, the D.C.s, the Seattles. But on the flip side of that, we also have, you know, within the portfolio places like Boston, L.A., San Francisco that have strongly preferred And therefore, we really are not thinking about this as an urban challenge. It is very specifically in certain cities where they are held back for a garden variety of reasons. But nonetheless, I think that we took a great heartening in this last quarter to see even places like New York, D.C., and Seattle continuing to progress. So those are not cities that we expect won't come back. They just have not come back as quickly as places like Boston, LA and San Francisco for us.

speaker
Elizabeth

Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. And then just to follow up on the prior question really around, I guess, the psyche of new parents, particularly, you know, children who were born during COVID. What has your research shown in terms of, you know, what they're looking for in Are you seeing that it's more maybe one parent hasn't gone back to work yet and is doing more of the caregiving at home? Is it more of a hybrid environment? I'm curious what your research has shown around that.

speaker
Judith

Yeah, what our research and certainly what our enrollment patterns bear out are that individuals who are coming back to childcare or coming into child care for the first time are coming back on a full-time basis. So they're coming back five days a week and are choosing to have that five days a week to really support the continuity and consistency of care for their children and to support the needs they have as full-time working employees. The folks who have not come back into child care are really generally doing a few different things. Some of them are continuing to put together their patchwork of support, some of which includes working from home and trying to hobble together between spouses and or grandparents and or just off the side of their desk caring for their children. And then others are really planning for what could be a fall or January enrollment in more professionalized group care settings like Bright Horizons, and in the meantime are spending the summer and or into the fall trying to figure out exactly what their work arrangements are going to be and then making a decision as it relates to the where they're going to find accommodation.

speaker
Elizabeth

Okay. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

speaker
Judith

Thank you. Excellent. Well, we appreciate everyone joining us this evening and wishing you a great night.

speaker
Mike

Thanks. Have a good rest of your summer.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. And you may now disconnect your line.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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