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spk00: Hello and welcome to the Brightview Holdings Q1 2024 earnings call. My name is Elliot. I'll be coordinating your call today. If you would like to register a question during today's event, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. And I'd like to hand over to Chris Stosko, Vice President of Finance. The floor is yours. Please go ahead.
spk06: Good morning and thank you for joining Brightview's first quarter fiscal 2024 earnings call. Gail Asplund, Brightview's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brett Urban, Chief Financial Officer, are on the call. I will now refer you to slide two of the presentation, which can also be found on our investor relations website, and which contains our safe harbor disclaimer. This call may include forward-looking statements subject to certain risks and uncertainties. In addition, during this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please see our 8K issued yesterday for the reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures. I will now turn the call over to Gail.
spk07: Thank you, Chris. And good morning, everyone. I will start today's call on slide four with some highlights for the first quarter and then provide an update on our strategic initiative. I'm pleased to report that we are off to a solid start in physical 2024 as we achieve meaningful progress on our objectives outlined under one bright view. On our last earnings call, we set a clear and refreshed strategy. prioritize our employees, align our core businesses while ensuring our customers come first, focus on profitable growth, and unify the company under one bright view. During the quarter, we began to successfully execute on this strategy by aligning our Salesforce to our local operating branches, reintegrating core self-performed businesses back into our branches, de-emphasizing non-core portions of our business, and continuing to focus on pursuing higher quality, profitable business. While these actions led to a modest impact on our land maintenance revenue for the quarter, I am confident we are taking the necessary steps to ensure growth in the medium and long term. I'm also pleased to report that for the sixth quarter in a row, our development business once again showed significant growth and margin expense. Additionally, We are proving our commitment to becoming more efficient and removing cost with improvement in our corporate segment. I'm encouraged by the underlying momentum in our business as we execute our renewed strategy. And as a result, we are reiterating our financial guidance for the full year. Additional evidence of our strategy in action was the sale of our U.S. launch franchise business in January for roughly $52 million. This was a non-core business that did not align with our strategy around self-performance and capital allocation. This move underscores our focus on the core business, but also highlights the value of achieving profitable and reoccurring growth. We have attained a substantial valuation in the private markets, well above our current trading multiple, providing proceeds that we intend to reinvest in our core business. The enhancements we have made in our business align with our overarching initiatives to operate as a unified Brightview. Throughout the quarter, we made progress implementing our strategy across the entire organization. We believe successful execution of our one Brightview strategy will unlock significant long-term shareholder value. This starts by focus on becoming the employer of choice. And we are doing this by reinvesting in our core businesses and our employees. We are making investments in our fleet and investing in the health, safety, and development of our team. We are also streamlining and optimizing organizational structures at the branch level, resulting in a revitalized go-to-market strategy. And we renewed our focus on improving how we service our customers. with the goal of increasing retention and growing profitably. Alongside these efforts, we took measures to better align our capital allocation priorities with our branch level needs and our broader initiatives throughout the organization. On slide five, we show one bright view in action and provide a few specific examples of the improvements we have made in the early stages of this value creation journey. Under this, we realigned our sales efforts and implemented incentive plans to ensure the entire organization, from the branch to our corporate office, is focused on driving profitable growth. Furthering the collaboration throughout the organization, we put in place a cohesive, customer-first, go-to-market strategy. We also enhanced our customer survey, which resulted in improved response rates and is helping us to gain an even deeper understanding of our customers and their needs. We are leveraging these findings to further refine and strengthen our go-to-market approach. An example of this go-to-market strategy was the reintegration of our tree and golf services into our core maintenance branches. This streamlines operations internally, but also helps us deliver more efficient, collaborative, and unified services for the customer. We are focused on becoming the partner of choice and taking actions to enhance our positionings which will allow for opportunities to grow our business with existing customers and win new customers. As the nation's largest provider in our industry, there is tremendous opportunity to leverage our size and scale to drive efficiencies across the business, while improving essential functions such as safety, training, and the centralization of operations to better align and support our core business. Moving to slide six, and before turning the call over to Brett to discuss our financial results for the quarter, I want to remind everyone that the focus of One Bright View begins with becoming the employer of choice. We do that by putting our employees first and by developing a culture where people seek to achieve individual and group success. We prioritize our employees so they have the capabilities, training, and equipment required to do their jobs at a high level. Doing this materially impacts the level of service provided to customers and leads to an exceptional customer experience. By making these investments in our employees, and in turn, employees taking care of our customers, we will become the partner of choice in our industry. We are focused on improving customer retention and accelerating profitable growth by bringing on new customers and expanding relationships with existing customers. Once we have established a strong foundation for profitable growth and a unified bright view, we will be in a position to expand strategically. M&A can be a powerful lever to growth and generate meaningful returns on capital, but only when it fits strategically, culturally, and financially. As one bright view, we have the best at what we do, and I'm confident that we can continue to deliver on these goals. With that, I'll turn it over to Brett, who will discuss our financial performance and outlook in more detail.
spk06: Brett? Thank you, Dale, and good morning to everyone. I'll start on slide eight. I'm pleased to report that fiscal 24 is off to a good start with our strategy towards one bright view showing positive signs in the first quarter. A continued focus on profitable growth and land maintenance, another quarter of strong performance and development, and execution of our cost efficiency plan led to quality revenue and EBITDA margin expansion for the business. Important to note, during the quarter, our performance was impacted by the year-over-year decline in snowfall. When normalizing for snowfall consistent with the prior year, our overall profitability and margins would have shown significant improvement. More to come on that later in the presentation. Our enhanced net working capital coupled with the timing of capital intensity and reduced interest expense, resulted in a meaningful increase of free cash flow compared to the prior year. This resulted in a net leverage ratio of 2.9 times, allowing for financial flexibility for ongoing execution of our profitable growth strategy and investment in the business. Moving to slide nine, total revenue during the quarter decreased 4.5% year-over-year to $627 million. Maintenance was impacted by snow that decreased 22 million due to lower snowfall, a decline in ancillary services, and a continued focus on core, self-performed business. Partially offsetting these headwinds was a solid demand in our development business, which grew by an impressive 6.3% compared to the prior year, due to our ability to convert our strong backlog into higher project volume. Development performance in recent quarters reflects the appealing nature of the business model while also creating momentum and opportunities for future growth. Turning now to profitability and the details on slide 10. Total adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $46.7 million, a decrease of roughly $2 million, reflecting early benefits from our One Bright View initiative and improved profitability, offset by the impact of lower snowfall. As I mentioned before, On a similar snowfall to prior year, Q1 EBITDA would have exceeded the prior year results. In the maintenance segment, total adjusted EBITDA of $42 million was down $8 million compared to the prior year, driven by the previously mentioned revenue shortfalls, which were primarily related to SNF. In the development segment, adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $19.6 million, an increase of approximately 19% compared to the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 110 basis points, which marks our sixth consecutive quarter of development margin expansion. This is a result of the quality backlog conversion while simultaneously reducing our costs, ultimately resulting in accretive growth. In our corporate segment, expenses for the first quarter decreased year over year as we made significant progress with our one bright new strategy to increase efficiencies across our core functions and reduce overhead. Turning now to slide 11 to discuss the training impact of snow. As I alluded to earlier, and in an effort to enhance transparency in evaluating our quarters performance, we have normalized Q1 results for snowfall, assuming comparable levels with the previous year. The comparison highlights an increase in EBITDA and additional margin expansion, underscoring the effectiveness of our initiatives and commitment to achieving more profitable growth. Also, This emphasizes the importance of evaluating our business on a full-year basis as the timing and magnitude of snowfall changes year to year. For example, this year we didn't see snowfall in late December, but we did see meaningful snowfall in January. Let's now turn to slide 12 to review our free cash flow, capital expenditures, and debt. For the quarter, we are extremely pleased with our free cash flow generation of $17 million compared to a usage of $55 million in the prior year period. As we communicated on our prior call, we are committed to reinvesting back into the core business and executing our renewed capital allocation strategy. With this said, we are maintaining our cash flow and CapEx guidance for the full year. Net leverage for the quarter came in at 2.9 times compared to 4.9 times in the prior year period. The lower leverage reflects a significant reduction in our debt as a result of OneRox investment, improved liquidity, and profitability growth in the business. Our leverage profile allows for financial flexibility for ongoing execution of our profitable growth strategy and investment in the business. Moving to slide 13, and as Dale mentioned earlier in the call, we are executing on our strategy by focusing on our core business. A positive example of this action is the divestiture of our non-core U.S. long franchise business. We sold this business for roughly $52 million in proceeds, reflecting a double-digit EBITDA multiple. This opportunistic transaction generated meaningful returns and allows us to better focus on our core business and reinvest proceeds into driving further efficiencies and profitable growth. We plan to use these cash proceeds to accelerate the execution of our capital investment plan by replacing aging fleet, buying new lawnmowers, and continuing to make significant investments in the health and safety of our employees. Let's now turn to slide 14 to review our outlook for fiscal 24. Profitable growth will continue to be our guiding factor and key focus. I am pleased to reiterate that we are reaffirming our full year revenue, EBITDA, and free cash flow guidance. We expect total revenue of $2.825 to $2.975 billion, reflecting a range of flat to 5% revenue growth. We continue to assume the following underlying assumptions. In maintenance, We expect our focus on profitable growth to continue to have a near-term impact, but remain encouraged by the underlying health of the market and recent trends within our business. For snow, our fiscal 24 guidance range assumes flat at the low end and a five-year historical average at the high end. While Q1 started slow, we saw a meaningful pickup in snowfall events in January as we moved into the second quarter. And for development, The growth and conversion of our strong backlog of projects will continue to benefit revenue. Moving to adjusted EBITDA, one bright view will be the key driver to growing profit and expanding margins. In fiscal 24, we continue to expect margin expansion in both maintenance and development segments benefiting from key initiatives and discipline management of the business. We expect these improvements to generate total margin expansion of 40 to 80 basis points and adjusted EBITDA of $310 to $340 million. In fiscal 24, we expect a continuation of healthy cash flow generation driven by profitable growth and improved operating performance. Our outlook reflects our commitment to growth and investment in our core business. Contributions from reduced interest expense will be managed alongside the ongoing requirements to optimize the business. Altogether, we continue to expect to generate free cash flow of $45 to $75 million, supporting the financial flexibility we maintain today while enhancing our ability to generate future profitable growth. With that, let me turn the call back to Dale to wrap up on slide 15. Thank you, Brad.
spk07: Before opening the call for questions, I would like to provide a few final thoughts. We are making significant progress on our goals, and we are seeing the returns on these efforts begin to materialize in our results and gaining traction across the company. As we transform this business, I continue to believe there are tremendous opportunities ahead of us. We are moving this business forward, and we are strategically positioned to accelerate profitable growth and to create meaningful value for our shareholders. We will now open the call for questions.
spk00: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by 2. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Bob Labic with CJS Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk03: Thank you. Good morning. We're very excited for the transformation you're driving at Brightview. Thanks, Bob. Um, sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, um, I wanted to start, uh, you gave us some great details in the introduction for sure. Uh, maybe you could start with some of the key metrics, key operating metrics you're focused on improving, uh, this year, fiscal 24 and how you'll share that progress, you know, with investors throughout the year.
spk07: Yeah, that's great. I would just say the number one message that we're monitoring is profitable growth. I think that's the reoccurring theme that we keep talking about. And we want to make sure as we grow this business, we're on the bottom line. So expanding margins, making sure we see growth in our EBITDA is critical in our path forward. We have a lot of internal metrics, Bob, that we're monitoring. And some of the work that we did over the summer during the transition as Jim stepped in to help the business and we transformed the Project Liberty. really got us going on a lot of internal work such as customer retention and conversion rate we're monitoring that on a daily basis but we won't be sharing that externally i think from the external view profitable growth should be that north star that you guys stay on top of but brett you want to add anything yeah bob i would just say and you know absolutely profitable growth moving towards one bright view as you see in the script aligning the business
spk06: Aligning our sales force, aligning incentive plans, making sure everyone is marching towards the same profitable growth goal. Absolutely part of our drive. I'd say the other thing is core business focus. And a huge highlight in the quarter or subsequent event to the quarter was us divesting our non-core U.S. lawn franchise business. And as we move forward, I think if we were to share any more data or information publicly, it would probably be on our non-core businesses. and some of the impact they have on the total. But really, really excited as you think about the quarter and you think about that subsequent event for U.S. Lawns. I think if we're going to share more, it's going to be more things like U.S. Lawns-type non-core businesses that we're focused on evaluating and figuring out if they fit long-term in the portfolio.
spk03: Okay, super. And then you touched on this in one of your bullets as well, but maybe expand a little on How do you get the benefit of scale as the largest operator in the U S but it's a decentralized business. So it's kind of like, you know, opposite ends there. So how can you, you know, improve operations and get the benefit of your scale based on where you stand today?
spk07: Yeah. So I think obviously leveraging our size and scale and the more we can look to centralize, the more we can leverage and create consistency across our business and allow all of our frontline operators, to really focus on the customer. So we have so many things that today we might still have out in the field with our branches focused on that we've got to rethink and centralize and leverage the size and scale so we not only do them more consistently, we can do them more efficiently. So I think a good one that we're working on right now, Bob, is an example. We just started the process of taking our field finance partners and centralizing them to drive that efficient and more consistent support of our field operators. You can see this. And even the way we're doing it, Bob, if you look at our numbers that we just reported, our corporate cost structure came down by $3.5 million year over year in Q1. So there's a huge opportunity to centralize and do it more efficiently. So it's a double benefit when we do it right. So I hope that gives you a little more detail.
spk03: yeah that's great and last one for me i promise um yeah i think i know the answer but i just want to kind of hear you guys say it again in terms of if you look out three to five years um and the growth of the profitable growth of brightview will it be you know more account growth and retention so or will it be more higher margins per account as the key drivers where's the is the focus on you know pricing and margin per account or is it you know more accounts, better retention, et cetera. How would you distinguish between those two things driving your growth?
spk07: Yeah, I think it's all of the above we can start with. I think the first and foremost focus we have, and our partners at OneRock are helping us as we try to set focus on this, and we actually saw a modest little improvement in Q4 year over year, is the retention of existing customers. And we have to make sure that the customers that our customers today see the value we provide and continue to be our customers long term. And if perhaps the service they're getting doesn't match the level of price they're paying, we've got to work with them and figure out how we can provide the service that matches the price or figure out a way to make sure that the price gets adjusted to the right level. But obviously keeping our existing customer base is key to driving growth in this business. But it's also making sure, Bob, we're going after the target customer segment we have. The franchise business we sold was more focused on a little bit of the residential business, which is not our focused end market. We want to go after the commercial business that's our target customer, that the size and scale of Brightview, we can add value across the nation. So it's going to be both. Make sure we retain every account we can. Make sure our customers see the value we provide. and then grow as many new accounts that fit our target audience at the right price that we can. And when we do that, you'll see that organic growth start coming back into the business.
spk03: Super. Thanks so much. Thank you, Bob. Thanks, Bob.
spk00: We now turn to Andy Whitman with Baird. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk04: Great. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions, guys. This whole strategy about kind of focusing in on the core and then exiting things that are seen as non-core. Obviously, the franchise transaction here subsequent to quarter end is a good example of that. I think you guys have also talked about some of your national account business as something that you're looking at as well. And then there's the whole just kind of basic thing of there's some customers that you're probably servicing right now that aren't very profitable. So I guess taken as a whole, maybe, Dale, could you talk about One, a little bit more of the detail behind why franchise business was non-core and how that computes and what the thought process is on the national account business there too. Some of that business, I'm not talking national account, I'm talking about externally serviced national account business. I think you call it DES or something like that. Maybe you can talk about what that means and what kind of look that's getting. And then where you are, how far along are you on portfolio customer review? and exiting those customers, which really don't give you the return or the profit margin that your services should deserve? Kind of a long question, but I think they're all kind of thematically relevant together.
spk07: I think I've got them all weaved in my head, so let's try to get through them, Andy. So first of all, why is the U.S. Lawns non-core to us? We are transforming this business, and we are trying to develop better ways to support our branches and our sales force out in the field. Our U.S. lawn's non-core franchise business was getting all the benefits that we're providing our branch managers by being part of our franchise network. Yet, they really were not targeted at going after the same customer base. But over time, unfortunately, as they transitioned from some of the residential customers to more of the commercial, we began to see those direct franchisees competing against our local branches using the similar playbook and toolbook, leveraging our estimating skills, leveraging our purchasing power to run their businesses. That's not what we wanted to do. We wanted to make sure that the investments we make to improve this business goes to the benefit of our branch managers and the branches out in the field. And the added value was we were able to get a significant multiple above our trading level today. to divest this business. So it was a great choice for us to divest an $11 million of revenue business and get $52 million roughly for it. Now, the other area that you talked about, you classified it correctly, not really national accounts. We still believe we can add huge value to our national account group, but more of the non-core business that we outsource and we really act as a broker on And we, we are an aggregator for customers to come to, and then we work with local providers to provide that service. There again, that business is going to fall into one or two buckets and we're evaluating this right now. It's going to be business that we want to self-perform and we can add value and we can be the service provider and control the quality of the customer gets. And the other part is going to be customers that we don't target on a daily basis. And we're 100% dependent upon those local providers to service the customer. That is too much of a risk for us, and we don't want to jeopardize our relationship with big accounts that we don't control the end service. So we are going to evaluate that aggregator business, and we're going to decide how that will make sense for us on a go-forward basis. And we'll give you guys, everybody on the call, an update at the end of Q2. And that business today is broken into both snow and land. And we're working with all those partners on snow this year, and then we're making determinations on land, which will be coming up for the summer in most markets. So I think that hits two of them. Did you have another piece of it?
spk04: Well, this whole idea of just portfolio review of your underlying customers and customer exits, the whole idea of addition by subtraction, and anything you could do just maybe clarify this one we'll make a little finer point is there is there a revenue number that like seems like a minimum that like just needs to not happen next year and we should be thinking about in our models as we look at them yeah good question i think i would just say overall with roughly let's just call it 50 50 60 40 depends on how much it snows our brokerage business is like we've said in the past is roughly about 100 million dollars so
spk07: And we'll give you an update on Q2 that gives you exactly how much we think we can self-perform and how much we'll look at transitioning out. On the other larger accounts, I think our team has done a pretty good job continuing to mitigate some of the ones that as inflation worked through the business, they weren't priced right. So the team continues to make some progress there. We do have some larger contracts that were done at a time that maybe it wasn't a focus to be profitable growth and it was more to grow the business. So we've done some adjustments, a few large municipal contracts with multiple years that we still have that we've got to work through. But I would tell you, Andy, we should be able to outrun that business just with our sales efforts that we're doing. If we're going to give you any headwinds from our revenue, It's going to come really from that aggregator BES business that you mentioned. And we promise we'll get through the snow season with our customers, and we'll give a full update once our branches decide where and where they can best self-perform the work that we have. But great question. Okay.
spk04: Yeah, that's super helpful. Okay. Then just my follow-up here. It has to do with snow. So you guys, obviously, December – is what it was to get to the low end of your guide, you need $170 million effectively here in the March quarter. And so I guess, as you sit here with, with a big snowstorm that hit through January, how much more do you need in these last two months to get to that low end?
spk07: Yeah. So we don't want to obviously give inner quarter numbers, but what, what we can indicate to everybody, we have confidence in our range and we feel like Brett had said in his opening comments, Andy, where we are as we work through Q1 and January, we feel we're pretty close to where we were last year, which makes us feel very comfortable that we will land in that range. And I just remind everybody, last year, February and March, we're relatively low snowfall. And that still got us to $210 million of revenue. So we actually think there could be more of that upside. That's why we kept that range with a midpoint somewhere around $240 million. But we're very, very comfortable, Andy. We're going to get in the low-end minimum and probably more towards the midpoint of that range when we think about it, if it snows like what we've seen in the past in February and March.
spk04: I thought I'd ask. Thanks, guys. Have a good day. You bet. Thanks, Andy.
spk00: Our next question comes from Tim Mulroney with William Blair. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk05: Yeah, thanks. Good morning, Dale and Brett.
spk06: Morning, Tim. Morning, Tim.
spk05: So, Brett, if I'm doing the math right, it looks like the maintenance land business was down about 5% organically, if you exclude that 3.2 million acquisitions. Am I doing the math right there?
spk06: Yeah, on the total, you're doing the math right, Tim. It's down about $19 million for land.
spk05: For maintenance land, yeah, excluding snow. So my question is, did that hit your expectations, or was it a little softer than you expected? And I'm asking because based on the midpoint of your guide for this segment, for about flat organic for the full year, you're starting the first quarter down five, flat for the full year at the midpoint, it looks like you'd be expecting a pretty strong second half of the year. Am I thinking about that the right way?
spk06: You are thinking about that the right way, Tim. As you look at our first quarter, we're not giving quarterly guidance. We came out last at the end of Q4 and gave annual guidance, and we tried to say the first couple quarters may be a little choppy and more towards the negative two or a little bit more than that end, and then the back half of the year would be flat to the positive end. But a couple things to call out there in Q1. We did expect right around where we landed, and the biggest piece – that we really didn't talk a lot about at the end of Q4, and we're not really talking a lot about now, but it's the hurricane we had last year. We had Hurricane Ian come through the southeastern part of the United States. That was roughly half of our land miss came from that hurricane year-over-year comp. And the other half is essentially what we expected by focusing on our core business, de-emphasizing our non-core business, and continuing to work through the profitable growth. Tim, I think as you move into the last nine months of the year, I think you'd expect there won't be a comp for Hurricane in Q2, but there will be some of that work still ongoing with focusing on our core business, de-emphasizing, as Dale mentioned, our non-core business, specifically our aggregator business called BES. And we are working through snow now, but when it comes to land, we'll have a fulsome update here at the end of Q2. because we're actively working through negotiations with clients now, and we expect those to be done, you know, primarily done here by the end of Q2, and we'll give an update on if any impact will come from that business, what that looks like for Q2, 3, and 4.
spk05: Okay. I understand. That was very clear. Thank you for walking me through that. So I got that. I wanted to ask about you're switching gears here a little bit to the AIMS work, which I know you highlighted earlier. some softness in the ancillary business this quarter. And maybe you even made reference to it last quarter, too. I don't remember. But my questions on the ancillary are, number one, curious what you think is driving that decline in demand. I would just be interested in your perspective. Because I know that out-of-scope work can sometimes be helpful to margins and would assume that's something you'd like to see more of. And number two, sorry, what percent of your maintenance plan business would you estimate is employer revenue versus base contract revenue? I think I remember on the ITPO it was like 75-25. I don't know if that ratio is still relevant. Sorry to cut you off there, Brett.
spk06: Yeah, no problem, Tim. Sorry to cut you off. I'll start with the second question. Yeah, ancillary to the total land revenue is about 75-25, maybe even 70-30 range of what's contract, other specialty services versus pure ancillary. So, That's kind of generally the way if you take the full land, the land revenue. But back to the original question, we did see declines in Q1. Majority was Ian. You know, if you think about the total hurricane Ian that happened last year, think about the total Q1 comp, all that hurricane revenue was ancillary revenue that came through the southeastern part of the United States. And as you sit here today, we really didn't have any ancillary issue in Q4 coming out of last year. We don't expect to see any ancillary challenges in the back half of this year or back three quarters of this year. Our ancillary backlogs are at an all-time high. Some of that's dependent on seasonality and weather as we put it in the ground. If it snows a lot more here in Q2, we may do a little bit less ancillary in Q2, but the backlogs are at an all-time high. If you look at that number, which we track, we don't disclose total, but it's up roughly about 10% year over year in what we're bidding and customers are buying. And that's specifically in the land business.
spk05: Got it. Okay. So actually, that's good to be here because I kind of think about that as a good sign of demand generally if folks are willing to spend a little bit more on this or that throughout the year. So there's no... No signs of a decline in demand.
spk06: It's just a hurricane comp issue. Yeah, Q1 is a hurricane comp issue for ancillary. That's why we called it out in the queue. But as you think about the health of the business, the market, we see no signs of any type of weakness in the market. We see ancillary backlogs in our land business. up about 10% year over year. We see our new sales pipeline in the land business up year over year. And if you look at our development business, we are seeing extreme positivity in that business, not only on the margin side, but from a revenue growth side. It's been six quarters in a row of really growing that business at mid-single-digit growth rates. And our backlog for development is essentially sold through this year, and we're selling into the first half of 2025 at this point. So we see really positive signs of momentum, not only on the upselling on the land side of the business, but also on the development side of the business.
spk05: Got it. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Tim.
spk00: Our next question comes from Andrew Steinemann with JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk01: Hi, guys. This is Alex Hasson for Andrew Steinerman. I just wanted to dive into sort of the tension between centralizing and decentralizing here in the business. I know this isn't the first time that Brightview has made structural changes in what roles become centralized, what roles become decentralized. They'll be maybe helpful to to hear your thoughts on that and then I have a follow-up question on capital allocation.
spk07: It is the number one way that we can add value to our field operations people by taking non-customer facing work away from them and centralizing it and allow them to spend more time with customers, which will inevitably help us be a better partner to our customers. So there are things, Tim, when we talk about interacting with the customer, I'm sorry, Alex, that we definitely want to do at our branches. And I want every branch focused on those customer-facing activities. And then there's the non-value things that you have to do to process, whether it be AP or collect AR or support financial functions, that we don't want our operators distracted by. We want them focused on customer-facing work. So I know that the company has gone back and forth from centralization to decentralization. But even when they decentralized stuff, a lot of the area was just decentralizing it to different markets. It wasn't giving everything directly back to the branch. So if we're going to centralize, we're going to put the right way and we're going to bring it all the way topside so we can get the maximum value for it.
spk01: Got it. That's very helpful. And then thinking about capital allocation at Brightview, Obviously, there have been some priorities here that maybe got you into some non-core businesses and led to some acquisitions that didn't scale the way that they were desired. Just from a metric standpoint, how are you thinking about measuring success in capital allocation, the return on invested capital framework? Is there anything you're thinking of how to measure success that maybe moves beyond these consolidated measures that you guys discussed?
spk07: Yeah, I think you mentioned some of the challenges we've had as we've deployed capitals, and we haven't traditionally been great stewards of that capital as we've deployed it. So our M&A process, the first thing I did with the team, and I am so happy with the progress we've made, is tap the brakes on M&A because, like I've said, M&A is not just a financial move. It has to fit the company strategically and culturally as much as just making the math work. And even the process for integrating that M&A that we've done in the past, when we buy a company, we have to own that company and be a better owner of that asset immediately. We can't have earnouts. We can't just let the asset linger out there for a period of time before they become part of the Brightview team. So our M&A process is going to drastically change And our field operators are right now reviewing. We have over $700 million of potential M&A, and our group has reviewed it to say which one of these potential targets make the most sense for us to bring into our company that we can be a better owner and they can help us, that we can grow their revenue faster or drive more efficiency and create bottom line returns. We haven't done that in the past, and that is a major shift for us. I am a huge believer in in M&A, but M&A has to be done the right way. It can't be a financial calculation that nobody that understands the business and the people that work there actually are involved in the decision. So it is changing. And look, we've got to monitor M&A and how we're a better owner. We've got to make sure post deals, we know what improvements we're making to make more EBITDA and more revenue on the business that we acquire.
spk01: Got it. That's very helpful. And then maybe to wrap up, can you highlight any sort of tangible or intangible strategic assets that when you look at Brightview now from your sort of outsider becoming an insider vantage, you say, oh, these are true strategic and competitive assets that are distinct from our competitors and distinct in the market?
spk07: Great question. I would tell you, What excites me most about this is the closer I've visited, you know, not quite a third of our branches, but I've been spending most of my first 120 days out interacting with our frontline team. The closer you get to the customer, the more dedicated they are to what they do every day to make sure they deliver the right service. We, as a corporation, as a company, have to provide them the tools and resources they need. We have to upgrade some of our fleet. We have to get them better mowers. We have to get them tools and training and safety equipment so every day when they're out servicing our customers, our customers understand why we're the best provider in this industry. That's why you heard from Brett, we're going to take those proceeds that we got from U.S. Lawns, we're going to reinvest that back in the business to make sure those frontline employees get the benefits that they deserve and they can service the customers. And that's the most positive part of this business. And yes, we had some different segments of our business that might've been a little siloed with, as we announced, we're integrating golf and tree, but even those businesses have dedicated people that are experts in what they do. But when we bring all the resources we have together and they all work seamlessly, go into market to our customers, Nobody can compete with Brightview. We have experts from turf to development to tree care to irrigation to general land maintenance. We have the best people in the industry, and I see that every day when I visit the branches. So that is our secret sauce. We just have to support those people so they can spend more time doing what they do best every day.
spk04: Thank you.
spk07: You bet.
spk03: Thanks, Alex.
spk00: As a reminder, if you'd like to ask any questions, please press star one on the telephone keypad now. We now turn to Stephan Moore with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk08: Hello, this is Harold Anto on for Stephan Moore. Yeah, so development shows some particular strength in the business. But just wanted to get an idea of, you know, what are some of the drivers of the strength in the development business this year? And do you expect that strength to be carried over? throughout the rest of the year.
spk07: Yeah, so Harold, I think it was Harold, you broke up a little bit, but our development business obviously has been the benefactor of what the country's seen on the construction cycle over the last couple years. And some of those mega projects that you heard a lot of people talk about, as they come towards the end, and will continue to come towards the end for the next year and a half, we offer one of the top 50 specialized projects construction companies in North America that can actually support the final stages of those projects. So that team is very hitting the stride right now. They have a great backlog. We're winning new jobs every day, and we'll continue to see that demand, as Brett said, well into 2025 as we continue to bid work. So that business has been a huge, huge benefactor of all the construction that's gone on over the last 24 months. So we are very optimistic about development.
spk08: Thank you. And then just on even the margin, how should we think about the cadence of even the margin throughout the rest of the year for you to hit, you know, that 40 to 80 basis points and, you know, just any insight on that, on the cadence of it for the rest of the year would be helpful. Thank you.
spk06: Yeah, great question. Look, I think when you look at Q1, if not for the timing of snowfall, our margin would have been right at our guided range of the total company for the year of 40 to 80 basis points. It would have actually been at the higher end of that range of 60 to 80 basis points. So a little bit is just the timing of snow in Q1 and what our guide would be then for the full year snow holding at 210 to 270 would imply that that snow shortfall in Q1 would come back in Q2. And therefore, we'd see that margin rebound here in Q2. And as you think about quarter to quarter, you know, we're not, again, providing quarterly guidance. But as we look at the full year, we feel strong sitting here today with some of the actions we've taken towards One Bright View and to align the business and the momentum we're seeing in the underlying core business and land and the momentum we're seeing in our development business and some of the cost structure changes we've made in corporate that for the full year guide, we feel confident in that 60 to 40 to 80 basis points total margin expansion for the business. Thank you.
spk08: That's all my questions for today. All right.
spk06: Thank you.
spk00: Our next question comes from George Tong with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
spk02: Hi. Thanks. Good morning. You've reiterated your full-year guide despite the sale of U.S. lawn and the shortfall in snow revenue in fiscal 1Q. Can you elaborate on some of the assumptions around snow and the land business for the rest of the year that you're incorporating into your full year guide?
spk07: I think, George, great question. Like reiterating our full guide, we also feel exactly where we felt after we've worked through January on snow with that range of 210 to 270 million of snow. So we will update everybody where we finish once we get past the snow season. But like I had said earlier, where we sit today, we still feel like the guide we gave you will come in despite the shortfall we felt in Q1, but the activity we saw in January. So snow we feel good about. And overall with U.S. lawns, U.S. lawns, was a strategic sale with $11 million of revenue at a double-digit multiple that we got $52 million for. So you can do some quick math there. We believe we can still step over that incremental three-quarters of the EBITDA that that business would have generated. It's somewhat de minimis with the multiple we got. So we feel good about the momentum that we have as we go through the year. So we are not concerned that, that's going to have a negative effect either on revenue or on EBITDA for our full-year guide overall.
spk02: That's helpful. And then development revenue growth of 6% came above your full-year guide range of 2% to 5% for the segment. Can you discuss your growth expectations for development for the rest of the year? Any timing considerations or comp issues to be mindful of?
spk07: So I'll start, but then I'll let Brett. Just at a high level, the one thing I would say, the benefit that or the lack of benefit we saw in snow that we told everybody we didn't see a lot of snow until January, that means that the construction season can actually be running a little longer into the year. So our development group gets the benefit of that. So they did have an outstanding quarter with that growth. And I would just say in Q2, depending on what we see for snow, that could trim that down year over year, especially last year, like I said, snow in February and March was relatively light. So, but Brett, do you want to add anything?
spk06: Yeah, George, typically development's lowest quarter is Q2, same with our land business. So as you think about seasonality and snow, et cetera, Q2 is a bit lower. If you think about last Q2, we were essentially flat in the business, just given timing of projects and seasonality. So We do so expect that full-year revenue guide of 2% to 5% for the year, Q2 being a little bit less than Q1, and then as you look back at the back half of the year, being right in the middle of that guide. Again, we feel bullish on that business. We are essentially sold through 2024 in our backlogs. We're selling into 2025. There could be some quarterly noise just getting projects in the ground, but At the end of the day, we feel great about that business and really the momentum in the overall company. And if you think about us reaffirming guidance, we sit here today excited by the fact that this will be a breakthrough year for Brightview, especially with EBITDA and EBITDA margin expansion. And despite what happened in Q1, timing of snow, or despite what happened with stepping over a tough comp with the hurricane, we really feel confident that getting EBITDA at a breakthrough year this year for the company is where we're reaffirming, and we feel optimistic about that.
spk02: Very helpful. Thank you.
spk06: Thank you. Thanks, George.
spk00: This concludes our Q&A. I'll now hand back to Dale Asplund, CEO, for closing remarks.
spk07: Thank you, Operator. As everyone can tell, we are very excited about the opportunities ahead, and I'm thrilled to be leading this great company through this important period. Our objectives are clear. We are committed to becoming one Brightview, growing profitably and creating meaningful shareholder value. With that, thank you, and operator, you may end the call.
spk00: Ladies and gentlemen, today's call is now concluded. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
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