CBIZ, Inc.

Welcome to CBiz First Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. Our participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Lori Novitsky. Kiss, please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the CBiz first quarter 2021 results conference call. In connection with this call, today's press release has been posted to the investor relations page of our website, cbiz.com. As a reminder, this call is being webcast, and a link to the live webcast as well as an archived replay and transcript can also be found on our website. Before we begin our presentation, we would like to remind you that during the call, management may discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures can be found in financial tables of today's press release and in the investor presentation on our website. Today's conference call may also include forward-looking statements. including statements regarding our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, strategies and prospects. Forward-looking statements represent only estimates on the date of this conference call and are not intended to give any assurance as to actual future results. Because forward-looking statements relate to matters that have not yet occurred, These statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause future results to differ materially. A more detailed description of such factors can be found in the filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please note that CBIS assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. Joining us for today's call are Jerry Grisco, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ware Grove, Chief Financial Officer. I will now turn the call over to Jerry for his opening remarks. Jerry?

Thank you and good morning, everyone. With the release of our first quarter results this morning, we are pleased with our strong start to the year. We experienced growth in total revenue, same unit revenue, earnings per share, and adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2021. These results provide important momentum for the remainder of the year. Our results demonstrate the fundamental attributes of our business model that I've emphasized throughout the past year. These characteristics continue to enable our positive performance during both favorable and less favorable business conditions. These attributes include the proportion, representing approximately 70% of our revenue that comes from essential and recurring services, including our tax services, insurance services, payroll services, and a host of others that our clients rely on us to provide regardless of business conditions. Our high client retention rates, our broad geographic footprint, the diversity of our client base in terms of industry and size of business, our strong and consistent cash flow, and the substantial amount of variable expenses in our business. We continue to capitalize on the stability that our business model affords us. Throughout the last year and into the first quarter of 2021, we have watched how these attributes provided us an opportunity for growth, regardless of economic environment. In addition, we continue to be extremely vigilant in managing our overall expenses and discretionary spending, practices we focused on at the start of the pandemic and carried into the first quarter of this year. As recovery continues and we return to some level of normalcy, These expenses will begin to return as well, albeit at somewhat reduced levels compared to 2019. Now I will turn to the performance of our two primary practice groups. Within our financial services group, we continue to experience very strong demand for our core services, including many of the compliance-related services that are weighted more heavily towards the first quarter of each year. This year, the IRS tax filing deadline was extended to May 15th. so a portion of our tax compliance revenue work will extend beyond the traditional mid-April timeframe. Within our discretionary and project-based businesses, we continue to experience increasing demand for our litigation support business and are seeing returning interest in our private equity advisory services and our valuation services. Further, we anticipated that some project-based and discretionary work that was put on hold or delayed last year would carry over into 2021, and we are seeing that now. especially for our services that touch M&A transactions. While it is still too early to tell if this trend will continue throughout the year, all signs are positive, and we remain encouraged based on the general level of optimism we are hearing from our clients and the external signs of economic recovery. Also important to note, the passage of the most recent COVID relief bill and stimulus package, like those passed in 2020, present new considerations for businesses and translates to more opportunity for us to deepen our client relationships and offer support when our clients need it most. We continue to be active in our outreach and engagement of our clients to help supporting accessing these new and expanded opportunities. Our government healthcare consulting business ended in 2020 strong and started this year with tailwinds as delayed contracts resumed. And we find our clients have largely adjusted to working with us using virtual tools. We are also seeing new projects move forward, including increasing interest in our services related to managed care, which means additional opportunities for this business. Turning to our benefits and insurance group, we started the year strong and are seeing a continuation of the positive trends that we experienced in the second half of last year in our employee benefits business, the core of our property and casualty business, and the advisory services provided within our retirement plan services businesses. Client retention is also up for these same services so far in 2021. From a consolidated viewpoint, we continue to experience some softness in the portion of our payroll business that generally serves smaller businesses, including a number in the food services industry. To put this in context, the total revenue from this segment of our payroll clients represents less than 4% of CVIZ's total revenues. One additional area I want to highlight is our investment in producers. Our ability to track, retain, and develop our producers is essential to accelerate organic growth, and I am pleased to report that our overall number of producers is up at the start of 2021, and we continue to make progress in this area. The new producers we brought on in recent years continue to outperform our projections, and as a result, we are continuing to add new producers and to expand this program to other areas of our business. In summary, we are pleased to start 2021 in a position of financial strength with a strong balance sheet, low debt, and ready access to capital. With that, I will turn it over to Ware for his comments.