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spk06: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the CAMED Corporation Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ms. Sherry Warner of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.
spk04: Good morning. Our conference call this morning will review the financial results for the second quarter of 2021, ended June 30th, 2021. Before we begin, let me remind you that the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 apply to this conference call. During the course of this call, the company will make various remarks concerning management's expectations, predictions, plans, and prospects that constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected by these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those identified in the company's news release of July 27th and in various other filings with the FCC. You are cautioned that any forward-looking statements reflect management's current view only and that the company undertakes no obligation to revise or update such statements in the future. In addition, management may also discuss non-GAAP operating performance results during today's call, including earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP results is provided in the company's press release date of July 27th, which is available on the company's website at ChemEd.com. I would now like to introduce our speakers for today, Kevin McNamara, President and Chief Executive Officer of ChemEd Corporation, Dave Williams, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of ChemEd, and Nick Westphal, President and Chief Executive Officer of ChemEd's Phytos Healthcare Corporation subsidiary. I will now turn the call over to Kevin McNamara.
spk01: Thank you, Sherry. Good morning. Welcome to ChemEd Corporation's second quarter 2021 conference call. I will begin with highlights for the quarter, and Dave and Nick will follow up with additional operating detail. I will then open up the call to questions. Operating two distinct business units during a global pandemic has been exceptionally challenging. Fortunately, we have begun to return to normalcy. The pandemic had created unique problems, logistical hurdles, and forced our operations to make significant changes in field and home office procedures. Many of these changes have been institutionalized and will become part of our normal operating procedures post-pandemic. I could not be prouder of our management team. Both VITAS and Roto-Rooter met these pandemic challenges head-on, produced excellent operating results that are well positioned for growth in the coming years. In April 2020, the first full month of the pandemic, Roto-Rooter experienced an immediate and severe drop in demand for all plumbing and drain cleaning services. This drop was short-lived. Starting in May 2020, Roto-Rooter saw a spike in residential plumbing and drain cleaning demand. This increase in demand was sustained throughout 2020 and has continued unabated in the first six months of 2021. Commercial demand has also improved off pandemic lows and has now normalized close to pre-pandemic levels. For the remainder of 2021, I anticipate Roto-Rooter's residential demand to remain at the current run rate coupled with increased commercial demand as the country returns to normalized pre-pandemic consumer behavior. David will provide more detailed guidance metrics later in this call. Over the past 20 years, the country has faced 9-11, the Great Recession, and now a global pandemic. In each of these crises, Rotorua remained operating and materially increased market share, revenue, and operating margin. Just as important, Rotorua has held on to the increases in revenue, market share, and margins in past crises. Roto-Rooter is well-positioned post-pandemic, and we anticipate continued expansion of market share by pressing our core competitive advantages in terms of brand awareness, customer response time, and 24-7 call centers and Internet presence. For VITAS, the most significant issue remaining from the pandemic is the disruption to senior housing occupancy and the related hospital referrals. Recent admissions data suggests senior housing has entered into the early stages of recovery, and our updated guidance anticipates steady improvement in the senior housing referred hospice admissions in the second half of 2021, with a further acceleration in senior housing admissions anticipated in the fourth quarter. With that, I would like to turn this teleconference over to David.
spk02: Thanks, Kevin. Let's turn to VITAS. VITAS's net revenue was $312 million in the second quarter of 2021, which is a decline of 4.7% when compared to the prior year period. This revenue decline is comprised primarily of a 6.3% reduction in our days of care, offset by a geographically weighted Medicare reimbursement rate increase of approximately 1.8%. Acuity mix shift did have a net impact of reducing revenues approximately $3.8 million in the quarter, or 1.2%. The combination of a lower Medicare cap billing limitation and other contra-revenue charges offset a portion of the revenue decline by roughly 90 basis points. VITAS did accrue $2 million in Medicare cap billing limitations in the second quarter of 2021 and and this compares to a $5.7 million Medicare cap billing limitation in the second quarter of 2020. Of our 30 Medicare provider numbers, right now 27 of these provider numbers have a Medicare cap cushion of 10% or greater. One of our provider numbers has a cap cushion between 0% and 5%, and two of our provider numbers currently have a fiscal 2021 Medicare cap billing limitation liability. Let's take a look at Roto-Rooter. Roto-Rooter generated revenue of $220 million in the second quarter of 2021, which is an increase of $45.6 million, or 26.1% over the prior year quarter. Total Roto-Rooter branch commercial revenue totaled $50.3 million in the quarter, an increase of 31.8% over the prior year. The aggregate commercial revenue growth consisted of our drain cleaning revenue increasing 39.8%, Plumbing increased 32.4%, and excavation expanding 25.8%. Water restoration also increased 8.3% on the commercial side. On the residential side, total residential revenue in the quarter totaled $149 million, an increase of 23.7% over the prior year period. The aggregate residential growth consisted of drain cleaning increasing 20.6%, plumbing expanding 30.7%, and excavation increasing 22.4 percent. Water restoration also increased 23.1 percent. Basically, increases across the board, all segments, both commercial and residential. Now, let's look at ChemEd on a consolidated basis. During the quarter, ChemEd repurchased 250,000 shares of stock for roughly $122 million, which equates to a cost per share of $487.53. As of June 30, 2021, there was approximately $312 million of remaining share repurchase authorization under this plan. We've also updated our 2021 earnings guidance as follows. VITAS's full-year 2021 revenue prior to Medicare cap is estimated to decline approximately 4.5% when compared to 2020. Our average daily census in 2021 is estimated to decline approximately 5%. This guidance anticipates senior housing occupancy will begin to normalize to pre-pandemic occupancy starting in the second half of calendar year 2021. VITAS's four-year adjusted EBITDA margin prior to Medicare cap is forecasted to be 18.3%, and we are currently estimating $7.5 million for Medicare cap billing limitations in calendar year 2021. 2021. That's an improvement from the initial $10 million of Medicare cap we estimated at the start of this year. Roto-Rooter's forecast to achieve full-year 2021 revenue growth of 15 to 15.5 percent. Roto-Rooter's adjusted EBITDA margin for 2021 is estimated to be between 28 and 29 percent. So, based upon this discussion, our full-year 2021 adjusted earnings per diluted share excluding non-cash expense for stock options, any tax benefits we receive from stock option exercises, as well as costs related to litigation and other discrete items, is estimated to be in the range of $18.20 to $18.50. The revised guidance compares to our initial 2021 guidance of adjusted earnings per diluted share of $17 to $17.50. I'll now turn this call over to Nick Westphal, President and Chief Executive Officer of our VITAS subsidiary.
spk00: Thanks, Dave. In the second quarter, our average daily census was 17,995 patients, a decline of 6.3% over the prior year. This decline in average daily census is a direct result of pandemic-related disruptions across the entire healthcare system. This negatively impacted traditional hospice admission patterns starting in March of 2020. Our hospital-generated admissions have largely normalized to pre-pandemic levels. Referrals from senior housing, specifically nursing homes and assisted living facilities, continue to be disrupted. During the second quarter, we have seen admission stabilization and pockets of improvements in senior housing admissions. However, it remains too early to accurately project the pace and timeline for senior housing admissions to fully return to pre-pandemic levels. In the second quarter of 2021, Total VITAS emissions were 16,840. This is a slight improvement when compared to the second quarter of 2020 admissions. More importantly, admissions in the second quarter of 2021 exceeded discharges by 315 patients. This is the first quarter since the pandemic began that our patient emissions have exceeded patient discharges. This is the strongest indication to date that we are now beginning the process of rebuilding census to pre-pandemic levels. In the second quarter, our hospital-directed admissions expanded 7.8%. And emergency room admits decreased 9%. Total home-based pre-admissions decreased 9.3%. Nursing home admits declined 9.9%. Assisted living facility admissions declined 17.5% when compared to the prior year quarter. Our average length of stay in the quarter was 94.5 days. This compares to 90.9 days in the second quarter of 2020 and 94.4 days in the first quarter of 2021. Our median length of stay was 14 days in the quarter, which is equal to the second quarter of 2020 and is a two-day improvement when compared sequentially to the first quarter of 2021. I want to reiterate Kevin's comments and thank our VITAS team for their unwavering dedication over the last 17 months to deliver these results in the quarter and as well as continue to provide high-quality care in every community we serve throughout the country. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Kevin. Thank you, Nick.
spk01: It's now time for us to consider any questions that come before the teleconference.
spk06: Yes, sir. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Our first question comes from the line of Mr. Frank Morgans, from RBC Capital Mortgage. Your line is now open.
spk03: Good morning. I was hoping maybe you could give us a little color. You talked about the recovery and where admissions are exceeding discharges, but how would you characterize that momentum across the months of the quarter? Would you generally say it got better as you went through the quarter? Any general color there? And I think you also commented about some pockets of improvement. in referral patterns. Could you give us any additional color on where you're seeing most of that? And I guess I'm especially interested in the Florida market.
spk00: So, you know, Frank, to address your first question on pace inside of the quarter, you know, we did see strengthening of the admit versus discharge differential inside of the quarter. And granted, we're inside of summer months and going into the fall that has some monthly seasonality to it. But All in all, we felt good and comfortable with the momentum that appears to be building inside of the quarter and is included in our projections for the remainder of the year.
spk01: And just with regard to Florida, Nick, wouldn't you agree that admissions in Florida are stronger and have been stronger through the entire year as compared to the rest of the country? So our very important Florida market has remained rock solid.
spk00: That's right. And so, Frank, that was the second point I wanted to reiterate Kevin's comment on, We're seeing strength, you know, throughout the entire state of Florida, but also, you know, regionally, you know, we're starting to see some momentum actually, you know, in the Midwest, Southwest, Northeast, and, you know, California continues to ebb and flow in certain pockets of California because of some of the differences in local municipality actions and enactment throughout the community.
spk02: And Frank, just for an abundance of clarity, so if you look at the quarter, April, May, and June, April we saw a slight negative where discharges slightly exceeded admissions in April. May was actually positive where admissions exceeded discharges. So May improved over April. June improved over May where we had a significant gap between admissions and discharges. So the momentum and the trajectory is going in the right direction. I don't expect it to be linear, but without a doubt I'd say I'm exceptionally confident saying is, A, we're at that bottom and we're off the bottom and we're seeing recovery.
spk00: The last comment, Frank, you know, to correlate it back to the senior housing, and you'll see it, I'm sure, with the publicly available national data, when you look at just even small 1% and 2% incremental occupancy moves across the board throughout the country, you know, that helps to sort of correlate some of that ongoing momentum specifically in the senior housing sector.
spk03: Gotcha. And as I look at, you know, we get asked a lot about the labor markets and availability of labor. So I'm just curious, Frank, What is your strategy through this period? I mean, clearly, census has been pressured through the pandemic, but what is your philosophy relative to labor? Are you willing to sacrifice margin in the near term to keep the labor, or how much of an issue is getting labor for you in your key markets?
spk00: So that's sort of two questions built inside of there, right? Our approach throughout the pandemic, and we continue to execute upon it in the second quarter, was we, you know, recognized in certain select markets, yeah, we had certain skilled disciplines where maybe we were slightly overstaffed than we would have been with an expectation of that return towards normalcy and a real focus on retention of high-quality employees, you know, throughout the pandemic but with extreme focus here in 2021. And I'm happy to say in the quarter we've continued to see success with that on a very intentional effort. and we think it positions us well going forward. With that being said, there are specific markets and specific disciplines that we're very aggressively continuing to recruit for, not only for our existing care needs, but for our anticipated future care needs. And, you know, I hate to make blanket statements, but we've had noticeable success with some of the internal metrics in a way in which we We garner that but recognize, you know, the same commentary that's coming from the entire market. It is a very competitive, you know, it's a very competitive market. We have tried to take some unique approaches for really articulating what the value proposition to the candidate base is to join VITAS as opposed to some of the other providers in the space.
spk01: I mean, in fact, just, you know, these competitors that Nick is talking about are paying substantial cash bonus signing bonuses. in order to uproot certain disciplines, not all. It's been a struggle, but it's not getting worse. It's been consistently tough.
spk00: The other component baked inside there, Frank, as we sit today across the board, and there may be some market nuances to this, but Across the board, we don't see staffing as an impediment today that's impeding our ability to grow on a go-forward basis.
spk03: Gotcha. Maybe one, just a last one on VTOS. You know, obviously with the recent surge we're seeing from this variant, I'm just curious, how would it be different this time versus the past, you know, with the past surges? I mean, obviously, most of the nursing home population now is vaccinated. But how do you think your business would react if this variant, you know, hangs around for a while?
spk00: So I think there's a host of differences as we sit here today as compared to, you know, when we entered the pandemic. The first one is our internal response. knowledge and comfort, not only knowing, you know, the vaccination rates and the ability for us to continue to educate our team members, right, to be fully vaccinated, which I think, you know, you understand the nuances with this second wave being highly concentrated on the unvaccinated population as well. So it helps to provide a degree of comfort to the staff to be able to be out in the community to provide that degree and level of care. Also, for unvaccinated or testing requirements, we also have the testing capacity to be able to execute and conform to those rules. And so between the combination of those two things along with sufficient PPE, we should be able to successfully navigate any access restrictions or potential existing or new patient and family and healthcare partner concerns. to be present out in the marketplace in a safe way to respond to the ongoing needs. So we're said differently. We're better equipped with information to be able to react nimbly, as well as the materials and protective supplies to do so without any pause.
spk01: Frank, I personally think the most disruptive potential element of the Delta variant is to the extent that a state – were to require, you know, all service providers like us to have only vaccinated employees, that would be a disruptive factor because VITAS, like every company, has employees that don't want to be vaccinated. And to the extent that we were dealing with that, that would be a disruptive factor. We're not likely to do it. And... I think that if you look at the various states, Florida is probably the last state that would do that, just because it's one of the highest percentage of unvaccinated health care worker groups in the entire country. So I don't anticipate that happening. And to the extent that it did happen, it's less likely to happen in Florida, which is you know, which would be our biggest hurdle. So, you know, we're watching it very carefully. I think the real answer to it is as the Delta variant, which is significant, maybe a little less deadly, as that is persisting. The real issue is we've been, you know, as a country, we've been through it once, and we know that there were certain overreactions and maybe some underreactions, and, you know, they have a better chance of getting it right. So you know, from a commercial standpoint, we're less concerned now than we were previously.
spk03: Got you. One maybe a Rotary question, I'll hop back in the queue, but just was interested in your comments you made about the commercial side of the business having resumed back close to baseline. I'm just curious, have there been any changes in the mix of business on the commercial side and then I guess on the residential side? You know, the sustainability of this really incredible performance sounds like you're pretty confident that that can continue. Any data points there would be appreciated. And I'll hop in the queue.
spk02: Thanks. Yeah, so, yeah, without a doubt, commercial is coming back close to pre-pandemic level. Not there and certainly not there in all markets. And so we now have three weeks reported in the month of July, and I think one of those three, because Kevin was another record, So, yeah, we have a high degree of confidence that the momentum is going to continue. And as long as that momentum continues, that's where Kevin and I are getting our confidence we'll hang on to this share. And that's why he pointed out the last two times we had disruption, 9-11, the Great Recession, we did keep all of the share growth we obtained during the crisis. And the fact that this continues now, the momentum has continued on Rotorooter is where we're getting our confidence we'll maintain this share. post-pandemic, but we're watching it very, very carefully. The great story, frankly, is the margin. To have a 29 EBITDA margin for Roto-Rooter in Q2, unheard of. We're trying to be somewhat conservative but recognize we're dealing with significant demand momentum, but we're watching Roto-Rooter very, very, very carefully, but we think we're in great shape in terms of demand-cost structure in our positionings.
spk01: And basically what we look at is obviously the story the last couple of years for Rotor is strong growth in what we call the ancillary services, call it excavation number one and water restoration number two. Those feed off strong growth in the core businesses, and that's what we're getting. So that gives us a lot of confidence. It starts with the core business growth. And then it's just, you know, getting the throughput for the other services.
spk03: Thank you.
spk06: Our next question comes from the line of Joanna Gadget from Bank of America.
spk05: Good morning. Thanks for taking questions here. So I guess first, if we can go back to Vida's, I guess, small question about the margins for the segment. So for the year where you reduce the guidance versus your initial expectation for the mark for the margins for fetus, but it's part of it now, I guess this sequestration left that was extended, it wasn't initially anticipated. So what what is driving this dynamic? I guess that's the first question.
spk00: Yeah, so there's a couple levers inside of it from when we provided initial guidance and what we've now been able to observe from a trend perspective that's reflected, as you alluded to. You know, I think two of the primary pieces, which have always been the largest cost drivers, get towards, you know, not only salary wage and fringe spread across days of care, but also ongoing ancillary costs, particularly in the medical supplies as well, specifically. And so we're able to take targeted actions to continue to maintain and improve those things in the second half. But really, we have much more experience now, obviously, five, six months in to the year. And so what we did was update our cost drivers with it and make sure that we're prudently managing that on a go-forward basis. Those are the two primary drivers there. Joanna, along with high acuity, really looking at overall high acuity mix and what realistic expectations look like for the remainder of the year.
spk01: Joanna, I'd say that from a management standpoint, as we've looked at ourselves, we've said, you know, we had the administrative support in place for what we very reasonably expected to be 20,000-plus patients And, you know, just with a flip, like a light switch, you know, that fell to the number of the 17,000 number. And we're in the middle of a pandemic, you know, not a real good time to be riffing employees and making changes in, let's say, our overall capacity to deal with that 20,000 number. for the patients, but that's something that we've now had a little more time to begin to chip away at, and I think, and to right-size, you know, on the administrative side. So it's, you know, from a management standpoint, to say something, to say, you know, margin has fallen, yeah, that's never a good thing. to the extent that we say that now we have some tools and some levers to pull to put it back into perspective. I think Nick's doing a great job doing that.
spk00: And as we alluded to, you know, throughout the pandemic and prior quarters, there were some components of margin that were one-time and not sustainable, and I think we did a pretty good job of highlighting that when it came up, and obviously we feel like we have a pretty good handle on the go-forward basis at this point.
spk05: Okay, because I thought last time we were talking about, you know, you getting some efficiencies in the business in terms of how you operate. And I guess you previously alluded to like, you know, 18% margin, I guess, in, you know, after things normalize. So is it still kind of how we should think about it? So despite the fact that, you know, sequestration cuts will come back at some point, the 18% margin is still kind of the target for that business?
spk00: Yeah, I mean, I think in the prior commentary, and it was one I think Dave and I commented on, it was, you know, it was that piece really talking about it in a 2022 timeframe. And you obviously will come out and provide that updated guidance when we get to 2022. So, you know, I think it's consistent. But, you know, the number I seem to recall is about, you know, that 17.5 component with it. And obviously there are other efficiencies that get to be garnered when – you know, as median length of stay and other components would begin to build back towards pre-pandemic levels and a normalized distribution that then play into that. But that's really a, you know, 2022, second half of 2022 time period at this point.
spk05: Right. Because also you made some comment about, you know, acuity trends. So kind of, I guess, you still assume, I guess, this year acuity remains lower. Is that correct?
spk00: It does. That is correct. And when you look at it, total acuity in the quarter, as Dave alluded to in his comments, was 3.2% total days of care compared to 3.5% in the first quarter of 2021. And when you break that down further, there's stability inside of the general inpatient component, but continuous care is still continuing to be impacted. And keep in mind, some of the continuous care impacted setting-wise, is inside of senior housing. And, you know, there's no – until, you know, occupancy, admissions, the ability to provide care, returns to normalized levels in senior housing, it would be foolhardy to believe that when a physician determines its appropriate period of crisis, that continuous care would be, you know, would be appropriate in that setting.
spk05: Right. And just, I guess, we spent some time talking about the senior housing – and, you know, you expect some, you know, improvement in the second half and more so in the fourth quarter specifically. But can you talk about, I guess, your business outside of that referral setting for you? You know, are you growing your followers from other settings, you know, Are you doing something differently? Are you getting traction to get new referrals, you know, physician offices or some other referral sources? So can you kind of talk about that dynamic?
spk00: Yeah, the short answer is yes. And, you know, the other two segments we primarily report on, you know, hospital business we mentioned has returned to pre-pandemic levels, and frankly, it's above pre-pandemic levels. Is that symptomatic of patient flow in the health care system traversing the hospital system more than other settings? Potentially, but, you know, we feel good about our approach there. Our dedicated focus over the last few quarters has really been in some of the, you know, what we'll call the home base, which is primarily a lot of the physician office settings because, you know, as we watch the pandemic evolve and people reaccess the health care system, we found they did so through those markets. And so while it takes more of a distributed education approach to hone in and really prioritize our time, that's what we've been focused on because we have more accounts than we can service in any given market, and we're really making sure we're focusing our time on those that understand the hospice benefit and want to really help work towards providing appropriate access to patients in the communities when that need is presented.
spk05: Right, and I guess shortly, just last question on Vitas. The hospice carving demonstration with MA, anything update there? What are you seeing? Are you participating? I guess last time we spoke about it, it sounded like no. So kind of any color you might have of what you're hearing in the market, how's that going?
spk00: Yeah, we're not participating today for any of the year one components. I think you're aware of this, but the participants that chose to join year one, seven of the nine insurance companies own their own hospice company in the year one demonstration. And as year two begins to unfold and, you know, full participation in what markets and stuff becomes publicly available here in a few months, time will tell. But, you know, we've been public. I've spoken about it at a few conferences here recently. We continue to have concerns related to the design of the demonstration and would, you CMMI considered delaying it and working with some of the provider community to help work through some of those design concerns, and I know others feel the same way, but time will tell and we'll continue to navigate it, but the appetite for participation from the insurance plans in year two will help to determine the right market reaction to it.
spk05: Okay, I see. So you're saying we might hear more in the future from the participants, but Is there some sort of cycle where you might hear back from CMMI on, you know, I guess the commentary from the industry?
spk00: Yeah, you know, we've, per their request, you know, we continue to be active participants in providing dialogue with them towards the intent of really what the purpose and what they're trying to achieve for the country. And time will tell, and we'll continue to make sure we're available to provide any information we have, as well as others, whether it's trade associations and other providers as well. So, you know, I think it's something to keep an eye on, but as we sit right now, really as it broadens to every geographic territory and, you know, more plans would consider participating in the demonstration, time will tell how that gets implemented on a market-by-market basis. But there's, like I mentioned, some some design concerns with how the hospice benefit would be delivered on a localized basis when it can effectively be potentially redesigned by each insurance plan.
spk05: Okay. So your request for CMMI is to kind of change this ability for plans to create their own benefit design for hospice? That's the main pushback you have?
spk00: That's one of a few, and there are and they're aware of those ongoing recommendations as well as concerns that we have as well as other providers in the community.
spk05: Okay, so I'll stop here with this, but one question on the roto rule, right? Obviously, exceptionally strong results, and then you raised your margin guidance for the year. To your point, you know, Q2 was a very strong margin. So essentially, you're kind of saying, hey, you know, we see already July being so strong. So we kind of assume that this residential kind of outperformance or strong performance going to continue a second half and that's what's going on. Because I guess multiple times you kind of said you confident in in your market share gains being sustainable, right? So so you kind of say, hey, these margins could actually sustain at least for the next quarter or so. Is that how you think about it?
spk02: I'd say certainly for the second half of the year, and odds are on a go-forward basis, obviously we're watching to see if there's any softening sequentially. We would have thought if there was, we would have saw it several months ago, and it has not. If anything, it's slightly increased in terms of the momentum. So really, Joanna, that's where we're getting our confidence that, like the other two crises Kevin mentioned, we're going to hang on to this uptick in share, revenue, and margin, but we're watching it.
spk01: We would say that... We certainly expect the margin to be in the same range, but we were a little surprised that it ticked up quite as high as it did.
spk02: To the 29% in Q2, yes, yes. And typically the fourth quarters are highest margin, and we think we were appropriate on our guidance, if not a tad conservative.
spk05: I see. Because I guess if you would say, hey, you know, at some point this residential, like you were saying, you had been expecting, like at some point it's going to soften significantly, Because if it would, then I guess the margins would be lower. But the fact that it's so strong suggests that that business is remaining stronger. So even if you have assumed that at some point the residential normalizes and commercial coming back, what kind of target margins for this segment would you expect now?
spk02: Basically hanging around that 29%.
spk01: $28.5 to $29.5, you know, type of debt range.
spk05: Okay. Yeah, that's a pretty good margin. And the last question, sorry about that, the very last question, for free cash flow priorities, I guess, any changing views around, you know, acquisitions or anything else you might be, you know, prioritizing the free cash flow use?
spk02: Yeah, it's really going to maintain the same that we anticipate. Acquisitions still remain exceptionally pricey. You're hard-pressed to see a true economic return given those valuations. So really it's going to be share repurchasing in our dividend. As you saw, we purchased 250,000 shares in Q2. We purchased 100,000 in Q1. So the first half of the year, 350,000 shares. We've actually, on a primary basis, have finally dropped below the $16 million. Mike, what are we at, $15 million? 8, 15.9 million shares outstanding on a primary basis. And the second half of the year, again, nothing is guaranteed. We'll watch everything, including issues outside of ChemEd, but we would not be surprised to deploy somewhere between another $200 million to $400 million in the second half of the year. But, again, we watch things very carefully. But we feel very good about the sustainability of ChemEd producing cash flow which basically is one of the things we look at in terms of continuing our share repurchase program. So definitely I'm going to put to work nine figures in the second half of 2021 in share repurchasing.
spk05: Great. I appreciate a comment. I'll come back in the queue. Thanks.
spk06: There are no questions at this time. I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Kevin McNamara.
spk01: Well, I just want to say thanks. Thank everybody for their kind attention. We thought we had a good quarter. Very happy with the results, and we'll be back approximately three months from today. Thank you.
spk06: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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