Crawford & Company

Good morning. My name is Mel, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Crawford & Company First Quarter 2022 Earnings Release Conference Call. In conjunction with this call, a supplementary financial presentation is available on our website at www.crowco.com under the Investor Relations section. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer period. Instructions will follow at that time. Should anyone need assistance at any time during this conference, please press pardon zero and an operator will assist you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday, May 10, 2022. Now, I would like to introduce Tammy Stevenson, Crawford & Company's General Counsel. Sir?

Email. Some of the matters to be discussed in this conference call and the supplementary financial presentation may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may relate to, among other things, the impact of COVID-19, our expected future operating results and financial condition, our ability to grow our revenues and reduce our operating expenses, expectations regarding our anticipated contributions to our underfunded defined benefit pension plans, collectability of our billed and unbilled accounts receivable, financial results from our recently completed acquisitions, our continued compliance with the financial and other covenants contained in our financing agreements, our long-term capital resource liquidity requirements, and our ability to pay dividends in the future. The company's actual results achieved in future quarters could differ materially from the results that may be implied by such forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release revisions to any forward-looking statements made in this conference call to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the day of the call or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. In addition, you are reminded that the operating results for any historical period are not necessarily indicative of results to be expected for any future period. For a complete discussion regarding factors which could affect the company's financial performance, please refer to the company's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2022 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly the information under the headings risk factors and management's discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations, as well as subsequent company filings with the SEC. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under SEC rules. As required, a reconciliation is provided for those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I would like to now introduce Mr. Rohit Verma, Chief Executive Officer of Crawford & Company. Rohit, you may begin the conference.

Thank you, Tammy. Good morning and welcome to our first quarter 2022 earnings call. Joining me today is Bruce Swain, our Chief Financial Officer, Joseph Blanco, our President, and Tammy Stevenson, our General Counsel. As is our custom, after our remarks, we will open the call for your questions. Before I review our results, I would like to extend my thoughts to our colleagues, clients and partners who have family and friends in and around Ukraine. We remain hopeful for the safety of the Ukrainian people, especially all those who are directly in harm's way, and for a swift and peaceful resolution to the conflict. We continue to actively monitor this evolving situation to understand how this might affect our colleagues in Ukraine and around the world. Crawford delivered strong top-line results during the first quarter, with revenues increasing over 10% to $279 million compared to the prior year period, despite a benign weather environment. This marks our fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth, and we are extremely proud of this continued momentum. These strong results underscore the hard work of our colleagues, as well as the progress we're making on our long-term growth strategy and the envisioned future. Positive momentum continues in our U.S. operations, where we're gaining market share across all segments of our business. Within North America loss adjusting, we're seeing strong contributions from major and complex specialist loss adjusters. Platform Solutions also remains a growth driver for Crawford, with 35% revenue growth year-over-year. This is aided by increased traction with large U.S. carriers, as well as the better-than-expected performance of the practice acquisition. Looking globally, we're making progress in our international operations despite continued margin pressures due to the same factors we reviewed with you on the last few earnings calls. Mainly benign weather activity and weakness in certain pockets of our international business. While economic activity in our international market is gradually coming back, it is not rebounding as quickly as anticipated. Nevertheless, we remain confident in our ability to alleviate these margin challenges and are keenly focused on exploring ways to improve the profit contribution from the underperforming segments and more holistically realizing the gains from our growth. We continue to execute on our M&A strategy during the first quarter, further building our extensive presence in the Dutch market. Complementing our recent acquisition of Boss Boone, we acquired the assets of RP Van Dyke, a personal injury loss adjusting company based in the Netherlands. The acquisition expands Crawford's body injury service by adding a highly qualified team of specialist adjusters. These experts are skilled in managing complex loss events resulting in injury or death, as well as handling medical liability claims. In addition, it will provide the opportunity to cross that expertise, improve workload allocation, and gain operational synergies. We believe this acquisition reinforces our strategy of increasing scale and driving margin improvement in Europe while transforming Crawford into a leading bodily injury player in the Netherlands. Building on our momentum, we're making strides in our long-term growth strategy, which is built around our three pillars of differentiation. Quality, that sets the industry benchmark. expertise that is deep and eminent, and digital capabilities that simplify our processes. Organic growth remains the foundation of this strategy and is amplified by our selective M&A. Moreover, our updated geographic reporting structure reflects the evolution of our business by better revealing opportunities for future growth and providing additional transparency for our stakeholders. Not only will this create synergies, but it will also lead to cultural changes which foster a growth mindset and empowerment. Let's turn to our capital allocation strategy. Capital allocation is all about discipline. Our priorities remain to invest in the long-term growth and the health of our company, particularly to organic growth and M&A, followed by share buybacks and a consistent dividend. As you have seen in the recent quarters, we have made several bolt-on acquisitions to add to our differentiated capabilities. In addition to M&A, we believe share buybacks have also been a prudent use of our capital. The board recently authorized an increase to the share repurchase program of up to an additional 5 million shares. Given our growth trajectory and our belief that our shares trade well below their intrinsic value, we bought back 2.2 million shares in the first quarter and believe this to be an attractive investment opportunity. Overall, we are in a strong financial position and feel confident in our ability to continue executing on our growth strategy while navigating an evolving macroeconomic environment. With that, I'd like to hand over the call to Joseph, who will discuss our business line results for the first quarter.

Thanks, Rod. Focusing on North America law suggesting, which services the North American property and casualty market, our revenues were driven by our large and complex business, but we have continued to hire more specialists, including 35 law suggesters during the first quarter. Our deep expertise is establishing us as leaders in the marketplace and driving new business wins, especially among large U.S. clients. As we anticipated, Our business in Canada experienced growth over the prior year due to a rebound in activity as a result of the continued COVID recovery. Additionally, our clients are increasingly turning to Crawford as they grapple with staffing challenges. This is a direct result of our cultivated relationships. And although we expect the elevated outsourcing opportunities to be short-term, we believe there will be a long-term benefit of these deepening relationships, which will lead to additional opportunities in the future. Turning now to our international operations, we are building solid tracks in this segment despite continued weakness in certain business lines in the UK, Australia, and Asia. In the UK, the weakness is isolated to specific business lines, while Australia exhibited some transitory weakness in the first quarter, was expected to see recovery in the second quarter amidst unprecedented flooding in southeast Queensland and New South Wales. In Asia, Despite a muted performance in the first quarter, we have made good progress on our regionalization strategy and remain optimistic in our outlook. Europe is seeing signs of a COVID recovery and benefiting from talent acquisitions. We are taking steps to further diversify our business and implement some cost containment measures in geographies experiencing continued weakness. Although it will take time for the full effect of those actions to be realized, we believe that we will see some of these impacts throughout the remainder of the year. Looking to our U.S.-based Broad Spire business, we are continuing to make solid headway as we have seen a benefit from the recovering economic environment. We are seeing an increase in claims volumes, and we expect further improvement as medical management claims continue to recover. We are continuing to invest in talent ahead of an anticipated sustained growth trajectory, and we expect to see margin improvement as this unfolds. Platform Solutions continues to experience tremendous growth driven by several factors, including our gains in the large carrier space and robust deployment levels from outsourcing opportunities from our clients. As a result, Platform Solutions is growing despite less storm activity in the first quarter. Our Platforms businesses are consistently delivering stellar performances. Praxis, which we acquired in late 2021, was a strong contributor to growth with better than expected results in the first quarter, benefiting from additional capabilities that Crawford has been able to provide this business. Additionally, the Crawford Inspection Services business that we launched a little over a year ago and WeGoLook are also gaining traction in the marketplace, and we continue to observe strong results each month. Overall, our strategy to reimagine the claims process within platforms is bearing fruit, and our recent success with this business only underscores the strength of our strategy and solid execution. We remain confident about the long-term health of the business and expect organic growth momentum to continue. We won over $43 million in new and enhanced business in the first quarter. We increased our NPS score to 52 of seven points compared to 2021 and up one point from the fourth quarter of 2021. Additionally, will retain 91% of our U.S. BroadSpire business in the first quarter of 2022, and we continue to increase market share with key carrier clients. We will continue our commitment to delivering service excellence as we move through 2022. At Crawford, everything we do ties back to our purpose of restoring lives, businesses, and communities. We believe in minimizing our environmental impact, behaving with honesty and integrity, and driving conscious inclusion and diversity at every level of the organization. We continue to make progress on ensuring our processes are more efficient and sustainable. We incorporate the sustainability criteria into our purchasing processes to ensure all goods and services are procured in ethical, sustainable, and socially responsible ways that reduce the environmental footprint of our operations and supply chain. These requirements include disclosure of relevant sustainability information from suppliers. We are also making consistent progress on our DEI and human capital initiatives. Our employee resource groups, or ERGs, continue to engage employee segments such as multiracial and ethnic employees, women, LGBTQ plus employees, and disabled employees. And to ensure that our leaders model fairness and inclusivity in their behaviors, unconscious bias training was completed by the executive team members and mandated for all of our 1,340 managers globally in 2021. On the governance front, we were recently recognized as a three-plus company with three or more women on our board of directors by the organization 50-50 Women on Boards, a global education advocacy campaign driving gender balance and diversity on corporate boards. We are very proud of this recognition and believe that gender and ethnic diversity is vital to the strength of our board of directors and to our organization as a whole. Overall, we remain steadfast in our commitment to ESG, and we are dedicated to cultivating a safe, inclusive environment in which everyone's unique perspectives and experiences are heard and valued. We will continue to look for opportunities across our enterprise to become more socially responsible and are increasingly integrating ESG best practices into our operations. In the coming weeks, we will be publishing our inaugural Global Citizenship Report, which highlights our accomplishments thus far and outlines our commitments for the future as we continue on our journey to help make the world a better place. With that, let me turn the call over to Bruce for a deeper look at our financial performance.

Thank you, Joseph. Company-wide revenues before reimbursements in the 2022 first quarter were $279 million, up 10% from $253.2 million in the prior year first quarter. for an exchange rate decreased revenues before reimbursements by $2.8 million, or 1%. On a constant dollar basis, revenues before reimbursements totaled $281.8 million. GAAP diluted EPS in the 2022 first quarter was 10 cents for both CRDA and CRDB, compared to 11 cents for both share classes in the 2021 period. On a non-GAAP basis, First quarter 2022 diluted EPS was $0.15 for both CRDA and CRDB, unchanged for both share classes compared to the 2021 period. The company's non-GAAP operating earnings totaled $13.1 million in the 2022 first quarter, or 4.7% of revenues, increasing slightly from $13 million or 5.1% of revenues in the prior year period. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $21.9 million in the 2022 first quarter, or 7.8% of revenues, compared to $22.2 million, or 8.8% of revenues, in the 2021 quarter. I will now review the first quarter 2022 performance of each of our segments. As a reminder, North America loss adjusting, which services the North American property and casualty market, is comprised of the previously reported Crawford loss adjusting segment in the U.S. and Canada, including global technical services and e-juster. The Canadian operations will include all operations within that country, including those previously reported within the Crawford TPA solutions and Crawford platform solution segments. North American loss adjusting revenues totaled $64.4 million in the 2022 first quarter, increasing 14.5% from $56.3 million reported in last year's quarter, including $3.6 million from the e-juster acquisition. The segment reported operating earnings of $4.1 million in the 2022 first quarter, decreasing from $4.4 million reported in last year's quarter. The operating margin was 6.4% in the 2022 quarter compared to 7.7% in the 2021 quarter. The prior year was aided by $1 million benefit from the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, or CUSE. Turning to international operations, this segment services the global property and casualty market outside of North America. and is comprised of the previously reported Crawford loss adjusting segment outside of North America and includes Crawford Legal Services, which was previously within the Crawford A solution segment. Similar to Canada, the individual countries and international operations will include those service lines previously reported within the Crawford TPA and platform solution segments. International operations revenues totaled $89.3 million in the 2022 first quarter, increasing 3.2% from $86.5 million reported in last year's quarter, including $1 million from the Boss Boone acquisition. Foreign exchange rate impacts totaled $2.8 million in the 2022 quarter. The segment reported operating losses of $3.1 million in the 2022 first quarter, increasing from losses of $700,000 reported in last year's quarter, The operating margin was negative 3.4% in the 2022 quarter, compared to negative 0.8% in the 2021 quarter. As Joseph discussed earlier, operating earnings and margins during the quarter were pressured by higher centralized support costs and weaknesses in certain international business lines in the UK, Australia, and Asia. The Broad Spire segment provides third-party administration for workers' compensation, auto and liability, disability absence management, medical management, and accident and health to corporations, brokers, and insurers in the U.S. Broad Spire revenues were $7.5 million in the 2022 first quarter, increasing 2.9% from $74.3 million in the 2021 period. Broad Spire operating earnings were $6.4 million in the 2022 first quarter, decreasing from last year's first quarter operating earnings of $6.7 million. The operating margin in this segment was 8.4% in the 2022 quarter and 9.1% in the 2021 period, with increased compensation and indirect costs weighing on margins. Lastly is platform solutions, which consist of contractor connection networks and subrogation service lines in the U.S. The network service line includes catastrophe operations and WeGoLook, Revenues for platform solutions were $48.9 million in the 2022 first quarter, increasing 35.2% over the $36.1 million in the prior year quarter, including $6.1 million from the Praxis acquisition. Operating earnings in platform solutions totaled $8 million or 16.5% of revenues in the 2022 first quarter, doubling our operating earnings of $4 million or 11.1% of revenues in the prior year quarter. expanding margins in our network service line, and the positive contribution from the recent Praxis acquisition drove the profit improvements. Unallocated corporate costs were $2.5 million in the 2022 first quarter compared to costs of $1.4 million in the same period of 2021. This increase was primarily due to a $1 million Hughes benefit in the 2021 quarter, a $1 million increase in unallocated payroll taxes and benefits, and a $900,000 increase in other unallocated costs, partially offset by a $1.8 million gain on the 2022 sale of our Canadian head office building in Kitchener, Ontario. We recognized a $2.1 million pre-tax adjustment to a contingent earn-out in the 2022 first quarter. This was the result of favorable changes to projections of certain acquired entities. This non-operating charge, which impacts EPS by $0.03, is added back for the determination of non-GAAP net income and EPS. During 2022, there were no benefits from Qs compared to a total of $1.9 million in the 2021 first quarter. During the first three months of 2022, the company repurchased 1.5 million shares of CRDA and 720,000 shares of CRDB at an average cost per share of $7.23 and $7.31, respectively. The total cost of share repurchases during 2022 was $16.1 million. As Roweth and Joseph touched upon earlier, subsequent to quarter end, we purchased certain assets of RP Van Dyke. The total purchase price included the upfront payment of 4.4 million in cash with a maximum payout of 2.2 million structured as a two year earn out. The company's cash and cash equivalent position as of March 31, 2022 totaled 49.2 million compared to 53.2 million at the 2021 year end. Our total receivables were up 3.6 million from the 2021 year end, largely driven by our international operations and accounts receivable from our recently completed acquisitions. We've made no discretionary contributions to our U.S. defined benefit pension plan for the first quarters of 2021. Although the company has made these contributions for the last several years in the U.S., given the significant improvement in funding levels, we intend to make contributions in 2022. The company's total debt outstanding as of March 31, 2022, totaled $232.6 million, compared with $175 million as of December 31, 2021, reflecting borrowing positions and share repurchases. Net debt stood at $183.4 million as of March 31, 2022, while our leverage ratio under our credit agreement closed at 2.06 times EBITDA. Additionally, our pension liability was down to $15.4 million at the end of the first quarter reflecting a funded ratio of 95.6%. Cash used by operations totaled $15.3 million during 2022, compared to $1.6 million provided in 2021. The decrease in cash provided by operating activities was primarily due to increased incentive compensation payments of $6.4 million in 2022 compared to 2021. Prior year cash benefits related to Qs and other international COVID-related programs of $4.9 million that were not present in 2022, and another $5.6 million in timing differences of U.S. payroll taxes and other prepaid assets. Free cash flow was negative $22.9 million for the first three months of 2022, compared with negative $3.4 million in the prior year. With that, I would like to turn the call back to Rohith for concluding remarks.

Thank you, Bruce. Overall, we are tremendously pleased with our results for the first quarter, which highlight the effectiveness of our long-term growth strategy. Our gears remain shifted in growth mode, which is demonstrated by the fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, and we are confident in our ability to carry this momentum forward into future quarters. We believe the strategic evolution of our business will enable us to confidently execute on our growth plan and envision future supported by a best-in-class group of experts and leaders. Our financial position is enviable and we look forward to delivering value to our shareholders in 2022 while fulfilling our purpose of restoring lives, businesses, and communities. Thank you for your time today. Mel, please open the call for questions.

Certainly. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press TAR, then the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before asking your question. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes on the line of Mark Hu of Truvy Securities. Your line is now open. You may ask your question.

Thanks. Good morning, guys. This is Michael Ramirez in for Mark. Thanks for taking our questions this morning. Hey, Michael. Hi, Mike. Hello. Just curious, what does the pipeline look like for client growth at the contractor connection? And if you could maybe help us understand, is this one of your major levers for incremental top line and bottom line growth?

So our pipeline remains strong across all of our businesses, as we shared that we won about $43 million of new business. Just in comparison, what we had shared in the call related to the fourth quarter last year, in total for the full year, we had $100 million of business. That's for the entire company. Contractor connection, we already do a significant portion of the top 20 carriers, and we are continuously expanding that. The specific growth that we're seeing in platforms right now is coming from our Catastrophe network business, our We Go Look network business, as well as Praxis, which was our most recent acquisition that reports to our platform segment. So that's what's driving the growth in the current quarter. But overall, we feel that the pipeline contract connection is strong.

Okay, great. Thank you for that. I guess we saw a little bit of improvement in the international segment. Can you maybe help us understand how long you think it would take you to get back to positive earnings?

Yeah, look, overall we're encouraged by our international segment. If you look at what's driving the difference between last year and this year, there was a difficult comparison with Australia because there were storms, as you may recall, in the November-December timeframe last year in Australia which weren't there. So there was definitely some weakness in Australia, although we think that weakness is short-lived because of the activity that we're seeing as a result of the floods. And we expect that we should see a lift coming from that in the second quarter and subsequent quarters. The second area of comparison was Asia. And we had shared, as a matter of fact, in our third and the fourth quarter last year, that that is a geography that got severely impacted by COVID. That is a geography that got severely impacted by certain other changes in the business. And we have since been in the rebuilding mode. And actually, we're very encouraged. In fact, from our expectation, Asia is doing better than what we expected. So while it seems a comparison to last year is not favorable, but if we look at a comparison to our expectations, it is actually pretty favorable. So we feel good. And in UK, we've got a business which has had a pocket of weakness, which has continued longer than we want it to be, but we feel confident that we will resolve it before the end of the year. And overall, we're very pleased with our UK operations. It's one specific business, one specific issue, which has caused weakness, and we are working to alleviate that and feel pretty confident about it before the end of the year.

Okay, perfect. Thank you for that. maybe just shifting gears a little bit, could you give us a sense of what do you think the build would be in terms of workers' compensation claims and medical case management?

Sorry, what would be, I apologize, I didn't catch the question, Mike.

Sure, no, we were just wondering, you know, do you think there's going to be a sort of a slow build in terms of workers' compensation claims and medical cases?

Yeah, sorry, okay, no, no, I understand that, no. Yeah, so we're actually already seeing recovery in our workers' compensation claim volume, and the claim volume has been sequentially up. Our challenge has been that medical management has not recovered at the same pace at which we're seeing the workers' compensation claims recover. And while we've seen some recovery in our medical management claims, it's certainly not to the level of the pre-pandemic. But we've been very encouraged with the new business growth that we're seeing in our business in Broadspar, specifically as it relates to workers' comp. And I think as the year goes by and things come back to normalcy, we should see that pick up. That's what we've been seeing over the last three quarters. We also saw a little bit of a bump because of COVID claims. We expect the COVID claims to come down, and they have been coming down, but we think that the more traditional compensation will continue to pick up as workers return to work.

Okay. Just maybe a quick follow-up on that one regarding the healthcare costs within workers' compensation. Are you seeing any signs of emerging inflation?

So it's a great question. I don't know if we looked at it from an inflationary perspective. We're certainly seeing inflation impact on our first party loss business where we're seeing timelines for property repairs to be longer, timelines for order repairs to be longer. I don't know if I've seen a specific piece on inflation as it relates to comp. But let me ask Bruce or Joseph if they want to add something to that.

I think you covered it. I'm not aware of a specific impact that we're seeing.

Okay, great. Well, thanks for taking our questions.

Thank you, Mike.

Thank you. We have the next question comes from the line of Kevin Spankey of Barrington Research. Your line is now open. You may ask a question.

Good morning, everyone. Hi, Kevin. Hi, Kevin. I wanted to start off by asking about within platform solutions, the network business, 40% year-over-year revenue growth there in the quarter. And you mentioned the benign weather environment. So I guess, did we just think about that as being driven by

uh the uh increased penetration of the large carriers that you referenced and you know overall market share gains yeah i think that is the primary factor but i think kevin the other factor that's playing out right now in the pnc market specifically but i i'm seeing it broadly as well is the availability of staffing We have been very fortunate, both in terms of recruitment and retention, and what we're seeing is that a lot of our carrier partners, like a lot of the other industry sectors, are seeing pretty significant issues with retention and staffing. and as a result of which we've seen more overflow work come to us. And, yes, it's come from mainly the large carriers, but we've seen some significant work coming from large carriers while there was no real major storm activity. And that work has been not just on the property side but also on the casualty side where the auto frequency has picked up pretty significantly and not all carriers – They have had adequate staffing levels, particularly for auto and other casualty lines as well, which have taken a hit during COVID, as you recall. And so I think we've benefited from that. It's given us the ability to demonstrate broader capabilities to our carrier partners. So it's not just been the pure weather issue, or it's been also other elements that have led to increased outsourcing by the carriers.

Okay, yeah, that's very interesting. So how do you feel about your ability to staff and retain talent in this environment? Obviously you mentioned the carriers having some issues. You know, it's a very tight labor market, but it sounds like you've been able to capitalize on that. But just wondering about what you're seeing in terms of stacking and retention overall.

Yeah, you know, we are obviously not immune from the challenges that are broadly in the industry, but I'd like to say that, you know, we've had a few booster shots that have helped with the immunity, if I can use that analogy. Our attrition is up, but it's probably up by roughly 100 basis points in the overall organization, which in the services business from what I've seen is actually pretty good. We've also been investing pretty significantly in training. We've trained close to 600 adjusters just in the first quarter, which we think creates a healthy pipeline for us to bring new talent in the industry. We've also partnered, at least in the U.S., as well as in the U.K., with some of the local college systems, starting to do some apprenticeships as well as internships, and we think that that is creating momentum for us to continue to add people again into the industry and into the organization. So we feel good about the progress that we've been making. We're certainly not out of the woods yet because I think as the year goes by and as people get integrated back into the workforce, we might see some more changes happening. But where we are right now, we feel pretty good about.

Okay, good. Switching to North American law suggesting, just first this housekeeping, the e-jester acquisition, when you break out North American law suggesting between U.S. and Canada, are you including e-jester in the U.S. or Canada when you break out?

Yeah, there's actually a piece of it that's in the U.S. and a piece of it that's in Canada. Most of it is in Canada, but there's a smaller piece in the U.S.

Okay. All right. So, yeah, the reason I ask is, you know, you had the 15% year-over-year growth in U.S. loss-adjusting. And so it sounds like that's being primarily driven by organic growth. You mentioned your success in hiring major and complex loss adjusters. So maybe just speak to that organic growth and your success in hiring in that business.

As you know, our North America loss adjusting business has two components to it, the major and complex, as well as our volume, which is our field ops. Both of those areas have been seeing growth over the last few quarters, driven by increased client penetration, getting more experts on board, as well as starting to geographically expand the footprint that we have within our volume business. We have new leadership there, or I should say relatively new leadership there, which has brought on some very fresh thinking and approach to it. We've made a pretty significant commitment strategically as quality expertise are the two most important pillars for us as it relates to that business, and digital as it relates to simplifying the work for our adjusters. So we feel very good about the traction that we're creating in the marketplace there. We believe that competitively we are better positioned than anyone in terms of scale, in terms of presence, in terms of blind relationships, and now it's just a matter of continuing to execute on that. Because of our presence and because of the culture that we're building, we have been very successful in attracting experts and that continues to happen. As we had shared with you last year, I believe we had hired 60 plus adjusters and that hiring continues. In fact, we've invested even more this year to bring on more experts related to industry segments, related to expertise in places like energy and engineering and marine. which is making us just a more valuable layer to our carrier partners.

All right, great. Just so I can clarify, are you also seeing growth on the volume side of the business in Los Angeles? Yes. Okay.

Yes, we are. Yeah, yeah. I would say that we're seeing growth there as well, but if you look at the magnitude of the growth has been driven more from the expertise side of the business than the volume side of the business in the recent quarters.

Sure, sure. But anyway, it's encouraging that you're seeing some growth on the volume side nonetheless. Okay, great. You know, when we think about the operating earnings – for North American law suggesting, you know, just down slightly year over year. Should we just think about that as continued investments that you expect to leverage over the coming quarters?

Yeah, I would say two primary factors. One is just from last year, there's a million dollar Q's impact in that, which is a Canadian emergency rate subsidy. And then the second is the front loading of investment to bring on additional resources and experts onto the business. Those are the two primary factors.

Okay. Understood. so so uh with the 43 million of new and enhanced business in the first quarter you know strong result there um any specific areas showing particular strength uh is it just broad based across the company uh any more flavor you could provide there please

I would say it's broadly North America with a significant portion of that coming from Broad Spire. And as you know, when we look at new business growth, it's frankly much easier for us to quantify it on the Broad Spire side sometimes. So that usually is the lion's share of the new business growth that we look at from a pipeline perspective. So we feel good about it. The U.S. businesses are certainly overweight in that. number.

When what's what what do you believe is driving the strength in new business for broadspire? I noticed you mentioned you're investing there for their growth, but you may use comments on it. Yeah, strength with new business there.

Certainly. I would put it at three factors. One is I think the sales team is doing a great job in executing in the marketplace, being a lot more visible, making sure that our differentiation is understood, our relationships are developing, and our brand promise is recognized better. So I think that's number one. Number two, the investments that we've made from a technology standpoint continue to differentiate us to our competitors, whether it's in data and analytics, whether that's in machine learning, the client experience journey or the adjuster experience journey that we're trying to influence. And then the third thing is I think this focus that we are having on the carrier and MGA market continues to position as well and allows us to – to take greater share in the marketplace. Because when you win corporate business, it's one account at a time. When you win carrier business, it's multiple accounts at a time.

Okay, great. I also wanted to ask about Praxis, the acquisition you made in the subrogation area. You said that's Perform better than expected. Maybe you know what's what's driving the traction there and just related to that debate. Drive the contingent adjustment in the quarter.

That's correct. So here is actually the same explanation that I gave you on the platform business. We saw an increased level of outsourcing by the carriers as it relates to the pandemic. The staffing challenges that they had and execution challenges that they may have had resulted in more of the business overflowing to us. And we've benefited from that. And, again, a great job by the team to execute flawlessly on what they got. And practices performed better than what we had originally expected and resulted in a higher burnout level for them.

Okay, great. I guess lastly wanted to ask about the – profitability profitability trends internationally uh i believe it was mentioned that you would expect to start to see some uh you know improvement uh maybe in the second half of the year so just um are we on course with with uh you know cost containment and and um addressing uh those kind of couple pockets of weakness that you've been calling out here the last couple quarters.

Yeah, I'd like to say that we believe that the second quarter should be, as I was mentioning to Michael earlier, that we've had an issue in our U.K., one specific pocket of our U.K. business. We believe that should resolve before the end of the year. We believe that the Asia business is trending better than what we expected it to in terms of its profitability. Still not where we want it to be, but it's better than where we expected it to be. We believe that the Australian weakness should really be alleviated by the storm surge that we're seeing right now. And then, you know, as it relates to Latin America and Europe, we believe that they should be on a better trajectory as well. So overall, we feel like, you know, by the end of the year, we should be in a much better position than where we are right now.

Okay. Thank you for taking all the questions. Thank you.

Thank you. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Rohit Verma, Chief Executive Officer of Crawford and Company for closing remarks.

Thank you, Mel. Thank you to all our employees, clients, and shareholders for your continued commitment to Crawford and Company. Our fantastic start to 2022 provides strong momentum for the rest of the year and beyond. As always, we wish you well and look forward to seeing you in the next quarter. Thank you and God bless.

Thank you for participating in today's Crawford & Company conference call. This call will be available for replay beginning at 11.30 a.m. Eastern Time today through 11.59 p.m. Eastern Time on June 10, 2022. The conference ID number for the replay is 359-8119. The number to dial for the replay is 800-585-7000. 8367 or 416-621-4642. Thank you.