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spk05: Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q1 2023 Comfort Systems USA earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Julie Shace, Chief Accounting Officer. Please go ahead.
spk01: Thanks, Rivka. Good morning. Welcome to Comfort Systems USA's first quarter 2023 earnings call. Our comments today, as well as our press releases, contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable security laws and regulations. What we will say today is based upon the current plans and expectations of Comfort Systems USA. Those plans and expectations include risks and uncertainties that might cause actual future activities and results of our operations to be materially different from those set forth in our comments. You can read a detailed listing and commentary concerning our specific risk factors in our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q, as well as in our press release covering these earnings. A slide presentation has been provided as a companion to our remarks. The presentation is posted on the investor relations section of the company's website found at comfortsystemsusa.com. Joining me on the call today are Brian Lane, President and Chief Executive Officer, Trent McKenna, Chief Operating Officer, and Bill George, Chief Financial Officer. Brian will open our remarks.
spk08: Thanks, Julie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. We have had a great beginning to 2023 with increased revenue and pre-tax earnings, unusually strong cash flow, and another increase in backlog. Our teams delivered amazing execution and we are very grateful for their hard work. Excluding the prior year tax gain that Bill will discuss in a few minutes, we earned $1.51 per share, and that included 15 cents related to the favorable resolution of certain claims-related disputes. Current year revenue was $1.2 billion, an unprecedented same-store revenue growth of 30%. Our backlog is now over $4.4 billion, which is a same-store increase of $1.6 billion, or 58% from a year ago. Our backlog growth is tangible evidence of the ongoing demand in traditional and modular construction. Cash flow this quarter was exceptional. This morning, we also increased our dividend by 2.5 cents per share to 20 cents per share. This increase reflects our continuing strong cash flow and our commitment to reward our shareholders. I will discuss our business and outlook in a few minutes, but first I will turn this call over to Bill to review our financial performance. Bill?
spk09: Thanks, Brian. So revenue for the first quarter of 2023 was $1.2 billion, an increase of $289 million, or 33% compared to last year. Our mechanical services segment revenue increased $236 million, or 35%. and our electrical services segment increased by 26% to $256 million. Thanks to our revenue increased by 30%, or $265 million, with the remaining $24 million increase resulting from acquisitions. Our revenue growth resulted from increased activity combined with the pass-through effects of inflation, including higher costs for equipment and materials. The same store percentage increase is influenced by the fact that first quarter revenue last year was lower than the rest of the year, and we will confront much higher prior year revenue comparables over the next few quarters, so our percentage growth is unlikely to remain at these levels. Revenue trends have a lot of moving pieces, but overall we now expect full year same store revenue growth percentage for 2023 to finish the year in the mid-teens. Gross profit was $205 million for the first quarter, a $52 million improvement compared to a year ago. Our gross profit percentage was 17.5% this quarter compared to 17.3% for the first quarter of 2022, including the benefit from strong winds on claims that Brian mentioned. Quarterly gross profit percentage in our mechanical segment declined from 18.6% in 2022 to 17.9% in 2023. That decline is largely driven by the relative growth in modular construction as a portion of our revenue. Modular construction has lower gross profit margins than field construction and than our service businesses. Margins in the electrical segment rose to 16.1% this year from 13.0% in 2022. It is currently challenging to predict how our margins will unfold for the remainder of 2023. Important factors that will influence our margins include increases in materials intensive modular and new construction, ongoing cost inflation, and the fact that with the surge in bookings, we continue to be early in many projects. Modular is also growing as a proportion of our revenue, and we are managing ramp-up considerations as we bring that new modular capacity online. Despite these structural trends that might put some pressure on margins, we expect good continued profitability and we are optimistic that overall our margins in 2023 will be at or near the strong levels that we achieved in 2022 on higher revenue. SG&A expense for the quarter was $135 million or 11.5% of revenue compared to $118 million or 13.3% of revenue for the first quarter in 2022. On the same store basis, SG&A was up approximately $1.4 million due to inflation and ongoing investments to support our much higher activity levels. Our operating income roughly doubled, increasing by 99% in the first quarter of 2023 to $71 million compared to the quarter last year. We still expect interest expense in 2023 to increase from 2022, However, this quarter, the higher interest expense was partially and temporarily offset by an increase in interest income related to a favorable legal outcome. Our tax rate for the quarter was 13.1%. This included an incremental benefit of $5 million or $0.12 from a conforming adjustment for the R&D tax credit, of which $0.08 related to 2022. If Congress restores immediate deductibility of research expenditures and rescinds this conforming adjustment, we will have to reverse that 12 cents income statement gain in the period that this occurs. Although many individual items have affected our tax rate lately, we continue to estimate that a normalized tax rate for us is approximately 21 to 23%. After considering all the factors above, Net income for the first quarter of 2023 was $57 million or $1.59 per share. When comparing EPS to last year, it is important to recall that in the first quarter of last year, we hooked a massive incremental $1.49 per share tax gain that was related to prior years. With those gains removed from both years, our first quarter 2023 earnings per share was $1.51 as compared to $0.91 in the prior year. And on that basis, our quarterly EPS increased 66%, with about a fourth of that increase coming from our positive claim outcomes. Another way of looking at the year-over-year profitability comparison without tax complications is to simply compare our EBITDA, which increased 49% from last year to $90 million. Free cash flow for the first quarter of 2023 was $111 million. The main driver of this outperformance was advanced billings and deferred revenue, as we benefited from favorable upfront payment terms upon receipt of large orders. The benefit from these advanced payments will reverse as project costs are incurred, except to the extent that additional advanced payments are received. So please note the following. We're facing a large cash flow headwind in the coming quarters as a result of Congress's ongoing failure to extend the current deductibility of research expenditures. Unless current expensing is restored, we will make additional tax payments during the last nine months of 2023 of approximately $120 to $140 million because the deductibility of a large portion of our business costs will be spread over the next five years. Also, capital expenditures will be higher than usual this year as we add over 1 million square feet to our modular capacity and as we purchase vehicles at a higher than usual rate, resulting from deferrals in vehicle availability during COVID. This quarter, we had 17 million of capital expenditures, which is an 80% increase compared to the prior year. Overall, we estimate that our capex spend in 2023 will be roughly $60 to $70 million. Our debt was lower at quarter end as our substantial free cash flow allowed us to reduce debt by $47 million and even fund the purchase of Eldico from cash received during the quarter. We also continued to purchase our shares, acquiring 29,000 shares at an average price of $121.36 in the first quarter and adding to the over 10 million shares we have repurchased since 2007 at an average price of $24.80. As Brian noted, we implemented another meaningful dividend increase this quarter as well. That's all I got on financials, Brian.
spk08: Okay. Thank you, Bill. I'm going to spend a few minutes discussing our backlog in markets, and I will also comment on our outlook for the rest of 2023. Our backlog at the end of the first quarter was a record $4.4 billion. Since last year at this time, our same store backlog has increased by 1.6 billion or 58% with increases in our traditional mechanical and electrical business and substantial new bookings and our offsite construction operations where we are continuing to invest in new capacity. During the first three months of 2023, Our same store backlog increased $300 million despite heavy backlog burn in the first quarter. With a number of advanced bookings, our backlog will burn over a longer period and include orders that will be produced in 2024. Industrial customers were 51% of total revenue in the first quarter. This is the first time that industrial customers were the source of more than 50% of Comfort's volume. This sector, which includes technology, life sciences, and food processing, remains strong for us, as industrial is a major driver of new backlog. Starting this year, we are breaking out technology in our industrial revenue, and technology was 19% of our revenue in the first quarter, a substantial increase from 11% in the prior year. Institutional markets, which include education, health care, and government, are also strong and represent 28% of our revenue. The commercial sector is active, but with our changing mix, it is now a small part of our business at about 21% of revenue, much of that concentrated in our service revenue. Construction was 80% of our revenue this quarter, with construction projects for new buildings at 54%, while construction projects in existing buildings was 26%. Service grew rapidly this quarter, as revenue increased by 21% compared to last year, and virtually all of this increase was same store. Service was 20% of our total revenues, with service projects providing 9% of revenue and pure service, including hourly work, providing 11% of revenue. We just published our annual sustainability report, and in addition to the actions that we are taking in our business, we continue to encourage and support our customers as they focus on the efficiency and sustainability of their buildings and operations. Before I close, I want to briefly point out a few things about certain trends in our business. As noted earlier, construction this quarter is now 80% of our revenue, which means that over the last several years, service has declined on a percentage basis as a proportion of our overall business. This is not because service is underperforming. To the absolute contrary, service was up over 20% just this quarter. In fact, our overall service business today is twice as large as it was in 2016. Construction has just increased even more. Also, when looking at the increasing share of our business that industrial and technology represent, you might ask yourself if other sectors are declining. In fact, when you look at absolute volumes, as opposed to percentages, this quarter every one of our sectors actually increased. Comfort Systems is thriving in nearly every possible way, and that is because of our teams across the country continue their superb execution. Thanks to that excellence, and in light of the strong ongoing demand that we are experiencing, we remain optimistic about our prospects for continued growth and strong profitability in 2023. Our number one priority remains to preserve and grow the best workforce in our industry so we can continue our legacy of investing to meet the needs of our customers and our communities. We are grateful for their and your trust. I want to end by thanking our over 14,000 employees for their hard work and their dedications. I'll now turn it back over to Rivka for questions. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.
spk06: Our first question comes from the line of Julio Romero of Sidoti & Company.
spk05: Your line is now open.
spk00: Thanks. Hey, good morning. Maybe starting on the backlog, if you could speak to the organic sales growth you saw in the backlog quarter over quarter and what type of customers or activity type were the drivers? Was it all just modular or were there other drivers there?
spk08: Yep. I'll go first and then Bill can follow up, but So anyway, good morning, Julio, and it's broad-based increase in backlog, quite frankly. Coast to coast, obviously had strong performance out of technology, but we're getting it in multi-sectors, just not one or one part of the country. So it's still very active out there, and we don't see it stopping in the short term for sure.
spk09: Yeah, Julio, we got a nice order from a new customer in modular this quarter. but the majority of our backlog increase within the sequential backlog increase was broad-based and it really just where you'd want it to be in a lot of our most successful companies.
spk00: Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe turning to cashflow, second straight quarter of very strong cashflow, but you talk about the uncertainty you have there for the next nine months or so. How are you managing through that uncertainty And does that affect anything regarding to CapEx, your M&A pipeline, or cash usage?
spk09: That's one of the great things about having a fantastically strong balance sheet. You know, we flowed $111 million of cash this quarter. So it's very unfortunate that the federal government needs to borrow some money from us over the course of the rest of the year. Yes. it's not a problem. It won't really impact anything else that we need to do.
spk00: Got it. That makes sense. And then conversely, I guess, could that change in deductibility to the R&E expenditures maybe create some M&A opportunities from smaller companies who may not be as able to handle that change to their balance sheets?
spk09: So maybe when some of them realize it, I think it's going to be devastating for companies, certain companies on the West Coast, certain places where research is really what they do as a company. I don't know how they'll be able to cope with this. But in our industry, I don't think it'll have that big of an effect on the smaller companies. Most of them are unaware of it, and it might clear up by the time they figure it out. But it's black-letter law. If you're a big company like ours, you have to just follow the law.
spk00: Got it. I'll pass it on. Thanks so much.
spk08: All right. Thanks, Leo.
spk05: Thank you very much. Please stand by for our next caller.
spk06: Hello, Rizka.
spk05: Our next caller, our next... Question comes from the line of Shawn Eastman at Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
spk03: Hi, team. Great start to the year. Thanks for taking my questions.
spk08: Thanks, Shawn.
spk03: So, I mean, clearly a message that the demand environment remains strong and the strength is broad-based, and we're still seeing it in the bookings. But we also have this kind of unique dynamic where customers have changed their behavior. They're kind of booking you guys up early. There's more duration in the backlog. So how would you kind of set expectations around the trajectory of the backlog around those kind of two dynamics?
spk09: So if I'm being honest, I was surprised our backlog went up further this quarter. I think some of our, we're now booked into 2025 in a lot of places. It is possible that this is a new trend in our industry just based on the extraordinary, really scarcity of productive capacity. But I suspect that for healthy reasons, our backlog at some point will come down Later, probably late this year, there are two things that will trigger that. One is less advanced commitment, and certainly the advanced commitments that were made to induce us to enter into some leases will roll out of our backlog, and the commitments that are being made by that customer will go back to a normal basis. But also, I think most likely you'll see backlog decline both when inflation moderates and as lead times get shorter. Having said that, the underlying demand is really, really strong. It's just the backlog is lumpy, and this is probably a very lumpy moment for it.
spk08: You know, Sean, if you look at the bigger picture as well, backlog strand demand is strong, and we've just seen the beginning of all the money the government passed in terms of these various acts sort of coming out of engineering and start going. So we're in early days of that as well. So I think the demand environment is going to be strong for a while.
spk09: For years, I've said that if you are following our stock, it's very important to listen to what we say about backlog, right? Because we're very transparent about sort of factors that are outside of demand that are affecting our backlog. And we'll do that for the rest of this year, right? We'll be very clear about if we see backlog start to come down, I think we'll be very clear about whether that's demand-based or whether that's just a normalization. But as of right now, there's no sign of demand weakness.
spk03: Yep, okay, very helpful. And then just for clarity, Bill, you highlighted the modular margins are dilutive at the gross margin level, but I would imagine when you drop that down to operating margin, they're accretive. Is that right?
spk09: Well, so they're absolutely accretive to cash flow and earnings, or we wouldn't be doing it, right? We don't take risk if we can't repay ample business. And we'd rather be smaller than take work for which we're not paid for the risk because there's a lot of risk in what we do. There is probably lower overhead in that business. But yeah, and keep in mind that that business can be done with less skilled labor. So one of the reasons that it's, you know, if you need a lot of licensed electricians on something, you're going to pay a higher margin for that than if you need skilled electricians plant workers, even though they are really, really at a premium, they're not nearly at the same premium as a pipe fitter that's licensed in a state and is the only person who can touch a certain pipe.
spk03: So are you trying to say it's perhaps lower operating margin but higher return? I just want to be really clear.
spk09: Not at all. I would say higher scalability and higher ability to expand because you're You can hire somebody to work in a plant, and they can be making you money within a week, right? There's a couple days of safety training and other stuff. Then they will start doing one task. They will then train on the task to their left and their right. When you hire a construction worker, you might lose money on that worker for years as you train them and bring them up to speed, and then they're incredibly valuable forever. So it's just a different... We're willing to take, if you want to demand our most scarce resources, we charge you more for it than if you want to, if your demand is for less scarce resources.
spk03: Yep, that's helpful. And how is the service business continuing to grow so fast? You know, we kind of get into the drivers and a lot of detail on that new construction side, but, you know, maybe a refresh on, you know, the revenue build there would be interesting.
spk08: Yeah, thanks, Sean, for pointing it out. As we've been talking about 10 years ago, we made an organization-wide commitment to grow our service business in all aspects of it, a significant commitment to training, sales side, leadership side, and the tech side. We've been able to use a number of innovative tools that, you know, Trent McKenna, heads up for us that we're bringing to the service tech. We are still very active in hiring sales people, hiring technicians, expanding our base both from some of the companies we've bought but most of it same store. That commitment is still 100% and we will still fully embrace growth because the profitability has been terrific for us in service business and I expect that to continue for many, many more years, Sean.
spk03: And so is that a market share story, just to be clear? Is that a market share story there, or is there some kind of juicy market growth story happening under the hood there?
spk08: I think some of it's market share. I just think there's a lot more opportunity, right? We have a lot of very skilled technicians. You might look at energy efficiency in a building or just you know, upgrading the system. So I think it's a combination of both. I think we're able to expand our services. A higher capability of check now we have within the organization. All our companies are doing service. So, you know, it's not one thing. It's probably 10 things.
spk03: Great. I'll turn it over there. Thanks for the insight, guys.
spk08: Yeah. Thanks, Sean.
spk05: Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Salheimer with Thompson Davis. Your line is now open.
spk02: Hey, good morning, guys. Great quarter. Thanks, Adam. Hey, on the tax, so if Congress doesn't fix that bill, one question I've had is if there's a free cash flow impact next year.
spk09: Yeah, so interestingly enough, what they're doing is they're saying this expense of your business has to be, you have to take the deduction for the expense over five years. And so next year there would be a smaller headwind because we would be in the year, in year twos, you know, 60% of it would be deferred rather than 80% this year. The following year there would be a smaller headwind than you would normalize in the fifth year. So this would be, this is a headwind for five years. If they don't, for everybody that, that takes the credit or that actually does. Frankly, taking the credit is irrelevant to whether you owe this money. And it's a much broader definition of expenses than you find in the R&D tax credit. But, yeah, no, it's a thinking thing over five years. But, I mean, Adam, I think it will put many people, especially, you know, sort of research-based businesses out of business if they don't fix it at some point. I think they have to at least moderate it, but we'll see.
spk02: Okay, helpful. And then on modular, how are the capacity additions coming? Are you still thinking that comes online this summer? And then what would you do if you had another order similar to the one that you had in December?
spk09: Well, so we get to decide whether we can take orders, right? But keep in mind that the one in December was for a couple years. And they also made some other commitments over a longer period to permit us to make those, really it was to permit us to make those investments without raising our prices. And so with these additions, we have capacity to take some more work. Some of the space we're adding is also taller, which gives you an opportunity to work at two levels. But at some point, if we get an opportunity to expand further, we'll take a look at the risk and reward of that opportunity and how our business expansion will make a decision at that point. Right now, we're working on what's right in front of us.
spk08: And we're on schedule in terms of getting them up and running.
spk02: Okay. And then just lastly, maybe you can opine on the M&A outlook.
spk09: We advanced a certain amount of M&A into 21 with the concern people had about an increase in the capital gains rate. We are in a very patient mindset and we are only buying companies where we have very high conviction or have had a very long gestation. I think that would certainly continue this year. I was surprised we did Eldaco this year, but This is a company we've talked to since 2016. We had a great deal of admiration for that company when we were ready to buy. I would say we're coming up on the middle of the year. I don't know if there could be zero or one more deal this year, but right now we're in a... We're also watching the market change, right? The cost of capital is changing. The people who compete with us for those companies are facing very, very different circumstances than they have in the past. We've always been patient about these things. And I would say we definitely have a patient, high conviction mindset. But we're doing development all the time. In fact, I probably will do more development visits this year than I've done. I'm on track to do far more than I've done in the last three years, keeping in mind COVID. So we're really trying to make sure we're working hard on development for the future. Got it.
spk02: Thanks, guys. See you.
spk05: Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brent Schulman of DA Davidson. Your line is now open.
spk04: Hey, thanks. Good morning. Hey, Brian. Bill, just on the R&D tax issue, you made a comment, you know, could put a lot of people out of business. Are you referring to folks within your own industry?
spk09: No, I'm really referring to technological companies, pharmaceutical companies, like startup pharmaceuticals, or they'll have to go sell very quickly to somebody. I mean, If what you do as a primary part of your business is research and you are only allowed to treat 20% of every dollar you spend on research as an expense for that year, you can take a company that's losing money in the real world and tax it as if it's got 70% margins. Many of those companies do not have the balance sheets to stand up to that. So I think that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Okay.
spk04: In the context of your own sort of capital deployment, I guess strategy over the next coming quarter, is that top of mind for you before you decide to look at buybacks and deals and things like that?
spk09: You know, if we're being honest, our cash flow has trended better than we would have expected a year ago or two years ago by more than this headwind. So it doesn't feel like a terrible constraint. It feels like, I think we have cash. Our guys are really executing people, value plumbers and pipe fitters. So I don't see how this is a big issue other than we'll pay interest. If we have less cash flow, we'll either earn less interest or pay less interest, depending on whether we're cash positive or in debt a little bit.
spk04: Right. Okay. Okay. And then the hype for scale data center activity has been a huge driver, modular business, I guess, for the company overall. You know, there's still kind of some varying views out there about future prospects. Could you talk about the levels of inquiries, maybe reviews of bids you guys are seeing? How does that market compare to the last couple of years of what's been pretty robust activity you've already seen? I'll go first.
spk08: Yeah, you know, breadth activity is still very strong, both in modular and traditional construction. Quite frankly, you know, we're not concerned about the data center market. We've got plenty of work.
spk09: You know, I would say some of the hyperscale guys, they're all, the level of inquiry is higher, higher than it's ever been. They are more, they're putting cost into the conversation earlier and more prominently than they have in the past. The thing about us is that we really, when we do this kind of work for people, we partner with people. We work hard with them to get them a really, really good value, and they typically understand that we take a ton of risk and have to make investments to really give them the quality they expect. So I'm optimistic that The demand is high, and I'm optimistic that actually we're the best way to meet that demand right now for them.
spk04: And on the modular side, at least I think it's been mostly focused in that specific market with one sort of single large customer. Correct me if I'm wrong. Is that expanding into some new potential customers now in that market?
spk09: So it would be premature to say it's expanding. Well, so first of all, that one big order was from one customer, right? They were keen to make sure they got some things they needed, frankly, for their business, as far as we can tell. We did get a trial order from somebody else like them, and we'll see how that goes. But there is definitely interest. Really, the reality is these guys who need to build hyperscale data centers, They're like us. We need to hire people. When people say, oh, what are you doing to hire people? We say everything that can be done is what we're doing to hire people. I think these hyperscale data center guys, when you ask them what are they doing to build hyperscale data centers, I think every path towards getting these things into high-quality production is what they're taking. And so the overwhelming majority of data centers are not built modular, right? The math couldn't possibly support that. But we think there's a nice opportunity here for us to grow and provide for our customers a really good, more scalable than most path to getting what they need.
spk04: Got it. And I guess just lastly, I think you said past few quarters, you know, sort of ambitions of getting the electrical margins to match the mechanical margins over time. you know, presumably with the work you're seeing inbound, you know, any, I guess, any views on that in terms of the bid margins, things attached to those new projects that give us some more confidence around that?
spk08: Yeah, Brent, you know, for sure, we've had a really steady state increase in the margins in the electrical business over the last few years. I think that, you know, that's going to continue. There's plenty of electrical out there with works that we're good at, you know, that we like to do. And the work coming forward is, you know, sufficiently challenging for us that we can, you know, raise our prices a little bit. So, you know, I'm really optimistic that we will see continued margin strength in the electrical business.
spk04: Okay. All right. Thanks, guys. Congrats on a great quarter. All right. Thanks.
spk05: Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back to Brian Lane for closing remarks.
spk08: Okay. Thank you, everyone, for your continued interest in comfort systems. And once again, thank you to all our diligent employees for just doing a really an outstanding job. I mean, these results just show what effort and commitment is being made. We are looking forward to the summer, and we are very optimistic for the remainder of 2023. Hope everyone has a great day. We hope to see you on the road soon. Thank you.
spk05: Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program.
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