Unifirst Corporation

Greetings and welcome to the third quarter earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we'll conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star 0. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steven Sintros, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. I'm Steven Sintros, Unifirst President and Chief Executive Officer. Joining me today is Shane O'Connor, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We'd like to welcome you to Unifirst Corporation's conference call to review our third quarter results for fiscal year 2020. This call will be on a listen-only mode until we complete our prepared remarks. But first, a brief disclaimer. This conference call may contain forward-looking statements that reflect the company's current views with respect to future events and financial performance. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. The words anticipate, optimistic, believe, estimate, expect, intend, and similar expressions that indicate future events and trends identify forward-looking statements. Actual future results may differ materially from those anticipated, depending on a variety of risk factors. For more information, please refer to the discussion of these risk factors in our most recent form 10-K and 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I want to start by saying that our thoughts go out to all the individuals and businesses continuing to be impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. This is an unprecedented time for our company, the country and the world. And first and foremost, our thoughts are for the safety and well-being of all those dealing with the impact of this virus. It goes without saying that the company's focus in the third quarter centered around our pandemic response efforts, including our top priority, of ensuring the safety of our team partners while continuing to provide our value-added services to the many essential businesses in our communities. We as a company as well as our customers continue to adapt to the practical challenges of operating in this ever-changing environment. I want to sincerely thank our team partners for the tremendous effort they put forth and continue to put forth ensuring that they are taking care of each other and our customers during these challenging times. During the quarter, our results were most impacted by customer closures, primarily the result of state-mandated shutdowns of nonessential businesses. In addition, we have been dealing with higher than normal reductions of wearers and customers who have remained open or recently reopened. Part of this impact has been driven by the decline in the demand of oil and the corresponding reduction in business activity in the energy-dependent markets that we service. During the quarter, customer closures peaked in mid-April, causing the weekly revenues of our core laundry operations to be down about 18% at that time from the weekly revenue run rate in the weeks of February and March, immediately preceding the disruption. From that point in April until last week, revenues have steadily recovered to the point where last week's revenues were down about 8% from pre-pandemic run rates. This recovery was primarily fueled by the reopening of businesses. In addition, we have also benefited from the increase in sale of personal protective equipment, primarily face masks and hand sanitizers and soaps. Of the revenue shortfall that remains, businesses that remain closed or limited, such as restaurants, business services, hotels, schools, and entertainment, are prominently represented. as I'm sure you can appreciate, it remains a fluid environment with many states recently reporting increases in many of the metrics they are using to measure the status of the virus spread. As a result of the evolving nature of the pandemic and its impact on our communities, our ability to assess the financial impact on our business continues to be limited. As a result, we are not providing guidance for the remainder of fiscal 2020. With respect to the third quarter results, consolidated third quarter revenues were $445.5 million, a decrease of 1.8% over the same quarter a year ago. The overall shortfall in revenue was mitigated by a large direct sale of $20.1 million to a large healthcare customer, as well as strong revenues from our first aid segment. Our consolidated operating margin was 6.2%, and was impacted by the revenue shortfall in our US and Canadian laundry operations, as well as numerous costs related to our COVID-19 response efforts. For example, we instituted certain compensation programs to mitigate the impact of our revenue decline on our service team's wages, as well as to show appreciation to all of our frontline workers for their continued dedication and commitment during the early months of the pandemic. These programs are temporary in nature, and we currently expect that they will begin to phase out in the fourth quarter. Shane will take you through the details of our financial results shortly. Although we instituted some reduction in labor and cost containment during the quarter, based on the evolving situation with our customers, our financial strength and our desire to support our employees during these difficult times, we were patient in our approach. We will continue to be patient as we work to get our arms around the longer term impact of this pandemic. In the meantime, we will continue to support our employees, our customers, and make decisions in line with improving our business in the long run. Despite all of the events of the quarter, we continue to generate positive free cash flows and ended the quarter with $421.3 million in cash and cash equivalents on hand and no debt on our books. As a result, we believe we are well positioned to deal with the adversity that we are facing related to the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, the pandemic has clearly highlighted the essential nature of our products and services. We believe the need and the demand for hygienically clean garments and work environments positions our company well to support the evolving economic landscape. Like many businesses, we expect the quarters ahead to be uneven and bumpy, but we are confident in the company's position to weather the storm and take advantage of a broad economic recovery. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Shane, who will provide the details of the results of our third quarter. Thanks, Steve.

As Steve mentioned, consolidated revenues in our third quarter of 2020 were $445.5 million, down 1.8% from $453.7 million a year ago. and consolidated operating income decreased to $27.7 million from $60.2 million or 54.0%. Net income for the quarter decreased to $21.3 million or $1.12 per diluted share from $47.2 million or $2.46 per diluted share. Our core laundry operations revenues for the quarter were $388.4 million, down 2.8% from the third quarter of 2019. Core laundry organic growth, which adjusts for the estimated effective acquisitions as well as fluctuations in the Canadian dollar, was negative 3.2%. During the quarter, our revenues were mostly impacted by customer closures related to the coronavirus pandemic. as well as related reductions in workforce for customers who remained open. The company was able to partially offset these declines with a $20.1 million direct sale to a large healthcare customer as well as increased safety and PPE sales, the result of our customers' increased focus on maintaining a hygienically clean and safe work environment for their employees and patrons. Core laundry operating margin decreased to 5.1% for the quarter, or $19.7 million from 13.4% in prior year or $53.4 million. The segment's profitability was affected by many items, including the impact of the decline in rental revenues on our cost structure. A higher cost of revenues related to the large $20.1 million direct sale and additional costs the company incurred related to the pandemic. Some of the more notable items include merchandise amortization, which is expense that is recognized related to rental merchandise that has been placed in service was up significantly as a percentage of revenues. This is because our merchandise and service is amortized on a straight line basis over the estimated service lives of the related merchandise, which average approximately 18 months. Although our new garment additions into service were down significantly in the quarter, the amortization expense was little changed because of the amortization of prior period expenditures. As Steve discussed, our number one priority during the quarter was the safety of our employees, and we sourced a significant amount of safety supplies for internal use. Over the last few months, these products were in high demand and prices were significantly higher than they had been prior to the pandemic. These prices have recently started to normalize, and as a result, we expect that the costs we will incur in subsequent periods will be dramatically less than our current quarter. We incurred additional costs related to certain employee compensation programs we instituted during the quarter, also discussed by Steve. and some of these programs will continue into the fourth quarter of 2020. As of last week, our weekly revenues were down about 8% from pre-pandemic run rates, primarily related to customer locations that remained closed. During the quarter, the company recorded additional reserves for uncollectible accounts receivable, primarily due to the increased risk that these customers will be able to pay their outstanding balances. These items were partially offset by lower incentive compensation due to revised expectations of the company's growth and profitability in fiscal 2020, as well as lower healthcare, energy, and travel-related costs as a percentage of revenues. Energy costs decreased to 3.4% of revenues in the third quarter of 2020 from 4.2% in prior year. Revenues from our specialty garment segment, which delivers specialized nuclear decontamination and cleanroom products and services, decreased to $36.2 million from $37.3 million in prior year, or 3.1%. This decrease was largely due to lower direct sale activity in the quarter, partially offset by growth in our cleanroom and European nuclear operations. The segment's operating margin increased to 17.6% or $6.4 million from 14.4% or $5.4 million in the year-ago period. This increase was primarily due to a bad debt recovery from a customer in bankruptcy and lower travel-related costs. These items were partially offset by higher merchandise expense and costs incurred responding to the pandemic including employee compensation, and amounts paid for internal use safety supplies. As we've mentioned in the past, this segment's results can vary significantly from period to period due to seasonality and the timing of nuclear reactor outages and projects that require our specialized services. Our first aid segment's revenues increased $20.9 million from $16.6 million in prior year, or 26.0%. This increase was primarily due to increased demand for the segment's safety and PPE offerings. Operating margin decreased to 7.8% from 8.4%, primarily due to higher merchandise costs as a percentage of revenues. We continue to maintain a solid balance sheet and financial position with no long-term debt, and cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments totaling $421.3 million at the end of our third quarter of fiscal 2020. Cash provided by operating activities for the first three quarters of the fiscal year was $205.4 million, an increase of $6.0 million from the comparable period in prior year. For the first three quarters of fiscal 2020, capital expenditures totaled $91.2 million. We continue to scrutinize our capital expenditures due to ongoing uncertainty related to COVID-19. As we move through the remainder of our fiscal year, we will continue to evaluate the timing of our growth-related capital expenditures, taking into consideration the revenue recoveries that we continue to see. During the quarter, we capitalized $3.3 million related to our ongoing CRM project. which consisted of license fees, third-party consulting costs, and capitalized internal labor costs. In the first three quarters of our fiscal year, we have capitalized a total of $9.9 million related to this project. During the third quarter of fiscal 2020, we repurchased 46,667 shares of common stock for a total of $7.5 million under our previously announced stock repurchase program. The company has not repurchased any additional shares since early in this fiscal quarter due to the uncertainty related to COVID-19. As of May 30, 2020, we had repurchased a total of 314,917 shares of common stock for a total of $52.3 million under the program. This concludes our prepared remarks, and we would now be happy to answer any questions that you may have.