Element Fleet Management Corp.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Element Fleet Management's second quarter 2024 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and you are reminded that this call is being recorded. Following the prepared remarks, there will be an opportunity for analysts to ask questions. To join the question queue, press 1, press star, then 1. In the event you need assistance during a call, you may signal an operator by pressing the star key followed by 0. Ella wishes to caution listeners that today's information contains forward-looking statements. The assumptions on which they are based and the material risks and uncertainties that could cause them to differ are outlined in the company's year-end and most recent MD&A, as well as its most recent AIS. Although management believes that the expectations expressed in the statements are reasonable, actual results could differ materially. The company also reminds listeners that today's call references certain non-GAP and supplemental financial measures. Management measures performance on a reported and adjusted basis and considers both to be useful in providing readers with a better understanding of how it assesses results. A reconciliation of these non-GAP financial measures, two IFRS measures, can be found in the company's most recent MD&A. I would now like to turn the call over to Laura Dottorio Atanasio, Chief Executive Officer of Elements. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I'm delighted to share our latest achievements. As a team across Elements, we created and unveiled our purpose. We are acquiring new capabilities in the digital and automation space. We delivered another strong financial quarter for our shareholders. Our centralized leasing initiative officially began operations in Ireland on time and on budget with no change to our expected benefits that we previously shared with you. And we released our fourth annual sustainability report with a commitment to setting science-based targets that include intended reductions to our greenhouse gas emissions. Now, let me start with our purpose. To further strengthen our culture, our team members worked collaboratively over the past year alongside our clients and key partners to unlock our very first purpose statement, move the world through intelligent mobility. Our purpose is a reflection of our unwavering commitment to putting our clients first, to leading the industry, and our ambition to affect positive change for a brighter future. To move the world embodies our dedication to intelligent, seamless mobility. And so, driven by our purpose, we accelerated our digitization and automation initiative with the acquisition of AutoFleet. AutoFleet is an -to-end software platform that's designed to support fleet management systems, optimize and manage complex operations, and maximize fleet utilization for mobility operators. It's led by a team of incredibly talented individuals, including its co-founders, Coby Eisenberg and Doris Shea. They have built a world-class team and a scalable digital platform that is built on a modern tech stack. Now, having worked with the AutoFleet team previously, we have experienced firsthand the cultural fit with Element and the value-add they bring to us and to our clients. This acquisition will enable us to better serve our clients by accelerating our digitization and automation efforts in fleet with optimized mobility solutions, and it will help us expand into new value-added services. Now, with regards to our quarterly financial performance, we continued our commercial success with the addition of more new clients by both earning share and converting self-managed fleets along with increased share of wallet wins. For the second quarter, we delivered 14% net revenue growth with expanded margins, all of which translated into double-digit adjusted earnings per share and free cash flow per share growth. Our very strong performance is a reflection of our team's relentless passion and dedication to delivering the very best for our clients. So thanks to our clients for their continued support and to our Element team members for their great work. It's an honour to be part of such a great group of people. And with that, I'll hand it over to Frank.

Thank you, Laura, and good morning, everyone. We delivered another quarter of strong results. The momentum we benefited from in Q1 has carried into Q2, resulting in robust growth across all key metrics.

Notably,

we saw continued double-digit -over-year growth in services revenue along with a substantial 16% increase in net financing revenue compared with the same period last year. Our strong performance to date combined with a positive outlook for the remainder of the year led us to raise our full year 2024 guidance for most metrics. We announced the acquisition of AutoFleet, which although relatively small with a purchase price of approximately $110 million, aligns with our goals of acquiring capabilities to accelerate digitization and automation efforts. We expect the transaction to be accretive in 2025 with a payback of less than three years. As with our previously announced strategic initiatives, we will incur one-time non-recurring costs associated with this acquisition, which we will call out and adjust in our Q3 results. For clarity, our revised guidance excludes these one-time costs. We expect the acquisition to close early in the fourth quarter. Let's now turn to our second quarter results. All dollar amounts cited today will be on an adjusted basis excluding one-time costs of just over $2 million in Q2 incurred in connection with our Dublin and Singapore initiatives. These initiatives have been stood up on time and on budget. We anticipate the last of these expenses in Q3, consistent with our original budget. Q2 is another record performance for us in terms of net revenue, earnings, EPS, and free cash flow. This success was driven largely by the resilient and recurring nature of our revenue, as well as the robust and sustained commercial momentum we've generated as we continue to deliver on our client value proposition and create increasing value for both our clients and shareholders. For the quarter, our adjusted operating income reached $153 million, up 15% year over year. This translates to an adjusted EPS of 29 cents, which is a 4-cent increase from the same period last year. Additionally, our adjusted free cash flow per share also grew by 4 cents, or 12% to We expanded adjusted operating margins year over year by 60 basis points to .7% this quarter. Moving forward, we anticipate operating margins to end of year at approximately 55% to 55.5%, assuming stable currency rates relative to Q2. Net revenue grew over 14% year over year to $275 million. This growth was largely driven by services and net financing revenue growth. Service revenue rose by $14 million, or 11%, compared to Q2 2023, reaching $140 million. This increase was fueled by robust origination volumes and sustained higher penetration rates from new and existing clients. As noted, last quarter, Q1 services revenue benefited from $7 million in one-time items discussed last quarter. Excluding these amounts, services revenue was largely unchanged compared to a very strong first quarter. Net financing revenue grew $17 million, or 16% year over year, and $15 million, or 14% quarter over quarter. This growth is largely attributable to higher net earning assets associated with the increased origination volumes in the US, Canada, and ANZ. Gain on sale remained relatively unchanged year over year, as gains in Mexico were mostly offset by lower gains in Australia and New Zealand, as prices moderate. The increase in financing revenue was somewhat mitigated by higher funding costs and standby fees to support forecasted growth and origination. Overall, rates remained significantly more attractive than the prior year period. Shifting our focus to syndications, we successfully syndicated a record $955 million of assets this quarter. This represents a substantial 86% increase from Q2 last year and doubled out of Q1, increasing syndication revenue by $4 million, or 42% year over year. We expanded the volume and names associated with syndications, which impacted MEX from a yield perspective. These significant volumes illustrate the depth of this funding source for us and the ongoing appeal of our assets to syndication clients. On the expense side, adjusted operating expenses for Q2 were $122 million, an increase of 13% year over year. This increase was primarily due to higher salaries, wages, and benefits associated with accelerated spend, including higher short-term incentive compensation accruals and targeted headcount and G&A to support growth initiatives. We believe that the acceleration of our digitization efforts, expedited by the capabilities we will onboard as part of the auto fleet acquisition, will allow us to enhance our scalability over the intermediate term. It is worth noting that net revenue growth continues to outpace operating expense growth by 110 basis points year over year. And as I mentioned last quarter, we will continue to be purposeful in accelerating investments in the near term, as our top line growth allows us to do so. This will help us ensure we are well positioned to expand our leadership in the fleet management sector. Additionally, originations were $2 billion this quarter, up 5% from Q2 last year and up 28% from Q1. This growth can be attributed to three items. First, OEM production volumes have recovered from earlier supply chain constraints. Second, Q2 traditionally represents the quarterly high water mark aligning with OEM ordering windows and three is inflation in auto prices. Now, let's turn to guidance. Our strong financial performance and positive outlook for remainder of the year led us to raise our full year 2024 guidance for the following metrics. We anticipate net revenues to be between 1.06 and 1.08 billion, implying annual growth between 11 and 13%. Adjusted operating income between $575 and $595 million. Adjusted EPS between $1.7 and $1.11. And adjusted free cash flow per share between $1.32 and $1.36. Again, these are before any one-time costs associated with our previously announced strategic investments and the costs associated with the acquisition of auto. While Q2 foreign currency volatility is reflected in our revised guidance, we do not forecast currency. As such, the outlook for the remainder of the year assumes that FX will remain stable to those rates prevailing in Q2. Before concluding and opening the line to questions, I would like to walk you through certain changes to our capital structure, as previously communicated. We completed the redemption of our series C preferred shares this June for a total of $91 million. Additionally, in September, we plan to redeem our series E preferred for a total of $92 million. Recall that the result of replacing these preferred shares with debt will move the cost of capital from below the pre-tax income line to the NFR line, creating modest compression to NFR margins in the second half of 2024. Most importantly, these actions are EPS accreted and economically attractive to us. Additionally, in connection with conversion of our remaining convertible debentures, we issued $14.6 million shares from Treasury, which will impact our per share financial results and are taken into consideration as per our guidance. We ended the quarter with tangible leverage at 6.5 times and financial leverage for debt to total capital at 74.8%. Both metrics providing flexibility to pursue strategic objectives, operate the business efficiently and continue to return capital to shareholders. In summary, we had an exceptionally strong first half of 2024, which allows us to continue investing in the business to sustain future growth and drive value for shareholders. Thank you, operator. We are now ready to take questions.

Analysts who wish to ask the question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question today comes from Jeffrey Kwan with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. My first question was on the origination side. Just given how, you know, how often your clients typically hold their vehicles, for the vehicles that were not replaced during the OEM production shortage, what would be like your estimate of the percentage that have still not been replaced so far, even with the OEM production shortage kind of being, let's call it more normal in the past several quarters?

The best way I can put that, Jeff, is two ways. One is we have now, with the OEM production coming back to a normalized level, are working through and seeing some of the benefit of that come through the line as we have over the last couple of quarters. The best way to think about it is we peaked at average age of vehicles, U.S. Canada, roughly 59 days. Now, I'm sorry, 59 months. That is now down to 49 months. I think I told you before, 42 months is really the average hold on these vehicle assets. We're starting to see those come back in. The fact that we are still above the 42-month period indicates to us that there will be continued orders, strong order volume and originations as we progress through the year.

Okay. That's helpful. And then next question was on the net finance income. I think if I remember correctly, at the start of the year, kind of messaging modest growth, I think it might have been like low single digits for reasons like lower expected gain on sale, some of the impacts of dealing with the legacy capital structure and the impact on net financing revenue. I know that there's still that one prep remaining, but what we've seen from H-124 this year is the net financing revenue is up .5% year over year. So I just wanted to get your thoughts. Obviously, you've revised the guidance, but just how to think about how that plays out through the second half this year, but also just going forward because part of it you mentioned you flagged was a bit of a business or geographic mix issue that drove the higher financing income.

Yeah. So we always have mix, right? So you have higher spreads in A and Z and Mexico. The biggest thing that's been driving the net financing revenue increase is just the growth in net earning assets. So we've had a significant growth in net earning assets as originations have picked up to record volumes this quarter. And that is most of the impact, the benefit from the net financing perspective.

But wouldn't that have been as expected for you so that we wouldn't kind of baked into your net financing expectation when you built the guidance at the start of the year?

And the start of the year, we've actually seen better financing costs in the market as well. So those two combined would create most of that benefit.

Okay. Maybe if I can get one last question. It's just the auto fleet acquisition. Do any of your direct competitors use them? And then if so, would there be any plans on whether or not they would still be able to use auto fleet going forward?

Good morning, Jeff. I'll take that one. Our plan is to have auto fleets continue to operate independently. And so they will be able to serve any company that would benefit from utilizing them. We're really happy with this acquisition. We do think it's going to allow us to do more in the mobility space. And if it can help others do better for clients in this space, we're all for that. So yes, the answer is yes.

Okay. Thank you.

The next question comes from Paul Holden from CIBC. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. So a couple questions on the auto fleet acquisitions just to make sure I understand the value proposition appropriately. First off, Frank, you provided some useful numbers in terms of year one accretion. And then also mentioned, I think a payback period of three years, if I caught that correct. What's sort of embedded in that expectation? Is that primarily based on revenue to customers?

Are there some kind of cost saving? Period. Really, I guess the value proposition here.

Sure. So it comes in a couple of areas. So let me address the accretion in year one first. This is a small acquisition. So it is very modest accretion in the first year simply because of the size of it relative to us. So I want to make sure we're clear on that. In regards to the value proposition and the payback, it comes in two forms. As we move through and complete our digitization capabilities, the first piece is that we will become more scalable. We will be able to do more with less over time and be much more efficient from an operating perspective in serving our clients. Additionally, that should also enhance our client experience by being more responsive to our clients and giving them better opportunities, better dashboards to see their vehicles and the which could assist us and should assist us in winning new business with best in class client facing technology. So that's one component. Major component of the payback is really our ability to accelerate our digitization effort and do more with less capital. So we still anticipate spending $110 million roughly per year. And sorry, and that's Canadian, so $85 million US per year in regards to the spend of capital over the next several years. But we will be able to accelerate and take somewhere between one to three years acceleration depending on which projects we're looking at and getting those in place sooner. Again, enhancing our ability to scale as well as better client facing technology.

That's helpful. Thanks for that. That's good on auto fleet. Third or second question would be on syndication. You syndicated a lot of volumes this quarter at what I would say is a relatively low syndication yield. Maybe walk us through the thought process there. Why such a high volume at a low yield? And then with that, maybe give us an outlook for the expectation for syndication yield for the remainder of the year.

Think about syndication as a key funding mechanism for us. So with records originations volumes and the pent up syndication that we held back in Q1, we had significantly more volume to bring to finance the origination component of the business. As a result of that, we also had to go we had a mixed shift. So our syndication team on the same names that we're syndicating were roughly on part slightly better from a gross yield perspective. But the mixed component of it had a material impact on the overall yield. So think about certain clients with significantly more volume in the quarter, but they tended to be lower yielding assets. So two points. One that we've made before, but that was a lower yield, but much higher volume this quarter. And then two new names that have come in that also decrease the yield from that perspective. And again, remember, we use it also to manage leverage. So we're roughly 6.5 times right in the mid-target of our range.

And so are there any way to give us sort of an outlook or expectation for the remainder of the yield? I mean, some of the things you highlighted maybe are more particular to the quarter. I would assume somewhat better yields for the remainder of the year. But what are you expecting,

Frank? It's very dependent on the size of the origination pool in the next fall. So I think that we continue to see significantly higher volumes in origination for the rest of the year relative to last year, which would tell me that plus or minus, we will see lower yields than we saw in Q1, somewhere around the current yields. But again, it will be highly dependent on mix. Remember, too, even though the yield is lower, every deal we syndicate is economically advantageous to us because the hold versus sell component of that is in our favor. So we get more value by selling that lease than we would holding it on book.

I understand. Okay. And then last question for me, originations. I think I saw they were down small in Mexico, but down 1% year over year. Is this quarter sort of an aberration? Has anything changed in the growth outlook there?

So predominantly two things. The peso, so the FX impact on that origination's number. So about 1.5 plus percent lower quarter over quarter from a peso valuation. So there's part of yours. And then we also had a slightly lower mix in regards to the cost of vehicles and vehicle types that were bought in the quarter. That tends to be more idiosyncratic and lumpy. That mix usually doesn't come much into play. So those two will make up that small compression and origination volume.

Okay. Thanks for that. I'll leave it there.

The next question comes from Jamie Goyne with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Did want to touch on syndication and the volumes in this quarter. I believe in Q1 you had made the decision to delay for some potential tax advantages later on that didn't materialize. So in Q2 with this higher volume, is this reflecting some of that demand that would have been coming in Q1 and we should expect somewhat lower volumes going forward? Or is this reflective of where demand is from an institutional investor's standpoint? And perhaps maybe even increasing from these levels. Just some thoughts on that.

Yeah. So first on the demand side, demand I think remains robust. And I think you can see a 30 plus percent increase over our record volumes before. Very, very solid from that perspective. So the market is deep. They like these assets. We've said that before because of the safety of them and the very low default. Right? So very good bank and life co-assets from that perspective. So the market is very deep as we look at it. I would say, you know, rough, rough. We probably held back on $150 to $200 million of volume last quarter. And so that would have been come through this quarter. So you'll expect some lower volume than this record quarter in Q3 and Q4. That being said, it will still be at relatively robust levels versus historical periods.

Okay.

Understood. On the Auto Fleet, I just wanted to also maybe dig in and just get a little bit better understanding of maybe what were some of the gaps that were existing with the event today to go to a buy versus build strategy and maybe a little bit more color on some of these value add services that are coming on board. I would assume that existing customers are using Auto Fleet. And that was sort of the way into this transaction. But maybe a bit more color on those two factors.

Yeah. Hi, Jamie. I'll take that. As we've talked about, when we see all of the advancements, I'm going to say in mobility, what we see with vehicle connectivity, fleet electrification, et cetera, we know that we have to, I'm going to say, continuously evolve for our clients. As we shared, we've been on the path to build out our capabilities to be in a position to do more digitization and automation to better serve our clients. That is proving out to be expensive. And so we were out looking to see, could we partner or acquire capabilities such that we could move a lot faster? And so we found Auto Fleet. We really like the team. We think with them, we're going to be able to better serve our clients. And it's really all about accelerating all of our digitization and automation efforts. It allows us to really fast track, if you will, our modernization plan. They have an AI-powered platform. Again, that's going to help us streamline, automate, and just move faster. And as I shared in my prepared remarks, we found a world-class team. That's a wonderful cultural fit with us. They've got a scalable digital platform. It's built on a modern tech stack. So we're feeling incredibly positive about what we'll be able to do with this acquisition for our clients. Some of the potential value-added services, they are in a space that we are not. They do a lot in the short-term rentals and ride sharing. They have really strong analytics and other capabilities. Those are some of the other services we'll be able to do. Things like optimized vehicle routing, keyless vehicle entry, the list goes on. And so it gives us just really not just a great talent team, but really good tools that will help us better manage our clients and allow us to really optimize our business. So all of that should really translate into where Frank was at, synergies and whatnot over time, not just allowing us to go faster. But things that will make our client experience better, jobs better for our clients, sorry, for our people, and should also allow us to deliver better returns for our shareholders over time.

Okay, that's great. I'll read you.

The next question comes from Tom McKinnon with BMO. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks very much. Just a question generally on the impact of the lower rates. I know from a finance or other perspective you're generally agnostic there, but perhaps what are you hearing from clients in the self-managed market and maybe their appetite to outsource as rates have come down and have a follow-up?

Thanks. Hi, Tom. We continue to grow in that space, have a lot of opportunity, great conversations with clients. Demand continues to be strong. There was a need just given what we had been through, our clients needed to decrease the average age of their fleet, notwithstanding where rates are, but a lower rate environment certainly makes our proposition more interesting. But as we've shared in the past, one of the big drivers for us to grow, particularly in self-managed fleet space, remains the complexity of the space as it evolves. Really when we think about fleet electrification and that complexity, that is really the opportunity for us and for these clients to deal with us where we feel we can decrease their total cost of operation. So that's the main driver. I'll hand it over to Frank maybe to cover some of the lower rates as it relates to our business.

I would just comment as well, the major reason why a self-managed fleet tends to go into an FMC is not because of the financing component necessarily, it is because of what we can do on the services side, as Laura said, really deal with the complexity of that fleet, lower that total cost of ownership. So that's absolutely critical. The financing tends to be more of a commodity type of product. It really is the hook from a self-managed fleet perspective, what we can do for them from a service perspective. Overall though, when we went into this year, we have been able to term out our facilities at much better rates than we had seen historically in the last year or in 2023. And we were 22 as well. So that's a very good positive and has created some tailwind. One of the reasons why our guidance has been raised is that lower financing environment from when we set up the original guidance back in November.

Okay, thanks. And then just with respect to the auto fleet acquisition, as you kind of onboard this software platform, do you foresee any potential disruption risk here at all or what are you doing to try to minimize that if there is one?

Well, we are going to run auto fleets as a separate entity. So it will be run independently. Again, as you share, we explored many companies, their people, their technologies. And with auto fleet, we found the one that was the best fit. We believe that all of the benefits here, I'm going to say far outweigh any perceived risks in that our teams have spent considerable time collaborating together as we have worked together to serve some clients. We feel we share a common purpose, great cultural fit. And in allowing a startup to operate independently will further, I'm going to say decrease the likelihood of things not working out. This is a great transaction, not just for us, but for auto fleet in that with our client base and our great sales force, this will allow auto fleet to grow at a faster rate. And with auto fleet tech stack and very talented team, it's going to allow us to accelerate in the digitization and automation. And so, you know, deals work best when both parties win and both of us win in this transaction. And most importantly, this is going to be a great combination to better serve our clients to make our employees' jobs, as I said earlier, better. And all of that, as we do it properly, is going to result in better performance for our shareholders.

And naturally, this will help expand some of the services that you have. But can you elaborate on any other expansion of services that you might want to undertake? You know, even without having auto fleet? I think there were a few you spoke to before, but just wondering how your thoughts are there.

Yeah, absolutely. I'd say in the very first instance, it allows us to up our game as it relates to the digitization of our services, how our clients interact with us, and how we deliver all of the different products and services we have. And so that is the, I'd say, the first benefit that our clients should see in short order as that gets done. As it relates to, I'm going to say, additional value-added services that we can provide, we'll be able to look at doing things in the telematic space. As I mentioned earlier, we're going to be in a position to, for ride hailing, optimize even further with stronger data and analytics and AI capabilities, the total cost of operation for our clients. I mentioned things like keyless vehicle entry. We'll have a lot of that that we can actually do. And so a lot of opportunity with them. And then, of course, we have the other opportunities that I've talked about previously as it relates to the insurance space that we were working on and the small to medium size fleet. Those are two initiatives that we continue to work on. And we actually feel that in working with auto fleet, that that could allow us to move faster in that regard, too, just given the tool set that they bring and the digitization and automation capabilities. So we should be able to move faster with those two initiatives as well. And there'll be more to come on that in future quarters.

Okay, thank you.

The next question comes from Graham writing with TD security. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Just first, I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly, because there has been a lot of conversation on auto fleet. So just to sort of try to summarize, is this a way for you to basically leverage auto fleet both in a direct client facing capacity in terms of what you can offer them, but also from your own processes and in terms of sort of digital and automation behind the scenes, you can leverage auto fleet as well? Should I think of it as both respects?

Absolutely. You got it.

Okay, great. And then my only other question would just be on guidance, Frank. I think the sort of the numbers that you've provided, they imply that you're not really expecting much growth in the second half of the year versus the first half of the year from a sort of revenue and adjusted EPS perspective. And I think free cash flow per share is actually expected to trend down a bit versus the first half of the year. Is that accurate? And then what would be driving that?

So a couple of things. Let me talk to the fundamental component of it. So again, we put out guidance, obviously, good revenue growth and good growth as you look at the back half of the year. And think about the whole range. So we try to play guidance down the middle of the fairway as we look there at it. So we do see continued strong growth in the second half of the year as we move forward here. But recall, non-economic, but we're going to have more drag from the preferred stock that will drag the NFR line as we move forward here, as well as just our continued investment in the business consistent with that growth. On the per share perspective, recall that we converted the debit shares. So we now have $14 million incremental shares outstanding, which obviously impact the EPS from a basic EPS perspective as we move forward here. The last thing I would just point you to is recall that we had $7 million in non-recurring service revenue in Q1. And so we don't intend, because it's non-recurring, that to recur as we move forward. And then finally, we continue to be cautious on gain on sale. As we look at it, it's held up well. And that's been a benefit to us as Mexico has offset Australia and New Zealand and we've had more vehicles to sell. But we always keep our eye on that as well. But we feel very good about the second half of the year.

Okay, those points are helpful. That's it for me.

Thanks. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then one to join the question queue. That's star, then one. This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Laura Dottori Atanasio for any closing remarks.

Thank you. Thank you for getting my name right. As we continue to grow and deliver for our shareholders with strong financial results, we will drive forward and we're going to drive forward at pace with intelligent mobility initiatives. And we're going to ensure that we consistently offer the very best to our clients. So thanks again to our element team members for everything they do for our clients and for each other. And a very special welcome to our soon to be new team members from Auto Fleet. And thank you once again for being with us today and for your continued support of Element. We look forward to our next quarterly call. Have a wonderful day.

The conference is now concluded. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.