TSE:PLC Park Lawn Q1 2024 Earnings Report Earnings HistoryForecast Park Lawn EPS ResultsActual EPSC$0.29Consensus EPS C$0.27Beat/MissBeat by +C$0.02One Year Ago EPSN/APark Lawn Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$102.99 millionExpected Revenue$102.11 millionBeat/MissBeat by +$880.00 thousandYoY Revenue GrowthN/APark Lawn Announcement DetailsQuarterQ1 2024Date5/9/2024TimeN/AConference Call DateFriday, May 10, 2024Conference Call Time9:30AM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptInterim ReportEarnings HistoryCompany ProfilePowered by Park Lawn Q1 2024 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrMay 10, 2024 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 9 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Welcome to the Parklawn Corporation Q1 2024 Results Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded. Operator00:00:23I will now turn the conference over to your host, Jennifer Hay. Ma'am, you may begin. Speaker 100:00:30Thank you, Holly, and good morning, everybody. This is Jennifer Hay, Parkland's Chief Strategy Officer and General Counsel. Thank you for joining us today on our Q1 2024 earnings call. Before we begin our prepared commentary on the quarter, please note that you can find a detailed breakdown of our 2024 Q1 results in our financial statements and MD and A, which are available on our website and on SEDAR Plus. Today's call is being recorded and a replay will be available after the call. Speaker 100:01:05Please be aware that certain information discussed today is forward looking in nature. Any such information is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which could cause actual results to differ materially. Please see our public filings for more information regarding forward looking statements. During the call, we will reference non IFRS financial measures. Although we believe these measures provide useful supplemental information about our financial performance, they are not recognized measures and do not have standardized meanings under IFRS. Speaker 100:01:43Please see our public filings for additional information regarding our non IFRS financial measures, including for reconciliations to the nearest IFRS measures. I will now hand the call over to Parkland's CEO, Brad Green, to open our discussion today. Speaker 200:01:59Thank you, Jennifer, and good morning, everyone. In addition to Jennifer, with me on the call today is our CFO, Dan Millett. I would like to start by providing a brief overview of our performance in the Q1, then Dan will provide some additional financial details and finally, I will provide some closing remarks. As we discussed at length just a couple of months ago, 2023 ended with a significant transformation for the organization with the disposition of 83 legacy businesses. As we expected, this allowed us to focus intently on creating a more efficient operating environment. Speaker 200:02:32In addition to that disposition, our team continues to be sharply focused on improving the infrastructure of our organization, including things like the implementation of a refined operating model, the implementation of a new sales and commission structure, developing and utilizing detailed reporting to provide real time support to operation and sales, the continuing enhancement of facts, the launch of ParkClawn University, our new educational platform and the list goes on. Combining these various strategic initiatives together, we are for the first time really starting to see the benefits of these actions. We now have confidence that our infrastructure has the ability to scale and grow with Parklawn long into the future. With that hard work during the quarter, we saw meaningful improvements in our operating performance both on revenue and in our margins. Despite the pull forward effect from COVID still negatively impacting the death rate, having greater visibility with facts in a real time environment is allowing us to operate better and more efficiently. Speaker 200:03:31Moving forward, we expect to continue to refine our operations, experiencing incremental improvements along the way. During the quarter, we also closed on a business in Colorado, which ties together Parkland's presence on the Western Slope. We are quite pleased with the progress this business is making and integrating into Parkland, another area we have been focused on sequentially improving. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dan, who will provide details regarding Q1 results. Speaker 300:03:59Thank you, Brad, and good morning, everyone. My comments this morning will focus primarily on our operating results from the Q1 2024 relative to the Q1 2023. The Q1 revenue was in line with our expectations, which decreased overall by approximately 11.9 percent to roughly $76,400,000 principally as a result of the disposition of the legacy assets completed in December, partially offset by acquired acquisitions or acquired operations as they continue to positively contribute to Parkland's growth. It is important to point out that when we strip away the impact from the disposition, comparable operations only decreased marginally by approximately 2.7%, largely as a result of the decline in death rate as well as the decrease in our large group sales in our cemeteries. As we've noted in prior quarters, this decrease was anticipated following 2 years of sales fueled by COVID. Speaker 300:04:59We do believe, however, that these large group sales will stabilize with the normalization of the death rate and that you'll see some of these in the remaining months of the year. In addition, mortality decreased year over year for the 8th straight quarter impacting atneed sales. Although the impact of the pandemic still lingers with better expense management and an increase in our average revenue per call, our margins from comparable funeral operations increased approximately 2 50 basis points. And overall, our margin from comparable operations was relatively flat year over year. From a corporate perspective, as we have discussed over the last few quarters, we continue to make investments in our corporate infrastructure to support the organization for the long term. Speaker 300:05:43Our corporate costs during the quarter are in line with our expectations at roughly 10.25 percent of revenue. Following the disposal of legacy assets in December 2023, quarter over quarter we saw an approximate 4.4% decrease in corporate costs. As Brad mentioned a few moments ago, we continue to focus on integrating our corporate platform with technology and refining our processes and resources to increase productivity, part of which includes moving to our new downtown Houston location that's done. In that respect, we expect to see additional costs relating to the move and build out of the space and have occurred approximately $1,800,000 of capital costs relating to the build out during the quarter. While we experienced strong results in the Q1, the Q1 is typically one of our better quarters and therefore we have not adjusted our 2024 financial guidance outlook. Speaker 300:06:37As a reminder, our 2024 outlook includes adjusted EBITDA with a midpoint of $75,000,000 and adjusted earnings per share with a midpoint of $0.85 per share. With only 1 quarter under our belt, continued decreases in mortality, stubbornly high interest rates and acquisitions expected to be weighted to the second half of the year, we have maintained our range of expectations and will continue to assess the range as the year unfolds. At March 31, 2024, we had approximately $145,000,000 outstanding on our credit facility. In addition to the credit facility, at March 31, we had other debt of approximately $13,300,000 finance leases of approximately $14,300,000 and cash on hand of $17,700,000 Excluding our debentures, our net debt was approximately $155,000,000 as at March 31, 2024. At March 31, our leverage ratio was approximately 2.15 times based on the terms of our credit facility and approximately 3.03 times including our outstanding ventures. Speaker 300:07:42This continues to provide us liquidity to execute on our expected growth initiatives. First quarter resulted in an increase in net earnings of approximately 14.7 percent to approximately $5,250,000 compared to $4,580,000 in the Q1 of 2023. Following the disposition of our legacy assets, increases in interest rates during the first half twenty twenty three and increased amortization to depreciation from ongoing operations, adjusted net earnings for the Q1 decreased by 12.2 percent over the comparable quarter from 2023 and was approximately $7,570,000 or $0.215 per share compared to $8,610,000 or $0.249 per share in Q1 2023. I will now turn the call back to Brad for some closing comments. Speaker 200:08:38Thank you, Dan. Our Q1 performance was a solid start to the year and is right in line with our expectations. As we look forward to the rest of the year, we expect the death rates will remain relatively flat to slightly lower as a result of the pull forward from COVID, which is expected to impact our at any call volume of both our funeral homes and cemeteries. With that in mind, we do expect to see modest same store growth, which will come principally from efficiencies and stronger execution supported by our improved infrastructure. Like in years past, we still anticipate a majority of our growth will come from acquisitions, which we expect to come on board as the year progresses. Speaker 200:09:13Our pipeline remains robust and we are actively in discussions with more than 1 premier business in high growth demographic markets. And although we can't control when a seller chooses to sell their business, we fully anticipate being able to meet our previously disclosed range of $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 in acquisitions during the calendar year. With that in mind, as Dan noted, we affirm our annual guidance at this time, but we will continue to reevaluate our performance and guidance ranges as we move forward through the remainder of the year. I'll now turn the call over to Holly for any questions. Operator00:09:45Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer Your first question for today is from Martin Landry with Stifel. Speaker 400:10:30Hi, good morning, guys. Speaker 200:10:33Good morning. Speaker 400:10:33My first question is on the on your Cemetery segment. It looks like on an organic basis, your cemetery revenues have been declining for the last five quarters. And I know that there's the sales are lumpy there and you've had group sales in the past that blur a little bit the analysis. But I was wondering when could we see a return to growth in comparable sales for that segment? And also, could you talk a little bit about the pipeline of lot development that you have right now and how much how big it is versus historical? Speaker 200:11:29Yes, Martin. I would start by saying our cemeteries performed exactly in line with our expectations this quarter at almost 41.4 percent margins. When you talk about comparable growth, if you take the group sales out of the mix, that actually happened this quarter. We knew that we would not have group sales similar to those in Q1 of 2023. That was forecasted and expected. Speaker 200:11:54And those group sales will come over the course of the year, albeit probably in smaller amounts. We specifically disclosed those group sales now, so that you guys and our investors can track them. And as we said in the past, this will make some of the quarter over quarter comparisons chunky at times, but we're guiding to where we're going to get at the end of the year. So it should take some surprise out of the process. So when you ask me when you're going to start seeing our comparable sales improve, I would say that our cemetery sales were, if you take the group sales out of the mix, were exactly where we expected them to be this quarter and improving, Again, with mink being out of that process with the divestitures being gone. Speaker 200:12:32And regarding the second part of your question? Speaker 400:12:41Yes, the second part of Speaker 200:12:43the question was Yes, regarding Speaker 400:12:46Go ahead. Speaker 200:12:47Go ahead, Martin. Speaker 400:12:50No. I think you're on your way to answering the second part of my question. So I'll let you go. Speaker 200:12:56I actually did not understand the second part of your question. So if you'll let me know what if you'll restate it, I'll take a shot at it. Speaker 400:13:04Absolutely. I was wondering how's the pipeline for lot development this year and how does that compare to historical levels? Speaker 200:13:17I don't understand what you mean by lot allotment. And so help me with that. Speaker 400:13:23Your CapEx for your cemetery, your lot development, sorry? Speaker 200:13:29Got it. Got it. Speaker 300:13:30Yes. So Martin, in the past, we've kind of been between 50 basis points to 100 basis points of our total revenue that we spend on just regular inventory development. I don't think that's going to be any different this year. I think the one thing that we continue to look at is the development of the Westminster Mausoleum in Toronto. That will have a significant outsized impact on our capital costs relating to inventory replacement. Speaker 300:14:08It's a very large mausoleum. We're currently looking at design and development right now. So timing is a little bit up in the air still, but that will get going probably towards the end of this year, maybe early next year. Development in the City of Toronto isn't the smoothest and easiest process, but that will change things once we get it going. But obviously, that's a cost we probably incur once every 10 years. Speaker 400:14:40Okay. And just to wrap up on the cemetery sales, Brad, just to be clear, did I understand correctly that your group sales, your done lapping group sales as of Q2, is that what you said? Speaker 200:15:02No, I don't think that's what I meant to say, if that's what you heard me say. Speaker 300:15:06Just Martin, I think plainly is the group sales are lumpy for lack of a better term. We came off in 2022 2023 2 of the 2 record years effectively in terms of group sales. As we mentioned when we put out our outlook, we don't expect that those sales to be completely linear, But those businesses in the Northeast are built to have those group sales. So we will see more group sales as the year goes on. And it will be variable when we look at it on a quarter to quarter basis. Speaker 300:15:48Sometimes they'll be up, sometimes they'll be down. Speaker 200:15:51Yes. And to add to that, what I was attempting to say in my first answer is, I mean, looking at the first note that came out last night referring to our cemetery sales. If I look at it in 2 different ways, we have the group sales and we have the park sales. And our park sales did exactly what we expected them to do this past quarter and we're very happy with that. So when the group sales come in as they do, they have an oversized impact. Speaker 200:16:12And so I think we're saying the same thing three times. So I'm very happy with where the cemeteries are now, especially now that the Mink assets are out of there and we could focus on the better businesses that we have. And when the group sales come in, it's going to make quarters that they're in look very good on the cemetery sales. It's going to make quarters that they're not in look not as favorably compared to the previous one if there happens to be one in there. But at the end of the year, which is what we're guiding to, the cemeteries will be exactly where we expect them to be. Speaker 200:16:43Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Operator00:16:48Your next question is from Irene Nattel with RBC Capital Markets. Good morning, everyone. Couple of Speaker 500:16:57questions from me, please. First of all, can you talk nice to see the improvement in margins of the business. Can you talk about what we can expect to see as we move forward? And of course, the degree to which FAST is helping as you really look to optimize the productivity and efficiency now that you've got the business where you want it to be? Speaker 200:17:24Sure. Obviously, we're very happy with where the margins ended up this quarter, but we do expect improvement throughout the year. We pointed to 2 main things and have consistently said that over the past few quarters as you pointed out one of them. FAX gives us the ability in real time with reliable data to look at what's going on in our businesses, so that our operators can do what they need to do. And we saw that impact here in the Q1. Speaker 200:17:52Also simply taking out the legacy assets that were gone through the mink transaction had an impact on those margins as well. But to I guess to summarize that answer, we definitely like where the margins are right now and we expect them to improve. Speaker 500:18:11That's great. Thank you. And then just moving on please to M and A, understand clearly at this point in mid May, back end loaded. You mentioned something about a large high growth, high quality asset that's sort of in your site. Can you talk about what you're seeing in terms of opportunity? Speaker 500:18:33And really, what's realistic for us to expect as we move through the year in terms of transactions and also multiples? Speaker 200:18:42Yes. So generally in the industry, you're seeing more and more activity. You're also seeing something that I think is kind of interesting, not only had some of the consolidators that probably made decisions through COVID that they wish they had not had made, are not only not making acquisitions anymore, you're starting to see discussions of dispositions from those type of businesses. So, we're seeing activity kick up from the brokers. We're seeing activity come in to Parkland and we're seeing what I've discussed in the past, which is limited number of people out there that are willing to buy businesses in the current environment. Speaker 200:19:21And we happen to be one of them because of decisions we made during COVID and our leverage ratio. I feel very confident that we're going to be in that range of acquisitions by the end of the year. And bluntly, we could have been at the minimum range of acquisitions by just saying yes to businesses that we said no to in the last 14 days. There's plenty of opportunities for us to make acquisitions and we'll make those. But right now, Irene, I will tell you, we were selective in the past. Speaker 200:19:49We are being super selective now, so that the acquisitions that we bring on board, we know will be immediately accretive and easier to integrate, because there's so much opportunity out there. We want to make the right decisions in this high interest rate environment. Speaker 500:20:04That's really helpful, Brad. And just to confirm, at this point in time, you're really looking at sort of acquisitions that are exactly the quality that you want, exactly the price that you want and that have some sort of upside. I guess what I'm saying is you're only you're focusing on the assets that are really the ones you want as opposed to the ones that you could have. Speaker 200:20:27I couldn't say it better than that. And it's not that we weren't it's not that we haven't always done that Irene. It's just that in the current environment we're in, we're being even more selective. And quite frankly, I think where we've come as an organization coming into 2024, being a part of Parkland was a big deal before. It's even a bigger deal now, because there are folks that sold their businesses to other consolidators that actually understand what that means now and the stability and the long term growth potential that this company and this management team bring. Speaker 200:21:04The right buyers understand that now because they see the mistakes that their friends made and the instability that exists in their businesses now. Operator00:21:12That's really helpful. Thank you. Your next question for today is from George Doumet with Scotiabank. Speaker 600:21:25Brad and Tom, just want to talk a little bit about your current assets that you have, I guess the infrastructure that's in place. Where would you see the most upside in terms of field margins Speaker 300:21:36over the Speaker 600:21:36next 12 months or 18 months? Is it mainly the cemetery or the funeral, just maybe a little bit of color in terms of where we can see improvement there? Speaker 200:21:46So I'm excited about all of it because I think there is improvement everywhere. And I'll just give you I'll give you maybe the top three areas that I see. We've spent some time restructuring our sales function, whether it be the new compensation plan, focus on the actual restructuring of it, focusing on a new CRM to sales force. We've done a lot of good things there. And we're really focusing on adding the right counselors and keeping our churn rates lower than it has been in the past and all of those things are working. Speaker 200:22:18So, I look forward to seeing growth in sales. And it's not going to happen in the Q2 necessarily, but it's coming, right? So, I definitely see our sales being a function being an opportunity. We made a lot of acquisitions as you guys know in 2021 20222023 And we're still focusing on those acquisitions and bringing those up. So those will have a direct impact on our margins. Speaker 200:22:43And Fax is still having a big impact on businesses we've owned for a period of time. I mean each one of them, each business has a monthly scorecard now with benchmark achievement plans. And I expect to see improvement in our legacy businesses as well. And that's to me, that's good news because I don't there's no problem. There's nothing that's broken anymore. Speaker 200:23:05The infrastructure is in place. And now we're just looking at getting incremental improvement from multiple areas as opposed to relying on one. So as I said in my last call, when we ended 2023 and coming into 2024, things were going exactly the direction we wanted and we actually, in our mind, see that in these results in the Q1 and we're pretty excited about it, because with lower revenue, we managed our businesses to higher margins and that's what we should do. We can't affect the death rate, but what we can do is operate these businesses effectively and efficiently when we get the data. So putting all those things together, we're going to focus on moving maintaining and moving that EBITDA margin. Speaker 600:23:46Okay. So it sounds to me like it's almost segment agnostic, it's going to Speaker 200:23:49be across the board, right? Yes. I mean, it really is. But we get to we actually get to work on it now, right? So with what we have in place and the tools and the hard work that we did in 2022 and 2023, we're actually using those now. Speaker 200:24:04We're seeing the benefits of it. So those discussions are happening now at a management level, like here's how we're going to go improve the business as opposed to we need to get this fixed. That's where we're sitting in 2024. Speaker 600:24:17Okay. Also noticed the buyback activity slowed versus last quarter. So if you can talk to that and just a general question, let's say you get the right larger asset out there, would you be willing to pay a higher multiple than where you're trading at to acquire that asset? Speaker 700:24:32Thanks. Speaker 200:24:34Well, I mean, that's a fun question because the multiple we're trading at right now to me is offensive. But yes, I mean, as we're making acquisitions, I don't know that I would necessarily say that we would pay more than what we're the multiple that we're trading at, but we probably would. Yes, I mean, we can't impact the stock price as it is right now. We don't believe the stock price is indicative of the value of this organization. And when people figure that out, we're going to have a much different stock price. Speaker 200:25:04So, yes, I guess we would if we needed to. Speaker 300:25:07Okay. And can you comment on Speaker 600:25:08the buyback activity, just slowing down this quarter? Should we look into that at all? Speaker 300:25:14Yes, George, it's Dan here. Yes, as you're aware, the Q1 has a really, really short blackout window. We expected our stock to actually trade better following our Q4 results, which sequentially continued to show improvement as does Q1 here. However, I think the short answer to your question is, if the stock continues to trade where it's been over the last 2 months, yes, we're going to execute on our NCIB. Speaker 600:25:47That's really clear. All right. Thanks, guys. Good luck. Thank you. Operator00:25:53Your next question today is from Zachary Evershed with National Bank Financial. Speaker 700:26:00Good morning, everyone. Congrats on the quarter. Speaker 200:26:03Thanks, Zach. Speaker 700:26:06Could you start out with giving us some details around the manager swap for the Canadian care and maintenance funds? Speaker 300:26:15Yes, Zack, it's Dan here. Really nothing too crazy happening there. In Q4, we made a change in terms of our investment manager for our Canadian Trust Fund. Historically, we were a lot more concentrated with 2 funds and concentrated in oil and gas and financials. We made a change in investment manager and effectively repositioned the trust funds to be a lot more balanced. Speaker 300:26:46We're still kind of targeting the endowment care side of yield between 4%, 4.5%. But the funds in Canada are a lot more balanced now, positioned for long term growth and reduced risk. So some short term distribution implications, but long term, I think the funds are much more appropriately allocated to provide both yield and capital appreciation. Speaker 700:27:19So do you think the quarterly run rate will bounce back as soon as Q2? Speaker 300:27:25It won't no, that would be way too quick. It will come back a little bit. But no, again, this is more kind of medium term, long term thinking. Obviously, with more capital appreciation, the larger base to invest ultimately affecting the distribution, so on and so forth, right. So it's not something that just changes overnight. Speaker 700:27:46Understood. Thanks. Speaker 200:27:50Ju, give Speaker 700:27:52us an idea, so FACT is really spitting out a ton of new data, which I'm a big fan of. Could you outline for us maybe what's been the most useful that you're now able to track, whether it's at the management level or on the ground? When you talk about working on the business and being able to make improvements, what's the most useful data you're getting out of that? Speaker 200:28:15Well, the data is useful because it's consistent and accurate. So, just start there. So no matter what it is that we're looking at, the fact that we can pull it and rely on it immediately as opposed to being concerned about it coming from 6 or 7 different systems and whether it was input correctly. You're really just talking about something that an entire, if you can't spine that when everything is entered into it, we know what we're getting out as reliable. But what it's really driving is we were able to put in our benchmark operating model, which is just all across the U. Speaker 200:28:47S. And in Canada now. And both the funeral home and the cemetery, they have 6 benchmarks. And I won't go into too much detail. I'm happy to talk to you about this offline. Speaker 200:28:56But it basically pulls all of the information we need into these benchmarks that allows us to give a look at these businesses on a weekly and monthly basis. So, it's literally everything from contracts to the averages to gross margins to consolidated labor percentages to EBITDA margins. I mean, we're seeing everything that we want to see. It goes into basically a scorecard for the business. And then the managers are able to sit down with the area VPs or the VPs and really focus on what they need to focus on. Speaker 200:29:25All of our folks are willing to do whatever they need to do to make the business stronger and grow and serve our families. It's just being able to point in the right direction. That's important and FAX is giving us that. Speaker 700:29:38Excellent. Thanks. Then just one last one. In terms of what you're seeing quarter to date, how are your averages and volumes looking? Speaker 200:29:50We are very happy with April. Obviously, the coal volume in the Q1, we actually see that as returning to normal. March wasn't as strong as we would have liked it to be, but we just looked at that effectively as things going back to normal. We had a strong March of 2023. And bluntly, what I think I'm seeing now, especially now that April has come in, it's just kind of a natural ebb and flow of mortality. Speaker 200:30:19Now, the pull forward effect is still there and we expect that we're still going to see that impact probably in the Q2, maybe into the 3rd. But at the end of this, we're still looking for our call volumes to be flat to slightly down at the end of the year depending on COVID. But what's great about it now is, it's more predictable. So it was always predictable in the past, but you add the predictability, in other words, the variance isn't too great, plus the ability to see it in real time and react to it and manage the business to it. That's all that can be asked of us as a management team. Speaker 200:30:55We can't affect the death rate, but we can manage to it. And actually, we wouldn't react to a month being off or a quarter being off and April kind of showed us that. So we're still guiding you guys to look at it to be flat to slightly down and that's the way we're operating the business. Speaker 700:31:13Great color. Thanks. I'll turn it over. Operator00:31:18Your next question is from John Zamparo with CIBC. Speaker 800:31:24I wanted to ask about the average revenue per call that was up nicely this quarter. I wonder if you could talk about your ability to take pricing in this environment and what kind of observations are you seeing broadly from consumers? Speaker 200:31:39Yes. So, we definitely as we've said in the past, we monitor the pricing on a monthly basis in each of our businesses. We've also said in the past that we are not interested in increasing our prices for a short term impact or short term pop for a quarterly basis. What we've been doing is effectively trying to keep our pricing consistent with inflation. So it's not impact our market share because we believe as much as the team believes that in the long term, that's going to be the better play than increasing prices more than we normally do. Speaker 200:32:15We don't see any and I know this is maybe inconsistent with what has been reported with the other publicly traded companies, but we're not seeing pressure on our averages or pricing as a result of the lowering consumer making different decisions. We're just not seeing that. So maybe hopefully that answered your question, but we're pretty comfortable with where the averages are and part of that also just deals with our operators doing a better job and our sales folks doing a better job. Speaker 800:32:50Okay. That's good insight. Thanks. Sticking with that and more of a housekeeping question, I'm trying to reconcile the comparable funeral home numbers. You said there was there's the 5% or 5.1% increase in pricing, a 4 point 4% decline in volumes. Speaker 800:33:05So that would suggest an overall positive on a comparable basis, but it was down, I think, around 600,000. What's the other component to that calculation that we're missing? Speaker 200:33:15Yes. Almost all of that revenue decrease was related to our general agency commissions due to switching preneed insurance carriers. We fully expected that during the transition period, which is now complete. If I put an exclamation point on that, we saw like a 42% increase in April over March. So we knew that we were going to have we knew we're going to have some impact on the revenue side. Speaker 200:33:40When we switched our pre carriers, it happened, it's over. And so that's the gas you're talking about. Speaker 800:33:48Got it. Okay. That clears that up. And then one last one on the corporate costs. These dropped meaningfully quarter to quarter. Speaker 800:33:54I wonder how much of that was driven by the divestiture or Speaker 300:34:04given the divestiture or should Speaker 800:34:04we look at it on a dollars basis now? Yes. Given the divestiture or should we look at it on a dollars basis now? Speaker 300:34:11I think you look at it both. We continue to look at it as a percentage of sales, John. The decrease quarter over to our corporate infrastructure relating to the disposition. Because our expectation is that we're going to redeploy those funds and obviously changing that structure and then having to bring people back or whatever the answer is, creates more confusion and disruption than we really would like to care for. So long story short is we think that number will continue to come down especially as we grow. Speaker 300:34:56We think we have runway with our current infrastructure to acquire. In the past, we've talked about how we've disposed of 83 businesses and we can replace that those 83 businesses with about 20 businesses when we acquire. So you can kind of envision the impact and improvement that will have on the corporate infrastructure. So hopefully that answers your question. Speaker 800:35:23It does. Thank you very much. Operator00:35:29We have reached the end of the question and answer session. And I will now turn the call over to Brad for closing remarks. Speaker 200:35:36Well, I thank everyone for joining us today. And I assure you that the expansion team is looking forward to reporting the remaining quarters in 2024.Read morePowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallPark Lawn Q1 202400:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsInterim report Park Lawn Earnings HeadlinesPark Lawn Expands Presence in IllinoisDecember 9, 2024 | finance.yahoo.comFuneral homes in Rockford, Freeport acquired by Canada-based corporationDecember 9, 2024 | msn.comBuffett’s favorite chart just hit 209% – here’s what that means for goldA Historic Gold Announcement Is About to Rock Wall Street For months, sharp-eyed analysts have watched the quiet buildup behind the scenes. Now, in just days, the floodgates are set to open. The greatest investor of all time is about to validate what Garrett Goggin has been saying for months: Gold is entering a once-in-a-generation mania. Front-running Buffett has never been more urgent — and four tiny miners could be your ticket to 100X gains.May 4, 2025 | Golden Portfolio (Ad)Springfield dedicates mural honoring veterans and local heroNovember 10, 2024 | msn.comPark Lawn Queen Of Hearts Jackpot Rolls Over To Staggering $1,947,780+November 8, 2024 | msn.comPark Lawn Further Expands in Texas Through Acquisition of Callaway JonesNovember 4, 2024 | theglobeandmail.comSee More Park Lawn Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Park Lawn? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Park Lawn and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Park LawnPark Lawn (TSE:PLC), together with its subsidiaries, owns and operates cemeteries, crematoriums, and funeral homes in Canada and the United States. The company primarily offers cemetery lots, mausoleum crypts, niches, monuments, caskets, urns, outer burial containers, flowers, online and video tribute, and other merchandise, as well as funeral, cemetery, and cremation services. It also engages in the filing of death certificates and publication of death notices; and body preparation activities. 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There are 9 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Welcome to the Parklawn Corporation Q1 2024 Results Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded. Operator00:00:23I will now turn the conference over to your host, Jennifer Hay. Ma'am, you may begin. Speaker 100:00:30Thank you, Holly, and good morning, everybody. This is Jennifer Hay, Parkland's Chief Strategy Officer and General Counsel. Thank you for joining us today on our Q1 2024 earnings call. Before we begin our prepared commentary on the quarter, please note that you can find a detailed breakdown of our 2024 Q1 results in our financial statements and MD and A, which are available on our website and on SEDAR Plus. Today's call is being recorded and a replay will be available after the call. Speaker 100:01:05Please be aware that certain information discussed today is forward looking in nature. Any such information is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which could cause actual results to differ materially. Please see our public filings for more information regarding forward looking statements. During the call, we will reference non IFRS financial measures. Although we believe these measures provide useful supplemental information about our financial performance, they are not recognized measures and do not have standardized meanings under IFRS. Speaker 100:01:43Please see our public filings for additional information regarding our non IFRS financial measures, including for reconciliations to the nearest IFRS measures. I will now hand the call over to Parkland's CEO, Brad Green, to open our discussion today. Speaker 200:01:59Thank you, Jennifer, and good morning, everyone. In addition to Jennifer, with me on the call today is our CFO, Dan Millett. I would like to start by providing a brief overview of our performance in the Q1, then Dan will provide some additional financial details and finally, I will provide some closing remarks. As we discussed at length just a couple of months ago, 2023 ended with a significant transformation for the organization with the disposition of 83 legacy businesses. As we expected, this allowed us to focus intently on creating a more efficient operating environment. Speaker 200:02:32In addition to that disposition, our team continues to be sharply focused on improving the infrastructure of our organization, including things like the implementation of a refined operating model, the implementation of a new sales and commission structure, developing and utilizing detailed reporting to provide real time support to operation and sales, the continuing enhancement of facts, the launch of ParkClawn University, our new educational platform and the list goes on. Combining these various strategic initiatives together, we are for the first time really starting to see the benefits of these actions. We now have confidence that our infrastructure has the ability to scale and grow with Parklawn long into the future. With that hard work during the quarter, we saw meaningful improvements in our operating performance both on revenue and in our margins. Despite the pull forward effect from COVID still negatively impacting the death rate, having greater visibility with facts in a real time environment is allowing us to operate better and more efficiently. Speaker 200:03:31Moving forward, we expect to continue to refine our operations, experiencing incremental improvements along the way. During the quarter, we also closed on a business in Colorado, which ties together Parkland's presence on the Western Slope. We are quite pleased with the progress this business is making and integrating into Parkland, another area we have been focused on sequentially improving. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dan, who will provide details regarding Q1 results. Speaker 300:03:59Thank you, Brad, and good morning, everyone. My comments this morning will focus primarily on our operating results from the Q1 2024 relative to the Q1 2023. The Q1 revenue was in line with our expectations, which decreased overall by approximately 11.9 percent to roughly $76,400,000 principally as a result of the disposition of the legacy assets completed in December, partially offset by acquired acquisitions or acquired operations as they continue to positively contribute to Parkland's growth. It is important to point out that when we strip away the impact from the disposition, comparable operations only decreased marginally by approximately 2.7%, largely as a result of the decline in death rate as well as the decrease in our large group sales in our cemeteries. As we've noted in prior quarters, this decrease was anticipated following 2 years of sales fueled by COVID. Speaker 300:04:59We do believe, however, that these large group sales will stabilize with the normalization of the death rate and that you'll see some of these in the remaining months of the year. In addition, mortality decreased year over year for the 8th straight quarter impacting atneed sales. Although the impact of the pandemic still lingers with better expense management and an increase in our average revenue per call, our margins from comparable funeral operations increased approximately 2 50 basis points. And overall, our margin from comparable operations was relatively flat year over year. From a corporate perspective, as we have discussed over the last few quarters, we continue to make investments in our corporate infrastructure to support the organization for the long term. Speaker 300:05:43Our corporate costs during the quarter are in line with our expectations at roughly 10.25 percent of revenue. Following the disposal of legacy assets in December 2023, quarter over quarter we saw an approximate 4.4% decrease in corporate costs. As Brad mentioned a few moments ago, we continue to focus on integrating our corporate platform with technology and refining our processes and resources to increase productivity, part of which includes moving to our new downtown Houston location that's done. In that respect, we expect to see additional costs relating to the move and build out of the space and have occurred approximately $1,800,000 of capital costs relating to the build out during the quarter. While we experienced strong results in the Q1, the Q1 is typically one of our better quarters and therefore we have not adjusted our 2024 financial guidance outlook. Speaker 300:06:37As a reminder, our 2024 outlook includes adjusted EBITDA with a midpoint of $75,000,000 and adjusted earnings per share with a midpoint of $0.85 per share. With only 1 quarter under our belt, continued decreases in mortality, stubbornly high interest rates and acquisitions expected to be weighted to the second half of the year, we have maintained our range of expectations and will continue to assess the range as the year unfolds. At March 31, 2024, we had approximately $145,000,000 outstanding on our credit facility. In addition to the credit facility, at March 31, we had other debt of approximately $13,300,000 finance leases of approximately $14,300,000 and cash on hand of $17,700,000 Excluding our debentures, our net debt was approximately $155,000,000 as at March 31, 2024. At March 31, our leverage ratio was approximately 2.15 times based on the terms of our credit facility and approximately 3.03 times including our outstanding ventures. Speaker 300:07:42This continues to provide us liquidity to execute on our expected growth initiatives. First quarter resulted in an increase in net earnings of approximately 14.7 percent to approximately $5,250,000 compared to $4,580,000 in the Q1 of 2023. Following the disposition of our legacy assets, increases in interest rates during the first half twenty twenty three and increased amortization to depreciation from ongoing operations, adjusted net earnings for the Q1 decreased by 12.2 percent over the comparable quarter from 2023 and was approximately $7,570,000 or $0.215 per share compared to $8,610,000 or $0.249 per share in Q1 2023. I will now turn the call back to Brad for some closing comments. Speaker 200:08:38Thank you, Dan. Our Q1 performance was a solid start to the year and is right in line with our expectations. As we look forward to the rest of the year, we expect the death rates will remain relatively flat to slightly lower as a result of the pull forward from COVID, which is expected to impact our at any call volume of both our funeral homes and cemeteries. With that in mind, we do expect to see modest same store growth, which will come principally from efficiencies and stronger execution supported by our improved infrastructure. Like in years past, we still anticipate a majority of our growth will come from acquisitions, which we expect to come on board as the year progresses. Speaker 200:09:13Our pipeline remains robust and we are actively in discussions with more than 1 premier business in high growth demographic markets. And although we can't control when a seller chooses to sell their business, we fully anticipate being able to meet our previously disclosed range of $50,000,000 to $100,000,000 in acquisitions during the calendar year. With that in mind, as Dan noted, we affirm our annual guidance at this time, but we will continue to reevaluate our performance and guidance ranges as we move forward through the remainder of the year. I'll now turn the call over to Holly for any questions. Operator00:09:45Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer Your first question for today is from Martin Landry with Stifel. Speaker 400:10:30Hi, good morning, guys. Speaker 200:10:33Good morning. Speaker 400:10:33My first question is on the on your Cemetery segment. It looks like on an organic basis, your cemetery revenues have been declining for the last five quarters. And I know that there's the sales are lumpy there and you've had group sales in the past that blur a little bit the analysis. But I was wondering when could we see a return to growth in comparable sales for that segment? And also, could you talk a little bit about the pipeline of lot development that you have right now and how much how big it is versus historical? Speaker 200:11:29Yes, Martin. I would start by saying our cemeteries performed exactly in line with our expectations this quarter at almost 41.4 percent margins. When you talk about comparable growth, if you take the group sales out of the mix, that actually happened this quarter. We knew that we would not have group sales similar to those in Q1 of 2023. That was forecasted and expected. Speaker 200:11:54And those group sales will come over the course of the year, albeit probably in smaller amounts. We specifically disclosed those group sales now, so that you guys and our investors can track them. And as we said in the past, this will make some of the quarter over quarter comparisons chunky at times, but we're guiding to where we're going to get at the end of the year. So it should take some surprise out of the process. So when you ask me when you're going to start seeing our comparable sales improve, I would say that our cemetery sales were, if you take the group sales out of the mix, were exactly where we expected them to be this quarter and improving, Again, with mink being out of that process with the divestitures being gone. Speaker 200:12:32And regarding the second part of your question? Speaker 400:12:41Yes, the second part of Speaker 200:12:43the question was Yes, regarding Speaker 400:12:46Go ahead. Speaker 200:12:47Go ahead, Martin. Speaker 400:12:50No. I think you're on your way to answering the second part of my question. So I'll let you go. Speaker 200:12:56I actually did not understand the second part of your question. So if you'll let me know what if you'll restate it, I'll take a shot at it. Speaker 400:13:04Absolutely. I was wondering how's the pipeline for lot development this year and how does that compare to historical levels? Speaker 200:13:17I don't understand what you mean by lot allotment. And so help me with that. Speaker 400:13:23Your CapEx for your cemetery, your lot development, sorry? Speaker 200:13:29Got it. Got it. Speaker 300:13:30Yes. So Martin, in the past, we've kind of been between 50 basis points to 100 basis points of our total revenue that we spend on just regular inventory development. I don't think that's going to be any different this year. I think the one thing that we continue to look at is the development of the Westminster Mausoleum in Toronto. That will have a significant outsized impact on our capital costs relating to inventory replacement. Speaker 300:14:08It's a very large mausoleum. We're currently looking at design and development right now. So timing is a little bit up in the air still, but that will get going probably towards the end of this year, maybe early next year. Development in the City of Toronto isn't the smoothest and easiest process, but that will change things once we get it going. But obviously, that's a cost we probably incur once every 10 years. Speaker 400:14:40Okay. And just to wrap up on the cemetery sales, Brad, just to be clear, did I understand correctly that your group sales, your done lapping group sales as of Q2, is that what you said? Speaker 200:15:02No, I don't think that's what I meant to say, if that's what you heard me say. Speaker 300:15:06Just Martin, I think plainly is the group sales are lumpy for lack of a better term. We came off in 2022 2023 2 of the 2 record years effectively in terms of group sales. As we mentioned when we put out our outlook, we don't expect that those sales to be completely linear, But those businesses in the Northeast are built to have those group sales. So we will see more group sales as the year goes on. And it will be variable when we look at it on a quarter to quarter basis. Speaker 300:15:48Sometimes they'll be up, sometimes they'll be down. Speaker 200:15:51Yes. And to add to that, what I was attempting to say in my first answer is, I mean, looking at the first note that came out last night referring to our cemetery sales. If I look at it in 2 different ways, we have the group sales and we have the park sales. And our park sales did exactly what we expected them to do this past quarter and we're very happy with that. So when the group sales come in as they do, they have an oversized impact. Speaker 200:16:12And so I think we're saying the same thing three times. So I'm very happy with where the cemeteries are now, especially now that the Mink assets are out of there and we could focus on the better businesses that we have. And when the group sales come in, it's going to make quarters that they're in look very good on the cemetery sales. It's going to make quarters that they're not in look not as favorably compared to the previous one if there happens to be one in there. But at the end of the year, which is what we're guiding to, the cemeteries will be exactly where we expect them to be. Speaker 200:16:43Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Operator00:16:48Your next question is from Irene Nattel with RBC Capital Markets. Good morning, everyone. Couple of Speaker 500:16:57questions from me, please. First of all, can you talk nice to see the improvement in margins of the business. Can you talk about what we can expect to see as we move forward? And of course, the degree to which FAST is helping as you really look to optimize the productivity and efficiency now that you've got the business where you want it to be? Speaker 200:17:24Sure. Obviously, we're very happy with where the margins ended up this quarter, but we do expect improvement throughout the year. We pointed to 2 main things and have consistently said that over the past few quarters as you pointed out one of them. FAX gives us the ability in real time with reliable data to look at what's going on in our businesses, so that our operators can do what they need to do. And we saw that impact here in the Q1. Speaker 200:17:52Also simply taking out the legacy assets that were gone through the mink transaction had an impact on those margins as well. But to I guess to summarize that answer, we definitely like where the margins are right now and we expect them to improve. Speaker 500:18:11That's great. Thank you. And then just moving on please to M and A, understand clearly at this point in mid May, back end loaded. You mentioned something about a large high growth, high quality asset that's sort of in your site. Can you talk about what you're seeing in terms of opportunity? Speaker 500:18:33And really, what's realistic for us to expect as we move through the year in terms of transactions and also multiples? Speaker 200:18:42Yes. So generally in the industry, you're seeing more and more activity. You're also seeing something that I think is kind of interesting, not only had some of the consolidators that probably made decisions through COVID that they wish they had not had made, are not only not making acquisitions anymore, you're starting to see discussions of dispositions from those type of businesses. So, we're seeing activity kick up from the brokers. We're seeing activity come in to Parkland and we're seeing what I've discussed in the past, which is limited number of people out there that are willing to buy businesses in the current environment. Speaker 200:19:21And we happen to be one of them because of decisions we made during COVID and our leverage ratio. I feel very confident that we're going to be in that range of acquisitions by the end of the year. And bluntly, we could have been at the minimum range of acquisitions by just saying yes to businesses that we said no to in the last 14 days. There's plenty of opportunities for us to make acquisitions and we'll make those. But right now, Irene, I will tell you, we were selective in the past. Speaker 200:19:49We are being super selective now, so that the acquisitions that we bring on board, we know will be immediately accretive and easier to integrate, because there's so much opportunity out there. We want to make the right decisions in this high interest rate environment. Speaker 500:20:04That's really helpful, Brad. And just to confirm, at this point in time, you're really looking at sort of acquisitions that are exactly the quality that you want, exactly the price that you want and that have some sort of upside. I guess what I'm saying is you're only you're focusing on the assets that are really the ones you want as opposed to the ones that you could have. Speaker 200:20:27I couldn't say it better than that. And it's not that we weren't it's not that we haven't always done that Irene. It's just that in the current environment we're in, we're being even more selective. And quite frankly, I think where we've come as an organization coming into 2024, being a part of Parkland was a big deal before. It's even a bigger deal now, because there are folks that sold their businesses to other consolidators that actually understand what that means now and the stability and the long term growth potential that this company and this management team bring. Speaker 200:21:04The right buyers understand that now because they see the mistakes that their friends made and the instability that exists in their businesses now. Operator00:21:12That's really helpful. Thank you. Your next question for today is from George Doumet with Scotiabank. Speaker 600:21:25Brad and Tom, just want to talk a little bit about your current assets that you have, I guess the infrastructure that's in place. Where would you see the most upside in terms of field margins Speaker 300:21:36over the Speaker 600:21:36next 12 months or 18 months? Is it mainly the cemetery or the funeral, just maybe a little bit of color in terms of where we can see improvement there? Speaker 200:21:46So I'm excited about all of it because I think there is improvement everywhere. And I'll just give you I'll give you maybe the top three areas that I see. We've spent some time restructuring our sales function, whether it be the new compensation plan, focus on the actual restructuring of it, focusing on a new CRM to sales force. We've done a lot of good things there. And we're really focusing on adding the right counselors and keeping our churn rates lower than it has been in the past and all of those things are working. Speaker 200:22:18So, I look forward to seeing growth in sales. And it's not going to happen in the Q2 necessarily, but it's coming, right? So, I definitely see our sales being a function being an opportunity. We made a lot of acquisitions as you guys know in 2021 20222023 And we're still focusing on those acquisitions and bringing those up. So those will have a direct impact on our margins. Speaker 200:22:43And Fax is still having a big impact on businesses we've owned for a period of time. I mean each one of them, each business has a monthly scorecard now with benchmark achievement plans. And I expect to see improvement in our legacy businesses as well. And that's to me, that's good news because I don't there's no problem. There's nothing that's broken anymore. Speaker 200:23:05The infrastructure is in place. And now we're just looking at getting incremental improvement from multiple areas as opposed to relying on one. So as I said in my last call, when we ended 2023 and coming into 2024, things were going exactly the direction we wanted and we actually, in our mind, see that in these results in the Q1 and we're pretty excited about it, because with lower revenue, we managed our businesses to higher margins and that's what we should do. We can't affect the death rate, but what we can do is operate these businesses effectively and efficiently when we get the data. So putting all those things together, we're going to focus on moving maintaining and moving that EBITDA margin. Speaker 600:23:46Okay. So it sounds to me like it's almost segment agnostic, it's going to Speaker 200:23:49be across the board, right? Yes. I mean, it really is. But we get to we actually get to work on it now, right? So with what we have in place and the tools and the hard work that we did in 2022 and 2023, we're actually using those now. Speaker 200:24:04We're seeing the benefits of it. So those discussions are happening now at a management level, like here's how we're going to go improve the business as opposed to we need to get this fixed. That's where we're sitting in 2024. Speaker 600:24:17Okay. Also noticed the buyback activity slowed versus last quarter. So if you can talk to that and just a general question, let's say you get the right larger asset out there, would you be willing to pay a higher multiple than where you're trading at to acquire that asset? Speaker 700:24:32Thanks. Speaker 200:24:34Well, I mean, that's a fun question because the multiple we're trading at right now to me is offensive. But yes, I mean, as we're making acquisitions, I don't know that I would necessarily say that we would pay more than what we're the multiple that we're trading at, but we probably would. Yes, I mean, we can't impact the stock price as it is right now. We don't believe the stock price is indicative of the value of this organization. And when people figure that out, we're going to have a much different stock price. Speaker 200:25:04So, yes, I guess we would if we needed to. Speaker 300:25:07Okay. And can you comment on Speaker 600:25:08the buyback activity, just slowing down this quarter? Should we look into that at all? Speaker 300:25:14Yes, George, it's Dan here. Yes, as you're aware, the Q1 has a really, really short blackout window. We expected our stock to actually trade better following our Q4 results, which sequentially continued to show improvement as does Q1 here. However, I think the short answer to your question is, if the stock continues to trade where it's been over the last 2 months, yes, we're going to execute on our NCIB. Speaker 600:25:47That's really clear. All right. Thanks, guys. Good luck. Thank you. Operator00:25:53Your next question today is from Zachary Evershed with National Bank Financial. Speaker 700:26:00Good morning, everyone. Congrats on the quarter. Speaker 200:26:03Thanks, Zach. Speaker 700:26:06Could you start out with giving us some details around the manager swap for the Canadian care and maintenance funds? Speaker 300:26:15Yes, Zack, it's Dan here. Really nothing too crazy happening there. In Q4, we made a change in terms of our investment manager for our Canadian Trust Fund. Historically, we were a lot more concentrated with 2 funds and concentrated in oil and gas and financials. We made a change in investment manager and effectively repositioned the trust funds to be a lot more balanced. Speaker 300:26:46We're still kind of targeting the endowment care side of yield between 4%, 4.5%. But the funds in Canada are a lot more balanced now, positioned for long term growth and reduced risk. So some short term distribution implications, but long term, I think the funds are much more appropriately allocated to provide both yield and capital appreciation. Speaker 700:27:19So do you think the quarterly run rate will bounce back as soon as Q2? Speaker 300:27:25It won't no, that would be way too quick. It will come back a little bit. But no, again, this is more kind of medium term, long term thinking. Obviously, with more capital appreciation, the larger base to invest ultimately affecting the distribution, so on and so forth, right. So it's not something that just changes overnight. Speaker 700:27:46Understood. Thanks. Speaker 200:27:50Ju, give Speaker 700:27:52us an idea, so FACT is really spitting out a ton of new data, which I'm a big fan of. Could you outline for us maybe what's been the most useful that you're now able to track, whether it's at the management level or on the ground? When you talk about working on the business and being able to make improvements, what's the most useful data you're getting out of that? Speaker 200:28:15Well, the data is useful because it's consistent and accurate. So, just start there. So no matter what it is that we're looking at, the fact that we can pull it and rely on it immediately as opposed to being concerned about it coming from 6 or 7 different systems and whether it was input correctly. You're really just talking about something that an entire, if you can't spine that when everything is entered into it, we know what we're getting out as reliable. But what it's really driving is we were able to put in our benchmark operating model, which is just all across the U. Speaker 200:28:47S. And in Canada now. And both the funeral home and the cemetery, they have 6 benchmarks. And I won't go into too much detail. I'm happy to talk to you about this offline. Speaker 200:28:56But it basically pulls all of the information we need into these benchmarks that allows us to give a look at these businesses on a weekly and monthly basis. So, it's literally everything from contracts to the averages to gross margins to consolidated labor percentages to EBITDA margins. I mean, we're seeing everything that we want to see. It goes into basically a scorecard for the business. And then the managers are able to sit down with the area VPs or the VPs and really focus on what they need to focus on. Speaker 200:29:25All of our folks are willing to do whatever they need to do to make the business stronger and grow and serve our families. It's just being able to point in the right direction. That's important and FAX is giving us that. Speaker 700:29:38Excellent. Thanks. Then just one last one. In terms of what you're seeing quarter to date, how are your averages and volumes looking? Speaker 200:29:50We are very happy with April. Obviously, the coal volume in the Q1, we actually see that as returning to normal. March wasn't as strong as we would have liked it to be, but we just looked at that effectively as things going back to normal. We had a strong March of 2023. And bluntly, what I think I'm seeing now, especially now that April has come in, it's just kind of a natural ebb and flow of mortality. Speaker 200:30:19Now, the pull forward effect is still there and we expect that we're still going to see that impact probably in the Q2, maybe into the 3rd. But at the end of this, we're still looking for our call volumes to be flat to slightly down at the end of the year depending on COVID. But what's great about it now is, it's more predictable. So it was always predictable in the past, but you add the predictability, in other words, the variance isn't too great, plus the ability to see it in real time and react to it and manage the business to it. That's all that can be asked of us as a management team. Speaker 200:30:55We can't affect the death rate, but we can manage to it. And actually, we wouldn't react to a month being off or a quarter being off and April kind of showed us that. So we're still guiding you guys to look at it to be flat to slightly down and that's the way we're operating the business. Speaker 700:31:13Great color. Thanks. I'll turn it over. Operator00:31:18Your next question is from John Zamparo with CIBC. Speaker 800:31:24I wanted to ask about the average revenue per call that was up nicely this quarter. I wonder if you could talk about your ability to take pricing in this environment and what kind of observations are you seeing broadly from consumers? Speaker 200:31:39Yes. So, we definitely as we've said in the past, we monitor the pricing on a monthly basis in each of our businesses. We've also said in the past that we are not interested in increasing our prices for a short term impact or short term pop for a quarterly basis. What we've been doing is effectively trying to keep our pricing consistent with inflation. So it's not impact our market share because we believe as much as the team believes that in the long term, that's going to be the better play than increasing prices more than we normally do. Speaker 200:32:15We don't see any and I know this is maybe inconsistent with what has been reported with the other publicly traded companies, but we're not seeing pressure on our averages or pricing as a result of the lowering consumer making different decisions. We're just not seeing that. So maybe hopefully that answered your question, but we're pretty comfortable with where the averages are and part of that also just deals with our operators doing a better job and our sales folks doing a better job. Speaker 800:32:50Okay. That's good insight. Thanks. Sticking with that and more of a housekeeping question, I'm trying to reconcile the comparable funeral home numbers. You said there was there's the 5% or 5.1% increase in pricing, a 4 point 4% decline in volumes. Speaker 800:33:05So that would suggest an overall positive on a comparable basis, but it was down, I think, around 600,000. What's the other component to that calculation that we're missing? Speaker 200:33:15Yes. Almost all of that revenue decrease was related to our general agency commissions due to switching preneed insurance carriers. We fully expected that during the transition period, which is now complete. If I put an exclamation point on that, we saw like a 42% increase in April over March. So we knew that we were going to have we knew we're going to have some impact on the revenue side. Speaker 200:33:40When we switched our pre carriers, it happened, it's over. And so that's the gas you're talking about. Speaker 800:33:48Got it. Okay. That clears that up. And then one last one on the corporate costs. These dropped meaningfully quarter to quarter. Speaker 800:33:54I wonder how much of that was driven by the divestiture or Speaker 300:34:04given the divestiture or should Speaker 800:34:04we look at it on a dollars basis now? Yes. Given the divestiture or should we look at it on a dollars basis now? Speaker 300:34:11I think you look at it both. We continue to look at it as a percentage of sales, John. The decrease quarter over to our corporate infrastructure relating to the disposition. Because our expectation is that we're going to redeploy those funds and obviously changing that structure and then having to bring people back or whatever the answer is, creates more confusion and disruption than we really would like to care for. So long story short is we think that number will continue to come down especially as we grow. Speaker 300:34:56We think we have runway with our current infrastructure to acquire. In the past, we've talked about how we've disposed of 83 businesses and we can replace that those 83 businesses with about 20 businesses when we acquire. So you can kind of envision the impact and improvement that will have on the corporate infrastructure. So hopefully that answers your question. Speaker 800:35:23It does. Thank you very much. Operator00:35:29We have reached the end of the question and answer session. And I will now turn the call over to Brad for closing remarks. Speaker 200:35:36Well, I thank everyone for joining us today. And I assure you that the expansion team is looking forward to reporting the remaining quarters in 2024.Read morePowered by