ASGN Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
July 24, 2024

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the ASGN Incorporated Second Quarter 20 24 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Kimberly Estekin of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today for ASGN's Q2 2024 Conference Call. With me are Ted Hanson, Chief Executive Officer Rand Blazer, President and Marie Perry, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that our commentary contains forward looking statements. Although we believe these statements are reasonable, they are subject to risks and uncertainties and as such, our actual results could differ materially from those statements.

Speaker 1

Certain of these risks and uncertainties are described in today's press release and in our SEC filings. We do not assume any obligation to update statements made on this call. For your convenience, our prepared remarks and supplemental materials can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website at investors. Asgn.com. Please also note that on this call, we will be referencing certain non GAAP measures such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and free cash flow.

Speaker 1

These non GAAP measures are intended to supplement the comparable GAAP measures. Reconciliations between GAAP and non GAAP measures are included in today's press release. I will now turn the call over to Ted Hanson, Chief Executive Officer.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Kim, and thank you for joining ASGN's Q2 2024 Earnings Call. ASGN's results for the Q2 confirmed our expectations that macro conditions in Q2 would be consistent with Q1. Revenues were 1 $035,000,000 while adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.3% was at the top of our expectation. Consistent with the Q1, in Q2 our clients continued to acutely focus on where and when to spend against their IT budget. Their long term IT roadmaps and priorities have not changed.

Speaker 2

However, concerns about protecting their bottom line continue to drive cautious execution. This behavior is not unique to ASGN's customer base. On a recent call hosted by the Global ISG Index for the Q2 of 2024, their team of experts concluded that new bookings and hiring remain muted and headwinds such as high interest rates, inflation, geopolitical unrest and the impending U. S. Presidential election continue to hinder increased IT spend.

Speaker 2

IT consulting revenues totaled 57.1% of consolidated revenues for the Q2 of 2024, up from 53.1% in the prior year quarter. The evolution of our revenues is not only reflected our financial statements, but it's also been acknowledged by Equity Market Indices. In May, in recognition of the pivot in our strategy, the Joint S and P and MSCI Committee responsible for the GICS code classification officially switched ASGN's GICS code from the industrial sector under Human Resources and Employment Services to the Information Technology Sector under IT consulting and other services. With each accomplishment, whether that be increasing our IT consulting revenues and ultimately overall company margins or receiving a new GICS code, we're making measured strategic progress toward our goal of moving up the IT services pyramid into higher end, higher value IT consulting solutions. Our progress towards this goal will be driven by continuing to nurture our long standing trusted client relationships, which like our variable cost structure are a cornerstone of our business model.

Speaker 2

Our large account portfolio across 6 diverse industry verticals offers us firsthand insight into our clients' investments and long term IT roadmap. As we position ourselves for the future, we remain committed to fostering these relationships and supporting our clients' most critical IT needs. I'll provide some more details about how we are staying ahead of our clients' IT needs and in particular those related to AI as we discuss our segment performance. So let's begin with our largest segment by revenue Commercial. Our Commercial segment services 41,000 and large mid market companies.

Speaker 2

Commercial segment revenues for the quarter declined by low double digits year over year due to continued softness in the more cyclical areas of our assignment business. Despite a softer macro economy, our strategy to expand our IT commercial consulting business is working. Commercial consulting revenues were essentially flat year over year on a difficult prior year comparison, but improved 1.6% sequentially. Commercial consulting bookings of $327,400,000 puts our book to bill at 1.2 times on a trailing 12 month basis. From an industry perspective, we saw year over year growth in 1 of our 5 commercial verticals.

Speaker 2

TMT revenues improved 7.2% compared to the Q2 of 2023 led by double digit growth in telecommunications and e commerce. Sequentially, TMT revenues improved 8%, while Consumer and Industrial revenues increased 3.1%. Taking into account the additional billable day in Q2 2024, we also saw sequential growth in 10 sub verticals including regional banks, diversified financials, utilities, materials, consumer discretionary, telecommunications, e commerce, tech hardware, software and services and business services. Although it remains encouraging to see these sequential improvements, we believe we have not yet seen an inflection point in IT spending. As we move up the IT services pyramid toward higher end consulting work, we are adding new skill sets to our project teams, including solution architects.

Speaker 2

Our ability to add advanced skill sets to our project teams offers the opportunity to improve our margins, expand our contract sizes and lengths and enhance our industry vertical performance. It also reflects the high value our clients attribute to ASGN to solve their complex IT problems. Identifying use cases for GenAI is one of those complex problems. While use cases are growing, we are still in the early stages of AI implementation. ASGN solution capabilities across disciplines enables us to differentiate our AI services and so we are deploying a multilayered approach to our AI new business efforts.

Speaker 2

Data is the fuel for AI, so our data and analytics practice is naturally at the forefront of our AI engagement. AI is also compute intensive, so our cloud and infrastructure team is working diligently to create AI solutions that can scale. Finally, AI must be secure, so our cyber practice plays an integral role in use case development. Our clients are readily relying on us to conduct business case and technical assessments to understand where to apply this novel technology. So let me provide some examples of the projects won during the quarter.

Speaker 2

We provide these engagement examples to give a sense of the work we are performing and ASGN's ability to bring a combination of IT and AI to address our clients' needs. In Q2, for our multinational beauty company, we began implementing a pilot Microsoft Fabric to enhance our clients' cloud based FinOps management solution. By piloting this AI powered analytics and data platform, our client is gaining actionable insights to better forecast and control their cloud efficiency. Microsoft Fabric is a critical priority across our customer base. And we recently launched our first listing on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, a consulting workshop on fabric.

Speaker 2

Participating in the Azure Marketplace provides our commercial consulting practice with the opportunity to accelerate growth, increase brand awareness and importantly build new client relationships. In another contract won during the quarter, our data and AI team in Mexico was engaged by Life Style brand to develop a roadmap to implement a data solution on Google Cloud. This project involves expertise across several technologies such as GitHub, BigQuery and a Gemini based accelerator. By following an agile approach in deploying an AI powered accelerator, Our consulting team improved their velocity of implementation by 3 times without sacrificing quality of service. This project is on track to hit its 1st milestone in Q3, a complete migration to Google Cloud.

Speaker 2

Also during the Q2, our Mexico delivery center supported a Fortune 500 gaming company with application development and modernization. Our technical architects, GitHub trained CoPilot developers and program managers all collaborated closely with our client to develop a roadmap for the creation of a custom and gaming tool. This is a 3 year engagement with our delivery team scaling up over the project lifecycle. Finally, another consulting project won during the quarter was a threat and vulnerability management assessment performed for 1 of our large healthcare payer clients. Our client was looking to enhance their vulnerability management capabilities and ensure that their operating systems were up to industry standards.

Speaker 2

By migrating our clients' primary threat scanning tool from on premise to a hybrid cloud solution, our commercial team helped our client mitigate future risks. This cloud solution broadened our client scanning scope and significantly reduced threat scanning time. Let's now turn to our federal government segment, which provides advanced IT solutions to the Department of Defense, the intelligence community and federal civilian agencies. Federal segment revenues for the quarter declined low single digits year over year, but improved on a year to date basis. Contract backlog was $2,800,000,000 at the end of the second quarter or a coverage ratio of 2.2 times the segment's trailing 12 month revenues.

Speaker 2

New contract awards were $194,300,000 putting our book to bill at 0.7 times on a trailing 12 month basis. Task orders under IDIQs won in Q4 2023 have not materialized as quickly as we originally anticipated. In addition, while our core government services revenues continued to grow, lower than expected pass through licensing fees impacted our 2nd quarter results. Marie will speak further about this topic later in today's call. On a positive note, we are already seeing a greater flow of task orders begin to be released in the Q3.

Speaker 2

I'll provide an update on those shortly. As we prepare for new task orders, like with our Commercial segment, we are actively upscaling our federal government professionals in our professionals in our proprietary large language models along with publicly available Gen AI services such as ChatGPT, Gemini and CoPilot. Our government teams are also earning in demand AI professional certification. These training and certification opportunities expand our professional skill sets, enhance our technology partnerships and provide us the ability to create internal use cases to improve ASGN's overall efficiencies. During the Q2, we began receiving task orders under the $1,250,000,000 recompete DARPA IDIQ awarded to our federal government segment at the end of 2023.

Speaker 2

Our team is supporting DARPA with acquisition lifecycle solutions, program oversight and expert advisory to meet their dynamic research and development missions. At the start of July, we began receiving task orders on an $88,000,000 single award recompete contract with the Missile Defense Agency in which we are providing business operation and modernization support services along with business intelligence and analytics solutions. While work began under this contract in Q3, it is reflected in our Q2 2024 backlog. In addition to those contracts already booked in the backlog in Q2 2024, our Justice Solutions team won a prime spot on a recompete award with the FBI. This $8,000,000,000 8 year information technology supplies and support services contract is the largest contract vehicle ever established by the FBI.

Speaker 2

This contract allows our federal government segment to expand the critical IT services and technology solutions it provides to the FBI to include AI infused IT and cybersecurity solutions. Our federal government segment has supported the FBI for over 3 decades and we look forward to receiving task orders under this contract, which will add to our bookings performance. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Marie to discuss the 2nd quarter results and our Q3 guidance.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Ted. It's great to speak with everyone this afternoon. 2nd quarter revenues were $1,035,000,000 and reflect the sequential steadiness we expected in our Commercial segment, offset by lower than expected license revenues in our federal government segment. Revenues from the commercial segment were $725,700,000 down 10.6% compared to the prior year and flat sequentially. Revenues from commercial consulting, the largest of our high margin revenue stream, totaled $281,500,000 essentially flat year over year and up 1.6% sequentially.

Speaker 3

Revenues from our federal government segment were $309,000,000 a decrease of 3.3% year over year. When we spoke last quarter, I noted that we anticipated our federal government segment's performance in the Q2 of 2024 would be similar to the prior year quarter. This assumption was based on the belief that we would have consistent level of software license revenues year over year. While our core services revenue for the segment continued to grow, as Ted noted, licensing revenues in the Q2 of 2024 were lower than our expectations. This resulted in the revenue shortfall for the quarter.

Speaker 3

Our Commercial segment on the other hand performed as anticipated. Turning to margins. Gross margins for the Q2 of 2024 was 29.1%, an increase of 20 basis points from the Q2 of last year. Gross margin for the Commercial segment was 32.7%, up 50 basis points year over year reflecting a higher mix of consulting revenues as well as margin expansion from both consulting and assignment revenues. Gross margin for the federal government segment was 20.6%, up 10 basis points year over year, primarily due to lower licensing revenues, which carry a lower gross margin.

Speaker 3

SG and A expenses for quarter were $205,600,000 compared to $210,500,000 in the Q2 of 2023. SG and A expenses also included $1,200,000 of acquisition, integration and strategic planning expenses that were not included in our guidance estimate. For the quarter, net income was $47,200,000 adjusted EBITDA was $117,100,000 and adjusted EBITDA margin was 11.3%. Adjusted EBITDA margin was at the top end of our guidance range due to improved business mix and higher gross margins. At quarter end, cash and cash equivalents were $132,200,000 and we had full availability under our $500,000,000 senior secured revolver and our net leverage ratio was 1.89 times.

Speaker 3

Turning to our cash flow statement. Free cash flow for the quarter was $85,400,000 or a conversion rate of approximately 73% of adjusted EBITDA. Given the market opportunity, we deployed $108,000,000 in a combination of free cash flow and excess cash on the balance sheet for share repurchase. This is the 2nd quarter in a row that share repurchases exceeded our free cash flow. We have $667,000,000 remaining under our $750,000,000 share repurchase authorization.

Speaker 3

With solid free cash flow generation and full availability under the revolver, we have ample dry powder to make strategic acquisitions when the M and A market improves. In the meantime, we expect to continue to repurchase ASGN shares. Turning to guidance. Our financial estimates for the Q3 of 2024 are set forth in our earnings release and supplemental materials. These estimates are based on current market conditions and assume 63.5 billable days in the Q3.

Speaker 3

We expect market conditions and demand for our services in the 3rd quarter to be similar to that of the 2nd quarter. As it relates to federal government segment revenues, we had a large amount of pass through licensing revenues in Q3 of 2023, which we are not expecting to repeat. With this background, for Q3 twenty four, we are estimating revenues of $1,024,000,000

Speaker 4

to $1,040,000,000

Speaker 3

net income of 40 $5,800,000 to $49,400,000 adjusted EBITDA of $114,000,000 to $119,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.1% to 11.4%. Thank you. I'll now turn the call back to Ted for some closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Marie. We began today's discussion with a review of the macro environment. The 2nd quarter proved much like the first, with clients continuing to position themselves more cautiously than in prior cycles. As evident from the guidance Marie just discussed, we anticipate a continued steadiness in the 3rd quarter. On a positive note, as I mentioned previously, government bookings have begun to pick up in the 3rd quarter.

Speaker 2

In July, we received funding under our recompete contract with the NYPD for cybersecurity and other systems support. In addition, I'm pleased to announce that we just last week were awarded a $1,100,000,000 IDIQ with the National Institutes of Health or NIH. Our federal government segment is one of 7 awardees who have been tasked to support the NIH over a 5 year period with its critical IT needs. Once task orders begin to be released, our team's scope of work will include developing data management and analytics solutions using AI, ML, visualizations and other advanced analysis techniques. As is evident from these recent awards, despite the current market conditions, we have not shifted our strategy or core belief system.

Speaker 2

At ASGM, we believe in the IT Services sector. We believe in being more consultative and we believe in large industry diverse enterprise accounts. These three focal areas along with our variable cost structure provide support to our business throughout economic cycles. Market headwinds will ultimately reverse and ASGN's business is better positioned than it has ever been to capture in demand IT consulting opportunities. As we expand our IT consulting business, we are adding directors and advisors to our Board who enhance the strategic vision and operational expertise necessary to forge our path forward.

Speaker 2

In June, we welcomed Patti Obermeyer to our Board of Directors. Patti is the Chief Growth Officer for Microsoft's Global Health Life Sciences Division. She has served as an advisor to our Board since January and we are excited to officially welcome her and her more than 3 decades of IT consulting experience to ASGN. Speaking about the topic of governance, in June ASGN released its 5th annual environmental social governance report. We have made great strides in our ESG reporting over the past year, building upon the foundation we established in prior years, while also evolving our capabilities with key sustainability frameworks and regulatory standards.

Speaker 2

That concludes our prepared remarks. I'd like to express my gratitude to the entire ASGN family for your support this past quarter. Industry dynamics may shift and the macro economy will fluctuate, but your commitment to being one of our clients' most trusted IT partners has not wavered. Thank you again for joining our Q2 2024 call. Operator, please open the call to questions.

Speaker 3

Thank

Operator

you. And our first question comes from the line of Jeff Silber with BMO Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 5

Hey, thanks a lot. This is Ryan on for Jeff. Just a quick question on some of the dynamics around the federal government. It sounds like there's maybe a timing shift in some of the software revenues you didn't get in the quarter and then it sounds like a tough comp on the pass through licenses in 3Q. Can you just tell us how we should be thinking about the magnitude of all those together?

Speaker 2

Yes. So Ryan, thanks for the question. I think obviously we've said before, but those software licenses are ebb and flow through the quarter. So the timing of that is uncertain. I think Marie said during the script that we had planned on a similar amount of licenses to the past quarter prior year quarter, and they just didn't come.

Speaker 2

I mean, they'll come in future quarters. They're always a certain amount of software licenses are part of our solutions. And so it's always a component of that, if you will. So I think the good news is here our core business and what we generate through direct labor is growing. That's certainly positive.

Speaker 2

That's the most profitable part of the business that we provide. And these software licenses are needed with this solution, but they generate very little gross margin and EBITDA margin. So but I think the positive thing for ECS here during the quarter, even though they were off a little bit on the what their expectation were in licenses, They delivered all their EBITDA and a little bit more of that was expected during the quarter. And so I think you just have to expect a little bit of ebb and flow in the license revenue. Give

Speaker 3

any

Speaker 2

color on the sequential trends

Speaker 5

during the quarter and exit rates across the you give any color on the sequential trends during the quarter and exit rates across your business?

Speaker 2

Coming through the 1st 3 weeks here of July, business is pretty steady. So I think we had a steady Q2 to Q1. We basically here in the guide that Marie has given you are looking for a similar steadiness in Q3 to Q2. What we saw during the 1st 3 weeks has been not marginally up or down for the 1st 3 weeks of July. So market conditions are not changing.

Speaker 2

They are what they are here. And so and the numbers reflect that, if you will, not only quarter to quarter, but even for the 1st few weeks here.

Speaker 5

Understood. Thank you so much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Trevor Romeo with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 6

Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking the questions. First one I had was just on the commercial consulting bookings and the pipeline there. Just wondering if there are kind of any trends you'd call out as far as the size and the scope of projects coming in and the weightings to renewals versus new project activity or any share you might be taking from competitors? And then just finally, I guess, are there any forward looking indications in your bookings that would suggest any of the kind of sluggishness or caution among clients could change as we move through the next few quarters?

Speaker 2

Well, look, I'll let Rand take that one. I'll just pass it to him by saying, what 1.2 is a solid book to bill for commercial consulting. It's consistent with the past quarters and the trailing 12 months. There's nothing in there that would portend anything that is better news, if you will, than what we've been seeing to date in the future or worse. I think they're more of the same, right, Rand?

Speaker 4

Yes. I think, Trevor, a lot of questions there, but size and shape of engagement is about the same as we've had. You heard about 4 of the engagements we cited in the text. There's some pretty meaty work there, more tending toward what we call AI extended work, getting the data and data prep ready for AI, more AI inclusion. I think it's steady as we go.

Speaker 4

We are we beating competitors. We're watching the peer numbers the same as you are, and I think we're steady to them in the consulting world. The fact that we're sequentially up a little bit in the book to bill is pretty solid. I think we feel good about it. And if you look at the nature of the work and in fact one of them is a 3 year project, That's we're seeing, obviously, any of that we see is good and it helps us in the long term.

Speaker 4

Trevor, does that give you color?

Speaker 6

Yes, Rand. Thank you. That was helpful. And thanks, Ted, too.

Speaker 2

Hey, Trevor. Could I also add that we were facing a 26% growth comp in Q3 of 2023. So even though we're kind of flattish here on a year over year basis for the quarter in commercial consulting, we did see a couple of points of sequential growth And the comps are going to kind of change here dramatically. They're going to drop down in the single digits as we get into Q3 and Q4. So the picture there is changing here.

Speaker 2

But the business is growing and it's growing steadily. And yes, we'll see what we get here.

Speaker 4

Yes. I appreciate that. And you can see it in our margins, right, gross margins as consulting increases, right.

Speaker 6

Right. Okay. Thank you both for that. And then just maybe a quick follow-up on the assignment business. Is there any kind of way to parse out the performance between kind of the core IT and the more discretionary creative digital and perm businesses?

Speaker 6

I think we heard from a few others in the industry about some incremental softness on the perm side. So just kind of curious how that's trended as a percentage of your revenue and how that's performed?

Speaker 3

Yes. So perm go ahead.

Speaker 2

No, sorry, go ahead. You got it, Marie. Okay.

Speaker 3

Perm as a percent of total revenue for the quarter was 2.5% and honestly that was pretty consistent with prior quarters.

Speaker 2

So I wouldn't expect too much more than that. I think I've seen the same thing that so there's some reporting of kind of soft this in that number. Iris is already soft. It's gotten down to historic low here. The sum of our creative digital marketing and our permanent placement business, which is predominantly CyberCoders, is still just under 10%.

Speaker 2

So you're not seeing a lot of change there. So yes, I would just say in that assignment business overall, Trevor, you're just seeing just a little bit of weakness and our guide would imply just a little bit of weakness in those numbers going forward.

Speaker 6

Okay, understood. Thank you all for the color.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Vafi with Canaccord. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 7

Hey guys, good afternoon. Nice to see just the steady results here. Just maybe we've seen some incremental pivot in enterprise spend, kind of at least in software towards kind of AI centric projects. And I know you're working on a lot of that stuff. Just kind of wondering how you're thinking about maybe some of your other service offerings here and maybe some commentary of steady funding in areas away from projects that have kind of an AI kind of focus to them and if you're worried about sustaining that business?

Speaker 7

And then I'll have a quick follow-up.

Speaker 2

Yes. So I'll let Rain take that one. Not a big ramp up in spending, Joe, in AI, which may be distracting, if you will, from what I'll call core and normal IT spending. Randy, anything you'd add to that?

Speaker 4

No, no. I think Ted, as you said in the remarks, the clients are pretty good. Look, we've got good chips. You see the enterprise software guys like ServiceNow, today's report, where they're embedding more or AI in their software. We obviously are students smart on that capability, can help clients, bring it to their businesses.

Speaker 4

The same is true with Microsoft and those were some of the case studies we featured. So Joe, I would say a lot of our work is, as Ted said in his remarks, prep work for further AI use cases, which are still being thought through. But all of this is going to contribute toward greater, if you will, enterprise efficiency around these big software products. And then the individual projects will come after that when they begin to translate that into a very operating specific need or problem. That's being put on the table for now.

Speaker 4

It's really dealing with their enterprise systems, which again, whether it's Salesforce, ServiceNow, the ERP systems, financial systems, busily embedding the capability needed in their software. And now it's our job to help the client take advantage of that.

Speaker 7

Sorry about that. I was on mute. Yes, sorry about that. I was on mute. Just and then, thanks for that, Ran.

Speaker 7

Much appreciated. And then just on and then maybe any incremental update you might have on Mexico delivery in terms of headcount, additional client volumes, how you're kind of thinking that? Is there any kind of update for us there? Thanks very much.

Speaker 2

So not a lot of change quarter to quarter there, Joe. Headcounts kind of remained where they were, utilization very high. We mentioned some work in this group that was actually assigned to our Mexico delivery center. They're very focused on development of some of the things that Rain just talked about right now in the AI enhanced area, especially in the data world. So it continues to be a good story.

Speaker 2

But I wouldn't say there's been a lot of change here from last quarter to this quarter. Got it. And then maybe

Speaker 7

I just sneak one in on cash flow for the year. Maybe Marie, if you got some commentary of kind of where we are, if there's any kind of puts and takes we should be thinking about kind of relative to kind of a normalized model on the free cash flow generation for the year? Thanks a lot.

Speaker 3

Absolutely, Joe. So our cash flow for the quarter was approximately $85,000,000 The conversion rate to EBITDA was 73%. More traditionally, it's like 60% to 65%. And so it was a little north of that. But was really work that was related this quarter to flexes and working capital.

Speaker 3

So we would probably anticipate kind of some of that with that target that 60% to

Speaker 7

65. Great. Thanks very much guys.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Heather Balsky with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 8

Hi, this is Emily Marzo on for Heather Balsky. Wondering if you could touch on federal really quick. And realize it came in a little bit softer than expected, book to bill was a little bit lower and ITIQ came in late. What's going on here? How should we think about this?

Speaker 8

Are projects being delayed? Or is it more bureaucratic, idiosyncrasies?

Speaker 2

So look, like I said earlier on the licenses, we're about $10,000,000 off the midpoint of our range for the quarter. Our commercial units delivered at or slightly above what we said. So that's kind of the delta, if you will, that we were light in the software license area for the quarter. It didn't affect EBITDA. It was just purely an impact on revenue.

Speaker 2

That will come in that will ebb and flow a little bit. Bookings during the quarter were below our expectations, but we noted in the 1st 3 weeks here in July that we're really seeing some the velocity pickup and some awards being made. Q2 wasn't about lost business, if you will. We just I think everyone's pursuing certain work and it's getting adjudicated at different times. Q2 was not our moment.

Speaker 2

We didn't have a lot of stuff that was won or weren't lost. It was just pushed off to the right a little bit. But the good news is we see a good start here in the Q3, just in the 1st 3 weeks. And so portends that we'll get through some stuff here from a booking standpoint. So we're expecting a good bookings quarter here in Q3.

Speaker 8

Thank you. And if I could ask a follow-up on how you see the M and A environment? And if you've seen any changes in the challenges in the environment or if it's pretty steady?

Speaker 2

No, I think the same things that are affecting the M and A environment remain the same. It's spending, so the targets aren't feeling great about their numbers. We're questioning their numbers. You've got higher interest rates. So the hurdle rates are higher on what returns need to be in order to support certain multiples.

Speaker 2

So you have a discount there within multiples. And I think for now still founders or private equity firms that want to sell their businesses have decided to batten down the hatches here and have some can sustain this for a little bit longer. So there's really no new news there if you will. I mean, we clearly know what we want to add by acquisition. We're monitoring those companies that we've identified that bring certain solution capabilities that we're going to acquire in the future.

Speaker 2

We're building relationships with the principles of those organizations. So we're acquisition ready for sure Eileen and have the balance sheet to do it. It's just we need the right environment here. We need that to improve a little bit so that things can come together.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Surinder Thind with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 9

Thank you. When I think about just the last few quarters and some of the trends, I think the general high level commentary has been that not a lot has really changed. So when I look back over that, is that another way to characterize that maybe things are troughing at this point or just any color from client conversations in what's holding them back versus maybe what would get them to spend a little bit more?

Speaker 2

So I'll let Rand take the second half of that on client trends and conversations. But our number surrender would tell you that things are flat. It almost looks like the first half of the bathtub, if you will. If you go back into the middle part of last year, revenue growth was decelerating and then not growing. We got into the 3rd to the 4th quarter and things kind of flattened out.

Speaker 2

We had kind of a seasonably normal opening to the year in Q1 where we take a slight step down and things have just been flat here 1st to second and second to third on an adjusted day adjusted basis, if you will. And I would say that's not even is that true for the whole business, but it's certainly true for the units individually. So there's not much change there. So if you want to call that a trough, I'd say it looks like a bathtub, if you will. And we're wondering, do we get a slope up here and when that is?

Speaker 2

But obviously, there are things here in the macro that need to improve. Rand, on the client budget and conversation side?

Speaker 4

I think the best way to characterize the conversations are there's 2 levels of conversations. The first is questions our clients have within their businesses for what's the roadmap for AI? What are the things I need to do? What's the best practice in the industry? What's work What's not?

Speaker 4

Where should we be going and thinking about it? The second question is and as part of that question is, what are the things we need to do to be ready to go and implement the capability we're seeing in the software vendors, the enterprise vendors as well as our own needs? The second level of questions are, I've got some individual projects we just can't stop on. We just need to keep moving. You read about you heard about 4 of them in our text.

Speaker 4

When those projects, particularly when they're affecting security, when they're instrumental to what maybe I would call longer term path, they're acting on it, at least what we see. But I wouldn't say overall, they're going full force because the nature of the first set of questions. Still a lot of questions in building the roadmap as to where we're really going as a business. I think ISG, Ted mentioned ISG in his opening remarks, they've said the same thing. They had a certain outlook for when they thought things would take root.

Speaker 4

But I think our expectations reflect that thinking. Some things have to get going and we're doing them, and you read about those. And other than that, it's a question of really laying out a roadmap for the future based on what really is working. Listen, there's a lot of change. Every day, the software enterprise vendors are touting new capability, new investment in AI capability, the fabric capability in Microsoft, for example, which is relatively new.

Speaker 4

And they're all trying to take hold of that and say, how does this piece together into a true roadmap? So I think the fact that the Quest clients are still there is indicative that they're not going full force yet.

Speaker 7

That's helpful.

Speaker 4

That's

Speaker 9

helpful. Yes, that does. I mean, I appreciate the color there. And then when we think about more the near term and where clients in terms of just Mexico delivery, how should we think about the bookings numbers? Is there increased demand or request for resources out of Mexico at this point, how should we think about that as a percentage of bookings or just other color that you can provide?

Speaker 2

Yes. So we don't segment bookings by the Mexico delivery center surrender. The Mexico delivery center are working on U. S.-based projects and commercial consulting. So when we give it to you for commercial consulting, that includes that group of delivery professionals, if you will.

Speaker 2

But demand remains high because clients are really focused on total cost of ownership. And so now more than ever, they're looking at the mix of resources and the price points of those resources. And that's a positive, if you will, for us. Clients many times would rather access that as an alternative to offshore. They're still sending stuff offshore, but they get a lot of advantages here with the nearshore, whether it's communication, really good technical capabilities, same time zone.

Speaker 2

So we think this is something that's going to continue to build for us. And sometimes the client knows that, that team in Mexico is deployed on a certain project and they've asked for it and received the benefits that it just went through. Other times, we mix them in as just a part of the project team, and that's up to us in terms of how we put the project team together and execute the work.

Speaker 4

Hey, Ted. Could I add also a little bit that Mexico is doing great and we've got it very involved in certain technologies like CoPilot, GitHub, Fabric. We've also begun, I think Ted has mentioned in the past quarter to build up a little bit of an Indian offshore capability and the expertise there really around ServiceNow and AI insertion ServiceNow platform, so which is also building and adding headcount. So to us, we're beginning to build a multi dimensional offshore, nearshore capability that's in benefit our client, but it's very much tied to the technology that we can build in each of those locations. So I just didn't want to ignore the Indian piece on this, okay?

Speaker 9

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tobey Sommer with Tuohy Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 4

Thanks. On the

Speaker 5

government consulting business, anything you're changing in the way you manage that? And I ask in the context of

Speaker 4

the book to bill kind

Speaker 5

of being stubbornly below. And I understand you exclude IDIQs and maybe this is picking up this quarter, but it's a seasonally strong quarter and the forecasting the revenue licensing. Any changes there internally that you think are going to improve your sort of the predictability of that business?

Speaker 2

Well, look, we're always we're adding resources to the team where we think they need to be added. If we see a performance issue, we're addressing it. So that's always been the case. I don't think that that's there's any kind of change there. I mean, look, I think we're really well positioned on some of these opportunities.

Speaker 2

We just need for them to get adjudicated. And we agree with you, it's been the book to bill there has been stubbornly low. But I won't dismiss the backdrop here has been been kind of stubborn to deal with, if you will. And so the pieces around the government contracting offices not working as quickly as they once did. The trend towards putting these large amounts of work together on IDIQ so that the government customer can get them out there and avoid a long and difficult a long and difficult what's the word I'm looking for protest period.

Speaker 2

So there are things that are going on in that market that are a little bit of a headwind, but still we're winning our work and we're pleased to see that we're going to get some things done here early in July that are already kind of hit landing and we're looking forward to getting press releases out on those things. It's a little bit too soon now, but they'll be coming. So I think we feel good about this quarter and we're going to have a good bookings quarter.

Speaker 5

Two follow ups for me in another part of the business. In the assignment business, what's Esprit de Corps like? It's a lot of pretty long string of consecutive quarters of sequential decline. And then separately, but also on the assignment business, if we were to see an uptick in demand, how much capacity do you have recruiting and sales capacity to generate growth before you have to hire an earnest?

Speaker 7

Right.

Speaker 2

Well, look, this has been a long and protracted downturn. There's no doubt about it. And I'd say it's wearing on the it is worn on the team and with a team I say all of us, it's worn on all of us. At the same time, this group has more fight and stick to itiveness and are in it to help their about most of the time you're not doing your best work the moment that that revenue or EBITDA is at its highest point because that's just a reflection of everything you did when you were in the more difficult times, which is now. So I think everyone's got their head on right.

Speaker 2

Everybody's in it for the client and for each other. The amount of work, even though the revenue picture may not be there and the relationship building and the execution for clients is very strong. And we have capacity, Tobey. I think, look, we're kind of letting our headcount up down naturally in places where there we don't think the demand picture is there right now, but we're leaving enough of it in place that we're maintaining great relationships with these clients that we know exactly what's going on, that we know where their head is in terms of when they'll be spending to the extent we can understand that. And when it picks up, we have capacity.

Speaker 2

Now when would we have to add? The velocity the velocity of that. But we do believe we're kind of picking the right spot here as we let our model work, if you will, but also make sure we're there for clients because that's critical. When the spending comes, we are the 1st and fastest way that clients can engage with more effort and intensity on their IT projects and we need to be ready for that and we are. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Mark Marcon with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 4

Hi, this is Alex on for Mark. First off, I was just looking at the margins and obviously you've had some decline in federal and some increase in otherwise. And I was just kind of wondering if you could get some more color on that as well as some key drivers with that?

Speaker 2

Margins, yes. Margins are steady sequentially here, but year over year, there's a little bit of decline in margins.

Operator

Right.

Speaker 2

Yes. Now really what's going on the primary driver of that is business mix. So you're seeing a lower contribution of some of our higher margin units, which is our creative digital marketing service, our permanent placement services. And you're seeing federal, which is our lower EBITDA margin business, do a better job of maintaining and growing revenues here in the first half versus the mix last year. And so all of that is the primary driver, if you will, of how the EBITDA margin is moving around.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thanks. And then really quickly, I was just kind of wondering, looking forward a little bit farther, we have an election year coming up and we were kind of wondering where you think the election would take IT and federal spending going forward? Yes.

Speaker 2

Look, it doesn't I don't think it matters to us so much about who's in office. I mean, that's a political question for another conversation. But I think the criticality around spending on IT for big corporate enterprise and government agencies to accomplish their strategic initiatives that all involve IT in one shape or form or another is very strong. It's suspending stuff there on it yet, but it's very strong. So I think the most important thing is getting the election behind us so that the uncertainty of who's going to be in office is not a part of the headlines every day and the second guessing that goes along with that.

Speaker 2

And once we get that, I think, behind us, then hopefully, we get a little bit better interest rate environment here. And you get, most importantly, from all that more business confidence where our customers feel like they understand what the environment looks like and where it's going, then they will begin to return to more normal levels of IT spending and that's what drives our business.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. And we have reached the end of the question and answer session. I'll now turn the call back over to Ted Hanson for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Well, just wanted to say thank you for everyone, your attention today and your questions on ASGN. And we look forward to reporting our Q3 here in another 90 days. Be well.

Operator

And this concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your line at this time. Thank you for your

Speaker 7

participation.

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Earnings Conference Call
ASGN Q2 2024
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