NYSE:ROL Rollins Q4 2022 Earnings Report $55.68 -0.88 (-1.56%) Closing price 03:59 PM EasternExtended Trading$55.72 +0.05 (+0.08%) As of 04:20 PM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. Earnings HistoryForecast Rollins EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.17Consensus EPS $0.16Beat/MissBeat by +$0.01One Year Ago EPS$0.14Rollins Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$661.40 millionExpected Revenue$661.44 millionBeat/MissMissed by -$40.00 thousandYoY Revenue Growth+10.20%Rollins Announcement DetailsQuarterQ4 2022Date2/15/2023TimeAfter Market ClosesConference Call DateThursday, February 16, 2023Conference Call Time8:30AM ETUpcoming EarningsRollins' Q2 2025 earnings is scheduled for Wednesday, July 23, 2025, with a conference call scheduled on Thursday, July 24, 2025 at 8:30 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Conference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckAnnual Report (10-K)SEC FilingEarnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by Rollins Q4 2022 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrFebruary 16, 2023 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 12 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Greetings, and welcome to the Rollins Inc. 4th Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Operator00:00:19I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Joe Calabrese. Thank you. You may begin. Speaker 100:00:25Thank you. By now, you should have all received a copy of the press release. However, if anyone is missing a copy and would like to receive 1, please contact our office at 212 There will be a replay of the call, which will begin 1 hour after the call and run for 1 week. The replay can be accessed by dialing 201 6,127,415 with the passcode 1,370,350,127. Additionally, the call is being webcast at www.rollins.com and a replay will be available for 180 days. Speaker 100:01:09The company is also offering investors a supporting slide presentation, which can be found on Rollins' website at www.rollins.com. We will be following that slide presentation on our call this morning and encourage you to view that with us. On the line with me today and speaking, Jerry Gail, Jr, President and John Wilson, Vice Chairman Kenneth Krause, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer and Julie Bimmerman, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations. Manager will make some opening remarks, and then we'll open the line for your questions. John, would you like to begin? Speaker 200:01:47Yes. Thank you, Joe, and good morning. We appreciate all of you joining us for our Q4 2022 earnings call. Julie will read our forward looking statement disclaimer and then we'll begin. Speaker 300:02:00Our earnings release discusses our business outlook and contains certain forward looking statements. These particular forward looking statements and all other statements That have been made on this call, excluding historical facts, are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from any statement we make Please refer to yesterday's press release and our SEC filings, including the Risk Factors section of our Form 10 ks for the year ended December 31, 2021, for more information and the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ. Speaker 200:02:36Thank you, Julie. I'm pleased to report that Rollins closed out last year with continued strong revenue growth and solid financial performance. In the Q4, we report revenue improved 10.2 percent to $661,000,000 and net income improvement of 26.1 percent to $84,000,000 For all of 2022, we achieved revenue growth of more than 11% With net income improving as well. Jerry and Ken will provide greater detail, but all credit goes to our tremendous team and continue to overcome many obstacles. As we begin 2023, the company remains well positioned to deliver on our long term business objectives. Speaker 200:03:21Now let me turn the call over to Jerry. Speaker 400:03:24Thank you, John, and thank you all for joining our call today. Let me begin by saying that we're extremely pleased with our 4th And I'm also equally proud of the hard working men and women of our company that continue to drive our growth through great customer service. I'd like to provide my comments on our 2022 Q4 performance. Ken will then address the financials in more detail in a moment. Reflecting solid execution of our operating strategies, Rollins delivered another strong performance in the 4th quarter, highlighted by total revenue growth of over 10% in the 4th quarter and over 11% for the full year. Speaker 400:04:04Operationally, we have strong momentum in our markets. The company remains well positioned to achieve our long term objectives and we're seeing solid levels of growth in the business. As many of you are aware, Rollins has a long standing company wide focus on personal safety. Complementing our existing guidelines and protocols, we continue to implement New initiatives designed to empower our employees and enable an accountable safety driven culture. 1st, training remains crucial for keeping our customers out of harm's way. Speaker 400:04:362nd, we're updating incentive metrics and our compensation programs to emphasize safety down to the branch level. A branch manager's bonus plan will now have stronger ties to safety metrics for their operation. We're also working on a new employee level program to incentivize the highest Levels of safe driving behaviors. We began to pilot this program later this year or we plan to pilot this program later this year For our 10,000 plus drivers at Rollins, we believe these initiatives will help ensure our workforce returns home to their family safely each and every day. Looking closer at the financial results and the growth we delivered, organic growth came in at 6.9% While market data indicates this to be consistent across the industry, we started 2023 with strong residential revenue performance in January. Speaker 400:05:35While a month is not a long term trend, it was good to see solid demand to start the year. We also continue to succeed in our other service lines, particularly within our termite and ancillary, which grew 15.4% year over year. Rollins remains very well positioned to drive ancillary growth within this business. We've taken on the responsibility to educate homeowners on termite prevention and treatment along with other ancillary offerings. And from the customer perspective, these service offerings are from a trusted partner. Speaker 400:06:09We remain focused on driving revenue growth from cross selling activities across our large and Growing customer base. Our team continues to do a tremendous job here. Our commercial line has also presented a Strong year for us with 10.3% growth over the prior year. The sales teams continue to perform very well on both locally sold And national account sales efforts across all our commercial brands. We're seeing strong results in this area with solid performance With customers in the retail, restaurant and office building segments. Speaker 400:06:43Across all the service lines I just discussed, A key driver of growth is pricing. During 2022, in light of the ongoing inflationary challenges, We brought forward our annual price increase program to earlier in the year. In 2023, we are bringing this forward even earlier. Most of these price increases will be initiated beginning in early March and some were already implemented in January. Furthermore, our non Orkin brands are ramping up their focus on pricing the value of our services. Speaker 400:07:14Additionally, all our brands are increasing their rate cards. We expect the inflationary environment to persist into 2023 and are focused on managing the price cost equation. Acquisitions remain a major focus as we start 2023. During 2022, we successfully completed 31 acquisitions, representing a total of $119,000,000 invested. This compares with 39 acquisitions and $146,000,000 invested in 2021. Speaker 400:07:45While we successfully completed 4 acquisitions during the Q4, we proactively remained on the sidelines during the last few months of 2022 and turned our attention to 2023 deals and our pipeline. We're very optimistic about what's in store for the New Year as leveraging strategic acquisitions remains a focus of our growth strategy. Next, we remain committed to investing in our business to drive efficiency. As part of this, we continue to leverage technology by adding a number of new applications to our portfolio of brands. For example, Building off our successes with routing and scheduling technology at Orkin and Western Pest Services, we're rolling out routing and scheduling technology initiatives at Clark and HomeTeam. Speaker 400:08:30Each of these brands are making meaningful progress at approving efficiency. Clark expects to be at full utilization by the end of quarter and is very excited about the results to date. Robert Baker, Clark's President, went so far as to comment that this initiative is proving to be The best thing for Clark in many years. Home team should complete their implementation and be at full utilization by the end of the second quarter. Both brands have seen an improvement in their on time delivery metrics since implementation started. Speaker 400:09:03In addition to enabling us to reach our customers in a more efficient and productive manner, we found these initiatives can meaningfully both our overall mileage between service visits and drive time for the technician. Not only does this lower our fuel requirements, It also has a direct impact on our labor costs. With that, I look forward to answering your questions in a few moments. However, before I turn the call over to Ken, I want to emphasize that our team at Rollins had a successful year in 2022, and We are confident in our ability to continue driving growth and improving profitability in our business. I'll now turn the call over to Ken. Speaker 500:09:40Thank you, Jerry, and good morning, everyone. We had a strong quarter and a finish to the year. Let me start with a few highlights. First, revenue growth was healthy with total revenue growing approximately 10% in the quarter and 11% for the full year. Acquisitions drove 3% of revenue growth in the quarter and for the year. Speaker 500:10:01We continue to see tremendous opportunities that will enable us to continue to drive growth through acquisition in the quarters and years to come. 2nd, quarterly adjusted EBITDA margins were a healthy 22.1%, Up approximately 180 basis points versus the same period a year ago, we saw strong results throughout the income statement. GAAP earnings per share were $0.17 up from $0.14 in the same period A year ago, it was good to see the strong growth in earnings on the healthy revenue growth. And last but not least, Quarterly free cash flow was very healthy with operating cash flow growing over 20% versus the same period a year ago. We finished off another strong year with free cash flow growing over 16%. Speaker 500:10:52Let's look at the quarterly results in more detail. Quarterly revenue was $661,000,000 up just over 10% on a reported basis. Currencies reduced Quarterly revenue growth by 70 basis points on the stronger dollar, notably versus the Canadian dollar, the Australian dollar and the British pound. Quarterly revenues were strong and it was good to see healthy growth across all of our service lines. Turning to profitability. Speaker 500:11:22Gross profit was 50.5 percent of revenue in the quarter, up 10 basis points from the same quarter a year ago. We saw good performance on gross profit as pricing more than offset inflationary pressures. Pricing remains at the top of our agenda We are evaluating opportunities to implement further price increases in the Q1 of 2023. For the year, we saw elevated costs associated with casualty reserves, up $12,000,000 for the year with $10,000,000 of that in the 3rd quarter alone. We discussed these charges with you back in October and continue to focus on implementing a number of key programs that Jerry mentioned previously that are aimed at improving in this area. Speaker 500:12:09Additionally, people costs, most notably medical costs were up about $7,000,000 for the year. We saw higher costs in this area throughout the year. This wasn't necessarily as impactful in the quarter, but was something that gradually got worse throughout the year. SG and A expense in the quarter was $191,000,000 or just under 29% of revenues, up $3,000,000 from the prior year, but improving 2.30 basis points when stated as a percentage of revenue. It was good to see the improvements in SG and A as a percentage of revenue to finish the year. Speaker 500:12:46While lower advertising expense due to timing drove 120 basis points of the leverage. It was good to see cost control carried across a number of categories. Management of SG and A represents a key focus area of ours as we start 2023. At just under 30% of revenue, we feel there are opportunities to drive improvement. Stay tuned on this front, but no, we are focused on taking action that will help improve performance in this area in years to come. Speaker 500:13:17Looking closer at profitability, we did not have any non GAAP adjustments to operating income or EBITDA this year. GAAP operating income was $120,000,000 or 18.1 percent of revenue. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 22.1%, up a strong 180 basis points over the prior year adjusted EBITDA margin. As I indicated previously, We did not have any adjustments this year to EBITDA margin. If you recall, we adjusted the prior year quarterly EBITDA margin by the impact of the non recurring SEC matter. Speaker 500:13:54As we discussed on the last call, I like to look at the business using incremental margins Or meaning, what percent of every additional dollar of revenue growth is converted to EBITDA? In the quarter, on an as reported basis, We generated incremental adjusted EBITDA margins that were approaching 40%. When you take The lower advertising spend I mentioned previously, incremental adjusted EBITDA margins were approximately 30% for the quarter. And even with incurring the higher casualty charges in the second half, incremental adjusted EBITDA margins for the second half We're approaching 30%. This is certainly good to see. Speaker 500:14:38Quarterly non GAAP net income was $84,000,000 or 0.17 dollars in adjusted earnings per share, increasing from $0.15 per share in the same period a year ago. Turning to cash flow and the balance sheet. Quarterly free cash flow was very strong to finish the year. We generated 100 and $16,000,000 of free cash flow on $84,000,000 of earnings in the quarter. Free cash flow increased by over 20% In the quarter and was up a very healthy 16% for the entire year. Speaker 500:15:12Cash flow conversion, the percent of income that was turned into Cash was well above 100% for the quarter and the full year. We made acquisitions totaling $9,000,000 And we paid $64,000,000 in dividends during the quarter. Debt remains negligible and debt to EBITDA is well below 1 times on a gross level. We were in a net cash position to finish the year. Year to date, we have made acquisitions totaling just over $119,000,000 and paid dividends of approximately $212,000,000 Debt balances are down $100,000,000 since the beginning of the year and cash is down $10,000,000 finishing at $95,000,000 at the end of 2022. Speaker 500:16:00We are actively evaluating to refinance our credit facilities that are set to expire in April of 2024. We expect to make progress on this In the Q1, also during the quarter, we corrected immaterial misstatements in the financial statements. Our press release and our 10 ks that we expect to file later today will include more information on these changes. But in In summary, these are non cash related items that reduced what we originally reported for earnings by an immaterial amount. By making this change, historical earnings increased by $0.01 per share per year. Speaker 500:16:42Let me repeat, We understated historical reported earnings by $0.01 per share per year. The immaterial changes are related to purchase accounting for The short of it is that the company allocated too much of the acquired asset value to amortizable intangible assets in the past and this adjustment corrects for this. In closing, our 4th quarter performance Continues to demonstrate the strength of our business model. We remain focused on providing our customers with the best customer experience and driving growth through acquisition. Organic demand remains robust and we are very well positioned to continue to use our balance sheet to grow our business. Speaker 500:17:28The acquisition pipeline is very healthy and our strong cash flow and balance sheet positions us very well to invest in our business. We continue to focus on execution and driving long term profitable growth for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Jerry for closing remarks. Jerry? Speaker 400:17:47Thank you, Ken. We're happy to take any questions at this time. Operator00:17:56Thank In the interest of time, we ask that you each keep to one question and one follow-up and invite you to rejoin the queue. Our first question comes from the line of Tim Mulrooney with William Blair. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 600:18:26Jerry, Ken, John, Julie, good morning. Speaker 200:18:29Good morning. Good morning. Good Speaker 600:18:31morning. Just a couple of quick ones for me. So Your SG and A as a percentage of sales, it was below 29% in the 4th quarter and it's been coming down every year by a couple of, call it 10%, 20%, 30%, Sometimes 40 basis points every year. But the 4th quarter below 29%, that was below what most folks were And what we typically see from you guys, are there deliberate cost savings programs happening here? Or is it primarily just a leverage that you would expect to get on higher volumes in the savings from advertising expense? Speaker 600:19:07What I'm trying to get at is, There was a surprise here at the level of cost savings that you had and you had a nice EBITDA beat primarily because of it. Is it fair to expect to see continued leverage on your fixed costs like this as we move through 2023? Or would you expect maybe them to come up a little bit as you layer investments back in the business. Thank you. Speaker 500:19:31Thanks for the question, Tim. This is Ken. I'll take this question. But I would agree with you. We had really good performance in the Q3 with respect to our cost control programs and SG G and A. Speaker 500:19:45As I had indicated in my prepared commentary, we had an advertising benefit of about $7,000,000 So that's about 120 basis However, we certainly continue to look at a number of opportunities to continue to improve our cost structure going forward. We certainly did leverage it with the higher growth rates that we were able to deliver in the quarter, but we also are very actively evaluating and Speaker 400:20:19Yes, Tim, this is Jerry. Since Ken has been here, it's one of the hot topics on his radar screen is our SG and A and how can we get better and how can We improve and Ken has challenged us and brought that equation to the table. And as you know, we're always looking to get better. And So we're and Ken's finding some ways to help us do that. Speaker 600:20:44Ken's cracking the whip, Yes. Okay. Thanks, Jerry, and thanks, Ken. One more. Just a question on pricing. Speaker 600:20:52I mean, it sounds like you're pulling forward the pricing increases even earlier this year, Which was surprising. But how should we think about that level of pricing increase? I know it was higher than historical levels Last year, which makes sense. But with the consumer outlook maybe a little bit murkier as we turn the corner into 'twenty three, I'm curious how you're thinking about the level of pricing this year. Do you expect it to be more in line with the historical average or still above that historical Thank Speaker 400:21:25you. So, Tim, this is Jerry. So on the really on the Orkin side, we are Looking to very similar levels to what we did in prior year, where we've actually gotten more aggressive in our other brands than we were at prior year. So if anything on the whole, the net result of that is What we expect is better performance out of pricing going forward in 2023. Speaker 600:21:56Got it. Thank you. Operator00:22:01Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ashish Sabadra with RBC Capital Markets, please proceed with your question. Speaker 700:22:09Thanks for taking my question. So my first question is on the residential side. You talked about Some pretty good improvement in January. I was just wondering if you can talk about what's really driving it. Is it driven by better execution? Speaker 700:22:23Can you talk about How you are better using technology and other tools to improve the residential growth in 2023? Thanks. Speaker 400:22:38You got to keep in mind that as we wound down 2022, November, December, we reduced marketing some of our marketing spend or advertising spend in the back half of the year. And so that softened The end of the 4th quarter of last year and we began turning our advertising and marketing efforts back on in January. Across the board, I think we had pretty good weather. We had a pretty good business environment. We had a lot less of the impact of COVID than we did the prior year in January. Speaker 400:23:15It was just an Overall better environment, not necessarily something about technology or anything along those lines. It was just overall better environment that helped with demand. I don't don't know, John, do you have anything to add to that? Speaker 200:23:29Only maybe staffing. We were better staffed in a better staff position. Part of that's We were really wracked with people out sick with COVID in January a year ago. And so this year, we were better positioned to handle The opportunity that we have. Speaker 700:23:47That's great. And then maybe just a broader question on organic growth. If we look at over the last 3 years, organic growth has improved materially compared to the pre pandemic level. And so as we look Into 'twenty three, but also with the midterm, not looking from a guidance perspective, but just as we think about the organic growth trajectory, Should we think about it more being in line with the recent history, particularly the organic growth being more in line with the recent history? Thanks. Speaker 500:24:16As you know Ashish, we don't provide guidance. However, we do when we do look at our business, I think We all know that this is a very attractive market with attractive growth opportunities. And if you look at the business over the long term eliminating some of the fluctuations And volatility that you saw during COVID and recovery from COVID, this market has the opportunity to continue to grow at that mid to high single digits. So We feel confident in our ability to continue to grow our business over the long term at that mid to high single digit sort of growth rate, All the while continuing to be very active on the acquisition front. Speaker 400:24:55We have no intention to take the Put off the gas and slow it down. So our goal is always to try to get better and maintain or beat those Rates year over year, so that's our aim. We're going to keep going. Speaker 700:25:13That's great and congrats on a solid quarter. Thank you. Speaker 500:25:18Thank Speaker 800:25:19you. Operator00:25:20Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stephanie Moore with Jefferies. Speaker 900:25:26This is Hans on for Stephanie. Congrats on the strong quarter. Just wanted to dig in a bit more on the resi business in Q4. Obviously, you realize a bit slower growth there in your prepared remarks. You kind of referenced it's kind of been consistent across the industry. Speaker 900:25:44I just wondered if you could talk about some of those trends in the industry more broadly. Thanks. Speaker 400:25:50The main data point that we look at is we can get information from, for example, search engines like Google, Where they can report they report to us the volume of category searches. So for example, the number of people Searching for the category or words like pest control, and those were down, I think, Julie, I think you remember the number was in the 15% range is what we heard Across the industry, the category search was down around the 15% mark. So that seems It appears to be across the board and those are data that we get from companies like Google. Speaker 900:26:36Got it. That's helpful. Thanks. And then just maybe you want to dig in a bit more on sort of cost inflation. Could you talk a bit about what you're seeing We're seeing cost inflation a bit more sticky in your business and then maybe where it's moderating a bit and then just kind of your ability to price in excess Speaker 500:26:59Yes, certainly. When we look at the business, there's 2 or 3 broad buckets Costs, there's people, there's materials and then there's fleet. And when we look at the business, we started to see gradual improvement In fleet, as we move throughout the year, pressures that we felt earlier in the year when oil was much higher than where it is currently Started to abate as we went throughout the year. The one point that was good to see for us as we finished the year was actually improvements in materials and supplies. And So the second category of cost that I spoke about, materials and supplies, was certainly it was helpful to see some improvement as a percentage of sales to close the year out And last, but certainly not least, our people costs, we continue to manage that very closely. Speaker 500:27:45It's a challenging market. Our focus is on hiring the best and the brightest, Pertaining and providing the tools that will continue to drive that high level of engagement across our workforce that in turn results that high level of customer service that we're known for. And so we're continuing to manage the inflationary pressures. And That's part of the reason why Jerry spoke about our intent and desire to pull forward the pricing. We're trying to stay Speaker 1000:28:15ahead of the inflationary cycle that we're Speaker 500:28:15all feeling and trying to pass along, cycle that we're all feeling and trying to pass along that price and price the value of the services that we're providing to our customers. Speaker 400:28:26And Ken, while the fleet is we're seeing some improvement largely driven by fuel, where we haven't Seeing any relief is in repairs and maintenance. The cost of replacing just a single tire Remains sky high. Basic service on a vehicle is Continues to climb and we've just got no relief there. So that's one element within fleet. But as Ken said, On the M and S side, we've got those margins back in line. Speaker 400:29:01Our teams have fought to help us do that in the procurement side. Those have seemed to have come back to normalized levels. So that's good news for us. Speaker 900:29:14Very helpful. Thank you. Operator00:29:18Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Oliver Davies with Redburn. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 1100:29:30Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just firstly, what are you seeing in terms of the international markets that you operate in? And is growth kind of higher or lower out in those markets than it is in the U. S? Speaker 500:29:44Those markets continue to be very attractive We continue to grow our business. And in fact, last year, we made significant acquisitions in the U. K. Market. We build out our platform of businesses And services that we're providing in the U. Speaker 500:29:59K. Because we view that as a very interactive market. We'll continue to deploy capital internationally. But I have to remind you also that the U. S. Speaker 500:30:07Is our largest market. It's our fastest growing market and it's highly fragmented. So it provides us Tremendous amount of growth opportunities as we go forward. So we're pretty bullish. We're pretty optimistic and we feel like we've got a great growth plan that spans the globe. Speaker 1100:30:23Great, thanks. And then I guess on the termite side, I'm assuming a decent amount of that growth from ancillary sales. So what are you seeing on just the sort of the termite business? Speaker 500:30:34We don't break out the termite business from the ancillary, so it's hard to report that. But what I would say is, as we continue to see demand for the termite business, A lot of people look at the non residential or the residential housing market and get concerned about Slowdown in new housing starts and such. And while we are managing through the challenges associated with higher interest rates, we're seeing good growth come through that business. Speaker 400:31:00And we have great performance driving the sales of our termite baiting programs To customers as well, we have very good take rates on that. It's got very high customer retention And we try to make sure we bundle that with all our service offerings. Speaker 1100:31:20Thanks very much. Speaker 500:31:22Thank you. Operator00:31:24Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Butler with Stifel. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 600:31:33Good morning. Can you hear me? Speaker 400:31:35Yes, we can. Speaker 600:31:36Great. Thanks for taking the questions. First one, Speaker 800:31:38just on the organic Speaker 1000:31:39growth, can you provide maybe some color on Speaker 600:31:39how much maybe was Can you provide maybe some color on how much maybe was cross selling versus price and how that opportunity for cross selling looks Going into 2023? Speaker 500:31:52It's hard to parse it down into that level of detail, but what I can tell you is When we look at the overall growth rate of roughly 10% or so, you back off just over 3% of that for acquisitions. So you arrive at about 7 As Jerry indicated, last year we pulled the price increase forward a bit. So we actually saw a little bit more of pricing not only from pulling it forward but because we were passing along a higher pricing price inflation to our customers. And so if you if we had talked previously about passing along roughly a 4% price increase. We probably realized something in the 2% to 3%. Speaker 500:32:32So you could see that our underlying real growth rate is in that 4% to 5% is what we estimate. And it's just an estimation, but that's what we're estimating that our underlying growth rate is without price. That our underlying growth rate is without price. Speaker 400:32:46And in terms of the opportunity to continue to drive cross sell through the business, At this point, the upside looks endless. We have plenty of customers that we still haven't touched to add our mosquito programs as well as any of our any host of our ancillary service offerings. So When we look at the percentage of our customers with multiple services, with 2 or more services, 3 or more services, That percentage is still low enough that we have a long runway to continue to sell through. Speaker 200:33:23And Jerry, if I may add, As it relates to cross selling, a critical aspect of that is being well staffed in both your sales management arena and your Sales team. And currently, we are well staffed. That's why we believe that cross selling will Without the staff, you can't you're having to offer those services proactively. And so without Staff Speaker 400:33:51out there to do it, just doesn't happen. That's a good point, John. And we do continue to ramp up our sales staffing even in Our 2023 plans are to continue to ramp up our sales team volume to be able to handle and be out there Talking to our existing customers about adding services to their programs. Speaker 600:34:13Okay, great. That's helpful. And then when you think about that pricing Kind of pulling it forward again in 2023, how much I mean, I think you stated it was fully offsetting inflation. So does that continue to drive those incremental margins of 30% through 2023 or is it even better than that? Speaker 500:34:34We're hopeful that I mean, we've got a number of levers that we're pulling to continue to maintain our margin profile. Pricing is only one of them. And so we are optimistic about our ability to continue to drive margins. We're not committing to Not necessarily a specific margin target, but we do see an opportunity to continue to improve our margin profile over the long term. Speaker 600:34:59Okay. And if I could slip maybe one last one. On the M and A kind of rollover into 2023, any color on what's Speaker 500:35:10The only thing I would say there is 2022 as you know is a little bit of a light year for us With respect to acquisitions, if you go back to 2020 2021, we spent almost $150,000,000 each of those years on acquisitions. This past We spent just about $120,000,000 So you could see that the rollover may not be at or above 3% like it has In the last couple of years, it might be a slightly lower than that. But what I have what we've reiterated in our prepared comments is we are incredibly active with respect to acquisitions. And so we continue to go after and court opportunities across the country across the world. And so we continue to be very active on this front. Speaker 500:35:54Stay tuned on this front because it's an area that Jerry and I are spending a lot of our time. Speaker 600:36:01Great. Thank you very much for taking the questions. Speaker 500:36:03Thank you. Operator00:36:05Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer I'll turn the floor back to management for final comments. Speaker 300:36:12Thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and we appreciate your interest in our company. We will be filing our 10 ks with the SEC later today after the close of the market, and we look forward to updating you in April on our Q1 earnings call. Thanks again. Operator00:36:27Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.Read morePowered by Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallRollins Q4 202200:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckAnnual report(10-K) Rollins Earnings HeadlinesRollins suspends all cattle, horse, and bison imports from Mexico over ‘deadly’ pestMay 12 at 11:08 AM | msn.comFive WWE Stars That Could Join Paul Heyman and Seth Rollins’ FactionMay 11 at 12:20 AM | msn.comFeds Just Admitted It—They Can Take Your CashThe Government Just Said Your Money Isn't Yours That's right—According to the DOJ, YOUR hard-earned money isn't legally yours. Now, think your savings are safe? Think again.May 12, 2025 | Priority Gold (Ad)Jey Uso’s Next World Title Defense After Raw Classic with Seth Rollins Set for Saturday Night’s Main Event: ReportsMay 10 at 7:20 PM | msn.comBrooke Rollins traveling to UK to meet with country’s ‘key’ agriculture producersMay 9 at 8:25 AM | msn.com5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Sonny RollinsMay 8, 2025 | nytimes.comSee More Rollins Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Rollins? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Rollins and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About RollinsRollins (NYSE:ROL), through its subsidiaries, provides pest and wildlife control services to residential and commercial customers in the United States and internationally. The company offers pest control services to residential properties protecting from common pests, including rodents, insects, and wildlife. It also provides workplace pest control solutions for customers across various end markets, such as healthcare, foodservice, and logistics. In addition, the company offers termite protection services and ancillary services. It serves clients directly, as well as through franchisee operations. The company was formerly known as Rollins Broadcasting, Inc and changed its name to Rollins, Inc. in 1965. 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There are 12 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00Greetings, and welcome to the Rollins Inc. 4th Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Operator00:00:19I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Joe Calabrese. Thank you. You may begin. Speaker 100:00:25Thank you. By now, you should have all received a copy of the press release. However, if anyone is missing a copy and would like to receive 1, please contact our office at 212 There will be a replay of the call, which will begin 1 hour after the call and run for 1 week. The replay can be accessed by dialing 201 6,127,415 with the passcode 1,370,350,127. Additionally, the call is being webcast at www.rollins.com and a replay will be available for 180 days. Speaker 100:01:09The company is also offering investors a supporting slide presentation, which can be found on Rollins' website at www.rollins.com. We will be following that slide presentation on our call this morning and encourage you to view that with us. On the line with me today and speaking, Jerry Gail, Jr, President and John Wilson, Vice Chairman Kenneth Krause, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer and Julie Bimmerman, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations. Manager will make some opening remarks, and then we'll open the line for your questions. John, would you like to begin? Speaker 200:01:47Yes. Thank you, Joe, and good morning. We appreciate all of you joining us for our Q4 2022 earnings call. Julie will read our forward looking statement disclaimer and then we'll begin. Speaker 300:02:00Our earnings release discusses our business outlook and contains certain forward looking statements. These particular forward looking statements and all other statements That have been made on this call, excluding historical facts, are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from any statement we make Please refer to yesterday's press release and our SEC filings, including the Risk Factors section of our Form 10 ks for the year ended December 31, 2021, for more information and the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ. Speaker 200:02:36Thank you, Julie. I'm pleased to report that Rollins closed out last year with continued strong revenue growth and solid financial performance. In the Q4, we report revenue improved 10.2 percent to $661,000,000 and net income improvement of 26.1 percent to $84,000,000 For all of 2022, we achieved revenue growth of more than 11% With net income improving as well. Jerry and Ken will provide greater detail, but all credit goes to our tremendous team and continue to overcome many obstacles. As we begin 2023, the company remains well positioned to deliver on our long term business objectives. Speaker 200:03:21Now let me turn the call over to Jerry. Speaker 400:03:24Thank you, John, and thank you all for joining our call today. Let me begin by saying that we're extremely pleased with our 4th And I'm also equally proud of the hard working men and women of our company that continue to drive our growth through great customer service. I'd like to provide my comments on our 2022 Q4 performance. Ken will then address the financials in more detail in a moment. Reflecting solid execution of our operating strategies, Rollins delivered another strong performance in the 4th quarter, highlighted by total revenue growth of over 10% in the 4th quarter and over 11% for the full year. Speaker 400:04:04Operationally, we have strong momentum in our markets. The company remains well positioned to achieve our long term objectives and we're seeing solid levels of growth in the business. As many of you are aware, Rollins has a long standing company wide focus on personal safety. Complementing our existing guidelines and protocols, we continue to implement New initiatives designed to empower our employees and enable an accountable safety driven culture. 1st, training remains crucial for keeping our customers out of harm's way. Speaker 400:04:362nd, we're updating incentive metrics and our compensation programs to emphasize safety down to the branch level. A branch manager's bonus plan will now have stronger ties to safety metrics for their operation. We're also working on a new employee level program to incentivize the highest Levels of safe driving behaviors. We began to pilot this program later this year or we plan to pilot this program later this year For our 10,000 plus drivers at Rollins, we believe these initiatives will help ensure our workforce returns home to their family safely each and every day. Looking closer at the financial results and the growth we delivered, organic growth came in at 6.9% While market data indicates this to be consistent across the industry, we started 2023 with strong residential revenue performance in January. Speaker 400:05:35While a month is not a long term trend, it was good to see solid demand to start the year. We also continue to succeed in our other service lines, particularly within our termite and ancillary, which grew 15.4% year over year. Rollins remains very well positioned to drive ancillary growth within this business. We've taken on the responsibility to educate homeowners on termite prevention and treatment along with other ancillary offerings. And from the customer perspective, these service offerings are from a trusted partner. Speaker 400:06:09We remain focused on driving revenue growth from cross selling activities across our large and Growing customer base. Our team continues to do a tremendous job here. Our commercial line has also presented a Strong year for us with 10.3% growth over the prior year. The sales teams continue to perform very well on both locally sold And national account sales efforts across all our commercial brands. We're seeing strong results in this area with solid performance With customers in the retail, restaurant and office building segments. Speaker 400:06:43Across all the service lines I just discussed, A key driver of growth is pricing. During 2022, in light of the ongoing inflationary challenges, We brought forward our annual price increase program to earlier in the year. In 2023, we are bringing this forward even earlier. Most of these price increases will be initiated beginning in early March and some were already implemented in January. Furthermore, our non Orkin brands are ramping up their focus on pricing the value of our services. Speaker 400:07:14Additionally, all our brands are increasing their rate cards. We expect the inflationary environment to persist into 2023 and are focused on managing the price cost equation. Acquisitions remain a major focus as we start 2023. During 2022, we successfully completed 31 acquisitions, representing a total of $119,000,000 invested. This compares with 39 acquisitions and $146,000,000 invested in 2021. Speaker 400:07:45While we successfully completed 4 acquisitions during the Q4, we proactively remained on the sidelines during the last few months of 2022 and turned our attention to 2023 deals and our pipeline. We're very optimistic about what's in store for the New Year as leveraging strategic acquisitions remains a focus of our growth strategy. Next, we remain committed to investing in our business to drive efficiency. As part of this, we continue to leverage technology by adding a number of new applications to our portfolio of brands. For example, Building off our successes with routing and scheduling technology at Orkin and Western Pest Services, we're rolling out routing and scheduling technology initiatives at Clark and HomeTeam. Speaker 400:08:30Each of these brands are making meaningful progress at approving efficiency. Clark expects to be at full utilization by the end of quarter and is very excited about the results to date. Robert Baker, Clark's President, went so far as to comment that this initiative is proving to be The best thing for Clark in many years. Home team should complete their implementation and be at full utilization by the end of the second quarter. Both brands have seen an improvement in their on time delivery metrics since implementation started. Speaker 400:09:03In addition to enabling us to reach our customers in a more efficient and productive manner, we found these initiatives can meaningfully both our overall mileage between service visits and drive time for the technician. Not only does this lower our fuel requirements, It also has a direct impact on our labor costs. With that, I look forward to answering your questions in a few moments. However, before I turn the call over to Ken, I want to emphasize that our team at Rollins had a successful year in 2022, and We are confident in our ability to continue driving growth and improving profitability in our business. I'll now turn the call over to Ken. Speaker 500:09:40Thank you, Jerry, and good morning, everyone. We had a strong quarter and a finish to the year. Let me start with a few highlights. First, revenue growth was healthy with total revenue growing approximately 10% in the quarter and 11% for the full year. Acquisitions drove 3% of revenue growth in the quarter and for the year. Speaker 500:10:01We continue to see tremendous opportunities that will enable us to continue to drive growth through acquisition in the quarters and years to come. 2nd, quarterly adjusted EBITDA margins were a healthy 22.1%, Up approximately 180 basis points versus the same period a year ago, we saw strong results throughout the income statement. GAAP earnings per share were $0.17 up from $0.14 in the same period A year ago, it was good to see the strong growth in earnings on the healthy revenue growth. And last but not least, Quarterly free cash flow was very healthy with operating cash flow growing over 20% versus the same period a year ago. We finished off another strong year with free cash flow growing over 16%. Speaker 500:10:52Let's look at the quarterly results in more detail. Quarterly revenue was $661,000,000 up just over 10% on a reported basis. Currencies reduced Quarterly revenue growth by 70 basis points on the stronger dollar, notably versus the Canadian dollar, the Australian dollar and the British pound. Quarterly revenues were strong and it was good to see healthy growth across all of our service lines. Turning to profitability. Speaker 500:11:22Gross profit was 50.5 percent of revenue in the quarter, up 10 basis points from the same quarter a year ago. We saw good performance on gross profit as pricing more than offset inflationary pressures. Pricing remains at the top of our agenda We are evaluating opportunities to implement further price increases in the Q1 of 2023. For the year, we saw elevated costs associated with casualty reserves, up $12,000,000 for the year with $10,000,000 of that in the 3rd quarter alone. We discussed these charges with you back in October and continue to focus on implementing a number of key programs that Jerry mentioned previously that are aimed at improving in this area. Speaker 500:12:09Additionally, people costs, most notably medical costs were up about $7,000,000 for the year. We saw higher costs in this area throughout the year. This wasn't necessarily as impactful in the quarter, but was something that gradually got worse throughout the year. SG and A expense in the quarter was $191,000,000 or just under 29% of revenues, up $3,000,000 from the prior year, but improving 2.30 basis points when stated as a percentage of revenue. It was good to see the improvements in SG and A as a percentage of revenue to finish the year. Speaker 500:12:46While lower advertising expense due to timing drove 120 basis points of the leverage. It was good to see cost control carried across a number of categories. Management of SG and A represents a key focus area of ours as we start 2023. At just under 30% of revenue, we feel there are opportunities to drive improvement. Stay tuned on this front, but no, we are focused on taking action that will help improve performance in this area in years to come. Speaker 500:13:17Looking closer at profitability, we did not have any non GAAP adjustments to operating income or EBITDA this year. GAAP operating income was $120,000,000 or 18.1 percent of revenue. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 22.1%, up a strong 180 basis points over the prior year adjusted EBITDA margin. As I indicated previously, We did not have any adjustments this year to EBITDA margin. If you recall, we adjusted the prior year quarterly EBITDA margin by the impact of the non recurring SEC matter. Speaker 500:13:54As we discussed on the last call, I like to look at the business using incremental margins Or meaning, what percent of every additional dollar of revenue growth is converted to EBITDA? In the quarter, on an as reported basis, We generated incremental adjusted EBITDA margins that were approaching 40%. When you take The lower advertising spend I mentioned previously, incremental adjusted EBITDA margins were approximately 30% for the quarter. And even with incurring the higher casualty charges in the second half, incremental adjusted EBITDA margins for the second half We're approaching 30%. This is certainly good to see. Speaker 500:14:38Quarterly non GAAP net income was $84,000,000 or 0.17 dollars in adjusted earnings per share, increasing from $0.15 per share in the same period a year ago. Turning to cash flow and the balance sheet. Quarterly free cash flow was very strong to finish the year. We generated 100 and $16,000,000 of free cash flow on $84,000,000 of earnings in the quarter. Free cash flow increased by over 20% In the quarter and was up a very healthy 16% for the entire year. Speaker 500:15:12Cash flow conversion, the percent of income that was turned into Cash was well above 100% for the quarter and the full year. We made acquisitions totaling $9,000,000 And we paid $64,000,000 in dividends during the quarter. Debt remains negligible and debt to EBITDA is well below 1 times on a gross level. We were in a net cash position to finish the year. Year to date, we have made acquisitions totaling just over $119,000,000 and paid dividends of approximately $212,000,000 Debt balances are down $100,000,000 since the beginning of the year and cash is down $10,000,000 finishing at $95,000,000 at the end of 2022. Speaker 500:16:00We are actively evaluating to refinance our credit facilities that are set to expire in April of 2024. We expect to make progress on this In the Q1, also during the quarter, we corrected immaterial misstatements in the financial statements. Our press release and our 10 ks that we expect to file later today will include more information on these changes. But in In summary, these are non cash related items that reduced what we originally reported for earnings by an immaterial amount. By making this change, historical earnings increased by $0.01 per share per year. Speaker 500:16:42Let me repeat, We understated historical reported earnings by $0.01 per share per year. The immaterial changes are related to purchase accounting for The short of it is that the company allocated too much of the acquired asset value to amortizable intangible assets in the past and this adjustment corrects for this. In closing, our 4th quarter performance Continues to demonstrate the strength of our business model. We remain focused on providing our customers with the best customer experience and driving growth through acquisition. Organic demand remains robust and we are very well positioned to continue to use our balance sheet to grow our business. Speaker 500:17:28The acquisition pipeline is very healthy and our strong cash flow and balance sheet positions us very well to invest in our business. We continue to focus on execution and driving long term profitable growth for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Jerry for closing remarks. Jerry? Speaker 400:17:47Thank you, Ken. We're happy to take any questions at this time. Operator00:17:56Thank In the interest of time, we ask that you each keep to one question and one follow-up and invite you to rejoin the queue. Our first question comes from the line of Tim Mulrooney with William Blair. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 600:18:26Jerry, Ken, John, Julie, good morning. Speaker 200:18:29Good morning. Good morning. Good Speaker 600:18:31morning. Just a couple of quick ones for me. So Your SG and A as a percentage of sales, it was below 29% in the 4th quarter and it's been coming down every year by a couple of, call it 10%, 20%, 30%, Sometimes 40 basis points every year. But the 4th quarter below 29%, that was below what most folks were And what we typically see from you guys, are there deliberate cost savings programs happening here? Or is it primarily just a leverage that you would expect to get on higher volumes in the savings from advertising expense? Speaker 600:19:07What I'm trying to get at is, There was a surprise here at the level of cost savings that you had and you had a nice EBITDA beat primarily because of it. Is it fair to expect to see continued leverage on your fixed costs like this as we move through 2023? Or would you expect maybe them to come up a little bit as you layer investments back in the business. Thank you. Speaker 500:19:31Thanks for the question, Tim. This is Ken. I'll take this question. But I would agree with you. We had really good performance in the Q3 with respect to our cost control programs and SG G and A. Speaker 500:19:45As I had indicated in my prepared commentary, we had an advertising benefit of about $7,000,000 So that's about 120 basis However, we certainly continue to look at a number of opportunities to continue to improve our cost structure going forward. We certainly did leverage it with the higher growth rates that we were able to deliver in the quarter, but we also are very actively evaluating and Speaker 400:20:19Yes, Tim, this is Jerry. Since Ken has been here, it's one of the hot topics on his radar screen is our SG and A and how can we get better and how can We improve and Ken has challenged us and brought that equation to the table. And as you know, we're always looking to get better. And So we're and Ken's finding some ways to help us do that. Speaker 600:20:44Ken's cracking the whip, Yes. Okay. Thanks, Jerry, and thanks, Ken. One more. Just a question on pricing. Speaker 600:20:52I mean, it sounds like you're pulling forward the pricing increases even earlier this year, Which was surprising. But how should we think about that level of pricing increase? I know it was higher than historical levels Last year, which makes sense. But with the consumer outlook maybe a little bit murkier as we turn the corner into 'twenty three, I'm curious how you're thinking about the level of pricing this year. Do you expect it to be more in line with the historical average or still above that historical Thank Speaker 400:21:25you. So, Tim, this is Jerry. So on the really on the Orkin side, we are Looking to very similar levels to what we did in prior year, where we've actually gotten more aggressive in our other brands than we were at prior year. So if anything on the whole, the net result of that is What we expect is better performance out of pricing going forward in 2023. Speaker 600:21:56Got it. Thank you. Operator00:22:01Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ashish Sabadra with RBC Capital Markets, please proceed with your question. Speaker 700:22:09Thanks for taking my question. So my first question is on the residential side. You talked about Some pretty good improvement in January. I was just wondering if you can talk about what's really driving it. Is it driven by better execution? Speaker 700:22:23Can you talk about How you are better using technology and other tools to improve the residential growth in 2023? Thanks. Speaker 400:22:38You got to keep in mind that as we wound down 2022, November, December, we reduced marketing some of our marketing spend or advertising spend in the back half of the year. And so that softened The end of the 4th quarter of last year and we began turning our advertising and marketing efforts back on in January. Across the board, I think we had pretty good weather. We had a pretty good business environment. We had a lot less of the impact of COVID than we did the prior year in January. Speaker 400:23:15It was just an Overall better environment, not necessarily something about technology or anything along those lines. It was just overall better environment that helped with demand. I don't don't know, John, do you have anything to add to that? Speaker 200:23:29Only maybe staffing. We were better staffed in a better staff position. Part of that's We were really wracked with people out sick with COVID in January a year ago. And so this year, we were better positioned to handle The opportunity that we have. Speaker 700:23:47That's great. And then maybe just a broader question on organic growth. If we look at over the last 3 years, organic growth has improved materially compared to the pre pandemic level. And so as we look Into 'twenty three, but also with the midterm, not looking from a guidance perspective, but just as we think about the organic growth trajectory, Should we think about it more being in line with the recent history, particularly the organic growth being more in line with the recent history? Thanks. Speaker 500:24:16As you know Ashish, we don't provide guidance. However, we do when we do look at our business, I think We all know that this is a very attractive market with attractive growth opportunities. And if you look at the business over the long term eliminating some of the fluctuations And volatility that you saw during COVID and recovery from COVID, this market has the opportunity to continue to grow at that mid to high single digits. So We feel confident in our ability to continue to grow our business over the long term at that mid to high single digit sort of growth rate, All the while continuing to be very active on the acquisition front. Speaker 400:24:55We have no intention to take the Put off the gas and slow it down. So our goal is always to try to get better and maintain or beat those Rates year over year, so that's our aim. We're going to keep going. Speaker 700:25:13That's great and congrats on a solid quarter. Thank you. Speaker 500:25:18Thank Speaker 800:25:19you. Operator00:25:20Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stephanie Moore with Jefferies. Speaker 900:25:26This is Hans on for Stephanie. Congrats on the strong quarter. Just wanted to dig in a bit more on the resi business in Q4. Obviously, you realize a bit slower growth there in your prepared remarks. You kind of referenced it's kind of been consistent across the industry. Speaker 900:25:44I just wondered if you could talk about some of those trends in the industry more broadly. Thanks. Speaker 400:25:50The main data point that we look at is we can get information from, for example, search engines like Google, Where they can report they report to us the volume of category searches. So for example, the number of people Searching for the category or words like pest control, and those were down, I think, Julie, I think you remember the number was in the 15% range is what we heard Across the industry, the category search was down around the 15% mark. So that seems It appears to be across the board and those are data that we get from companies like Google. Speaker 900:26:36Got it. That's helpful. Thanks. And then just maybe you want to dig in a bit more on sort of cost inflation. Could you talk a bit about what you're seeing We're seeing cost inflation a bit more sticky in your business and then maybe where it's moderating a bit and then just kind of your ability to price in excess Speaker 500:26:59Yes, certainly. When we look at the business, there's 2 or 3 broad buckets Costs, there's people, there's materials and then there's fleet. And when we look at the business, we started to see gradual improvement In fleet, as we move throughout the year, pressures that we felt earlier in the year when oil was much higher than where it is currently Started to abate as we went throughout the year. The one point that was good to see for us as we finished the year was actually improvements in materials and supplies. And So the second category of cost that I spoke about, materials and supplies, was certainly it was helpful to see some improvement as a percentage of sales to close the year out And last, but certainly not least, our people costs, we continue to manage that very closely. Speaker 500:27:45It's a challenging market. Our focus is on hiring the best and the brightest, Pertaining and providing the tools that will continue to drive that high level of engagement across our workforce that in turn results that high level of customer service that we're known for. And so we're continuing to manage the inflationary pressures. And That's part of the reason why Jerry spoke about our intent and desire to pull forward the pricing. We're trying to stay Speaker 1000:28:15ahead of the inflationary cycle that we're Speaker 500:28:15all feeling and trying to pass along, cycle that we're all feeling and trying to pass along that price and price the value of the services that we're providing to our customers. Speaker 400:28:26And Ken, while the fleet is we're seeing some improvement largely driven by fuel, where we haven't Seeing any relief is in repairs and maintenance. The cost of replacing just a single tire Remains sky high. Basic service on a vehicle is Continues to climb and we've just got no relief there. So that's one element within fleet. But as Ken said, On the M and S side, we've got those margins back in line. Speaker 400:29:01Our teams have fought to help us do that in the procurement side. Those have seemed to have come back to normalized levels. So that's good news for us. Speaker 900:29:14Very helpful. Thank you. Operator00:29:18Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Oliver Davies with Redburn. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 1100:29:30Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just firstly, what are you seeing in terms of the international markets that you operate in? And is growth kind of higher or lower out in those markets than it is in the U. S? Speaker 500:29:44Those markets continue to be very attractive We continue to grow our business. And in fact, last year, we made significant acquisitions in the U. K. Market. We build out our platform of businesses And services that we're providing in the U. Speaker 500:29:59K. Because we view that as a very interactive market. We'll continue to deploy capital internationally. But I have to remind you also that the U. S. Speaker 500:30:07Is our largest market. It's our fastest growing market and it's highly fragmented. So it provides us Tremendous amount of growth opportunities as we go forward. So we're pretty bullish. We're pretty optimistic and we feel like we've got a great growth plan that spans the globe. Speaker 1100:30:23Great, thanks. And then I guess on the termite side, I'm assuming a decent amount of that growth from ancillary sales. So what are you seeing on just the sort of the termite business? Speaker 500:30:34We don't break out the termite business from the ancillary, so it's hard to report that. But what I would say is, as we continue to see demand for the termite business, A lot of people look at the non residential or the residential housing market and get concerned about Slowdown in new housing starts and such. And while we are managing through the challenges associated with higher interest rates, we're seeing good growth come through that business. Speaker 400:31:00And we have great performance driving the sales of our termite baiting programs To customers as well, we have very good take rates on that. It's got very high customer retention And we try to make sure we bundle that with all our service offerings. Speaker 1100:31:20Thanks very much. Speaker 500:31:22Thank you. Operator00:31:24Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Butler with Stifel. Please proceed with your question. Speaker 600:31:33Good morning. Can you hear me? Speaker 400:31:35Yes, we can. Speaker 600:31:36Great. Thanks for taking the questions. First one, Speaker 800:31:38just on the organic Speaker 1000:31:39growth, can you provide maybe some color on Speaker 600:31:39how much maybe was Can you provide maybe some color on how much maybe was cross selling versus price and how that opportunity for cross selling looks Going into 2023? Speaker 500:31:52It's hard to parse it down into that level of detail, but what I can tell you is When we look at the overall growth rate of roughly 10% or so, you back off just over 3% of that for acquisitions. So you arrive at about 7 As Jerry indicated, last year we pulled the price increase forward a bit. So we actually saw a little bit more of pricing not only from pulling it forward but because we were passing along a higher pricing price inflation to our customers. And so if you if we had talked previously about passing along roughly a 4% price increase. We probably realized something in the 2% to 3%. Speaker 500:32:32So you could see that our underlying real growth rate is in that 4% to 5% is what we estimate. And it's just an estimation, but that's what we're estimating that our underlying growth rate is without price. That our underlying growth rate is without price. Speaker 400:32:46And in terms of the opportunity to continue to drive cross sell through the business, At this point, the upside looks endless. We have plenty of customers that we still haven't touched to add our mosquito programs as well as any of our any host of our ancillary service offerings. So When we look at the percentage of our customers with multiple services, with 2 or more services, 3 or more services, That percentage is still low enough that we have a long runway to continue to sell through. Speaker 200:33:23And Jerry, if I may add, As it relates to cross selling, a critical aspect of that is being well staffed in both your sales management arena and your Sales team. And currently, we are well staffed. That's why we believe that cross selling will Without the staff, you can't you're having to offer those services proactively. And so without Staff Speaker 400:33:51out there to do it, just doesn't happen. That's a good point, John. And we do continue to ramp up our sales staffing even in Our 2023 plans are to continue to ramp up our sales team volume to be able to handle and be out there Talking to our existing customers about adding services to their programs. Speaker 600:34:13Okay, great. That's helpful. And then when you think about that pricing Kind of pulling it forward again in 2023, how much I mean, I think you stated it was fully offsetting inflation. So does that continue to drive those incremental margins of 30% through 2023 or is it even better than that? Speaker 500:34:34We're hopeful that I mean, we've got a number of levers that we're pulling to continue to maintain our margin profile. Pricing is only one of them. And so we are optimistic about our ability to continue to drive margins. We're not committing to Not necessarily a specific margin target, but we do see an opportunity to continue to improve our margin profile over the long term. Speaker 600:34:59Okay. And if I could slip maybe one last one. On the M and A kind of rollover into 2023, any color on what's Speaker 500:35:10The only thing I would say there is 2022 as you know is a little bit of a light year for us With respect to acquisitions, if you go back to 2020 2021, we spent almost $150,000,000 each of those years on acquisitions. This past We spent just about $120,000,000 So you could see that the rollover may not be at or above 3% like it has In the last couple of years, it might be a slightly lower than that. But what I have what we've reiterated in our prepared comments is we are incredibly active with respect to acquisitions. And so we continue to go after and court opportunities across the country across the world. And so we continue to be very active on this front. Speaker 500:35:54Stay tuned on this front because it's an area that Jerry and I are spending a lot of our time. Speaker 600:36:01Great. Thank you very much for taking the questions. Speaker 500:36:03Thank you. Operator00:36:05Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer I'll turn the floor back to management for final comments. Speaker 300:36:12Thank you, everyone, for joining us today, and we appreciate your interest in our company. We will be filing our 10 ks with the SEC later today after the close of the market, and we look forward to updating you in April on our Q1 earnings call. Thanks again. Operator00:36:27Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.Read morePowered by