Earnings Call Transcript - ALTG Q1 2020

Sinem McDonald, Director of External Reporting

Thank you, Josh. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us today to discuss Alta's first quarter 2020 results. With me on the line today, we have our Chairman and CEO, Ryan Greenawalt; and our Chief Financial Officer, Tony Colucci. We will begin with some prepared remarks before we open the call for your questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's call contains forward-looking statements, including statements about future financial results, our business strategy and financial outlook and other non-historical statements as described in our press release. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those related to Alta's growth, market opportunities and general economic and business conditions. These statements also include our expectations regarding risks related to the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, operations and financial results. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Although we believe these expectations are reasonable, we undertake no obligation to revise any statement to reflect changes that occur after this call. Descriptions of these and other risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are discussed in our reports filed with the SEC, including our press release that was issued today. During this call, we may present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in today's press release, which is available at investors.altaequipment.com.

Ryan Greenawalt, CEO

Thank you, Sinem, and welcome to Alta's First Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. I hope everyone on the call today is doing well. I will discuss our observations and the steps we've taken to effectively manage our business during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tony Colucci, our CFO, will follow with our Q1 financial results and an update on our liquidity and capital structure. We started the year strong and experienced relatively limited impact from the COVID-19 pandemic in our first quarter financial results. Although the first quarter seems like a long time ago, it's important to highlight that our performance demonstrated the resilience of our business model, both in terms of organic growth driven by parts and service and our capacity to identify and close acquisitions. When we last spoke in late March, we were just beginning to see changes in the business environment as shelter-in-place mandates were implemented across many of our markets. The swift change in the business climate occurred in March, and we promptly began executing the strategies that helped us emerge strongly from the Great Recession of 2008 and '09. While the current crisis is different and more complex, the same agility in our model allowed us to take decisive mitigation actions that have strengthened our business and prepared Alta for the economy's reopening. The past six weeks have been some of the most challenging we've faced in our careers, but we are open for business at all locations, and we are starting to see positive trends in our markets and signs of increased demand for our products and services. As I mentioned during our recent road show and earnings call, our financial model is centered around our parts sales and service business, which generates high-margin recurring revenue and stable cash flows. We do not prioritize short-term fluctuations in new and used equipment sales, as near-term reductions are unlikely to have a long-term effect on equipment populations in our territories. From our experience, equipment sales tend to recover relatively quickly following economic downturns when replenishment cycles are prolonged and demand for new equipment builds up. To reiterate, our strategy is to populate our regions with new, used, and rental equipment, then leverage the installed base to grow parts and service revenue. We do not expect COVID-19 to have a significant long-term impact on equipment populations in any of our territories. Our strategy to expand into new geographic markets and diversify our customer base has proven beneficial in the current environment, as different regions are affected in various ways by the crisis. In examining our two operating segments, both classified as essential businesses, our Construction Equipment division has faced less impact compared to the industrial equipment segment in the first half of the current quarter. Nonetheless, the Industrial segment remains highly cash flow positive with solid contributions from parts and service revenue streams. We view Construction as being in a growth phase, with our Illinois Construction Equipment business continuing to mature and the addition of Flagler in Florida, which has performed well and experienced fewer seasonal weather disruptions and less impact from the coronavirus pandemic. Overall, while some manufacturing sectors like automotive have significantly slowed, essential services such as biopharma, medical, and food and beverage have seen strong demand spikes, particularly in densely populated areas. Closer to home, Michigan went into shelter-in-place mode in late March, and Detroit has been among the hardest-hit metro areas in the nation. While it's challenging to predict whether the recovery will be V-shaped or U-shaped, we have noticed early indicators that the worst may be behind us, and we're beginning to see improved operating conditions in our local market. Once we move beyond the Detroit area, our operations in Western Michigan have remained healthier. Meanwhile, Illinois has shown a stronger performance compared to our other Midwest locations, particularly in construction. The Illinois construction market presents a significant opportunity to gain market share, and we are increasing our field population while applying the same strategy we used in Michigan to expand our parts and service business. Alta's ability to react swiftly and effectively is largely due to our most valuable asset: our people. We operate 43 branches serving a wide range of industrial and construction customers across several Great Lakes and Northeast states, as well as Florida. The hard work and commitment of our team have allowed us to remain operational in all regions to support our customers and communities. We continue to uphold strict operational policies to safeguard our employees and customers, including new work guidelines across the organization and the formation of a task force that includes all operations teams to facilitate timely communications with our supply chain and OEM partners. I consider the Alta culture a vital contributor to our success, and we have consistently emphasized a one-team mindset. Our employees have embraced a spirit of shared sacrifice, enabling us to implement temporary furloughs and other cost-saving measures while continuing to serve our customers’ needs. Throughout this crisis, the Alta team has exemplified the best of our culture and continues to build upon our impressive 36-year track record of delivering top-quality equipment, parts, and service support. Our skilled technicians remain a key competitive advantage in the markets we serve, providing essential aftermarket parts and services to our installed base of industrial and construction equipment customers. Alta is recognized as an Employer of Choice due to our capability to attract, train, and develop specialized talent. We have expanded our skilled labor force by approximately 20% in Florida over the last six weeks as business activities have continued at a near-normal pace. As you may recall, one of our objectives when acquiring Flagler earlier this year was to capitalize on the opportunity to significantly increase skilled labor in the Florida region. We maintain excellent relationships with our OEM partners, and we appreciate their collaboration. Our team has closely worked with Hyster-Yale, Volvo, JCB, and other OEMs to ensure we collectively support customers to the best of our abilities. Given the changing business landscape, I want to share additional insight into how we are managing our capital expenditures and operating costs. Tony will elaborate further in his formal comments. I've already mentioned our prompt actions to execute our financial crisis playbook. Back then, Alta was a significantly smaller business with a primary focus on industrial equipment and a heavy concentration on Michigan automotive customers. While we experienced a notable decline in equipment sales ten years ago, our parts and service business remained resilient, preserving gross margins, profitability, and cash flow. Today, through organic growth and acquisitions, we are substantially larger, more diversified in terms of end markets and geographical reach, and more robust in the face of difficult macroeconomic conditions. The same strategy applies to maintaining our business fundamentals. Since late March, we have been constantly refining our inventory on a daily basis throughout the organization, balancing our rental fleet and labor utilization while collaborating closely with our OEM partners to serve and protect customers. We have continued to cut back spending on major capital projects and limited expenditures related to rental capital. In April, we swiftly acted to manage our cost structure by eliminating all non-essential expenditures, significantly reducing executive and senior management compensation, and implementing a combination of workforce reductions and furloughs. These decisions have allowed us to stabilize our business fundamentals and align our margin profile with the expectations shared during our investor presentations earlier this year. On the balance sheet front, there has been minimal change in our capital structure and credit profile since our last conversation in late March. We possess sufficient liquidity and financial flexibility to effectively manage our business going forward. We entered the second quarter with a better cash position than we anticipated earlier this year. Our acquisition pipeline remains active with ongoing discussions, as we carefully balance immediate priorities for our business and our workforce. We find ourselves in a favorable position, being well-capitalized and well-regarded in the equipment dealer market, and we will remain opportunistic in pursuing opportunities to expand our business and geographic presence. Looking ahead, visibility remains limited, and conditions are continually changing across our markets. However, we have confidence in the strength of our business model and believe that the immediate actions we've taken will place us in a good position to navigate the challenges ahead and emerge stronger as the economy starts to reopen. We have a robust operating foundation, exclusive agreements with top-tier, industry-leading OEMs, and a diverse array of customers that cater to growth markets. Our distinctive business model, which focuses on populating our territories with new, used, and rental equipment and then leveraging the installed base to grow high-margin parts and service revenue, prepares us well for generating consistent cash flows over the long term as business conditions improve. In closing, I want to express my gratitude to our employees for their commitment and resilience, to our OEM partners for their support, and to our customers and shareholders for their trust during these truly unprecedented times.

Tony Colucci, CFO

Thank you, Ryan. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us today and for your ongoing interest in Alta. I want to begin by expressing my gratitude to all of Alta's employees and their families; their efforts, understanding, and professionalism have inspired me and the senior leadership team as we navigate the COVID-19 crisis together. I also want to thank Alta's senior leadership team for their guidance and support. You have made tough decisions under tight timelines while balancing the needs of all stakeholders, and you have done so with care, expertise, and sound judgment. Thank you. Today, I will cover four areas: a brief overview of financial performance in Q1 2020 compared to Q1 2019, focusing on organic figures; a pro forma review of our trailing 12-month financial metrics, considering that the leaseback is complete and Flagler and Liftech are now part of Alta; our capital structure, including leverage and liquidity levels as of March 31; and lastly, the impact of COVID-19 on Alta from a financial perspective, along with insights into our financial strategy, which I refer to as the MMR or Measure, Mitigate and Recover. This approach reflects our financial management philosophy over the past two months. Starting with financial performance in Q1, I will specifically highlight organic metrics. Overall, we had a strong quarter. Revenue grew to $118 million for the quarter, representing a 15% organic increase, with two-thirds of that growth coming from the CE segment. Product support increased by 11% on an organic basis across the enterprise. Gross profit rose to nearly $30 million for the quarter, up 8% on an organic basis. However, despite the revenue growth, organic EBITDA increased slightly by over $1 million, mainly due to margin pressures in our legacy CE business, higher SG&A costs associated with being public, and the impact of COVID-19 on our rental business in the last two weeks of March. Examining each segment, our Industrial segment saw an 11.6% organic growth, driven primarily by rental department sales. This segment derived 38% of its revenue from product support, which is a high-margin area. In Q1, the Industrial segment maintained stable margins across its departments, benefiting from a large and mature field population compared to our construction business. For the Construction segment in Q1, we observed a growth of 18.6% in organic revenue overall, with nearly 30% growth in product support. Unlike the Industrial segment, where product support contributed 38% to total revenue, it accounted for 27% of total revenue in Construction for Q1, indicating this segment is still young compared to Industrial. Importantly, in Q1 2019, the product support mix of revenue for Construction was 24%, showing its path toward maturity. Overall, management is pleased with our Q1 performance, especially considering the organic growth figures and challenges that arose toward the quarter’s end. Next, I'd like to turn our attention to some pro forma numbers, which incorporate the acquisitions of NITCO, Flagler, and Liftech. These acquisitions influence our trailing 12-month performance metrics as if Alta had owned these companies throughout the noted time. Specifically, our pro forma revenue for Q1 2020 stands at $208 million, with adjusted EBITDA of $18.8 million. It's essential to recognize that the seasonality of our business typically results in about 20% of our fiscal year EBITDA being generated in Q1. Applying this consideration to the $18.8 million of pro forma EBITDA puts us close to $94 million in EBITDA, assuming no growth from our target acquisitions, aligning with our expectations during the recent capital raise process. On an enterprise-wide basis, our segment revenue has shifted, now more heavily skewed towards our Construction segment. Currently, on a pro forma basis, 52% of our revenue comes from Construction and 48% from Industrial, compared to 44% Construction and 46% Industrial before our IPO and the Liftech and Flagler acquisitions. Since the Construction segment carries a slightly lower gross margin than Industrial, this revenue mix shift will affect our consolidated margin percentage trends moving forward. Nevertheless, the increased volume will positively contribute to the overall gross profit generated. Now, let's discuss our capital structure. Our capital structure and liquidity remain strong as we navigate these challenging business conditions. As Ryan mentioned, we have greater liquidity than initially expected early in Q1, thanks to a more significant than anticipated amount of stockholders rolling into Alta's equity. As of March 31, the company held $150 million in cash liquidity, resulting from a $247 million collateralized borrowing base linked to our ABL revolver and a $97 million net draw from that revolver. Regarding leverage, we completed the quarter with a leverage ratio of 3.1x net debt-to-trailing 12-month EBITDA and a senior leverage ratio of 1.4x, providing us with ample covenant space. I should point out that all our debt maturities are long-dated due to the recent capital raise, with no significant maturities scheduled for the next five years. I would like to touch briefly on capital allocation. Management has paused the stock buyback program initiated in late February until further notice, having repurchased just under $3 million of ALTG before halting the program. Moving on to our rental fleet, it's important to note that the impact of COVID-19 on utilization varied by segment and geography. For instance, our Florida construction rental fleet performed better than our Michigan counterpart in terms of utilization. Our goal remains to achieve benchmark utilization levels across our fleet, and we are closely monitoring these levels. Although our utilization was affected in April, we anticipate improvements in May as restrictions ease. Currently, we do not plan to drastically reduce the fleet but will remain cautious and attentive to utilization statistics to align the fleet size with business conditions. Additionally, our fleet is relatively young, with an average age of about 40 months, allowing us to age our fleet without needing immediate capital investments. Finally, I want to highlight the impact of COVID-19 on Alta’s revenue and earnings. There are slides in our presentation released prior to this call that detail COVID-19's impact more comprehensively, and I encourage everyone to review them, particularly the COVID-19 slide. Our geographic and market diversity have positively influenced our business throughout the pandemic, making Alta better prepared to handle such challenges than ever before. As I mentioned, our approach is encapsulated in the MMR framework: Measure, Mitigate, and Recover. The first area, Measure, centers on tracking the demand for labor hours from our skilled technicians, which we view as a real-time indicator of business activity across various segments. In mid-March, following the automotive shutdown in Southeast Michigan, we experienced an immediate reduction in demand for labor hours by 25% to 30%. Notably, we believe we have established a stability point for this metric as mid-April approached, and we have seen improvements since then as May progresses. Moving to Mitigation, as Ryan noted, management has implemented strategies to counteract what we perceive as a short-term demand decline for our skilled labor in certain rental fleet segments. A key advantage of the dealership model is that over two-thirds of Alta's typical cash costs are variable, providing inherent relief in times of reduced demand. Additionally, the management team's expertise has facilitated rapid responses to demand fluctuations, such as temporarily reducing labor supply, which, despite being a tough decision, has enabled us to maintain benchmark labor utilization levels. What does this scenario translate to in terms of impact? To illustrate, with a trailing 12-month EBITDA of $93 million, Alta generally averages about $70 million in revenue and $7.8 million in EBITDA monthly. Our internal models indicate that, in a worst-case scenario where we do not mitigate, EBITDA could fall from $7.8 million to $2.4 million, lowering our EBITDA margin to 4.1%. Conversely, in a best-case scenario with a fully variable cost structure, we'd expect EBITDA to drop to $6.6 million. Given what we know at this point, we believe our mitigation efforts can help us recover around half of the gap between our best and worst-case scenarios, equating to approximately $4.5 million in EBITDA in the worst-case scenario. Lastly, in terms of Recovery, as I noted, we believe we identified the lowest point in mid-April. Since then, as industries and regions have begun to reopen, we've observed increases in our labor hour metrics and rental utilization. While it’s still early, we have seen approximately a 20% to 25% increase in these crucial metrics since mid-April, and we have started to recall our skilled labor workforce. One final point, we took significant care to make our cost measures—particularly workforce reductions—feel as temporary as possible, ensuring health benefits remained in place for furloughed employees with the intent of conveying that we are not saying goodbye to our valued colleagues, but rather, 'See you soon.' From what we can observe, barring unforeseen setbacks, that 'soon' looks to be just around the corner. Thank you all for your attention.

Alexander Rygiel, Analyst

Ryan and Tony, congratulations on a strong quarter.

Ryan Greenawalt, CEO

Thanks, Alex. Good evening.

Alexander Rygiel, Analyst

Could you do me a favor and dig a little bit deeper into the very strong organic growth in the quarter? Anything unique about the customers or the geography or the service line that experienced such strong organic growth?

Ryan Greenawalt, CEO

Sure, Alex. The organic growth aligns closely with our business model, specifically as we expand in the previously underdeveloped area of Illinois for Volvo. We are enhancing our presence in the field and increasing the number of mechanics, which in turn boosts our parts and service offerings. The main factor driving this growth is in the Construction sector on the Illinois side of our segment.

Alexander Rygiel, Analyst

Very helpful. And then relative to the 2 acquisitions, Flagler and Liftech, how have they performed relative to your expectations since you've owned it? And how are they faring during COVID?

Ryan Greenawalt, CEO

I'll take this one. This is Ryan. The businesses are very different, operating in distinct markets with varying responses to COVID. Liftech, located in upstate New York, excluding the metropolitan area, needs to focus on rebuilding its sales effort, as its market share is not meeting expectations and falls behind the national average for its brands. This business will receive significant attention to enhance the field population and sales initiative. In contrast, Florida Flagler, which we communicated during our roadshow, operates in a territory with strong market share for the Volvo brand. Our initial focus in Florida was to enhance their product support business. Remarkably, in the first quarter, despite the COVID challenges at the end of the quarter, we managed to increase the number of service technicians by over 20% immediately after taking over. Our goal was to start strong and add skilled labor, which we successfully accomplished even under tougher conditions. The construction segment is mainly outdoor, and most markets in this area performed better than our industrial and material handling products, which have been more affected by the stay-at-home orders in various regions. Florida stands out as our brightest spot. Not only have we made progress in product support and technician recruitment, but we've also had productive discussions with our OEM partners and achieved early successes in expanding our product portfolio by bringing some of our established relationships from the North to Florida, allowing us to offer more products in that market.

Alexander Rygiel, Analyst

And as it relates to the 20% increase in the skilled labor in Florida, what's your target goal there? And what kind of timeline should we think about for you to achieve that target?

Ryan Greenawalt, CEO

Yes, our near-term target for headcount is to more than double our current numbers. We have been adding over a dozen mechanics in the last two months, and we aim to maintain that pace, driven by demand. What's notable in Florida is that, even though the market is weak or declining, there is a demand for service from the existing field population. There's pent-up demand because they have been more successful in selling Volvos and other machinery than in providing product support and addressing customer needs. This is where we have seen some initial success. Our culture and vision at Alta is to prioritize service, and we are committed to raising the standards for what Florida customers can expect. There are exciting developments happening, and this will lead to further growth.

Alexander Rygiel, Analyst

That's great. And then on cash flow, how has your cash position and cash flow changed subsequent to the end of the quarter during COVID? And how should we think about cash flow in an unmitigated versus best-case mitigation effort?

Anthony Colucci, CFO

Alex, I'll take that one. In terms of our cash liquidity position, like I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we're actually in a better spot than we expected to be coming out of the de-SPAC. We've been able to maintain collections throughout this epidemic with very few issues kind of on the collection side. So cash flow in that regard has been fine. In terms of the cash flows, I would refer you to our economic EBIT metric, which is holding right around 50% of EBITDA from a conversion perspective. Now at the levels that I mentioned, in terms of the severe downside case, we would not be replenishing fleets. We would age it out. In the event that we would start defleeting to right-size our fleet, we think we could stay cash flow positive in that extreme downside case. We want to use our fleet kind of as a lever for cash flow. Now as you're defleeting, you're also giving up borrowing base. There's a give and a take to that, but that's how we see it.

Michael Shlisky, Analyst

I wanted to briefly address one housekeeping item. While there isn't a direct table in the press release, if you look at the end of it where the EBITDA table is, and review the adjustments listed there—excluding depreciation and amortization—considering the various one-time items like transaction costs, equity-linked incentives, and debt extinguishment, I estimate that we need to add back around $15 million to reach a more normalized net income for the quarter. So, your reported loss of $17 million might actually be closer to a loss of $2 million or even slightly less. Am I correct in this assessment?

Anthony Colucci, CFO

Mike, you are absolutely correct. We have about $15 million in add-backs related to the de-SPAC process. If we include that, as you mentioned, there is a net income loss of $2 million. It's important to remember that Q1 is typically our weakest quarter in that regard, due to seasonality, and we are still expanding in the Construction segment. The Industrial segment, as you will see in the Q, remains profitable throughout the first quarter.

Michael Shlisky, Analyst

Got it. And I don't think you gave us direct guidance here, but you did mention that the first quarter is 20% of EBITDA for the year, and I guess in a more normal year. Can you give us any kind of direction as to how different this year is going to look like from a normal year? I know you've only just bought them as companies a few months ago, but just a general feel for kind of how rough the Q2 numbers might look very broadly speaking, if you wouldn't mind?

Anthony Colucci, CFO

Yes, Mike, I can address that. The comments in the slides were intentional regarding the impact we observed in April. As we've indicated, we believe we've reached a bottom in April. In the best-case downside scenario, we think we will land somewhere in the middle due to our mitigation efforts. We're optimistic about a strong recovery in automotive, though the process has been somewhat inconsistent. Last week, the lifting of restrictions on commercial construction in Michigan helped us significantly, leading to a noticeable increase in our rental fleet utilization. While we might not return to full capacity in the second quarter, if things continue to open up, I anticipate that we will perform within the range I mentioned earlier, moving towards a more normalized situation on a monthly basis.

Michael Shlisky, Analyst

When you say normalized, you mean the best case column or even better than that, a more normal average month for you?

Anthony Colucci, CFO

Probably more of the latter because we would expect the revenue to return. Correct.

Michael Shlisky, Analyst

Got it. Perfect. Guys, do you have any thoughts on the M&A deals in the pipeline? You've mentioned discussions with a few counterparties. Have those discussions been paused since the COVID crisis began, or are you still engaging with new partners?

Ryan Greenawalt, CEO

No, this is Ryan. We are still engaged in active discussions. During our last call, we talked about possibly reshuffling some priorities due to market uncertainty. Some opportunities are emerging from this volatility, but the projects we are working on are still progressing and are too preliminary to share at this moment.

Michael Shlisky, Analyst

Okay. On the skilled labor question, it sounds like you've got some areas where you're hiring, of course, in Florida, and other areas you had to have furloughs or some reductions. I guess maybe given the broader employment picture across the country, and I would imagine across your footprint, are you seeing more interest from promising graduates or folks who have had other careers looking to switch into a more stable? Or how do you scale good payroll like your company? Or is that still too early to tell on that?

Ryan Greenawalt, CEO

Mike, I think it’s too early to tell on that. It’s one of the themes that we’ve always talked about: we want to be a preferred employer in our industry. There aren’t enough skilled people entering the trades, and we are very intentional about developing pipelines to bring in talent. Currently, our focus has been on retention, managing through this volatility, and maintaining our team while keeping the talent we’ve invested in. Right now, we don’t have an issue with needing talent. There’s an overcapacity of labor for what the market requires. However, we believe that will change. We’re continuing to invest in our development areas and recruiting efforts. While we don’t need additional capacity in regions heavily affected, like Michigan or upstate New York, there is still a demand in Florida and the construction sector, and we will keep our attention on that.

Anthony Colucci, CFO

This is Tony. I just want to thank everybody for joining. I think the overriding theme for us is we're thankful that we were named an essential business. We like to think that we're part of the solution in a lot of ways. There have been pockets of our business that have ramped up, and we've supported medical supply end markets, food and beverage, and, of course, infrastructure in terms of just being able to have people move around that needed to. We're thankful that given our position relative to other industries and other verticals of the impacts here because we know it could be worse. We're also kind of bullish on maybe some of the macro themes that could play out from a robotics perspective or a potential infrastructure play here when this is all said and done. So anyway, thank you, everybody, for joining, and we appreciate your interest in Alta.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.