Baldwin Insurance Group, Inc. Q1 FY2021 Earnings Call

Greetings. Welcome to BRP Group Incorporated First Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. Operator instructions were provided. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Austin Rock, Director of Strategy and Partnership. Thank you. You may begin.

Welcome to BRP Group's First Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. First quarter 2021 financial results supplemental information and Form 10-Q were issued earlier this afternoon and are available on the company's website, at ir.baldwinriskpartners.com. Please note that remarks made today may include forward-looking statements, including certain expectations related to COVID-19 and other matters. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and a variety of factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by such statements. For a more detailed discussion of those factors, please refer to the company's earnings release for this quarter and to our most recent SEC filings including our most recent Form 10-K, all of which are available on the BRP website. During the call today, the company may also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of these measures to the most closely comparable GAAP measures, please refer to the company's earnings announcement and supplemental information, both of which have been posted on the company's website at ir.baldwinriskpartners.com and can be found in the company's SEC filings. I will now hand the call to Trevor Baldwin, Chief Executive Officer of BRP Group.

Thank you, Austin. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter of 2021 earnings call. We appreciate you taking the time to join us in your interest in BRP Group. We had another very strong quarter in Q1, generating more revenue in this single quarter than we reported for the entire full year of 2019. Continued momentum in the MGA of the Future led the way for this quarter's strong growth. We were also bolstered by strong early performance from the high-quality partner firms that joined us throughout 2020. In addition to accelerating trends during the quarter across all segments for core commissions and fees which excludes contingents and other income. For the quarter, we recorded total year-over-year revenue growth of 182% to $153 million and organic revenue growth of 14%. The MGA of the Future grew 56% during the quarter, and we remain incredibly excited about its trajectory, given the momentum that has thus far carried into the second quarter, and as we head into the summer months, historically, the MGA of the Future's seasonally strongest part of the year. We also successfully launched our new private flood insurance product in April. Across the balance of our business, momentum continues to build, particularly as we begin to lap COVID-impacted months of 2020 as highlighted by double-digit year-over-year organic core commission revenue growth, which excludes contingents and other income during March in each of our operating groups. As a result of this momentum, which we saw continue into April, we currently expect high teens organic growth to the overall business in the second quarter, above our target 10% to 15% range. On the partnership front, closed deal activity was relatively light during the quarter as we anticipated. Partnership activity has picked up meaningfully. And our pipeline continues to gain momentum, as we have multiple signed letters-of-intent for deals in a broad range of sizes. Currently, we expect most of the deals under LOI today to have effective closing dates in third quarter. We remain committed to carving out an exclusive niche as the partner of choice for the industry's premier independent firms, maintaining an incredibly tight filter for evaluating partnership opportunities. We are focused only on firms we believe to be of uniquely high quality with strong track records of organic growth, because ultimately, this year's partnerships accrue in next year's organic growth. That's how we think about assessing partnership opportunities philosophically, but it also describes how the organic growth calculation works. It's worth noting that several of our high-quality partnerships in 2020 will enter the organic growth calculation in the next several months and the inclusion of firms like Rosenthal and Trinity Benefit in our organic growth calculation gives us added confidence in our organic growth expectations. Finally, we remained steadfastly focused on continuing to thoughtfully invest for the future across our technology, infrastructure and talent base to build on our recent success. In closing, we're proud of the performance we've been able to generate thus far in 2021, and the significant momentum we were carrying into the second quarter, all of which is made possible by our exceptional colleagues, who continue to work tirelessly to deliver for our clients and stakeholders. To all of our colleagues, a huge thank you. You are the reason our business continues to be in the strongest position it has been in the firm's history. With that, I will turn the call over to Brad to go into more detail on our Q1 results.

Thanks, Trevor, and good afternoon to everyone on the call. For the first quarter, we generated revenue growth of 182% to $152.8 million. The revenue growth was driven once again by our hybrid growth model, namely outsized organic growth, combined with contributions from new partnerships. We once again generated double-digit organic revenue growth on a year-over-year basis, recording 14% organic growth for the quarter, thanks primarily to particularly strong performance from our Specialty segment, driven by the MGA of the Future, as well as accelerating trends during the quarter in all our segments. This was despite some headwinds in organic contingent income revenue across our Middle Market and Main Street segments. Given that partnerships are an important portion of our ongoing growth strategy, in our regulatory filings, we also provide revenue metrics on an unaudited pro forma basis. This provides investors with a more apples-to-apples comparison as if 2021 partnerships had been acquired on January 1, 2021. For the first quarter of 2021, unaudited pro forma revenue was $153.3 million. Unaudited pro forma information should not be relied upon as being indicative of the historical results that would have been obtained if the partnerships had occurred on that date, nor the results that may be obtained in the future. GAAP net income for the first quarter was $30.6 million or $0.32 per fully diluted share. Adjusted net income for the first quarter of 2021, which excludes share-based compensation, amortization, and other one-time expenses, was $42.5 million, or $0.44 per fully diluted share. A table reconciling GAAP net income to adjusted net income can be found in our earnings release and our 10-Q filed with the SEC. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of 2021 rose 276% over the prior year period to $52.7 million. As a reminder in Q1 2020, we had $54.2 million in revenue. Thus, we almost generated as much adjusted EBITDA this Q1 as we did revenue last Q1. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 35% for the first quarter of 2021, compared to 26% in the prior year period. As a reminder, our adjusted EBITDA margins are seasonal in nature, with Q1 being the strongest quarter. We typically record lower margins throughout the balance of the year. For the second quarter, we would anticipate an adjusted EBITDA margin approximately 150 to 200 basis points lower than the 16% we experienced in the same quarter of 2020, which is entirely timing related as a result of seasonality of the business changing given our M&A success. For the full year, we now expect 150 to 200 basis point margin increase in adjusted EBITDA margin relative to last year's 18%. Our MGA of the Future platform continues to outperform growing 56% during the quarter compared to the prior year period. The results were driven by continued growth in renters, and supplemented by the master tenant liability product we launched in the fourth quarter of 2020. As a reminder, our master tenant liability product allows property managers to identify tenants without renters insurance, and obtain insurance for their units. It's a particularly exciting product for us, given our multifamily expertise and existing client bases across both the MGA and our Middle Market business. Also related to the MGA of the Future, we successfully launched our new private flood product in April and continue to work on the launch of our Florida homeowners product later this year. We don't anticipate private flood to begin meaningfully contributing to growth in the MGA until 2022. But as we've previously stated, we believe our ability to launch additional products in the MGA continues to be a key component to our long-term success. And we will remain focused on doing so. Within renters, policies in force increased by over 41,000 from December 31, 2020 to 566,000 as of March 31, as compared to an increase of 27,000 over the same period last year. As of May 8, policies in force has increased further to approximately 582,000. Since our last earnings call on March 11, we also turned on an additional 250,000 units bringing the total unit count in which our renter solution is available to roughly 8.5 million, providing a nice runway for continued future growth. Finally, we took advantage of our larger size and fantastic performance during a tough COVID economy, coupled with our revolving lenders' willingness and increased our leverage covenants to 6 times versus 5 times. Today, this gives us additional margin of safety. We thought accepting an offer to relax covenants was in our shareholders' best interest. With that, I will now turn the call over to Kris.

Thanks, Brad, and good afternoon, everyone on the call. A few closing remarks before we hit Q&A. In summary, we are excited about the trends we're seeing in the business. Q2 has started off with the potential to be one of our best, if not the best quarters ever, as a public company from an organic growth standpoint and in terms of meaningful progress in our partnership pipeline. We believe we are uniquely well positioned for comprehensive macroeconomic factors that should further support our relative performance, including a favorable insurance rate environment, the continued reopening in the broader economy, and the opportunity to be a beneficiary of anticipated tax legislation, both in that we are not a significant corporate taxpayer over the near-term, and in potential partners wanting to sell in front of potential capital gains tax increases. With that, I thank you for your time. We'll now open up the call for Q&A. Operator?

At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. Operator instructions were provided. Our first question is from Elyse Greenspan of Wells Fargo. Please state your question.

Hi, thanks. Good evening. My first question, I'll start with the margin side. The margin came in a good amount above expectations this quarter at 35%. I think you had guided it to around 30%. If you can just kind of spend a bit more time explaining what led to the upside this quarter? And if the first quarter was better, is there the potential for the outer quarters of the year to potentially come in better than plan as well?

Hey, Elyse. Good evening. I'll have Brad answer that.

Yeah, I would say M&A continues to impact the seasonality of our business. As we said on the call, we expect 150 to 200 basis points of margin expansion over our 2020 actual adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year 2021. So I would not expect to see that continuing margin expansion through the balance of the year. Yes, that's it.

Okay, that's helpful. Then in terms of organic, you called out some contingent headwinds. Yet it sounds like away from that the business is trending well as you've seen organic to start the quarter. Is there any way you can give us a sense of the headwinds that you saw in the first quarter? And are those headwinds persisting and embedded within your second quarter guide?

Hey, Elyse. We feel like those headwinds are fully behind us. As a reminder, a lot of the loss ratio dependent contingencies hit in the first quarter. What I would say is we're seeing accelerating trends across our business in March and April, which are the first two months that are lapping COVID periods in the prior year. Specifically, we're seeing double-digit organic growth of core commission revenue across all four of our operating groups in the month of March, giving us a lot of confidence around the performance of the business and why we feel good setting an expectation of high teens organic growth for the second quarter, which is the highest expectation we've set as a public company.

And so, within that high teens outlook for the second quarter, the organic—what is that assuming? Is it assuming you're maintaining the similar level of growth for the MGA of the Future? Or is there a conservative assumption for that business embedded within that?

I'd say there is a degree of conservatism across how we look at setting expectations across our business. And we continue to feel really good about the MGA of the Future delivering on our 40% organic growth target for the year. And that's how we think about setting expectations.

Okay, thanks for the color.

Our next question is from Meyer Shields of KBW. Please state your question.

Great, thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Can we talk to the pieces that come into play for flood and Florida homeowners to become a more meaningful growth driver? You mentioned that's expected in 2022. I understand that, but what has to happen internally and externally for growth to really accelerate?

Yeah, on the flood side, we successfully launched the product in April. We're fine-tuning that product set and continuing to expand the distribution across our internal distribution force. As we sit here today, we remain very excited about the impact that will have on our business in 2022 and beyond. I think the external market dynamics are such that this solution is going to gain a lot of traction. On the homeowners side, I think we're in a similar scenario. The primary success factor is getting the product launch. We re-filed the homeowners product in April and are confident we'll be in a position to get that formally launched in the back half of the year, positioning us well to provide a unique solution in the Florida marketplace, which is experiencing significant challenges. So the summary is we have the distribution, we feel the product is built very well to fit the needs and be well received in the target clientele that we have, and the external market dynamics are going to create an environment where the ability to sell that product is going to be significant.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thanks. Again, switching topics, I know last quarter there was some discussion about employment numbers at your insured clients. Should we get into it in terms of how that trended over the course of the first quarter? And maybe what you're seeing so far in the second?

Yeah, so I think how that bleeds in is two of the three months in the first quarter were lapping non-COVID periods for January and February. If I look at the combined impact of rate and exposure on our organic revenue results for the quarter, it was plus 1.4%, with rate pulling that meaningfully up and exposure being meaningfully negative. That played out in January and February as we lapped those non-COVID periods. As we lapped our first COVID period in March, we saw the organic underlying exposure trends and organic growth profile across our business accelerate meaningfully and we've seen that continue into April. All of that points towards our growing confidence around the outsized performance that we'll continue to see from the business over the balance of the year.

Okay, perfect. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Meyer.

Our next question is from Josh Shanker of Bank of America. Please state your question.

Yeah. Good evening, everybody. How are you doing?

Doing well. How about yourself?

Good, good. So I'm wondering if you can give us some granularity on organic growth. Talk about benefits organic growth versus property and casualty, the organic growth from acquisitions, and how those acquired businesses have been growing versus legacy businesses. Can you break it up into different sections and talk about growth in different areas?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not going to dive into specifics between benefits and property and casualty, but the trends are accelerating across all of our segments as we begin lapping the COVID period. As I mentioned earlier, the impact of rate and exposure on the business for the quarter was plus 1.4%, with rate pulling that meaningfully up and exposure pulling it meaningfully down. As we look at the core commission organic growth performance across the business, and stepping aside from Medicare, it was high single-digits to double-digits across Main Street, Middle Market, and Specialty and accelerating in March and into April. Feeling really good about the overall trends in that business. Specific to employee benefits, January tends to be the heaviest renewal period for that part of our business. That was lapping a non-COVID period, and so you could expect a meaningful amount of the exposure pull down would have been seen in that January period, but overcome via the overall underlying growth in the business and clients. Specific to the 2020 partnerships, we continue to be very pleased with the overall performance of those businesses, performing at or above on a macro level our budgeted expectations, which are double-digits in nature. Brad, can you provide a little more granularity around the overall revenue trends and seasonality we're seeing in those 2020 partnerships?

Yeah, thanks, Trevor. If you look at our actuals for Q1 and compare that to the pro forma Q1 that we've presented in our earnings supplement, the combination of purchase accounting and phasing of revenue under ASC 606 resulted in a timing difference of about $11 million, which we expect to show up in Q3 and Q4. But as Trevor mentioned, our new partnerships have performed in line with our expectations and our budget, which is reflective of double-digit organic growth.

And Josh, as a reminder, the partnerships will hit actual organic growth in the organic calculation after the 12-month anniversary, but they are doing very well initially.

Thank you for the details. Can you talk about client engagement now that we're in May and the economy is opening? How is the day-to-day changing at Baldwin? Are clients more engaged and more willing to meet? How are things evolving right now?

We're certainly seeing the world reopen. Clients are more willing to get together in person, although those trends differ regionally across the country. The starkest change is the psychology of our clients. There is growing momentum around the overall economic tailwinds provided by reopening, and many of our clients are very bullish on the trends in their businesses for the balance of the year. This is noteworthy because BRP in insurance and financial services broadly is leveraged to the reopening economy. As our clients begin to rerate up their underlying exposure units that are used to price and ultimately set insurance costs, that flows through positively for our overall business. We feel we are incredibly well positioned and leveraged to these growing tailwinds and we are sensing that positivity in the psychology of our clients broadly speaking.

If I can get one more in, can you talk about the potential for that to play into the Medicare business? Is there a benefit to the reopening economy in those lines? I feel like those are non-cyclical, but maybe I'm thinking about it incorrectly?

That's accurate. The Medicare business historically has not been meaningfully correlated with the economy. What I would tell you is the way we go to market in Medicare was negatively impacted by the pandemic environment, where our client constituency was not in a position to meet in person. We saw fewer plan moves and changes during annual enrollment periods as people were less able to meet. As the world began reopening in the first quarter, the amount of activity we're seeing across our agent base in the Medicare business has grown dramatically year-over-year. We believe we're well positioned to be a net winner of these reopening trends and the ability for people to get back out and reevaluate Medicare options in the coming selling seasons.

All right. Well, thank you for all the answers and good luck with reopening.

Thanks, Josh.

Our next question is from Pablo Singzon of JPMorgan. Please state your question.

Hi, I just wanted to follow up on your comments about organic growth, specifically on the commercial side. You mentioned you expect double-digit growth for all segments in the second quarter. If you posted 16% organic in Middle Market last year, you're saying you can grow double-digits off that level? That's the first question.

Yes, we do.

Okay. Second question: this quarter the weakest segments were Medicare and Main Street. You touched on Medicare. On Main Street, was it mostly just the contingents or were you affected mainly by limited face-to-face selling and people not being able to show up?

It's purely a contingent story. The majority of our business is done over the phone or electronically in Main Street, and that's showing through in the underlying core commission organic trends we saw for the quarter end and into April.

Okay. And then the last one for me, could you just comment broadly on the deal environment? Multiples are higher now. Do you still see value in the vicinity of what you're willing to pay and the general competitive environment for deals overall?

The M&A environment is highly competitive; pricing continues to be at relative highs similar to the fourth quarter. Activity has picked up meaningfully and our pipeline is robust. We have partnership opportunities under LOI across a range of sizes. Where we see value is in opportunities that are growth-focused. Many buyers in our space value near-term margin rather than growth. We feel there's significant opportunity for us to continue to find meaningful arbitrage via our focus on growth and pricing that creates long-term shareholder value.

Thanks for your answers.

Our next question is from Dan Shannon of Jefferies. Please state your question.

Hi, thanks. Good evening. A follow-up on the M&A backdrop: last quarter you talked about commentary around $120 million to $150 million in deployments this year. Are most of the deals either LOI or in the pipeline today more third- or fourth-quarter weighted? Is that the right way to think about an air pocket in the first half of the year?

Yeah, that's exactly the way to think about it. The first quarter was relatively light and we expect the second quarter from a closings perspective to be relatively light. But our pipeline is robust, activity has picked up meaningfully, and we're in dialogue with a slate of very high-quality organizations that would be a good fit with BRP and bring significant value and growth opportunities.

Great. And then just to clarify, I heard correctly on the margin outlook for Q2—it's going to be lower than the last year's same quarter. Can you clarify why that would be?

Yeah, we continue to see seasonality shift in our business as a result of M&A. As we communicated on the year-end call, we've continued to make meaningful investments in the business. That's the reason for the shift.

To clarify, our outlook for the full year margin remains and has tightened on the bottom end up 50 basis points to 150 to 200 basis points of margin accretion over last year's results.

Understood. Okay, thank you.

Our next question is from Greg Peters of Raymond James. Please state your question.

Hi, good afternoon. First question, we're hearing about pockets of labor shortages and inflationary pressures. How might these items affect your customers and your business over the next several quarters?

So, we are hearing from our clients about challenges finding talent and supply chain challenges, which create near-term inflationary pressure around wages and products. Specific to our business, we've positioned ourselves as a destination for the industry's top talent, and that is paying off. As of April 23, we've hired 180 new people organically into the business this year compared to 54 for the same period last year. While finding top-tier talent is always a challenge, our reputation as a premier destination in the industry, the way we behave, and staying true to our core values during the pandemic have positioned us well to attract incredible talent and increase the intellectual capital and capabilities across our platform.

Right. Second question: I observed pressure on your free cash flow in Q1 relative to a year ago. I assume timing differences, but can you give some color around what happened with free cash flow in Q1 and what we should think about free cash flow for the full year, whether in conversion ratio or versus last year?

We look at cash flow from operations net of AR and AP because we hold fiduciary cash on our balance sheet. Timing of receipt or payment of that fiduciary cash can have a large impact on our operating cash flows, which you saw this quarter. When removing that AR/AP cash flow impact, our free cash flow for the quarter was $44 million, which is an 80% free cash flow conversion from adjusted EBITDA. We have communicated in the past that we would expect approximately 70% conversion for the full year. That's how you can be thinking about it.

Right. Thanks for the answers.

Thanks, Greg.

Our next question is from Elyse Greenspan of Wells Fargo. Please state your question.

Hey, Elyse.

Hi, thanks for taking the follow-up. I wanted to come back on the covenant change. You changed your covenant twice and you can take your leverage up to 6 times versus the normal 5 times. It sounds like activity could be more elevated later this year. Is that just to give you flexibility depending upon how deals materialize later in 2021?

Hey, Elyse. We're a significantly larger business now with continued outperformance. We believed it prudent to accept a relaxed covenant offered by our banking group. This gives us more flexibility to take leverage above 4.5 times for a short period to get a large deal done. However, we still plan to operate the business at 3.5 to 4 times.

Yeah, Elyse, I would just add that we're really excited about Q2, both on the organic side and on what's coming down the partnership pipeline. Added flexibility in situations like that is always key.

And the $125 to $150 million of M&A for the year is still the guidance, it just might be more weighted to Q3 and Q4—is that correct?

Yes, we remain confident in the M&A outlook and would expect it to be heavily skewed to Q3 and Q4.

You said the pipeline is robust and you have LOIs across a range of sizes. Can you give any sense of the size—smaller, larger deals—embedded within the pipeline today?

We don't want to give too much detail, but we've done some large deals last year and the pipeline and deals under LOI reflect some of the same types of opportunities.

And in your conversations with potential sellers, given the economy is improving and vaccines are being rolled out, have discussions around deal structure changed—more paid up front versus earn-outs? Have you seen a switch in payment terms?

Compared to a year ago, valuations have ticked up. Compared to Q3 and Q4, it's relatively the same. A year ago there was peak uncertainty about COVID and its impact on the industry. Relative to the tenor of today's conversations, it's consistent with Q3 and Q4. There's growing confidence from potential sellers around their ability to achieve results at the upper end of earn-outs given the broader economic and rate environment.

Okay, that's helpful. Thanks for the color.

Thanks, Elyse.

We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Trevor Baldwin for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us for our Q1 2021 earnings call. As you heard this evening, we remain incredibly excited about the position of our business for the balance of the year. We believe we're well positioned and leveraged to reopening and to the growing economic tailwinds that we're seeing across our client base. We look forward to talking with you soon. Take care.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great evening.