Earnings Call Transcript - CTAS Q1 2025

Operator, Operator

Thank you, Ross. Thank you for joining us. With me today are Todd Schneider, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Mike Hansen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We'll discuss our fiscal '25 first quarter results. After our commentary, we will open the call to questions from analysts. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor from civil litigation for forward-looking statements. This conference call contains forward-looking statements that reflect the company's current views as to future events and financial performance. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those we may discuss. I refer you to the discussion on these points contained in our most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I will now turn the call over to Todd.

Todd Schneider, CEO

Thank you, Jared. We are pleased with our start to fiscal year 2025. Our first quarter results reflect the strength and breadth of Cintas's value proposition for businesses of all types and stellar execution by our employee partners. First quarter total revenue grew 6.8% to $2.5 billion, an all-time high for revenue in a quarter. First quarter revenue growth was negatively impacted by one less workday in the first quarter of fiscal 2025 compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2024. On a same-day work basis, first quarter revenue growth was 8.4%. The organic growth rate, which adjusts for the impacts of acquisitions, foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, and the one less workday in the quarter, was 8.0%. Each of Cintas's business divisions contributed to our success in the quarter. As Mike will detail, our rental division was right where we like them to be, and our first aid and safety and fire protection businesses each generated double-digit year-over-year growth, demonstrating the complementary nature of our platform and our long runway for future growth. The value of the products and services Cintas delivers continues to resonate with customers of all sizes and across industries. We remain focused on the tremendous opportunity we have to serve 16 million businesses across North America. In the first quarter, we continue to experience strong demand for our services not only from existing customers but across our new business pipeline. Businesses across our four focused verticals of healthcare, hospitality, education, and state and local government continue to perform well. Our top line results flow through to our bottom line. Gross margin for the first quarter increased 9.7% over the prior year to a record 50.1%. Operating income of 22.4% as a percent of revenue was also an all-time record, an increase of 12.1% over the prior year. Diluted EPS, which reflects the recent 4-for-1 stock split, grew a robust 18.3% to $1.10. Our earnings growth continues to reflect our relentless focus on operational excellence in every aspect of our business, including strategic sourcing, the supply chain initiatives that drive down our material cost, route and energy optimization with SmartTruck, and leveraging our SAP system to maximize the efficiency of our facilities. Cash flow was very strong in the first quarter with free cash flow increasing 62.4% over the prior year. Our cash generation enabled us to deploy capital across each of our capital allocation priorities. We continue to focus our strategic investments in our customers and our employee partners. This strategy is reflected in our capital allocation priorities that continue to position us to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. In the first quarter, we continued to invest in our businesses through capital expenditure of $92.9 million and made acquisitions in each of our three route-based segments. Our technology investments are a significant area of re-investment. We are making great strides to implement better technology-driven solutions to standardize our processes across our operations. These investments have enabled us to provide more flexibility to our customers, including increased garment sharing and achieving more nimble and efficient product sourcing. Coupled with our ongoing partnerships with Verizon, Google, and SAP, we're able to make our employee partners' jobs easier and get the right products to our customers faster. We are seeing these efforts continue to improve customer experience and possibly impact our margin profile. In addition to making the investments in our business to fuel future growth, returning capital to Cintas shareholders through our dividend and share repurchase remains a key priority. Cintas increases quarterly dividend by 15.6% per share, which resulted in an aggregate quarterly cash dividend payment of $157.9 million on September 3. This marked the 41st consecutive year that we increased our dividend, meaning we have maintained this practice every year since going public. We also purchased $473.6 million worth of common stock during the quarter. Before turning the call over to Mike to provide details of our first quarter results, I'll provide our updated financial expectations for fiscal year, which reflect the momentum we carried through the first quarter and the exceptional dedication of our employee partners in helping our customers meet image, safety, cleanliness, and compliance needs. We are increasing our financial guidance range for fiscal 2025. We are raising our annual revenue expectations from a range of $10.16 billion to $10.31 billion to a range of $10.22 billion to $10.32 billion, a total growth rate of 6.5% to 7.5%. We expect our organic growth rate to be in the range of 7.0% to 8.1%. We are also raising our annual diluted EPS expectations from a range of $4.06 to $4.19 to a range of $4.17 to $4.25, a growth rate of 10.0% to 12.1%. The future of Cintas remains bright, and I look forward to the year ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mike to discuss the details of our first quarter results.

Mike Hansen, CFO

Thanks, Todd, and good morning. Our fiscal 2025 first quarter revenue was $2.5 billion, compared to $2.34 billion last year. The organic revenue growth rate adjusted for acquisitions, foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, and a difference in the number of workdays was 8%. Total growth was negatively impacted by 160 basis points due to one fewer workday in the first quarter compared to the prior year period. As a reminder, we have two fewer workdays in fiscal 2025 compared to fiscal 2024. One impacted our first quarter and the second will impact our fourth quarter. Each of our fiscal 2025 quarters has 65 workdays. Organic growth by business was 7% for uniform rental and facility services, 14% for first aid and safety services, 13.8% for fire protection services, and uniform direct sales were down 1.8%. Gross margin for the first quarter of fiscal '25 was $1.25 billion, compared to $1.14 billion last year, an increase of 9.7%. As Todd mentioned, gross margin as a percent of revenue reached a milestone 50.1% for the first quarter of fiscal '25, compared to 48.7% last year, an increase of 140 basis points. Robust volume growth continues to generate strong operating leverage. Our gross margins also increased as a result of our world-class supply chain, investments we have made in technology, and continued operational efficiencies. Gross margin percentage by business was 49.3% for uniform rental and facility services, 57.7% for first aid and safety services, 50.2% for fire protection services, and 40.6% for uniform direct sale. Gross margin for the uniform rental and facility services segment increased 120 basis points from last year. We continue to generate leverage as a result of our strong revenue growth. Great performance from our supply chain is lowering our product costs. We continue to realize benefits from our technology investments and we are extracting inefficiencies from the business through our Six Sigma and engineering teams. Gross margin for the first aid and safety services segment increased 180 basis points from last year. As with our rental business, strong revenue growth continues to create leverage. Our sales mix continues to be favorable with more profitable first aid products and increases in our recurring revenue products like AEDs, eyewash stations, and water breaks. Our technology investment in SmartTruck continues to provide route optimization and improved efficiencies, and we continue to see sourcing benefits from our first aid dedicated distribution center that we opened several years ago that has allowed us to lower product costs. All of these contribute to improved margins. Selling administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue were 27.6%, which was a 20 basis point increase from last year. We continue to make strategic investments in technology and in our partners. First quarter operating income was $561 million, compared to $500.6 million last year. Operating income as a percentage of revenue was 22.4% in the first quarter of fiscal '25 compared to 21.4% in last year's first quarter, an increase of 100 basis points. Our effective tax rate for the first quarter was 15.8%, compared to 19.2% last year. The tax rate in both quarters were impacted by certain discrete items, primarily the tax accounting impact for stock-based compensation. Net income for the first quarter was $452 million, compared to $385.1 million last year. This year's first quarter diluted EPS of $1.10, compared to $0.93 last year, an increase of 18.3%. As Todd mentioned earlier, we generated strong cash flow. Our first quarter free cash flow increased 62.4%, this has allowed us to invest back in the business, which has resulted in first quarter capital expenditures of $92.9 million. Our investments include technology to grow the top line and expand margins, automation to improve efficiencies in our plants, and additional processing capacity where needed. We expect capital expenditures to finish between 3.5% and 4% of revenue for the year. Todd provided our annual financial guidance. Related to the guidance, please note the following: fiscal '25 net interest expense is expected to be approximately $101 million, compared to $95 million in fiscal '24, predominantly as a result of higher variable rate debt used to complete a portion of the previously mentioned share buybacks. Our fiscal '25 effective tax rate is expected to be 20.4%, the same as fiscal '24. And guidance does not include any future share buybacks or significant economic disruptions or downturns. With that, I'll turn it back to Todd for some closing remarks.

Todd Schneider, CEO

Thank you, Mike. Before we conclude, I'd like to take a moment to thank our employee partners for their continued efforts on behalf of Cintas and our customers in the first quarter. As I've said before, our culture is our greatest competitive advantage. Our partners fuel our success, and we believe deeply in the importance of each employee partner having ownership in the company to share collectively in that success. As Cintas shares reached record highs in the spring, our board of directors approved a 4-for-1 split of our common stock, which went into effect before the market opened on September 12. We're proud to enhance the accessibility of Cintas's shares for all of our investors especially for our employee partners, so they can continue to share in the future growth of Cintas. As we look ahead to the rest of fiscal '25, our outlook reflects our continued confidence in our strategy and value proposition of helping our customers achieve their image, safety, cleanliness, and compliance needs. We remain focused on delivering outstanding customer experiences and making the necessary investments in the business to sustain our growth for the remainder of fiscal '25 and beyond. I'll now turn the call back over to Jared.

Operator, Operator

That concludes our prepared remarks. We are now happy to answer questions from the analysts. Please ask just one question and a single follow-up if needed. Thank you.

George Tong, Analyst

Hi, thanks. Good morning. Can you talk a little bit about the overall selling environment and whether you're seeing any changes in customer purchasing behaviors in response to the overall macro environment and evolving macro uncertainty?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Good morning, George. Thanks for the question. We have not seen much change in customer behavior. It's just 60 days ago that we reported our full fiscal year '24 earnings. But we haven't seen much change. We still see nice demand from our customers. We're helping them with their image, their safety, their cleanliness, and their compliance needs. And that frees them up to focus on what's most important for them, taking care of their guests, their people, their patients, whatever their constituents are. So not much change, I would say, in the sales cycle or in the demand of the customer.

George Tong, Analyst

Got it. That's helpful. And you continue to highlight healthcare, hospitality, education, and government as key focus verticals for the company. Can you talk a little bit more about traction you're seeing in those verticals and how growth and performance there compare versus the broader company?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Yes, we believe we've made good choices in selecting those verticals and have invested in them. We approach them with a focus on caring for our customers as a whole, rather than just as a sales opportunity. This mindset is rooted in our culture of positive discontent at Cintas, which emphasizes continuous improvement and innovation. We understand that insights come from interacting with our customers and employee partners, so we engage directly with them to identify areas where we can assist. For instance, in the healthcare sector, we have effectively addressed challenges through discussions with our customers. One example is our garment dispensing technology, which helps manage inventory of scrubs. Customers faced issues with accountability, leading to hoarding and reduced accessibility, forcing them to resort to lower-quality products. Our solution effectively tackles these problems and is now in use across various clinical settings including labor and delivery, emergency rooms, operating rooms, and more. Additionally, in response to our customers’ concerns, we identified privacy curtains as a significant compliance challenge. These curtains are present in various healthcare areas and require frequent cleaning. We listened and examined the issue, resulting in the development of innovative products and technology to track compliance. This not only enhances safety and compliance but also improves efficiency for environmental services tasked with cleaning. Overall, our approach leads to a safer, cleaner, and more compliant environment. This illustrates how we actively listen to our customers, uncover their needs, and provide effective solutions.

George Tong, Analyst

Very helpful, thank you.

Luke McFadden, Analyst

Hi, this is Luke McFadden on for Tim Mulrooney. Thanks for taking our questions today. I might have missed it in your prepared remarks, but could you provide the breakdown in new sales between market share wins and conversion of no programmers for the quarter?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Yes, good morning. We did not cite it specifically, but no change to that trend. On average, we're historically about two out of three of our new customers come from what we call the no program market. The no program market would mean that they're not with a traditional competitor. Now that doesn't mean that they're not using products and services, meaning we might go in and they need help with, they might own a mat, they might have soaps, they might buy uniforms, but they're not with a traditional competitor. So they may be spending money on these products, but we redirect them to ourselves to help them do it better, faster, smarter, cheaper in many cases.

Luke McFadden, Analyst

Understood, really helpful. And then kind of just sticking on that topic with my follow-up, it sounds like that no programmer penetration continues to be an area of strength in the business. I was hoping you could offer maybe some insights into the typical profile of these recent no programmer conversions? Are the majority of these recent wins of a particular business size or concentrated in any specific market? Or is it relatively broad-based?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Well that's the beauty of our business. We service a little over 1 million customers and there's 16 million businesses in North America, U.S. and Canada. And so the wins come from all industries, all shapes and sizes of businesses. And that's why we're so bullish on the future, because we see that opportunity, that white space out there, as a significant opportunity to help customers, and we're still in, obviously, the very much early innings there.

Luke McFadden, Analyst

Understood. Thanks so much.

Andrew Steinerman, Analyst

Hi, this is Andrew. Could you talk about merchandise amortization in the quarter? Year-over-year, how much is merchandise amortization a headwind or tailwind? And what have you assumed for the fiscal year in terms of trends in merchandise amortization?

Mike Hansen, CFO

Good morning Andrew. The material cost has been a strong point for us, particularly in the rental business. Material costs have been improving, and we've been diligent in managing those costs. This includes optimizing our global supply chain and finding more efficient ways to source products. The team has done an excellent job in this area, even with the significant growth in business volume. Additionally, we have been focusing on our stock rooms and the sharing of garments. The more we share our garments, the higher the pull percentage we achieve from the stock rooms, which means we are putting fewer garments into service. This combination has provided a nice boost, which is reflected in our gross margin. We anticipate that this trend will continue throughout the fiscal year.

Jasper Bibb, Analyst

Hey, good morning guys. I wanted to ask about SmartTruck and the Google partnership. I think you announced that a little over a year ago now. There's a cloud migration a few quarters ago. I'm just kind of hoping you can update us on how that's progressed and where you might be seeing some associated margin or efficiency benefits at this stage?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Yes, thank you for the question. SmartTruck is proprietary technology that we have developed, and it has proven very beneficial for our business. More importantly, it has allowed us to better serve our customers, giving us the opportunity to spend less time driving and more time addressing their needs. This lets us see and understand their operations, enabling us to solve various issues they may face, such as in healthcare with garment dispensing, scrubs, and privacy curtains. Our time spent with customers is incredibly valuable. Additionally, we do not generate revenue while our trucks are moving; our revenue is generated only when they are stopped. Our partnership with Google has been very beneficial, and equally important is Google’s relationship with SAP. This synergy provides us with greater insight into our operations, allowing us to optimize our infrastructure and ensure our employees are positioned effectively to meet customer needs. We believe these relationships will prove advantageous moving forward, and we truly appreciate them.

Jasper Bibb, Analyst

Thanks, and then maybe following up on that last point, sounds like pretty good growth in fire in the quarter. Any color on or underlying operating margin for that business was in the first quarter? And it would also be great to hear how some of the initiatives you're doing there like the SAP implementation and some of the G&A investments you've called out in the past are where those stand today?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Yes, good question. So we love the fire business. It is growing really nicely. The organic opportunity is amazing. The M&A opportunity is really attractive for us. And yes, we're investing in that business, we’re investing in our SAP system, and we're excited about that. Excited about having all of our route-based systems on one system. We think that'll really give us some insights into our customers that we don't have today. But the opportunity out there for fire is incredible just because it's every business, the only business we're in, that every business legally has to have it, the services around it, whether it's sprinklers, alarms, in certain cases fire extinguishers, emergency lights. So we think the runway is really attractive in that business. We like the margin profile, we know how to run the business, we know the mix of business that's attractive. And as a result, not every M&A opportunity that comes down the pike is really attractive for us, but we know how to do it, and we will be aggressive as appropriate.

Mike Hansen, CFO

Maybe I'll offer two things with that as well. You heard me say in the prepared remarks, this was the second quarter in a row that gross margin in the fire business was 50%. And so that is a reflection of a lot of the things that Todd talked about in terms of really going well and running the business well. We are in the midst of that SAP implementation that we've talked about and I think back in July I mentioned that there would be a little bit of pressure on fire margins in fiscal '25, because of that implementation. And so you see a little bit of that coming through fire SG&A and if you look at the all other operating margin, we're down a bit from Q4 to Q1 and it's a bit of that reflection of the SAP implementation. As you've seen in our first aid and safety and rental businesses, that SAP implementation, it certainly takes some time, but there are some really nice benefits subsequent to getting that system in and running it and learning how to run it. But as we talked about, fiscal '25 may show a little bit of pressure in SG&A in the fire business. Certainly, that is all incorporated into the guide, the overall guide that we've given.

Jasper Bibb, Analyst

Great. Thanks for the detail there.

Manav Patnaik, Analyst

Hi, good morning. This is Ronan Kennedy on for Manav. Thank you for taking my question. The strong growth in margin expansion, you said it was sourcing, supply chain, tech, operating efficiencies, an element of favorable mix, I think 20 bps from energy. Can I please confirm whether there's any one-time factors in there or is it the more sustainable drivers? And do you see upside to the margin expansion opportunities?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Ronan, thanks for the question. No one-timers to call out. As far as where we can go with this, you know, we're focused on extracting out inefficiencies in our business and there's more to come. So we don't like to put a ceiling on our aspirations there, but you know, we see opportunity in our business to extract that inefficiencies and so we will continue to do that. I think from an operating margin standpoint we've talked about 25% to 35% incrementals and I think our guide reflects in that range.

Ronan Kennedy, Analyst

Got it, thank you. And then may I please, could I ask for your current competitive dynamics within the industry and whether recent activity within the industry changes the way we think about capital allocation?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Yes, please clarify. You're speaking of M&A, is that correct?

Ronan Kennedy, Analyst

Yes, please. And broader dynamics and potential implications of potential M&A and your thought process for the allocation.

Todd Schneider, CEO

M&A is a crucial part of our business, both historically and in the future. It has been beneficial for our business, our customers, and our shareholders. We are attentive to marketplace developments and are confident in our competitive position. We believe we are well-placed and will keep investing to ensure we remain competitive moving forward. That is our focus, and we will continue in that direction.

Josh Chan, Analyst

Hi, good morning, Todd, Mike and Jared. Thanks for taking my questions. On the rental business, could you confirm that you haven't seen much change in wearer levels? And kind of relatedly, if you were to see wearer levels start to moderate the economy. Could you talk about the Cintas playbook in that scenario and what you can do to sustain the attractive growth that you're used to seeing? Thank you.

Todd Schneider, CEO

Thank you for the question, Josh. I'll start, and Mike can jump in too. We definitely appreciate job growth. However, we haven't noticed significant changes in our wearer levels. That said, our business has proven capable of growing at rates exceeding both GDP and employment growth, so we are not dependent on that. Nonetheless, I do think job growth is beneficial for the economy, our customers, and our business. It's important to note that we can thrive in nearly every economic cycle we've encountered. Our focus is on continuing to invest for the future to ensure our employee partners can provide excellent service to our customers. We are committed to this investment to position ourselves for future success.

Josh Chan, Analyst

Great, thank you for that color. And on your guidance, was the growth in Q1 better than your internal expectation? I guess I'm asking in the context of you raising the full-year guidance expectancy at the low end. I just wanted the color on your thoughts around that? Thanks so much for your time.

Mike Hansen, CFO

Certainly. We experienced some strong growth in the first quarter, which aligns well with our expectations, landing at the high end of our guidance. Now that we have a quarter completed, we feel more confident in increasing the low end of our guidance. Our same-workday growth forecast for the year is between 7.3% and 8.4%. For the remainder of the year, from Q2 to Q4, we're projecting a similar range of 6.9% to 8.3% on a same-workday basis. The 8% growth in the first quarter meets our targets, and our guidance reflects our confidence in our operations, as we've not observed significant changes in the operating environment and the growth outlook remains positive.

Andy Wittmann, Analyst

Yes, great, thanks. And good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. You guys in the script, you talked about Six Sigma. You talked about your engineering teams, degree of automation. So I was just wondering if you could talk about the rollout of things like RFID inside your plants. I know that you've been kind of testing this for a while. And I think maybe that you're ramping this a little bit more. I thought maybe Todd, you could comment on that specifically, and kind of where you are? And if this is the direction we're heading? And how long does it take you to get to that promised land where this is the way that your business runs on a day-to-day basis? I guess maybe there would be a similar question related to the auto-sortation. I think in the past you guys have talked that you like auto sort of like half of your business roughly. I was just wondering if there's any new developments on that like cheaper technologies that make it so that you can deploy it more widely or I know that sometimes like space considerations in your plant have been a limiting factor. Any technologies that have been developed that allow you to broaden the rollout of your auto-sortation?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Certainly. Thank you, Andy. Let's revisit our culture, which embodies a spirit of positive discontent. We are always innovating; it’s part of our DNA and has been since I joined the company, and it will continue to be. We are continually looking for ways to make it easier for our employee partners to provide products and services to our customers, and for our customers to engage with us. Regarding RFID, we have utilized it for many years in certain areas and are committed to testing and innovating with it. We envision a future where it can be used more widely in our operations, particularly for inventory control, which is vital for us and our customers. We’re also working on auto-sortation in our rental facilities, identifying opportunities to improve. We have invested in proprietary technology that helps us leverage these innovations to eliminate inefficiencies in our business. While space can be a challenge with auto-sortation, we are actively seeking better solutions and are optimistic about future developments. These initiatives take time, and we are constantly refining our approach to ensure success, but we will remain focused on this direction.

Andy Wittmann, Analyst

Appreciate those perspectives. I thought maybe I'd ask you about some innovation maybe that's relevant to the top-line financials of your business. You've talked so much about healthcare government education. It's been a well-trodden thing for a while now. But I know you guys are always trying to open up new end markets. And I thought maybe you could talk about some of the developing end markets that maybe you're getting more excited about. Things around residential home services, is that an opportunity for you and can you just talk about if you can play there and the size of that market in comparison to some of these other growth markets that you've talked about in the past?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Thanks for the question, Andy. So that's the spirit of positive discontent flows through every area of our business and we're always looking for the next best vertical. Not prepared to speak about anything where we see an investment in a particular vertical. Home residential services is not high on our list. It's not been an area of focus. It's a very different business. Certainly, they have needs for our products and services, but that has not been an area of significant investment for us.

Shlomo Rosenbaum, Analyst

Hi, thank you. I want to get back to a question I think that George was touching on. I know there's broad-based growth, but were there particular types of clients or verticals that you might want to call out over here in terms of, you know, really standout growth during the quarter?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Shlomo, I would say that, you know, our business in totality is functioning at a very good level. So no particular vertical to call out besides, you know, the investments we've made in healthcare hospitality, education, and state and local governments. We've been investing there and will continue to. You know, if you look at how, you know, particularly the jobs reports there, they've been good in those areas. Not shocking that healthcare with the demographics of North America that there's continued investment there. But we still see really good runway in all those businesses and we expect them to grow better than we do on average. If they weren't then why would we have a focused vertical? So yes, so nothing specific to call out besides that what I just mentioned there.

Mike Hansen, CFO

Yes, the press release says you repurchased about 474 million in stock and I go to the cash flow statement, it looks like 615 million. Can you just talk about what the differences between what's on the cash flow statement and what's in the commentary?

Operator, Operator

Yes, the commentary reflects the board approved buyback authorization. The cash flow reflects that plus the impact of stock option exercises and restricted shares. So in other words, when we have employee partners that exercise a stock option. There are some shares that are effectively withheld or purchased for taxes for the exercise, the netting of shares, et cetera. For restricted shares that vest, same thing, we are withholding shares for taxes. That's the difference.

Ashish Sabadra, Analyst

Thanks for digging my question. I just wanted to follow-up on the margin front, really solid margin expansion in the quarter. The 38% incremental margins were above your, like, midterm guidance of 25% to 35%, and that's despite one fewer working day headwind. So as we go through the year, obviously you've made out multiple different margin expansion drivers, but how should we think about the incremental margins for the rest of the year? Thanks.

Mike Hansen, CFO

Hi, Ashish. We provided a target range of 25% to 35%, and that's still our goal. The business does not follow a strict linear pattern, so there will be times when we invest a bit more, resulting in lower margins, and other times when we may be at the higher end of that range. Looking at this year, we have 65 workdays left in each quarter, which adds some variability that won't always be present. I anticipate we will stay within that range, with some quarters being higher and some lower. That's how we will approach the future. Todd mentioned various initiatives and Six Sigma projects that can influence our position within that range, sometimes moving us in and out of it. Overall, we expect to remain within that target range, which is positive news as it indicates margin improvement for the year.

Ashish Sabadra, Analyst

That's great color. And maybe just a quick follow-up on M&A. Just wanted to follow-up on our earlier question on M&A. If you can talk about your M&A pipeline, and appetite for potentially a large M&A deal as well? Thanks.

Todd Schneider, CEO

Thank you for the question, Ashish. M&A has been a significant part of our strategy, and we have demonstrated its effectiveness for our business, customers, and shareholders. We are open to various types of deals across our platform. Regarding the public interest in Vestas from an international company, that particular acquisition could present challenges due to its historical underinvestment, making it difficult for us to achieve the value we typically expect from M&A. Overall, M&A remains important and appealing to us, but it's challenging to predict when sellers will be ready to engage in transactions, as it requires mutual interest. We are definitely focused on M&A as a key area of our business.

Faiza Alwy, Analyst

Yes, hi. Good morning, I wanted to talk about this first aid business, because we're seeing organic revenue growth acceleration in that business? And I'm curious if you can talk about your drivers there? And really what your expectation is for the long-term opportunity here? I don't know if you can talk about a potential scam or how we should think about the sustainability of, you know, teams type of business?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Faiza, thank you for your question. The first aid and safety business has been great. The buying motives resonate with our customer base. There's 16 million businesses in North America. Maybe not every single one of them is a great candidate, but a large portion are great candidates for our products and services that we provide. So, you know, to a certain degree the pandemic changed some things with regards to that business, meaning people, how they look at their health and wellness of their people and of their facilities. And we think that's been positive for our business. So providing, whether it's a first aid cabinet, AEDs for in the case of sudden cardiac arrest, our eyewash stations that are for health and wellness, and certainly our water break where it provides potable water for people that in various dimensions, that makes it accessible for them. So all those have been really attractive. So the mix of business is really good, but meaning back during the pandemic it was more probably PPE focused. So that mix of that business has changed, but the demand has been very attractive. So we've invested there, we've invested in technology, we've invested in salespeople, service partners to take great care of our customers. And I neglected to mention we have a really nice training in compliance business, which helps our customers stay in compliance with the various needs they have, whether it's forklift training, first aid, general first aid training, certainly CPR training, are all things that we think we can invest in more significantly and provide more value to the customers.

Faiza Alwy, Analyst

And are you finding that there's revenue synergies with the uniform business? I know that you're running the businesses separately in terms of, you know, certainly there's different trucks and things like that? But I'm curious, like, what percentage of sort of new customers that you have in this first safety business are existing, you know, uniform customers? Or is it a whole new type of customer that you're attracting?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Faiza, a good question. I don't have that number specific for you, but I'll say this. We do run separate trucks to those customers. And we found that having that focus organized around that business specific has been really beneficial for us. But we share data. We share data within our customers and opportunities. And as I mentioned, we have this infrastructure of employee partners that are in those customers. And when they're visiting with those customers, they have eyes, they have ears, they have minds, and they can help provide solutions to those customers. So it's easy enough to say, hey, I noticed you might have a need for this, or they may ask us. So there's a mix. Some of it where the very first time we do business with a customer is through first aid. Sometimes it's through fire, sometimes it's through rental. Just the sheer scale of rental certainly makes it for a nice cross-selling opportunity, because we've been in that business the longest. It's our heritage business and it's our largest business. But so we really don't care where we get started with the customer, we just want to do business with them, and then we'll leverage that infrastructure, that data, to try to cross-sell as best as possible to provide additional solutions for those customers.

Stephanie Moore, Analyst

Hi, good morning, Thank you. I wanted to touch on maybe the competitive environment within your vendor market. If you're seeing anything in terms of stepped up competitive activity in the form of maybe aggressively going after existing customers, maybe a little bit challenging from a pricing standpoint? Any color there on the competitive activity would be great. Thanks.

Todd Schneider, CEO

Good morning, Stephanie. We operate in a really competitive environment, and it's been competitive since I started with a company in 1989. And I'm sure it will be competitive for the future. So one of the differences that is how we approach the business. We look at the no program market as an incredible opportunity. We service a little over 1 million customers or 16 million businesses. The white space out there is amazing. And we see that opportunity where they can buy today and we can help them today. So growing that pie is significant. That being said, yes, it's really competitive, always has been. I wouldn't say there's a real change in competitive behavior. We're focused on trying to invest in our business to make sure we provide the best solutions for our customers and position our people best to compete in the marketplace. And it's certainly very important to us.

Mike Hansen, CFO

Keeping in mind that we compete every day against what we might call non-traditional competitors. So those who are providing direct sale uniforms, Amazon, Walmart, we're competing against all different kinds of competition. So industry consolidation is not necessarily a bad thing for us. It will continue to be competitive.

Todd Schneider, CEO

Yes, I completely agree, Mike. As I mentioned, we walk into a business. They may not be with a competitor, but in many cases, they've got the products and services or something very similar as what we can provide. They're getting it from those non-traditional sources. We think we can do it better, faster, smarter, cheaper in many cases for the prospect or the customer. And that's where we've been successful in growing our business.

Scott Schneeberger, Analyst

Thanks very much. I have two, I'll ask them both up front since we're getting late here. First one, uniform direct sales, the organic declines, they persisted for I think five quarters now. And I know this is a lumpy business and the years prior was very strong. But could you guys please elaborate on trend over the balance of the year? What we might see there to the extent you have visibility? And then the second question is free cash flow really strong in the first quarter. CapEx appears on pace. So it looks like the strength was something working capital driven. Could you discuss it? Was this a timing issue or should we anticipate a particularly strong cash flow in fiscal '25? Thanks.

Todd Schneider, CEO

Scott, thanks for the question. I'll talk a little bit about the direct sale business and Mike if you'd like to respond regarding the cash flow. Scott, you nailed it. It's a lumpy business. Rollouts of national accounts, those types of national customers are highly impactful. And you also nailed it that they had incredible growth going back a couple of years. So just really more timing, lumpiness, no real change in that business. We like where we're positioned and feel like we're in a good spot for the future.

Mike Hansen, CFO

Yes, regarding cash flow, you're right, Scott. Free cash flow was really strong. For us, some of that is timing. So for example, you see some real working capital change in accrued compensation related liabilities. That's a little bit more timing. From accounts payable, we got a nice benefit from accounts payable. We've been working hard in accounts payable to extend some terms, and that's paying off with a nice benefit in the cash flow. For the year, generally speaking though, we look at it to be in the typical range. So free cash flow conversion of net income in the 90% to 100% range, which is sort of typically where we have been. That's where we expect to be for the rest of the year or for the full-year in total.

Jason Haas, Analyst

Hey, good morning and thanks for taking my questions. I'm curious if you could remind us what level of price increases you're putting in this year? And then I'm curious what the reception has been like from your customers?

Todd Schneider, CEO

Jason, our price adjustments are a component of our growth, certainly not where we're focused in on how we grow our business, but it is a component. And our price adjustments are way lower than they were at the peak of inflation, and they're back much closer to historical today. And how they're received, you know, those are always challenging conversations. And we try to position our people on a daily basis to provide the best service so that they can go better, but it's always challenging. And it's been challenging my entire career on price adjustments. So we try to focus our time on how to best position our people, how to train them, and how to give them the best products and services so that they can provide the most value. Thank you, everybody. We appreciate your time today and look forward to speaking again in December.

Operator, Operator

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