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First Advantage Corp Q3 FY2021 Earnings Call

First Advantage Corp (FA)

Earnings Call FY2021 Q3 Call date: 2021-11-08 Concluded

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Operator

Good day and thank you for joining us. Welcome to the First Advantage Third Quarter 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants are currently in a listen-only mode. After the presentations from our speakers, we will have a question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call over to Ms. Stephanie Gorman, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Gorman, you may begin.

Stephanie Gorman Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to First Advantage's Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. In the Investors section of our website, you will find the earnings press release and slide presentation to accompany today's discussion. This webcast is being recorded and will be available for replay on our Investor Relations website. Before we begin our prepared remarks, I need to remind everyone that our discussion today will include forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors. These factors are discussed in more detail in our filings with the SEC, including our initial public offering prospectus dated June 22, 2021, and our second quarter 2021 Form 10-Q. Such factors may be updated from time to time in our periodic filings with the SEC, and we do not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements. Throughout this conference call, we will also present and discuss non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures to the extent available without unreasonable efforts appear in today's earnings press release and presentation, which are available on our Investor Relations website at investors.fadv.com. I'm joined on our call today by Scott Staples, First Advantage's CEO; and David Gamsey, our CFO. We will take your questions after our prepared remarks. I will now hand the call over to Scott.

Thank you, Stephanie, and good morning to everyone. Welcome to First Advantage's Third Quarter Conference Call. For those unfamiliar with our company, we've included an overview on Slide 4. We are a leading global provider of technology solutions for screening, verifications, safety, and compliance related to human capital. Our technology and delivery capabilities distinguish us in a fragmented market, enabling growth with both existing and new customers. This has been achieved through our combined global technology platform, our expanding in-house proprietary databases, which now encompass over 600 million records spanning criminal, education, and work history; our API integrations with more than 600 third-party data providers; our focused approach on specific industry verticals; and our global reach. We serve a significant total addressable market of $13 billion, offering ample opportunity to further differentiate and capture additional market share. Our customer base includes 55 of the Fortune 100 companies, enjoying long-standing relationships averaging 12 years with our top 100 clients, alongside a high gross retention rate of 95%. In the year 2020 alone, we conducted over 75 million screenings, highlighting our scale and the importance of our solutions in enhancing companies' risk management and compliance practices. For the 12-month period ending September 30, 2021, we reported a 37% revenue increase, reaching $656 million, of which approximately 85% came from North America and 15% from international markets. During the same timeframe, our adjusted EBITDA grew by 50% year-over-year to $202 million, achieving an adjusted EBITDA margin of 31%. Now, onto Slide 5. Our outstanding performance in the third quarter included a 41% year-over-year revenue increase and a 48% rise in adjusted EBITDA, driven by widespread hiring and screening growth globally as the economy continued to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic. These results showcase strong demand from existing customers, new customer acquisitions, and growth in our international business. Delving deeper into our performance, we observed the following: First, demand for our solutions is on the rise, supported by positive macroeconomic trends such as hiring growth, increased turnover, heightened worker mobility, and new job creation. Second, we saw robust demand from existing customers, reflected in base growth and continued upselling and cross-selling due to broad-based hiring and screening across key sectors and regions. Third, we are pleased to report steady new customer growth, propelled by our tailored go-to-market strategies, unique technology solutions, and global capabilities, adding new customers across all key verticals in the third quarter. Fourth, our international revenues continue to recover positively on an organic basis, along with the strong performance of the U.K. screening business acquired in March. Fifth, we remain dedicated to expanding margins through investments in robotic process automation, proprietary databases, product innovation, and operational efficiencies. Finally, we recently announced the signing of definitive purchase agreements for two acquisitions aligned with our M&A strategy: Corporate Screening and MultiLatin. I will delve into these acquisitions shortly. Moving to Slide 6, our verticalized go-to-market strategy distinguishes First Advantage in the marketplace and is crucial for our growth strategy, facilitating customer expansion, upselling, and cross-selling. Four years ago, we launched a transformative go-to-market strategy that focused on specific industry sectors, aligning our sales and product teams accordingly. This approach allows us to become subject matter experts in these sectors, enabling us to use industry-specific data to guide our customers on best practices, hiring data, benchmarking, and product optimization. This verticalization also informs our product development roadmap, allowing us to create tailored solutions for specific customer needs. We're excited about the success this strategy has brought to our business over the past four years. Now, let's turn to Slide 7 for a closer look at the two definitive purchase agreements announced today, both projected to close by the end of the fourth quarter. Corporate Screening and MultiLatin are well aligned with our capital allocation priorities, providing us with enhanced vertical expertise and product innovation, with MultiLatin supporting our international expansion. Corporate Screening will enhance our healthcare and higher education solutions in North America with their comprehensive screening services tailored for these sectors. It brings valuable expertise, a notable customer base, and a seasoned management team, while boosting our footprint in this strategic area. Meanwhile, MultiLatin, based in Mexico City, extends our presence across Latin America and will complement our ongoing international growth initiatives, including the U.K. screening business acquired earlier this year, by adding market-specific operations, compliance, and sales teams. Both acquisitions will be financed through cash reserves, generating around $15 million in annual revenues, with MultiLatin contributing low single-digit millions and the rest coming from Corporate Screening. Each of these companies is expected to positively impact our finances, with their management teams joining First Advantage upon closing. We're thrilled to welcome Corporate Screening and MultiLatin to the First Advantage family. Beyond our M&A strategy, we’re committed to organic growth through investments in technology, personnel, and new product offerings to support our scaling efforts. Recently, we've added two senior leadership roles to enhance our focus on delivering a top-notch customer experience globally. Our new Chief Operations Officer International, with over 20 years of experience, will be based in Hong Kong, overseeing our operations and customer care in international markets. Our new Senior Vice President of Customer Care Americas, boasting over 25 years of expertise in customer experience technology, will be based in the U.S., leading the customer experience strategy for the Americas. We believe that both will lead our teams in delivering innovative solutions that help our customers hire smarter and onboard faster. On Slide 8, I want to discuss robotic process automation and our proprietary databases. RPA and artificial intelligence are integral to our product strategy. We have been pioneers in leveraging these technologies for enhanced efficiency and cost-effectiveness, leading to better customer experiences and faster turnaround times, positively influencing our profitability. Currently, we operate over 2,750 bots. Our product strategy also emphasizes developing proprietary databases, providing us a competitive edge in delivering faster screenings and cost savings for our customers while improving our margins. These databases utilize AI and machine learning, enhancing data value and usability, subsequently improving insights and delivering business value. I am pleased to report that since the start of the year, our repository of education and work history records has almost tripled, and our criminal record database has grown nearly 50% to over 550 million records. Growth in both RPA and proprietary databases enables us to offer faster, more accurate, and efficient services to our customers while improving operational efficiencies and supporting robust growth and expansion of our margins. Now on to Slide 9. We continue to prioritize investments in new product innovation, technology, automation, and the cloud to maintain and enhance our industry leadership and increase customer penetration. Our product strategy aligns with our cloud strategy, emphasizing innovation and applicant experience. By leveraging the cloud, we have created adaptable architectures through APIs and microservices, which helps us achieve excellent speed and turnaround times. Our entire applicant experience is cloud-enabled with an API-first design, allowing us to incorporate new state-of-the-art technologies to expedite our customers' applicant onboarding processes. Let me highlight three recent product innovations we've developed and begun rolling out. Firstly, our identification product, RightID, was designed to help customers mitigate ID fraud risks. Initially intended for the residential market, it’s now being utilized in various other verticals. RightID integrates fully with our mobile workflow, providing a seamless applicant experience, leveraging AI and facial recognition to analyze the likeness of a selfie and the data on the government-issued ID. If there's a discrepancy or if the ID is suspected to be counterfeit, the system flags it. This process takes under two minutes and is mobile-friendly, enhancing ID fraud prevention. RightID is cloud-native with a flexible API architecture utilizing AI technologies, making it one of the most comprehensive ID fraud mitigation tools on the market. Secondly, we launched Instant Verification, a groundbreaking product meeting our customers' needs for quick turnaround times and high accuracy. Our API-first design enables almost instantaneous automated verification of current employment. With Instant Verification, customers can confirm employment details in mere seconds, resulting in faster turnaround times and enhanced confidence in the information provided by applicants. This product was launched in September, and I’m proud of our team’s effort in establishing First Advantage’s leadership in employment verifications. Lastly, there's XtdForce, created to help manage risks associated with customers' extended workforce. We leverage an industry-leading API-first design facilitating the screening of large volumes of contingent, contract, and temporary workers. This solution streamlines the onboarding process, offering rapid screening results and generating digital badges confirming that background checks for contractors and contingent workers are clear. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, recognizing its user-friendly approach, and we are excited to see significant growth with this product this year. Now, I will hand the call over to our CFO, David Gamsey, to provide more details on our quarterly results and discuss our guidance for the full year 2021.

Thank you, Scott. Good morning. Turning to Slide 11. We reported revenues of $192.9 million for the quarter, a 41% increase over the prior year period, of which 34.5% represents organic growth. It is worth noting that the third quarter of 2020 was also a strong quarter, up over 10% compared to the third quarter of 2019 despite the broader impacts of the COVID pandemic. Results have continued to benefit from hiring trends that picked up in late 2020, and that growth has continued through Q3 2021 and into Q4 to date. Early reads on October show solid revenues, continuing the strong performance and trends we have seen this year. Revenue increases from our existing customers made up $39.9 million of our growth, driven by robust base growth and continued up-sell and cross-sell momentum, which was strong and broad-based across key verticals and geographies. Revenues from new customers contributed $7.4 million driven by our verticalized go-to-market strategy and differentiated global technology solutions. Revenues from our U.K. screening business acquisition contributed $8.8 million to the quarterly growth. Also included in our revenues was a minimal foreign currency benefit of $400,000 in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $63.9 million, a 48% year-over-year increase, reflecting higher revenues as well as margin expansion due in part to increased investments in robotic process automation and proprietary databases, cost discipline, and operating leverage. This resulted in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 33.2%, a 160 basis point increase versus the prior year quarter. We had adjusted net income of $42.2 million or $0.28 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2021 compared to $22.3 million or $0.17 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2020. This growth was positively impacted by all of the factors just mentioned along with the additional favorable impact of lower outstanding debt and lower interest rates, which together lowered our interest expense to $4.7 million in the third quarter of 2021. Our adjusted effective tax rates were 24.2% and 25.7% in Q3 2021 and Q3 2020, respectively. The lower rate in Q3 2021 was driven primarily by favorable R&D tax credit estimates and adjustments and other discrete items. Next, we want to give you a sense of our consistent track record of growth over time and some of the seasonality in our business. On Slide 12, you will see our quarterly revenues going back to 2019. In 2020, we demonstrated the resiliency of our business model by growing revenues, adjusted EBITDA, and margins despite the economic and hiring challenges created by the pandemic. Both in past years and in 2021 to date, we maintained and grew our business due to deep customer relationships, our focus on enterprise customers, and the success of our verticalized sales force. Our seasonal trend typically shows higher revenues from September through November as many companies ramp up their hiring ahead of the holiday season. We expect this trend to continue with a slightly different quarterly distribution. This year, we anticipate the sequential third to fourth quarter trend will be impacted by the acceleration of seasonal hiring, which ramped up earlier this year during the third quarter. We continue to expect strong year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter. However, the growth rate will also be tempered partially as a result of an exceptionally strong fourth quarter of 2020. We are still anticipating double-digit full year year-over-year growth rates in the range of 34% to 35%. Moving to Slide 13. You will see our excellent track record of expanding adjusted EBITDA margins. Our margins have benefited from expanded utilization of our proprietary databases and increased automation with third-party data providers. Additionally, as Scott mentioned, robotic process automation and other technology innovations have driven operational efficiencies, increased accuracy, and enhanced customer turnaround times. We also continue to leverage our G&A infrastructure. We have an intense focus on operational excellence, and we tightly control operational costs and associated headcounts to achieve cost efficiencies while maintaining a variable cost structure to accommodate demand fluctuations. We employ a disciplined balance between cost efficiencies and strategic investments as we continue to leverage G&A costs while investing in technology and sales. Turning now to cash flows, balance sheet and capital allocation on Slide 14. In the third quarter of 2021, operating cash flows increased 95% versus the prior year quarter to $27.8 million, which includes the impact of IPO and public company-related costs. During the third quarter, we spent $6.4 million on purchases of property and equipment and capitalized software development costs. We ended the third quarter with total debt of $564.7 million and cash of $275.5 million. With LTM adjusted EBITDA of $201.5 million, we lowered our net leverage ratio to 1.4x. We also have $100 million in borrowing capacity under our revolving credit facility with no outstanding balances under this facility. Now let me remind you of our capital allocation priorities. First, we continue to evaluate additional acquisition opportunities that are expected to be accretive and aligned with our strategic priorities, including adding vertical expertise, expanding internationally or into adjacent solutions or adding complementary data or technologies. Our recently announced acquisitions of Corporate Screening and MultiLatin, which Scott spoke about earlier, are both excellent examples of acquisitions aligned with key pillars of our M&A strategy. Both of these will be funded from cash on the balance sheet. In addition, we pursue opportunities to increase organic growth through investments in new product development, technology, and automation as well as our sales, solution engineering, and customer success functions. And finally, we continue to focus on maintaining a strong balance sheet, conservative capital structure, and a flexible leverage profile. Next on Slide 15 is our updated guidance for full year 2021. Based on our strong third quarter results, October revenue performance, and the anticipation of ongoing positive trends for the remainder of the fourth quarter, we are increasing our full year 2021 guidance for revenues, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted net income. We now expect to generate 2021 revenues in the range of $680 million to $686 million, resulting in 34% to 35% revenue growth for full year 2021 compared to 2020. This revised range reflects continuing favorable macroeconomic tailwinds, broad-based hiring and screening demand across our existing and new customers, high customer retention, continuing new customer up-sell and cross-sell wins, and contribution from our U.K. screening business acquisition. Additionally, we anticipate our 2021 adjusted EBITDA will be in the range of $208 million to $211 million driven by continued strong flow through from incremental revenues, increased automation, additional efficiencies, and operating leverage, offset by new public company costs and additional investments in product, technology, and sales. We expect our 2021 adjusted net income to be between $125 million and $128 million due to all of the factors I just mentioned, in addition to the positive impact of lower outstanding debt and lower interest rates. We also anticipate capital expenditures will remain unchanged since our previous guidance in the range of $25 million to $26 million, which includes purchases of property and equipment and capitalized software development costs. We believe that our adjusted effective tax rate for full year 2021 will be in the range of 25.5% to 26.5%, a slight improvement from our previous expectations. This adjusted effective tax rate is the ongoing rate that would apply to our adjusted pretax income based on geographic mix and expected discrete items. We had U.S. federal net operating loss carryforwards of approximately $168 million as of September 30, 2021. And we expect our cash tax payments to be approximately $9.5 million for the full year 2021. Please note that our guidance does not include results from Corporate Screening and MultiLatin businesses for which the signing of definitive purchase agreements was announced this morning. We expect to close both of these acquisitions during the fourth quarter of this year. Now on Slide 16, we show our company's long-term organic annual growth targets. We believe we can achieve organic revenue growth rates of 8% to 10% in the long-term based on our proven growth formula of base growth, up-sell, cross-sell and new customer wins as well as our performance track record and our identified market opportunity. Additionally, we target long-term adjusted EBITDA growth of 11% to 14% based on the incremental revenues generated, continued automation, and further operating efficiencies. We have a long-term target of 14% to 18% growth for adjusted net income based on all the factors I just described plus leveraging non-operating expenses. Based on discussions with their clients around their 2022 outlooks, we expect 2022 to be another year with successful top line growth. While we are still in the midst of our planning discussions, we believe that our 2022 top line revenue growth will be generally in line with our long-term target before the impact of acquisitions. We intend to continue to achieve operating leverage in order to drive bottom line results consistent with our long-term goals. We have a great historical track record of accomplishing this. We plan to provide full 2022 guidance when we report on Q4 and full year 2021 results.

Thank you, Dave. Moving to Slide 18. For the key reasons we've summarized on this slide, we are very excited about the bright future that we see for First Advantage. We are a global leader in a large, fragmented, and growing market with growth that continues to be fueled by macroeconomic tailwinds that are driving a robust hiring environment. Our differentiated and embedded technology platform provides mission-critical solutions to diversified industries and highly loyal customers, thanks to our verticalized go-to-market strategy. We continue to expand our proprietary databases, extending our competitive advantage through product differentiation, faster turnaround times, and cost efficiencies. For investors, our bright future is reinforced by our performance. Over time, we've demonstrated our resilient financial model, consistent track record, and ability to grow revenues, margins, and cash flow. At this time, we will ask the operator to open the line for your questions.

Operator

Our first question comes from Hamzah Mazari of Jefferies. Your line is open.

Speaker 4

This is actually Ryan Gunning filling in for Hamzah. My first question, I guess, is in terms of vertical exposure, which end markets are seeing greater growth relative to others? And are there any verticals you think you're underpenetrated in where there's more white space opportunity?

Sure. What I would tell you is we've seen growth across all verticals. We don't break that out and disclose that separately. The acquisitions that we just did with Corporate Screening will really help enhance our health care vertical, but we're seeing really broad-based growth from all segments.

Speaker 4

Got it. That's helpful. And then for my follow-up, I guess, could you just talk about whether any supply chain issues at your customers are impacting hiring plans at all, maybe in specific verticals or...

What we've seen is our clients are trying to hire anyone and everyone that they can, and they started earlier. And it's a constant effort to get talent and to get employees. We've also seen a lot of churn and turnover, which also adds to more screening as well.

Operator

Our next comes from Ashish Sabadra of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Congratulations on a strong quarter. Thank you for providing an early look at the projected revenue and growth for 2022. I would like to know what assumptions you are using for your guidance on the 2022 top line, particularly how much of that is attributed to a robust job market and the advantages you expect from increased cross-selling, up-selling, and greater package density. Any insights would be appreciated.

Again, we're in very early stages relative to 2022, and we'll be giving full guidance when we report on Q4. But based on discussions with our clients, we are optimistic that there will be another successful growth year for us.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's very helpful. And then maybe just a quick question on the proprietary database. We've seen a significant increase in records in 2021. You've talked about the verified and the national criminal file. My question was. Is there an opportunity to also move some of the third-party data sources in-house? And how should we think about the growth in the proprietary databases also going forward?

Yes. I mean, first of all, as we use more and more of our proprietary data, our third-party data costs are trending down, obviously. And obviously, it's more profitable for us to use our own data. But our data strategy really varies across geographies and across industries. And so it's really hard to sort of give a blanket statement as to what we would do regarding data, but we're always looking for ways to optimize our data. And so we'll continue to look at that strategy as we go forward.

Speaker 5

Thanks and congrats again on strong results.

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from David Togut of Evercore ISI. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Could you help dimension for us what the outlook for SG&A expenses might be over the next few quarters, especially as travel and entertainment expenses kind of come back into the cost structure as the sales force gets out and starts meeting more with clients in person?

So, we have clearly factored that into all of our forecasts going forward in addition to public company costs that we're going to have to grow over. So that will flatten G&A, the leverage that we get from it, which should start up again in the second half of 2022.

Speaker 6

Got it. Thanks for that. And then as a follow-up, could you talk about your international expansion plans, clearly, with the hiring of a new COO to run your international business? What are the major new geographies you're focused on internationally? And how much can you expand your TAM as you become a little bit more international-focused?

Yes, definitely. When we consider the total addressable market for this industry, we are quite interested in the opportunities for growth internationally. Our approach to entering international markets is similar to our domestic strategy, with a primary focus on organic growth. We are exploring potential acquisitions in the regions where we operate, but we'll take a selective approach to that. Our main priority will be on organic growth and the specific geographies we are currently engaged in. However, we clearly see promising expansion opportunities in certain areas. The acquisition we announced this morning in Latin America reflects that, as does the acquisition we made in March in the U.K.

Operator

And you have Shlomo Rosenbaum of Stifel. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. You had some notable margin expansion, and I wanted to focus a bit on how much of that is attributed to the increases in your proprietary databases. Is it a minor factor at this point, or is it primarily coming from the other items you mentioned? Also, considering the success you're having in building the database, does it make sense to accelerate that effort?

So clearly, we had large margin expansion in the quarter. Most of that was driven through the incremental revenue fall-through and the way that we were able to leverage those incremental revenues. We did get some additional benefit through automation, but not from our proprietary databases; we're really good at expanding margins through the incremental revenue fall-through.

Speaker 7

So that's the primary thing that we should think about; it's the revenue fall-through less taking out from the proprietary data and the databases. Okay. That's helpful. And then just one other thing that's interesting, there's actually a Wall Street Journal article. I believe it's out today in terms of there's such a tough time that clients are having now in terms of getting people into positions that a lot of them are positive momentum that it doesn't really make a difference? And maybe you can just kind of give us some color on that.

Yes. I really think there's two pieces to it. We also saw the article as well. One, we are not seeing our customers asking for that. In fact, we're probably seeing the opposite, where our customers are really asking for more risk mitigation, heavier focus on compliance, and safety. And that's really driven the concept of the package density, which we've mentioned before as companies doing actually more and more screens. So that's point number one. But I think point number two is really important because through the automation that we've been talking to you about and through the AI and the machine learning that we've rolled out, we are just becoming faster and faster. So we can actually return background screens very quickly with high levels of accuracy based off of the automation that we brought in. So companies really don't have to move to that model that you saw in The Wall Street Journal with First Advantage because we can provide fast checks to begin with.

Speaker 7

Great, thank you very much. That was a good quarter.

Operator

Next, we have Andrew Steinerman of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Scott, you've been really kind of enthusiastic about the prospect of post-hiring background monitoring. And I kind of always wonder why hasn't this market already kind of adopted and penetrated? And why do you feel like it will sometime on the, let's say, reasonable horizon?

Yes, you're right. I really think it's a great product with impressive technology. Previously, we discussed continuous monitoring, our post-hire monitoring product, which enables customers to continuously screen and oversee their employee base. This approach is preferable to a one-time snapshot that looks at historical data. Although it currently accounts for a small portion of our revenues, we believe this product holds significant potential for growth and opportunity for First Advantage in the future.

Speaker 8

Scott, what needs to happen for client adoption to increase? I'm uncertain about what changes will drive that.

Yes, it's a longer sales cycle, a longer sales process because, quite honestly, it involves change management on the client side. They have to think differently about how they do background checks and what they're going to do with this new data and this new information once they receive it.

Operator

Our next question comes from Gary Bisbee of Bank of America Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 9

So the first question, obviously, very strong labor markets at the moment. I wonder if you could help us just think through how much of this pretty tremendous revenue growth is coming from sort of base business growth as you described it prior to the IPO and also just benefits from tight labor markets? So harder to get employees, you're doing more screens per job you fill, that kind of stuff versus just the underlying factors you can control more like new business wins, like up-sell of additional solutions, et cetera. How much if you could divide those down roughly or give some color would be helpful?

I think the best way to think about that, Gary, is there are a number of levers, right, that we've always talked about, base growth, up-sell, cross-sell, new logo. All of that have been very positive contributors. International really came back strong this year, particularly in Q3. That's been very robust. We're seeing all of those markets with tremendous growth. And then relative to the base growth, it clearly has been higher this year than it has been historically. Maybe it's the new norm. We like it a lot. The clients are extremely active in trying to hire everyone that they possibly can. Because of the turnover, the mobility, the great resignation, if you will, we're seeing a lot of that churn result in more and more screens. And that's driving our base growth.

Speaker 9

Is there any way to think about the concept of tough comps next year if and when some of these factors normalize? I mean, I heard you on the early '22 commentary. So certainly, you sound like you expect to continue to deliver quite robust growth. But how do you think about that? And I guess is there anything you can do if and when it gets tougher from a macro perspective?

Well, if you look at our long-term targets, those basically have gone back to historical norms. Ultimately, in our model, we see that happening. We could be wrong in the fact that it could be a permanent change, which would just add to that growth. But we are forecasting that it will return to a more historical normal rate long term.

Operator

Thank you. And I see no further questions in the queue. I will turn it back over to Scott Staples for closing comments.

Thank you, operator, and thanks, everyone, for your questions. Obviously, we're very proud of our accomplishments and are excited about what's ahead. We believe First Advantage is very well positioned for future growth, and we will continue to focus on delivering value for our shareholders. Thank you for joining us, and have a great day.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect, and have a pleasant day.