Earnings Call Transcript
Huron Consulting Group Inc. (HURN)
Earnings Call Transcript - HURN Q3 2024
Operator, Operator
Good afternoon and welcome to Huron Consulting Group's Webcast to discuss Financial Results for the Third Quarter 2024. At this time, all conference call lines are on a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session for conference call participants and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Before we begin, I would like to point all of you to the disclosure at the end of the company's news release for information about any forward-looking statements that may be made or discussed on this call. The news release is posted on Huron's website. Please review that information, along with the filings with the SEC for a disclosure of factors that may impact subjects discussed in this afternoon's webcast. The company will be discussing one or more non-GAAP financial measures. Please look at the earnings release and on Huron's website for all of the disclosures required by the SEC, including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP numbers. And now I would like to turn the call over to Mark Hussey, Chief Executive Officer and President of Huron Consulting Group. Mr. Hussey, please go ahead.
Mark Hussey, CEO
Good afternoon and welcome to Huron Consulting Group's third quarter 2024 earnings call. With me today is John Kelly, our Chief Financial Officer. Revenue growth in the third quarter of 2024 was 3% over the prior year period, which reflected a difficult comparison against the exceptionally strong growth of 26% in Q3 of 2023 compared to Q3 of 2022. We also saw the shifting of some project work from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2024. Despite these timing factors, our Healthcare and Education segments continued their long track record of consistent growth since the beginning of 2021, reflecting the fundamental challenges that continue to drive demand for our services in each of these industries. Our Commercial segment also rebounded well, achieving 12% sequential growth in the third quarter over the second quarter of 2024. While our revenue growth rate in the quarter was more modest than in recent quarters, we experienced a record sales quarter achieving the highest quarterly bookings company-wide in our history. Strong sales conversion across all three operating segments in the third quarter positions us well to deliver on our annual revenue guidance. Our sales pipeline also continues to remain robust into the fourth quarter, laying the foundation for continued growth in 2025. We are also very pleased with our team's execution against our margin enhancement initiatives during the quarter, as our adjusted EBITDA margins increased 140 basis points and adjusted EPS increased 21% over the prior year quarter. The margin improvement reflects continued execution on our pricing initiatives, careful management of expenses, and continued build-out of our global delivery capabilities. We've deployed AI and automation capabilities to help our teams deliver their work more efficiently. I want to note that our incentives are directly tied to the achievement of margin goals for the enterprise for each of our teams and business units, and margin goals are reflected as a measure in Managing Director and Principal performance scorecards. Our progress to date on expanding margins gives us confidence in our ability to achieve a 100 basis point increase at the midpoint of our full year 2024 earnings guidance. We also believe there's ample runway ahead for further margin expansion as we implement multiple drivers of efficiency across our business. Now let me share some additional insights into our third quarter performance. In the Healthcare segment, third quarter revenues before reimbursable expenses, or RBR, grew 2% over the prior year quarter. For our Healthcare business, the third quarter of 2023 was a record quarter for RBR, growing 36% over Q3 2022. The increase in RBR in the third quarter of 2024 was primarily driven by continued strength in demand for our managed services and digital offerings. Our performance improvement business was up slightly in the third quarter despite the typical year-over-year comparison, and our pipeline remains robust for these offerings. The Healthcare provider market remains bifurcated, with the strongest systems performing well, investing for growth, improving their competitive positions, while many weaker systems are struggling to maintain margins in the face of the ongoing challenges impacting the industry. Revenue growth ranks as the top strategic initiative for the majority of healthcare leaders, while the credit rating agencies continue to highlight the favorable reimbursement and cost trends challenging the sustainability of positive cash flows and margins. Our portfolio of offerings is relevant to hospitals and health systems across the performance spectrum. Given the breadth of our offerings, we are well-positioned to serve our clients, no matter where they are in the economic cycle. The investments we're making in our Healthcare business continue to both expand our existing capabilities and add new offerings, which positions us very well for continued growth. Now, let me bring to life the range of these market dynamics with a couple of examples. Organizations in financial distress have historically been one of our strongest target markets. We are the clear leader with an unmatched track record of quickly reducing costs and increasing cash flows to solve budget challenges. Increasingly, we're also seeing financially stable clients engage our performance improvement team as they evolve their operating models and clinical operations to deliver more effectively on their missions. Our performance improvement offerings are perfectly suited to deliver both sustainable operating improvements and demonstrable ROI in these types of environments, and we see significant opportunities to continue serving our clients as they face current and emerging challenges. As I noted earlier, many healthcare leaders are focused on growth and expansion. Over the past decade, we have broadened our portfolio to include strategy and innovation, expansive digital capabilities, and care transformation offerings to help clients define and execute their growth strategies. For our financially healthy clients, we are actively collaborating with them to define their strategies and operating models for the future, helping them execute on the digital transformation and care model redesign investments needed to deliver on those strategies and positioning their organizations to move from good to great. One example of this work is how we're supporting growth initiatives for a regional health system, which is actively pursuing acquisitions. For this client, we are bringing together our financial advisory and our digital performance improvement expertise, providing day one readiness, and post-close integration support to enable successful acquisitions for our clients. The examples described represent opposite ends of the market in terms of performance and scale. Many hospitals and health systems are somewhere in between, focusing on shoring up their financial results and operations while seeking to advance their competitive advantage and pursue opportunities to expand in their markets. We expect these divergent market dynamics to persist and be a driver of broad demand for our business, as demonstrated by our strong sales conversion in the third quarter. As we look ahead, we do not anticipate significant changes in reimbursement rates or cost trends that will materially improve the operating environment for hospitals and health systems. As a result, we believe favorable demand tailwinds for our Healthcare segment will continue. The Education segment RBR grew 9% in the third quarter of 2024 over the prior year quarter, driven by incremental revenue generated by our GG+A acquisition, as well as increased demand for our technology services and software product offerings within our digital capabilities. Our Education business has also had a track record of strong organic growth over many years. In the third quarter, our organic revenue growth slowed slightly, driven by delays in project starts that we believe are short-term and attributable to factors unique to those clients. Our sales pipeline remains solid across our Education offerings, and the underlying needs of our clients remain robust, reflecting the significant challenges facing the higher education industry today. Let me highlight a few of the challenges that are driving demand for our business, starting with enrollment trends. Undergraduate enrollment peaked in 2011 and has been steadily declining ever since. In 2025, the population of high school graduates is expected to peak but will steadily decline for the next 12 years and beyond, further accelerating the long-term rate of decline. Although these demographics have been widely anticipated for many years, the industry has been further challenged by the more recent decline in the perceived value of a four-year college degree, as well as the perceived lack of affordability of obtaining a degree. Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the percentage of high school graduates considering a four-year degree has meaningfully declined from roughly two-thirds to just over half, adding further pressure to future enrollment trends. Last week, higher education institutions reported their steepest decline in first-year enrollments since the pandemic. Similar to the healthcare provider industry, the higher education market has also emerged with many smaller tuition-dependent institutions struggling financially as they fail to achieve their enrollment goals. Although large public institutions and elite private universities are largely achieving their enrollment goals, they face a myriad of other issues related to high cost structures, dated technology capabilities, and complex research enterprises. Research is a critical, yet costly priority for higher education institutions, as it represents well over 25% of the revenues for the majority of the top 100 research universities. As universities grapple with how to optimize their research revenue and the efficiency of their research operations, Huron is the market leader with Consulting and Managed Services and Digital solutions for their risk, compliance, and research administration needs. As an example, our Huron Research Suite is the leading software solution in the market for research administration software. Our Huron Research Suite clients, who use or are in the process of implementing our brand's module, received approximately one-third of all federal funding from the NIH. Digital transformation also remains a key priority for our higher education clients. Many leading institutions are leveraging data technology to make faster and better decisions while investing in digital solutions to streamline and modernize their administrative and research operations and to differentiate the student experience. We expect the complex challenges facing the industry will continue to create a favorable demand environment for our deep industry expertise and strong Consulting, Managed Services, and Digital capabilities for many years to come. Now, let me turn to the Commercial segment. In the third quarter of 2024, the Commercial segment RBR declined 3% over the prior year quarter and grew 12% sequentially compared to the second quarter of this year. The decline in Commercial RBR was driven by our financial advisory and strategy and innovation offerings, partially offset by an increase in demand for our digital offerings. The third quarter of 2023 was the high watermark for our distressed financial advisory business and included $5.5 million of contingent fees. Excluding the impact of the distressed financial advisory success fees, the Commercial segment grew approximately 5%. In the third quarter, our Commercial Digital offerings rebounded from the softer demand we experienced in the second quarter, with RBR growing 9% sequentially. We see signs of continued solid demand for IT services in 2025, including Gartner's recent increase to its 2025 projections for IT services spending, which is now anticipated to grow 9% in 2025. Our sales pipeline strengthened in the third quarter as we continue to see clients investing in technology solutions to drive growth and efficiency in their businesses, and we believe we're well-positioned for stronger growth in this business in 2025. While the Commercial segment is the smallest of our three segments today, it represents a significant growth opportunity for our business in the coming years, with our digital capabilities currently representing about two-thirds of the segment's revenue. Within the Commercial segment, our teams have increased the level of collaboration across our digital and advisory capabilities to enhance our competitive advantage and strengthen the foundation from which we can grow in the future. For example, our distressed financial advisory team recently partnered with our digital team, bringing together the skills needed to reserve all the technology-related IP for a client in bankruptcy. Our strategy and innovation and digital teams are collaborating to reshape how our clients go to market and deliver their products and services to accelerate growth as they transform their operations to lower costs and increase speed and agility. At one client, we're implementing generative AI and intelligent document processing to drive efficiency and create more capacity for the client teams to deliver on higher-value initiatives. We see continued opportunities for organic growth and tuck-in acquisitions that will enhance the solid foundation we've already built. As we further build the Commercial segment, we expect our collaborative operating model, which helped us accelerate growth in our Healthcare and Education segments, will also help us unlock greater value across the industries and capabilities within our Commercial segment. Now, let me turn to our outlook for the year. As our press release indicates, we're narrowing our annual RBR guidance to $1.47 billion to $1.49 billion, maintaining the midpoint of $1.48 billion. We continue to expect our adjusted EBITDA margin to be in a range of 13% to 13.5% of RBR, and we are narrowing and raising our full year adjusted diluted earnings per share to a range of $6 to $6.20, an increase of $0.10 per share at the midpoint. We are pleased with our performance to date in 2024, and I am fortunate to work with such a talented team of people that share our passion for helping clients successfully grow this company. Without their efforts, none of this would be possible. Collectively, we remain focused on advancing our growth strategy and delivering upon our long-term financial goals in 2025 and beyond. And now let me turn it over to John for a more detailed discussion of our financial results.
John Kelly, CFO
Thank you, Mark, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I begin, please note that I'll be discussing non-GAAP financial measures such as EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, adjusted EPS, and free cash flow. Our press release, 10-Q, and Investor Relations page on the Huron website have reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures, along with the discussion of why management uses these non-GAAP measures, and why management believes they provide useful information to investors regarding our financial condition and operating results. Before discussing our financial results for the quarter, I'd like to discuss two housekeeping items. First, we have historically and will continue to discuss our revenue in terms of revenue before reimbursable expenses, which excludes reimbursable expenses that are pass-through items to our clients. In order to ensure that this distinction is clear in our remarks, we'll now refer to our revenue as either revenue before reimbursable expenses, or RBR, as you heard referenced by Mark. Second, I want to make a comment on revenue-generating professional headcount growth. Our year-over-year headcount growth of 10% as of September 30th included the expansion of our India-based Healthcare Managed Services team. Excluding the impact of the India-based Managed Services team growth, headcount grew by 2%. Now, I'll share some of the key financial results from the third quarter. RBR for the third quarter of 2024 was $370 million, up 3.3% from $358.2 million in the same quarter of 2023. The increase in RBR for the quarter was driven by solid growth in our Education and Healthcare segments, partially offset by our Commercial segment, which was down year-over-year but posted solid growth compared to the second quarter of 2024. Net income for the third quarter of 2024 was $27.1 million, or $1.47 per diluted share, compared to net income of $21.5 million or $1.10 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2023. As a percentage of total revenues, net income increased to 7.2% in the third quarter of 2024 compared to 5.9% in the third quarter of 2023. The increase in net income was driven by revenues that outpaced expenses. Our effective income tax rate in the third quarter of 2024 was 27.8%, which is less favorable than the statutory rate, inclusive of state income taxes, primarily due to certain nondeductible expenses, partially offset by a discrete tax benefit related to nontaxable gains on the investments used to fund our deferred compensation liability. Adjusted EBITDA was $54.9 million in Q3 2024, or 14.8% of RBR compared to $48 million, or 13.4% of RBR in Q3 2023. The increase in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was primarily due to increases in Education, Healthcare, and Commercial segment operating income, excluding the impact of segment depreciation and amortization, and segment restructuring charges. Adjusted net income was $31.1 million or $1.68 per diluted share in Q3 2024 compared to $27.2 million or $1.39 per diluted share in the third quarter of 2023, resulting in a 21% increase in adjusted diluted earnings per share over Q3 2023. In the first nine months of 2024, adjusted diluted earnings per share grew 26% over the same period in the prior year. Now, I'll discuss the performance of each of our operating segments. The Healthcare segment generated 49% of total company RBR during the third quarter of 2024. This segment posted RBR of $183.1 million, up $4 million, or 2.2% from the third quarter of 2023. The increase in RBR in the quarter reflects continued strong demand for our Managed Services and Digital offerings, which grew 16% and 11%, respectively, over the prior year quarter. Operating income margin for Healthcare was 27.1% in Q3 2024 compared to 26.2% in Q3 2023. The increase in margin was primarily due to a decrease in contractor expenses, partially offset by increases in compensation costs for our revenue-generating professionals as a percentage of RBR. The Education segment generated 33% of total company RBR during the third quarter of 2024. The Education segment posted RBR of $121 million, up $10 million, or 9% from the third quarter of 2023. RBR in the third quarter of 2024 included $5.7 million from our acquisition of GG+A. The increase in RBR in the quarter was driven by the GG+A acquisition as well as increased demand for our technology services and software product offerings within our digital capabilities. The operating income margin for Education was 24.1% for Q3 2024 compared to 23.9% for the same quarter in 2023. The increase in operating income margin in the quarter is primarily driven by a decrease in contractor expenses and revenue growth that outpaced the increase in compensation costs for our revenue-generating professionals. The Commercial segment generated 18% of total company RBR during the third quarter of 2024 and posted RBR of $65.9 million compared to $68 million in the third quarter of 2023. The decrease in RBR was driven by our Financial Advisory and Strategy and Innovation offerings, partially offset by an increase in demand for our Digital offerings. The third quarter of 2023 included $5.6 million of contingent fees for our Financial Advisory team compared to only $600,000 of such fees in 2024. Operating income margin for the Commercial segment was 24.5% for Q3 2024 compared to 22.7% for the same quarter in 2023. The increase in operating income margin was driven by decreases in contractor expenses and compensation costs for our revenue-generating professionals as percentages of RBR. Corporate expenses not allocated at the segment level and excluding corporate restructuring charges were $46.8 million in Q3 2024 compared to $43.1 million in Q3 2023. Unallocated corporate expenses in the third quarter of 2024 included $2.3 million of expenses related to the increase in the liability of our deferred compensation plan compared to income of $1 million in the third quarter of 2023. These amounts are offset by the change in market value of the investment assets used to fund that plan, reflected in other income. Excluding the impact of the deferred compensation plan in both periods, unallocated corporate expenses were $44.6 million in the third quarter of 2024 compared to $44.1 million in the third quarter of 2023. The slight increase was primarily driven by an increase in software and data hosting expenses, largely offset by a decrease in legal expenses. Now, turning to the balance sheet and cash flows. Cash flow from operations in the third quarter of 2024 was $85.2 million. In the quarter, we used $7.6 million to invest in capital expenditures, inclusive of internally developed software costs, resulting in free cash flow of $77.6 million in Q3 2024. DSO came in at 86 days for the third quarter of 2024 compared to 81 days in the second quarter of 2024 and 83 days for the third quarter of 2023. Total debt as of September 30, 2024, was $443.1 million, consisting entirely of our senior bank debt. We finished the quarter with cash of $18.5 million for a net debt of $424.6 million. This was a $69.4 million decrease in net debt compared to Q2 2024. In addition, in the third quarter, we used $7.3 million to repurchase approximately 66,000 shares. In the first nine months of 2024, we used $104 million to repurchase approximately 1.1 million shares, representing 5.8% of our common stock outstanding as of December 31, 2023. As of September 30, 2024, $83 million remained available for share repurchases under our current share repurchase authorization. Our leverage ratio, as defined in our senior bank agreement, was 1.9 times adjusted EBITDA as of September 30, 2024, compared to 1.8 times adjusted EBITDA as of September 30, 2023. Finally, let me turn to our guidance for the full year 2024. We're narrowing our revenues before reimbursable expenses guidance to a range of $1.47 billion to $1.49 billion, maintaining the midpoint of $1.48 billion. We are maintaining our adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of RBR range of 13% to 13.5% of revenues, and we are narrowing and increasing our adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance to a range of $6 to $6.20. Thanks everyone. I would now like to open the call to questions.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our first question comes from Andrew Nicholas of William Blair & Company. Your line is open, Andrew.
Andrew Nicholas, Analyst
Thank you and good afternoon. I appreciate you taking my questions. My first question is about the fourth quarter implied guidance. It seems like there's a notable sequential acceleration in year-over-year growth. The comparison looks significantly easier when looking back to the fourth quarter of 2023 compared to what you've experienced so far this year. I'm looking for any additional insights on what gives you confidence in that acceleration beyond the comparison. Also, could you share what this indicates for 2025 growth and the feasibility of the top-line targets you mentioned a few years ago during Investor Day, considering that the comparisons will be much easier in 2025 than they have been this year?
John Kelly, CFO
Sure Andrew. This is John. I can start, and Mark can fill in with any color commentary. I think the number one thing that gives us confidence about the guide for the fourth quarter and the midpoint of the guide in the fourth quarter is really the sales conversion activity that we saw during the third quarter. As Mark noted, it was a record high, and that was really strong across the company, particularly strong in our Healthcare business, and that's primarily what gives us confidence. In terms of the spread between the third quarter and the fourth quarter this year, it's an interesting dynamic. I'd say the timing of conversion of some of those opportunities was a little bit later during the quarter than maybe what we anticipated at the beginning of the quarter. So, some projects kicked off a little bit later. But the actual win rate and the volume of deals that we won was quite a bit stronger than what we anticipated. And so the net of that was a little bit softer in the third quarter than probably what we anticipated as of the last call, but it gives us that confidence in the fourth quarter. And then to your point about how we pivot to 2025, I think this feels like a really good foundation. Obviously, it's a little early to be giving 2025 guidance, but as opposed to the trend line last year, we saw sequentially between the third quarter and the fourth quarter a decrease. Our expectation is that this year, between the third quarter and the fourth quarter, we will see a ramping up of revenue. And a lot of these projects that we sold are certainly things that continue on in 2025. So, that gives us confidence about the leaping off point, if you will, in the first quarter of next year.
Mark Hussey, CEO
Yes. And then the only thing I would tell you, again, back to the demand backdrop, it's very favorable right now across certainly Healthcare, Education. And as we indicated, we're seeing some of the Commercial Digital areas solidified, and we're optimistic that they will contribute to 2025 as we turn in the quarter. So, I think John did a good job of explaining all the dynamics that led us to feeling good about the full year.
Andrew Nicholas, Analyst
Great. Thank you. I appreciate the insights. And then for my follow-up question. John, you mentioned in your prepared remarks that headcount growth, excluding some of the India-based hiring for Managed Services, was up 2%. Do you feel like, broadly speaking, you're in a good spot in terms of matching talent to pipeline? Or is there some incremental hiring that you're planning to do in any region, really, over the course of the next couple of quarters to capture some of this really strong sales conversion that you're alluding to?
John Kelly, CFO
Andrew, we are confident in our ability to have the right talent in place to achieve our revenue goals. Looking at our utilization rates, the combined consulting and digital utilization is in the high 75% range, indicating we have some additional capacity for growth. At the same time, our teams have been effective in sourcing talent. Therefore, as we prepare to ramp up in the fourth quarter and into next year, we are very optimistic about our ability to recruit the necessary personnel to meet our project demands.
Andrew Nicholas, Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tobey Sommer of Truist Securities. Please go ahead, Tobey.
Jasper Bibb, Analyst
Hey, good afternoon guys. This is Jasper Bibb on for Tobey. Just wanted to ask about the Healthcare segment, hoping you can maybe stratify, at least directionally, what you're seeing in growth rates and utilization for the PI strategy and digital offerings. And separately, to the extent there is, I guess, change in mix in that segment, does it have any implications on your margins for the next couple of quarters?
John Kelly, CFO
Certainly, Jasper. I will begin with the last part of your question. The year-to-date margins we are seeing are trending toward the higher end of our guidance for the year, approaching the 27% range, and we anticipate finishing the year near that upper limit. This suggests that we expect margins to remain steady, if not improve, in the fourth quarter, and we are optimistic about this trend. Regarding the revenue mix during the quarter, as Mark mentioned, performance improvement saw a slight increase, although it faced a tough comparison to last year. The significant growth this quarter primarily stemmed from our Digital and Managed Services businesses. The sales conversion activity we observed was well-balanced, featuring several notable projects focused on performance improvement and a consistent demand for digital transformation initiatives in the sector. Overall, the theme indicates a continued balance within the segment, and we are confident in our operational efficiency and the positive trend we are experiencing.
Jasper Bibb, Analyst
Excellent. And then maybe following up on margin. Just the long-term target with mid-teens EBITDA margin in 2025, do you still think that, call it, 15% margin range would be achievable next year based on what you're seeing in the utilization rates in your sales pipeline for that?
John Kelly, CFO
Yes. So, we're obviously a little bit ahead of the planning cycle for next year, and I'd be cautious about getting into guidance for next year. But to the point of your question, we've had a very nice trajectory of margin improvement over the past few years. We feel like we've got continued runway on that ramp. And so if you just take the size of the steps we've been taking in the past few years and apply that to this upcoming year, which, to us, feels very achievable at this point, you get into that 14%-plus range that's in the mid-teen range there. I would say, Jasper, that one thing to keep in mind is the margin improvement that we've had this year. Our year-to-date utilization is still sort of in that mid- to 75% range. 74%, 75% when you look at blended for the nine months, and there's still room to run on that metric from our perspective. So, we feel really good that we've been able to take the steps that we've taken this year, with utilization quite frankly not being fully optimized. As we've talked about on earlier calls, we've had lower attrition, historically low attrition this year. So, we've been managing through that. That's put a little bit of pressure on the utilization metric. But to us, that's a very tangible lever as we think about next year to be able to continue the trajectory that we've been on. So, the confidence that we have in that remains strong at this point.
Jasper Bibb, Analyst
Appreciate the detail there. Thanks for taking the questions.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Bill Sutherland of The Benchmark Company. Your question please, Bill.
Bill Sutherland, Analyst
Thanks. Hey guys. Just looking at the utilization numbers in the fourth quarter last year. I know that you guys had indicated that you felt like you see better utilization in the second half this year year-over-year than you certainly did in 3Q. But how do I think about the fourth-quarter comp, if you will? And is there a seasonal build to the utilization in digital or has that just happened without a real basis?
John Kelly, CFO
I wouldn't categorize it as seasonal. Throughout the year, various factors affect the business, and we adjust accordingly to achieve our utilization target in the long run. What you're observing is more about these adjustments rather than true seasonality. You're right to note the comparison to the fourth quarter of last year, which had overall utilization close to 80%, with digital exceeding 80%. However, I can't confidently say that we'll reach those levels this fourth quarter. We do anticipate a sequential improvement from our third quarter performance, and I expect to see continued improvement. It's possible we may approach the levels of the fourth quarter last year, but that was quite high, and I can't guarantee we'll reach that point.
Bill Sutherland, Analyst
Sure. That makes sense. You noticed that in Commercial, the headcount was down a little bit sequentially and you clearly have the firepower there to realize the new business. And so how should we think about how you set up for the fourth quarter and into next year? Is it that you're likely to increase headcount again?
John Kelly, CFO
I think if it's aligned with our growth, yes, Bill. Again, there's a little bit of room to run there from a utilization perspective. So, I think that's, in the short term, that can help us grow as a new project volume comes in. But then as you look a little bit longer term, based on the growth expectations that we have, I would expect to see headcount go up within the Commercial segment. In terms of our positioning exiting the quarter, I think that our team has done an excellent job within Commercial, really matching our resources with our demand over the course of the year, making sure that we've been cautious on our hiring as we've navigated through some of the market uncertainties that we talked about in previous calls. So, I continue to think the quarter is really well-positioned. I think our talent and our headcount are well-positioned to support our growth in the fourth quarter, but we're also operating efficiently, so we feel good about that.
Bill Sutherland, Analyst
Good. And then last for me, maybe an update on the M&A environment and kind of how your pipeline is doing?
Mark Hussey, CEO
Yes, Bill, this is Mark. The M&A pipeline actually is quite robust for us, and we have been a little bit more quiet in the last couple of years in terms of M&A. But as I've indicated before, we believe that we will have some inorganic contribution over time to what we do. We see lots of opportunities still up in our Commercial segment, as I mentioned in my remarks, but also within Healthcare and Education. You see it both from a digital capability as well as advisory. The good news is we have a great platform that attracts people. A lot of opportunities that we look at are not necessarily coming through sell-side books that were just circulated to us for companies for sale. We're actually working with people in the market where there are opportunities that we see. Our success rate on those over time, or probably the 30-some-odd that we've done over the last decade or more, have largely worked out really, really well. Those are the ones that create additional organic growth opportunities together. You saw us a little bit less active on share repurchase in the quarter. We certainly feel like we've got some good opportunities ahead of us.
Bill Sutherland, Analyst
Great. Thank you, both.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin Steinke of Barrington Research Associates. Please go ahead, Kevin.
Kevin Steinke, Analyst
Thank you. So, when you were talking about earlier your confidence in the fourth quarter ramp-up, you mentioned the strong sales conversion, and you also mentioned in your prepared remarks some project work that had shifted from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. I just was wondering if you could maybe give us an idea as to how meaningful that shift is? I don't know if you could put a rough number on it or not, but just kind of curious about that and where that might have occurred?
John Kelly, CFO
Hey Kevin, it's John. I'd put that in the $5 million to $10 million range as how I would describe it. I'd go back to the answer that we discussed a little bit earlier during the session about shifting really related to new work that came in over the course of the quarter, where the expectation heading into the quarter regarding when those deals would close and get started ended up being a little bit later in the quarter than we initially anticipated. So, I'd say it's in that neighborhood of $5 million to $10 million that shifted out of the third quarter. But the good news from our perspective was really the volume of wins that we had during the quarter. The win rate that we experienced in the quarter was actually higher. And so that gives us confidence that it's not going to slip out the back end of the fourth quarter as well. We feel like the run rates that we're experiencing now towards the end of this quarter should be good to meet our guidance objectives for the fourth quarter.
Kevin Steinke, Analyst
I’d like to ask about the delays in the Education segment on certain projects due to client-specific internal issues that you mentioned in your prepared remarks. Is that related to the project work you referred to that was pushed out a bit? Or is there something else affecting that? I'm curious about how significant those delays might have been.
John Kelly, CFO
Yes, I would say, Kevin, we were thinking of Education with those remarks. That's where we did see it. It wasn't exclusively to Education, but I think the majority of the situations where we saw some delays and the starts of those projects were in the Education segment.
Kevin Steinke, Analyst
That's helpful. Lastly, regarding the Commercial segment, you mentioned growth in digital during the third quarter and that you're well positioned for growth in Commercial Digital heading into 2025. Earlier in 2024, there were delays due to macro uncertainty, but it seems like the conversion is beginning to pick up. Is it accurate to say that many clients who had delayed some work have now gained comfort and are ready to move forward in this environment?
Mark Hussey, CEO
Yes, Kevin, this is Mark. I would describe it by saying that after some of the softness we experienced in Q2, we saw Q3 as a turning point, where the pipeline began to rebuild, even though we still encountered some softness. We noted the sequential improvements. Looking ahead to post-election and into 2025, there seems to be a unified belief that conditions will stabilize. We're observing data points that boost our confidence further. While we would prefer a fuller pipeline, we currently see positive signs rather than flat or negative trends. Therefore, we feel optimistic about our growth prospects for 2025.
Kevin Steinke, Analyst
Okay, great. Well, that’s helpful. Again, thanks for taking the questions. I'll turn it back over.
Mark Hussey, CEO
Thank you for spending time with us this afternoon, and we look forward to speaking with you again in February when we announce our fourth quarter results. Have a good evening.
Operator, Operator
That concludes today's conference call. Thank you everyone for your participation.