Alta Equipment Group Inc.
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 18 Mar 2021

[Operator:]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Alta Equipment Group Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. And now, it is my pleasure to hand over the conference to your host, Sinem McDonald, Director of External Reporting.

[Sinem McDonald:]

Thank you, Christian. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Alta's fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings conference call. On the call with us today are Ryan Greenawalt, our Chairman and CEO; and Tony Colucci, our Chief Financial Officer. For today's call management will first provide a review of the fourth quarter and the full year financial results. And then we will conduct a Q&A session. We will begin with some prepared remarks before we open the call for your question.

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

Thank you, Sinem and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining Alta Equipment Group's fourth quarter 2020 earnings call. Our strong performance and solid financial results in the fourth quarter capped off a transformative and very successful 2020 despite the significant impact of the COVID pandemic. We achieved several important accomplishments which I'll briefly touch on before turning the call over to Tony for a financial review of the fourth quarter and full year. The operating environment for our services continued to improve from the prior quarter as customer demand increased consecutively each month in the fourth quarter. Labor productivity, which is the heartbeat of our operations increased to benchmark levels before the end of the year. In response to increased sales activity and demand for labor hours, we added to our product support workforce both, organically and through acquisitions and ended the year with over 900 skilled technicians, an increase of approximately 250 technicians year-over-year, and representing roughly half of our total headcount. Our entire Alta team once again rose to the occasion during these difficult times demonstrating incredible dedication and delivered on our commitment to exceptional service and equipment uptime. A sincere thank you to all of our employees who make Alta the great company it is today.

[Tony Colucci:]

Thank you, Ryan and good evening, everyone. Thank you for your interest in Alta Equipment Group and our fourth quarter and full year 2020 financial results. Before I start, I first want to congratulate all of my Alta colleagues, and all of Alta's shareholders on our one year anniversary as a public company. The past year has been equal parts challenging and exciting. Navigating a global pandemic certainly wasn't part of our plan as we entered the public markets 13 months ago, but our business and most importantly, Alta's employees rose to COVID's challenge and delivered a performance that Ryan and I are extremely grateful for, and proud of. Additionally, I want to welcome our new team members at Vantage Equipment, and ScottTech in upstate New York to the Alta family. The senior leadership team is excited about integrating your talents into our business and into Alta's one team culture. We look forward to earning your trust. My remarks today will focus on four key areas

[Operator:]

The first question is from Alex Rygiel from B. Riley. Your line is open.

[Alex Rygiel:]

Thank you, Ryan and Tony. Very nice quarter and strong year. Congratulations.

[Tony Colucci:]

Thank you, Al.

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

Thanks, Alex.

[Alex Rygiel:]

A couple of quick questions. Your adjusted EBITDA margins today are around 10%. Can you talk about some of the drivers to margin expansion in 2021 and beyond?

[Tony Colucci:]

Sure, Alex. When we look back at the fourth quarter there, I've made special note in my comments about the large amount of rental equipment sales. And so for the quarter, it's going to feel like, it's going to look like that our EBITDA margins were depressed, but it really was a function of all of the equipment sales and to refer back to the razor and the blades concept that's inherent in our business model. As you know, razors don't have as good of margin as the blades and so that that mix got thrown out of whack there in the fourth quarter. As we drive forward here, obviously the business model is to continue to grow, feel the population, build the product support business, which is higher margin in the future. So we would think that the mix, as we continue to move along, won't be the same as it was in the fourth quarter and shift more kind of appropriately back toward a more regular mix of parts and service, thereby kind of driving that EBITDA margin a little bit further north in the future. When we think about rental, EBITDA margins on rental are very high as well. We had some positive news there and it continue to trend in the appropriate direction. So, so long as rental continues to trend, that will also drive the EBITDA margin higher.

[Alex Rygiel:]

And then could you maybe talk a little bit about which customer categories are rebounding the quickest, post-COVID here? And which ones are rebounding slower and maybe add some thoughts on whether or not those slower customer categories could catch up?

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

Sure, Alex. This is Ryan. So a couple areas that are rebounding faster at our home turf is the automotive industry in our home state of Michigan. And then throughout our material handling dealership footprint, anything related to the warehousing market has remained steady and is accelerating. Also with supply constraints, anything related to steel, the scrap industry is hot right now. That's a component of our business, scrap demolition in the steel industry on the construction side.

[Alex Rygiel:]

And then lastly on M&A. Can you talk a little bit about your M&A pipeline, both within sort of your core business lines, as well as thoughts about adding a third leg?

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

Sure. We think about the first leg being territorial expansion with our two most significant OEM partners. And those opportunities, we're always watching for, but there has to be a catalyst, some kind of succession planning issue or a catalyst, a reason for one of the ownership groups to be looking for an exit. What we have a lot of, is infill opportunities, which there were several examples of that last year. As we as we look to some of these markets where we're less mature or the new entrants and taking over territories where we can grow share, we'll be looking to build the product portfolio and there could certainly be an M&A component of that talking in smaller dealerships in our existing footprint. And in terms of the third segment, as we mentioned on the last call, we're very focused on kind of watching the evolution of transportation, the electrification of the over the road fleet. Over the road, the truck segment is something that we'd like to be in long term. And as the business evolves, we think that we're really well-positioned with our experience in both electric, on the battery side and the fuel cell side from our material handling business. So those are conversations that we're open to. It's sort of very active time. A lot of new companies coming to market and that we do envision something long term in that sector.

[Alex Rygiel:]

Very helpful. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Michael Shlisky from Colliers Securities. Your line is open.

[Michael Shlisky:]

Good afternoon, guys. Can we can we just get back to the I may have missed it. Can you repeat back with the organic growth was in the quarter? And of the various revenue categories that you have in your release in your 10-K, which ones were the biggest drivers of that while the other things are going to be up for sure?

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

Mike, I'll take the first half of that. I think your question was the organic growth for the quarter. I think the number was 9.4% as an enterprise. Yes, 9.4%. What was the second half of your question, Mike?

[Michael Shlisky:]

I was just curious as to which categories of revenue drove the organic growth the most?

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

Oh, yes, by in large Mike, it was the equipment sales as I mentioned. Rental equipment sales. As customers, we get toward year end, customers have capital budgets that maybe they're looking to get rid of for the year, if you will. We also have customers that have historically looked to take advantage of bonus depreciation from a tax perspective. And so, the fourth quarter is usually overweight equipment sales and it was again this year, probably more than we expected. But that equipment sales number is what's driving a lot of the organic growth. We did have organic growth, as we mentioned in the rental line in parts and service and construction as well. Which all kind of bodes well when you kind of peel the layers back here.

[Michael Shlisky:]

Got it. I also wanted to ask about your rental fleet here in 2021. I'll have little spent some time during the downturn, kind of pairing assets, making sure they had -- it was the best performers and the best outlook. Did you allow that during Q2 to Q4? And of course you have a better performance ahead for the rental fleet from a margin perspective in 2021?

[Tony Colucci:]

Yes, Mike, this is Tony. I'll take that one. So, when we think about rental, we're thinking always about utilization and cash flows off of it. Not necessarily gross margin, because there's so much depreciation in there. But as we move through Q2 and Q3, we had already kind of committed to making some investments down in Florida, with the Flagler acquisition and adding rental fleet down there. We think long term that it's still the right thing to do. And what we did here in the fourth quarter was kind of optimize a little bit. I mentioned the reduction of about $10 million in organic kind of acquisition costs here. As we left the year end as you'll see, in our numbers, we got roughly a $400 million fleet headed into 2021. We feel good about that fleet level. It may ebb and flow. If we have a $400 million fleet, you'll see in our numbers we turned over almost a quarter of that fleet in the year, which is part of our business model is that rent-to-sell with the heavy equipment to get it out in the field population. So at any rate, the fleet may ebb and flow a little bit, but by in large, the expectation here is that we're going to keep the fleet kind of in that same level, let the market kind of decide demand to see if we're going to expand, or if we have to pair back some more. But we don't at this point have expectation of growing the fleet in any material way.

[Michael Shlisky:]

Great. And then one last one from me. The EBITDA that we saw in Q4 and the exit rate for the year, is that a good sort of baseline minimum for the full year, adding in perhaps maybe $9 million to $10 million for the last two deals a bit in the fourth quarter? And from there, do you have any sense as to what you might get from close perspective in 2021?

[Tony Colucci:]

Yes. Good question, Mike. The number that I would refer you to in the fourth quarter as kind of a good metric to maybe build off as we move along here is the $26.2 million of pro forma EBITDA for the fourth quarter. I made special mention of kind of the seasonality here as we as we go along and how that seasonality kind of gets flipped around a little bit in 2020. But, I think that fourth quarter numbers are a good one to build off of. Relative to organic growth we have the coming off of 2020, we would we would expect some. We're impacted by COVID, so we certainly think we'll be jumping off of 2020 levels. How much? It kind of remains to be seen and I'm not sure we're prepared to give a number at this point.

[Michael Shlisky:]

Just to clarify, the exit rate of $26.2 million, does that include Vantage, which was on December 31 ?

[Tony Colucci:]

Yes.

[Michael Shlisky:]

It does. Okay.

[Tony Colucci:]

Yes.

[Michael Shlisky:]

Yes, perfect. Thanks so much, guys. Appreciate it.

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

Thanks, Mike.

[Tony Colucci:]

Sure.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Brian Fast from Raymond James. Your line is open.

[Bryan Fast:]

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions here. Just trying to get a gauge of how supply channels are looking right now. Have you had any issues? I guess sourcing parts or equipment quick lease ? Or are you seeing some delays here?

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

We're definitely seeing delays in areas. So equipment lead times are starting to stretch in certain product categories, the constraints on steel and other materials are definitely being felt. We always try to remind that we can withstand short-term variability and things like that. We use our rental fleet to fill in for our customer needs and the flip side of that is we see firming up of pricing and utilization on both rental rates and time utilization, but also on the used side, things that are definitely appreciating today.

[Bryan Fast:]

Okay. Thanks, Ryan. And then if we look at the technician edition, are you able to break out the organic growth and the acquisition growth? Just trying to get a gauge of the recruiting landscape out there.

[Tony Colucci:]

This is Tony, Brian. Thanks for joining. The one metric that I think we could -- we don't have the number top of mind in terms of how many organic hires we add, if you will, throughout the year. And it gets a little foggy with given COVID and the furloughs and so on and so forth. The one metric that we are kind of pointing to is we've talked a lot about the aftermarket opportunity we saw down at Flagler in Florida. When we took that dealership over, they had 63 technicians. I think we closed the year with 83 technicians on staff down there. So growing in all the right areas where there's a lot of opportunity. Now that same 50% increase or whatever the number is there -- 30% maybe -- we would not have realized that in other areas. It would have been more muted than that. But the Florida kind of experience stands out.

[Bryan Fast:]

That is helpful. That's it for me. Thanks.

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

Thanks, Brian.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Matt Summerville from D.A. Davidson.

[Matt Summerville:]

Thanks. A couple questions. First, you just mentioned that you're seeing pricing firming on the rental utilization in the used side of things. With that then, when would you expect the rental utilization gap to be fully closed at this point? Or maybe you're already seeing that in early 2021? So maybe talk about that a little bit?

[Tony Colucci:]

Matt, thanks for joining. This is Tony. Good question. As I've mentioned in my prepared remarks, in Q1, we're off to a good start in terms of continued closing of the gap, if you will. Will we get there in Q1? I think it still remains to be seen. I like to say by the end of Q1, we would see that utilization gap close. I think the comment that I would make is if we continue to see trends of what we see here in Q1, that utilization gap will get closed here, hopefully by the middle of the year, or in Q2 at some point. But we're gaining on it every day.

[Matt Summerville:]

Then with respect to the actual utilization rate, can you give us a sense as to where they are currently? Maybe versus where they were just pre-COVID? And maybe where they trough during COVID? Just to kind of frame that up a little better and more specifically?

[Tony Colucci:]

Yes. I think the way that I would answer that, Matt, is if had $100 of rental fleet, kind of on the hand acquisition costs, in a more normal situation, we might have $60 or $65 of that out on rent. The variance that we saw and the shocks that we saw was something like take 10% off of that figure. So the $60 becomes $54, if you will, and then you can kind of extrapolate that into our business. You can kind of see what happens to EBITDA so on and so forth thereafter. But again, rough math that's kind of what we saw. And it was in the pockets of the fleet. Our material handling fleet didn't see as big of a shock that our construction fleet did in Q2 and Q3. So the 10% figures that I gave you is kind of the mix and the most acute that we saw when you kind of fully mix the entire fleet together.

[Matt Summerville:]

Got it. And then just two more quick ones. We can do the algebra later, but just to save the time, can you provide us what the organic revenue number was for material handling? And then can you also comment from an M&A perspective, I would imagine the assets that are serving the material handling side of warehousing, logistics, ecommerce, they were starting to see some multiple inflation there. So are those transactions -- do you have anything sort of in the pipeline serving that market? Or is that something that you're happy with the asset base to have in the organic opportunity in front of you that maybe you're not looking at organically now there? Thank you.

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

I'm going to take the second part of that question while Tony does the math on the first part of the question. So for the kind of non-mobile equipment, the warehouse solutions and the more systems-oriented businesses that we acquired last year and then earlier this year, we are looking for opportunities. We would be opportunistic if we saw something, but we think that we have the platform that we need. This is a business that we acquired intellectual property and now you could think of it as we've taken a group that had half a dozen salespeople on the stream today. They have over 100 material handling sales professionals out looking, mining for opportunities. We think that they'll be very busy for the foreseeable future off of the platform we already have. But that said, we're always looking for interesting assets.

[Tony Colucci:]

Matt, just to play off that -- I'm not sure we've seen an expansion in multiples or deal multiples because of the kind of the demand in the ecommerce space and the kind of activity in that space. We haven't necessarily seen that play out. And Matt, I'm going to have to -- actually hang on one second.

[Matt Summerville:]

No problem. Thank you.

[Tony Colucci:]

Matt, your question, was that quarter-over-quarter in the material handling segment or annual? What was your question? We have to come back.

[Matt Summerville:]

Yes. The fourth quarter year-over-year organic, you gave it in construction, it's 31.8 and I was curious what it was for material handling?

[Tony Colucci:]

It looks like material handling, that same figure is down 5%.

[Matt Summerville:]

Thank you.

[Tony Colucci:]

We'd have to break that down by department and keep in mind that the material handling segment which hit with COVID and shutdowns and so on and so forth, a little bit harder. But anyway, that's the number.

[Matt Summerville:]

Perfect. Thank you guys very much.

[Operator:]

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back to Mr. Ryan Greenawalt for any closing or additional remarks.

[Ryan Greenawalt:]

No further remarks. Thank you, everyone, for joining. We look forward to continued success in 2021. Good evening.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.