Verra Mobility Corporation
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 1 Mar 2021

[Operator:]

Greetings, and welcome to Verra Mobility Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. . Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Marc Griffin, Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

[Marc Griffin:]

Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome to Verra Mobility's Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2020 Earnings Call. Today, we'll be discussing the results announced in our press release issued after the market close. With me on the call this afternoon is David Roberts, Verra Mobility's Chief Executive Officer; and Tricia Chiodo, Chief Financial Officer. They will begin with prepared remarks, and then we'll open up the call for Q&A.

[David Roberts:]

Thank you, Marc, and thank you to everyone joining us on the call today. As you are all aware, the global pandemic remains persistent, but we are beginning to see a broad decline in its effect on the economy. And with the vaccination process beginning, we feel confident that its effect in our business will subside throughout 2021. While we have experienced difficulties associated with this global event, we are quite optimistic about the future that lies ahead. We are pleased with our execution throughout this challenging year, and we ended 2020 on a high note with a solid quarter. Our fourth quarter performance showed a continued improvement in our Commercial Services segment and demonstrated robust strength in our Government Solutions segment. Moreover, our EBITDA margin levels during 2020 had remained very strong, and we generated strong free cash flow despite an accounts receivable issue, which we will discuss in more detail later. Our fourth quarter revenue declined 11% year-over-year to $100.2 million, and our adjusted EBITDA came in at $45.8 million, down 23% year-over-year. For 2020, revenue declined 12% year-over-year to $393.6 million and our adjusted EBITDA came in at $181.8 million, down 25% year-over-year.

[Patricia Chiodo:]

Thanks, David, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll provide a more detailed overview of our full year and fourth quarter 2020 financial performance, and then we'll open up the call for questions. We provided a short earnings deck on our website that provides some insight to the quarter and reconciliations from our GAAP to non-GAAP results. If you're following along in the earnings deck, I'm on Slide 2, where you can see total company's full year results for 2020. Total revenue for the full year of $393.6 million declined $55 million or 12.3% from $448.7 million in 2019. Within that change in revenue was an $80.4 million decline in service revenue, resulting from lower demand of our tolling products due to reduced rental car demand, lower citation rates on variable photo enforcement program and the loss of certain Texas customers.

[Operator:]

. Our first question is from Justin Forsythe with Credit Suisse.

[Justin Forsythe:]

I just wanted to dig in a little bit to the Redflex opportunity. Again, we know that they have a variety of programs that are different to the ones that you have. We know you have some similar ones, similarities being red-light for instance, and new ones being railroad crossing, work zone speed, et cetera. Can you talk a little bit about what the loose-hanging fruits might be there as far as cross-sell goes? Meaning, would you expect to see the impacts of work zone first or perhaps some of your existing solutions into maybe their clients?

[David Roberts:]

Yes. I think it's more -- think of the opportunity more geographic- based than necessarily product-based. And so what I mean by that in different countries outside the U.S., they use different types of technology solutions. So as an example, in Australia, they use a product which is called point-to-point speed, which is 2 fixed cameras in 2 different locations, and it kind of tracks how fast you go between the 2 points. That's a solution that they offer there in Australia that we don't offer here. And so effectively, there's opportunities for us with our kind of scale and capabilities being a larger company with a larger balance sheet to sort of think about how can we take some of those things globally and accelerate outside the U.S. And two, as we look inside the U.S., certainly, there's going to be plenty of opportunities for synergy and they have -- to their credit, they have -- they are in some product areas that we have not been in historically. And so we would anticipate some of those being relatively prioritized. But what I would say is that the international opportunity is probably in terms of diversification, and growth is probably the higher level of focus, at least initially. And then clearly, we'll continue to look for synergy opportunities across both sides of the equation.

[Justin Forsythe:]

Got it. No, that's super helpful. And I guess in terms of from whenever the deal closes, let's say, in late May, is there a relative time line you can give as to when you think you might be able to achieve some of these and/or kind of the loose-hanging fruits, as you mentioned, the international expansion stuff, when you might expect to achieve that by?

[David Roberts:]

Tricia is looking at me funny. So I was going to say 6 weeks, but she seems to think...

[Patricia Chiodo:]

We're not going to say.

[David Roberts:]

Yes, we're not going to say 6 weeks. No I mean, look, I think -- look, it's a really -- it's a complex global organization. It's going to take some time for us to figure out. We've obviously given the competitive nature, have been doing this via a clean team sort of an arm's length process generally. So I would anticipate we will get a lot of opportunity in the first year. And certainly, as we look at diversification and revenue growth, that may take a little bit longer. But I think that the first 12 months would probably be a real where we're going to focus a lot of energy in terms of synergizing costs and identifying the key areas where our products can accelerate one another as well as the right talent in the right place.

[Patricia Chiodo:]

And I think the technology end will take longer. So I don't think you'll see the full synergy impact in probably until sort of that 24-month cycle because the technology will take a little longer.

[Justin Forsythe:]

Got it. No, super helpful. And I guess one more, if I might, real quick. We heard or saw, I guess, Avis report recently, and it seemed as if they had also cited kind of improving trends. But despite there may be some tough comps coming up, obviously, in Jan and Feb, coupled with some incremental lockdowns. I mean if you could just -- if you wouldn't mind parsing through a little bit the exit rate exiting Q4, as you mentioned. I think it was a kind of continual improvement in the Commercial segment business and kind of how that fared going into early Q1.

[Patricia Chiodo:]

Yes. So I think what you're going to see is kind of what I said in my forward-looking statement that Q1, the first quarter of 2021, we actually think from just a raw-dollar service revenue, will be just on par or slightly below Q4. That's sort of a normal seasonal trend pattern that you might see as we move forward. And then we'll move into this year-over-year growth as we move into Q2. Because by that time, we'll be crossing over the trough of the pandemic cycle. So you'll start to see growth at that time. And then beyond that time frame, it's really difficult for us to see what those numbers are. As we get closer to those numbers as we do the Q1 earnings call, we'll probably be able to give a little bit further out into the view of where we're going to be. But I think we've said that we didn't think we'd return to 2019 levels for the Commercial Services segment until the end of 2021.

[Operator:]

Our next question is from Ashish Sabadra with Deutsche Bank.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

This is calling here for Ashish. I just had a quick question on the New York City contract. Is there any potential for the contract to be extended before you are paid for the outstanding receivables? Or they're like 2 different things?

[David Roberts:]

Yes. I wouldn't expect so. I mean the contract currently goes through February next year. And I think our optimistic view is we're going to tighten these sort of outstanding issues over the next couple of months. And so I don't think that would be their next step in the process.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

And then the follow-on to that or maybe a different way to think about it. Are there opportunities in other states and cities that are of similar scale that you could pursue after the New York?

[David Roberts:]

In terms of New York City?

[Patricia Chiodo:]

Yes.

[David Roberts:]

No. They are a purple-speckled unicorn from that perspective. They are very -- their commitment to photo enforcement as a part of their Vision Zero is candidly, it's really unparalleled across the globe. Given they just have a scale and a commitment that's much higher, so no, they would be certainly an outlier related to when you look at full deployment. Now as you look outside the U.S. and certainly one of the reasons that we're very excited about the Redflex acquisition is that there is the potential for like-minded cities outside the U.S. that have resources, that have a higher level of commitment to using photo enforcement and other road safety technologies. But even then, they would still not be nearly as the size and scale of New York City.

[Operator:]

Our next question is from David Koning with Baird.

[David Koning:]

Yes. Guys, nice job. And so I was wondering, throughout the year, you gave the monthly trends -- the revenue trends by segment. Do you have those for the last 3 months of the year?

[Patricia Chiodo:]

Yes. So for the last 3 months in the Commercial Services segment, they were sort of more flat. We do know that the quarters continue to trend. So we had consecutive improvement from Q2 to Q3 and Q4, all improve from an overall growth perspective, but we didn't report the individual months.

[David Koning:]

Okay. Got you. And one thing, just to understand the way the business works a little better. In the 10-K, you talked about toll transactions were about $171 million. So that was down something like 30% or maybe a little more traffic violations in commercial were down almost 50%. So I'm just wondering what was different about COVID in terms of how it impacted the toll transactions compared to traffic violations? And is it anything we should even care about?

[Patricia Chiodo:]

No. I mean those are just volume because what you're not seeing is the dollar value of those toll transactions, the margins on those toll transactions. I don't know that, that's necessarily helpful. What we've said is that what we've seen in the pandemic time frame, especially as it relates to our rental car customers is that we're seeing that the number of tolls that they're using per rental agreement is up, the dollar value of the tolls are up, but the number of rental agreements in aggregate are way down. So although that sort of gives you directionally correct information, it takes a little bit to extrapolate that to a revenue number.

[Operator:]

Our next question is from Daniel Moore with CJS Securities.

[Daniel Moore:]

I wanted to just start, as we recover in Commercial Services, Tricia, how should we think about incremental EBITDA margins over the next, say, 12-plus months? Any deviation, good or bad from the sort of longer-term algo?

[Patricia Chiodo:]

Yes. I think what you're going to see as we cross over into Q1, is you're probably going to see some margin compression from where we were in Q4. And there's a couple of reasons for that. Even though service revenue is going to be sort of, call it, flattish to where it was in Q4, your product revenue is not going to be there because we don't have an order in hand to do product installation. And then we've reinstated a lot of things that didn't come into fruition in 2020. So think about that, that our accruals for bonuses, our merit increases, all of those things are going to be back into our financial statements in 2021. So you should think about a little margin compression as we roll into Q1 and probably into Q2. And then obviously, as we get into those time frames, I can give you some more detail or vision into what the back half of the year might look like as we get closer.

[Daniel Moore:]

Okay. And one more Appreciate all the color very much on this topic, and sorry to beat it with a dead horse. The accounts receivable balance, you mentioned clearing in coming quarters. Fair to assume, based on that statement, we haven't done so significantly to date in Q1. Just any commentary and color around timing expectations? I know it's a tough question, but appreciate...

[Patricia Chiodo:]

Yes. No, it is difficult to predict, but this is what I think is going to happen. We are continuing to perform work for New York, and we will continue to do so. So we would expect that, that receivable balance would continue to grow probably well into Q2. So -- and then we'll see if they can go. So the likelihood that it's going to get cleared up in the next 30 days is unlikely. So we know that it will at least extend into Q2.

[Operator:]

. Our next question is from Keith Housum with Northcoast Research.

[Keith Housum:]

Just one more point of clarification on New York, if I may. You guys are not precluded from winning any future contracts until as a seller, right? You can still -- you're doing business as usual, you still compete, nothing is getting in the way of that. Correct?

[David Roberts:]

That's correct. Yes. That's exactly right.

[Keith Housum:]

Okay. And then in terms of the tolling business, it sounds like it's holding up a lot better than I think a lot of us perhaps feared 6 months ago. So it sounds like your penetration rate or adoption rate within the rental car companies has improved significantly over the past year. Is that a good assessment?

[Patricia Chiodo:]

No. Not necessarily. What really has happened is we've seen -- it's not that the overall adoption rate, which is based on the total number of rental agreements that have our product in it versus the total number of rental agreements in aggregate, I don't know that that's changed significantly. But what has changed is the number of billable days has improved based on those number of rental agreements. So we're getting a little more admin fee, and we're getting a little more tolling because there's more tolls and higher-value tolls on each of those rental agreements. But it's not necessarily an adoption issue. What we are seeing also is that adoption has moved away from airport locations to off-airports, and it's also step function down. So whereas people may have been renting from a higher-quality brand. They're stepping down into more budget brands over time. That may just be because the shift of travelers, leisure versus corporate.

[Keith Housum:]

No, that's helpful. I appreciate it. If I had to squeeze one more in here. Last year, we go back pre-COVID, Verra Mobility was talking about the need to update a lot of its systems throughout 2020, and of course, COVID happened. So a lot of that was put on the back burner. How should we think about that this year? Is it still on the back burner until the Redflex acquisition is done? Or are you guys moving forward with some of those initiatives?

[David Roberts:]

No. We are definitely moving forward. We're doing them probably a little bit more serially, meaning we've sort of stretched them out over a longer period of time. We actually did some of them last year. Just to make sure that we weren't leaving anything aside. So we prioritized what we would consider the most critical items related to performance within our systems and have knocked a few of those out, and we'll continue to do that this year.

[Operator:]

This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.

[David Roberts:]

Thank you.

[Patricia Chiodo:]

Thank you.