ABM Industries Inc (ABM) 2015 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the ABM Industries third-quarter FY15 conference call.

(Operator Instructions)

As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

Thank you, Bridget. Welcome, everyone. I'm David Farwell, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Here with me today are President and Chief Executive Officer, Scott Salmirs; and Anthony Scaglione, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. There is a slide presentation that accompanies today's call. You may access this presentation now by going to our website at www.abm.com, and under the Investors tab you will see the Events tab. Today's presentation will be the second listed.

Turning to slide 2 of the presentation, is our agenda. I need to tell you that our presentation today contains predictions, estimates and other forward-looking statements. Our use of the words estimate, expect, and similar expressions are intended to identify the statements. The statements represent our current judgment of what the future holds. While we believe them to be reasonable, these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially. These factors are described in the slide that accompanies the presentation. During the course of this presentation, certain non-GAAP financial information will be presented. A reconciliation of those numbers to GAAP financial measures is available the end of the presentation, and on the Company's website under the Investors tab. I would now like to turn the call over to Scott.

Thanks, David. I want to thank everyone for joining us this morning. So welcome to my second official investment call as CEO of ABM. We certainly have a great deal to share with you this morning. By now, I'm sure you've read all the press releases specifically related to our third-quarter earnings, and our long-term strategic plan which we are calling our 2020 Vision. As I mentioned during our second-quarter call, developing a comprehensive strategic plan was of paramount importance to the ABM leadership team, our Board of Directors, and to me. Today I am pleased to announce that we have concluded the initial phase of our review, and our Board of Directors has approved the comprehensive strategic and transformative initiative. As I mentioned, we call it our 2020 Vision, and we are eager to share the highlights of it with you today.

So let me first review the process we used to get here. Please turn to slide 3. Working with the Boston Consulting Group, we talked to our leaders, functional experts, and our operators. We interviewed clients, industry experts, and investors to understand their expectations, concerns, and perspectives. And we also analyzed our market, as well as an enormous amount of data to determine where we performed best across our business, and where we have what we call our right to win, or essentially a competitive advantage. Our findings became the foundation of our 2020 Vision.

Our new vision centered around creating clarity and focus in our offering, both for our investors and our employees. It can be stated simply. We want to be the leader in providing facility solutions in industries where we have that right to win, every time, every day. Our strategy will transform the Company, drive long-term profitable growth, and enhance shareholder value by focusing on ABM's core strengths and most profitable businesses, and aligning our operations to deliver industry-based client solutions that reflects the realities and actions we must embrace to be a true solutions provider for our clients, and to continue to grow and thrive in the years ahead.

Please turn to slide 4. How do we get there? Well, we are going to get there by doing six things really well. First, we're going to focus our resources on industries where we can differentiate our service and quality, and drive margin growth. Second, we will align our organization to deliver customized industry-specific solutions, both in terms of our go-to-market approach and our service delivery model. This will require restructuring our organization, restructuring from primarily being regionally and service line focused, to one that better aligns to our client industries. Third, we will focus on something we are calling consistent excellence. We will define and implement the best practices in account and labor management, from across and outside our business, as well as developing a more integrated approach for continuous improvement in our safety program. The ultimate goal is to develop and deliver consistent excellence throughout the entire enterprise.

Fourth, we will leverage our buying power to manage costs more efficiently and effectively across the Company. We do this best-in-class in certain areas of the Company, but we will do it across the entire enterprise in the future. Fifth, we will improve employee training and development, so we can create great internal opportunities and even better career paths for our team. We do a terrific job in compliance and trades schools training, but we have an opportunity to improve our management and leadership training. And lastly, we will allocate our capital with a more balanced approach to maintain our ability to run the business and the best in the future.

Please turn to slide 5. The slide provides a high-level picture of what the firm could look like in the future. We are the very beginning stages of what we believe that the five industry verticals outlined to the right of the page, give us great advantage in the future. We have scale in each of these areas today, but the opportunity to accelerate top line growth and create margin expansion in the future is exciting to us. The performance of our aviation vertical, Air Serv, is proof-positive of the power of what is to come.

Please turn to slide 6. Our time line is in three phases. Phase I is the foundation setting. Phase II is development and initial execution, and Phase III is the acceleration of the plan. On our Investor Day, which we are targeting for October 28, we will provide additional insight into the work streams of each phase, as well as the costs and benefits we are projecting. For today's call, remember we are at the beginning stages of our plan, so you won't get the detail that we will be able to provide to you next month.

Please turn to slide 7. We are taking three immediate actions. First, we will initiate Phase I of our transformation by mobilizing our transformation office and teams. Second, as I mentioned our review of our business was comprehensive. We looked at every industry vertical, and every service line. After very careful consideration, we have determined that the best course of action was to explore strategic and alternatives for our security business. We have good underlying fundamentals in our own security business. But to be competitive in this business segment going forward, there needs to be investment in achieving greater scale, and moving more towards technology-enabled solutions. For us, this is about where do we best deploy our capital going forward? That being said, we have not come to any definitive conclusions yet on the best course of action. However, it's another of our immediate actions.

And third, we were pleased to announce a $200 million share repurchase program. Anthony will be addressing that in more detail in a moment. Our 2020 Vision is exciting, but it also means change, and they are on the way, and we have a lot of work to do. We will undoubtedly have a number of tough decisions in the coming months. You likely saw the announcement regarding Tracy Price, EVP and President of ABM Facility Solutions Group. Tracy has been a champion of our Unified Workforce software platform. He will be leaving ABM to serve as Chief Executive Officer of the newly-formed business to be named QMerit, and ABM will have a minority interest in the company. I sincerely thank Tracy for his leadership over the past few years, and we wish him all the best in his new role as he drives to further develop and commercialize the software platform.

Now let me briefly explain the financial implications of the transformation initiative. We expect to realize annual operating benefits of $40 million to $50 million fully realized in the second half of 2017. As part of the reorganization, we anticipate taking pre-tax restructuring charges in the range of $45 million to $60 million. The majority will be incurred through the third-quarter 2016, and primarily for severance, project fees and the potential write-down of certain investments. We look forward to getting into much more detail on the 2020 Vision at our Investor Day. It takes great confidence in an organization to implement a broad-scale transformation. I said it before, and I believe it now more than ever, our culture of winning as a team rather than individuals will carry the day. It's cliche to say we have the best people. I'm happy to be cliche. I would never embark on this journey, if I didn't believe that. After completing this reorganization and fulfilling our 2020 Vision, I believe we will quickly become the market leader, against which other companies will benchmark their performance.

But before I turn it over to Anthony, I just want to spend a moment reflecting on our third-quarter. While we were pleased with our top line revenue growth for the quarter, the magnitude of the increase of our insurance reserves, the casualty programs adversely impact our earnings. And Anthony will spend a great deal of time taking you through those details. Reducing our risk is of utmost importance to us, as one of the key detailed pillars of our broader 2020 Vision strategy. I am committed to making sure we remain focused on developing a more integrated approach of continuous improvement in our safety and risk management programs. It's unfortunate to have to end my remarks on that note, but it's important for me to communicate to you how vital our insurance program is, and how focused we are on getting consistency going forward. But now let me turn it over to Anthony Scaglione, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide details on our financial results.

Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. Before I get into the details of our third-quarter results, let me comment briefly in the new strategic vision we announced today. As you heard from Scott, our strategic plan will enhance our competitive position, and enable us to continue to create value for our shareholders well into the future. The strategic plan consists of three primary phases, during which we will implement a series of initiatives to drive sustainable, profitable growth.

During the first phase, we will streamline costs and realign our operations for the efficient delivery of our services, in order to drive margin [with] accretive growth. The Company expects to achieve annualized operational benefits of $40 million to $50 million by the second half of FY17, with these benefits primarily coming from a more simplified organizational structure, and company-wide process enhancements, including leveraging our procurement. We anticipate pre-tax charges of $45 million to $60 million over the next several quarters to implement these changes. We believe the cost benefit of this restructuring is both highly compelling, and necessary to deliver the results the business is capable of achieving. We look forward to updating you on the progress, and sharing further details on the expected impact of our restructuring efforts and initiatives at our Investor Day in October. Now let's do a quick review of the quarter highlights.

Please turn to slide 9. We achieved record revenues of approximately $1.35 billion, an increase of 5.7% compared to the third quarter of FY14. Organic growth was 2.8%, and adjusted net income was $26.8 million or $0.47 per diluted share, flat on a year over year basis. As Scott mentioned, insurance had a significant impact to our quarter and year-to-date results. Additionally, we recorded approximately $5.4 million of discrete tax items in the quarter. Rounding out the quarter, I want to highlight our strong cash flow of $62.4 million, which brings year to date cash flow to over $100 million. Before I go into the segment operational results, let me give you some context on the insurance program.

At any point in time, we manage over 5,000 individual claims, each with large deductibles related to our work comp, general liability and auto program. It's important to note we depend heavily on trending data to help us establish our estimate of ultimate unpaid losses, which are effectively our reserves. As discussed in previous years, we have made considerable investments in our risk management and safety program. These include implementation of work comp accountability programs, introduction of our Think Safe initiative, and targeted emphasis on return to work programs. With these investments and the related potential benefits, the Company made assumptions with respect to its ability to positively impact the frequency of claims and the cost of such claims, which have not materialized at the expected rate. As a result, we experienced adverse development in our inventory of open claims since the last actuarial study was completed in 2014.

General liability claims drove the majority of the adjustment in Q3. The complexity of some cases, especially those which contain a bodily injury component, increases the difficulty to estimate ultimate unpaid loss, and resolve claims in a timely manner. We are working toward programs that address GL, and we plan on implementing a loss accountability program in FY16 to help better align incidents to results on a go forward basis.

Moving to the actuarial process, our external actuarial consultants consider the historical claim reserving and reporting patterns when calculating the estimates of unpaid losses, including benefits assumed from safety initiatives. However, the impact of the adverse development for existing claims, the changes in the frequency of claims, and the estimates of ultimate losses materially impacted their actuarial analysis, which resulted in the charge of $46.5 million that we recorded in the period. Finally for FY15, the impact related to current year insurance and operating profit margin will be approximately 27 basis points for the full-year. In addition, although not finalized, we anticipate our insurance rate for FY16 to further impact our full-year operating margins by an additional 25 to 35 basis points. This is primarily a result of higher insurance rates being charged to operation, that will not include the same level of risk and safety benefits that we assumed in the past.

Now let's move to slide 10 to review operations. Janitorial revenue increased 4.7% year-over-year to $678.5 million, primarily due to $20.8 million in additional revenues from acquisition and organic growth including higher tag revenue. Operating profit decreased by $8.2 million, with margins decreasing by 150 basis points to 4.9%. The decline in janitorial operating profit margin was primarily due to the unfavorable impact of insurance. In addition, janitorial margins were negatively impacted by approximately 10 basis points, primarily as a result of higher SG&A, and the absence of a gain from a property sale in FY14. Partially offsetting these items was new business. We now expect janitorial operating profit margin to be approximately 5.6% for FY15.

Moving to facility services, revenue decreased $3.7 million or 2.5%, primarily due to the termination of certain lower margin contracts that exceeded new business. Operating profit for facility services decreased by $1 million or 14.3%, with margins increasing by 50 basis points to 4.1%. Again, the decline in operating profit margins was primarily driven by the unfavorable impact of insurance. Going forward, we expect the operating profit margin to be approximately 4.2% for FY15.

Turning to parking, revenues increased $5.5 million or 3.5% over the third quarter of 2014, primarily due to increased scope of work from existing clients. Management reimbursement revenues were essentially flat at $78.5 million. Operating profit in parking was $1.2 million or 13.3% lower in the quarter, with operating profit margins declining 100 basis points to 4.8%. The decrease in operating profit margins was primarily related to insurance. We expect operating profit margin of approximately 4.8% for FY15.

Turning to security, revenues grew to nearly $99 million, an increase of $3.5 million or 3.7%, primarily a result of increased scope of work from existing clients. Operating profit margin decreased by $[0.6] million, and operating profit margin decreased by 80 basis points to 3% as a result of insurance. We expect operating profit margin of approximately 3% for FY15. Overall, the takeaway is that our on-site business delivered as expected, and the continued discipline on cash contributed to the quarter, outside of insurance.

Turning now to slide 11, BESG revenues were $149.1 million, an increase of $21.6 million or 16.9%. BESG revenue growth was largely driven by contributions from acquisitions and organic growth in government contracts including DLITE, which continues to grow from increased scope. Important to note, in our ABES business, revenue bookings at the end of the third quarter were approximately $67 million. This compares to $30 million in the prior period. As we had mentioned in our Q2 call, we expected double-digit revenue and operating profit growth in the second half, and the team is on track to deliver. BESG operating profits increased 19.1% to $18.1 million, and operating profit margins increased by 10 basis points to 5.4%, primarily due to tax credits from energy projects that offset the insurance charge.

Moving to Air Serv, we had yet another quarter of impressive growth, with a16% increase in revenue driven by US operations. Operating profits held steady, with operating profit margins decreasing by 60 basis points to 4%. As in many of our other operating segments, the decrease in operating profit margins was primarily related to insurance. Corporate expenses excluding IICs or items impacting comparability decreased by $1.6 million. For the full year, we continue to expect the 7% to 9% increase in corporate expenses excluding IICs, as we've communicated previously.

Now let's turn to slide 13. Cash generated by operating activities for the quarter was $62.4 million. DSO at quarter end were 53 days, down 1 day on a year-over-year basis, and unchanged sequentially. Let's turn to slide 14 for a look at the Company's leverage profile. We ended the quarter with approximately $305 million of debt under our $800 million line of credit. Including letter of credits of approximately $160 million, we ended the quarter with a leverage ratio 1.95.

Turning to slide 15. During the quarter, we've repurchased approximately 307,000 shares at a cost of $10 million. And also the Company announced, the Board authorized a new $200 million share repurchase. The $200 million share authorization does not alter our overall philosophy. We will continue to prioritize value enhancing investment, and operate with the strong balance sheet and leverage profile value to ensure we have adequate liquidity to execute our strategic plan. And yesterday, I am pleased to announce the Company approved its 198th consecutive dividend of $0.16 per share.

Moving to slide 17, as noted in our earnings release yesterday afternoon, we narrowed FY15 adjusted EPS guidance to $1.75 to $1 80. This guidance excludes potential benefits associated with the extension of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit for calendar 2015. If Congress were extend the WOTC for calendar 2015 prior to October 31, 2015, the Company could have a further benefit of $0.08 per diluted share. Due to the insurance charge and the uncertainty of the timing of restructuring charges, we are withdrawing our guidance for GAAP net income per diluted share. I look forward to providing everyone more details about our strategy and restructuring efforts at the Investor meeting in late October. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for Q&A. Operator?

(Operator Instructions)

Andy Wittmann, Robert Baird & Company.

Hi, good morning. I had several questions this morning. I wanted to start with the outlook for the near-term here, and the revision to the guidance contemplating and recognizing the tax benefit that you got for the quarter. If you just, if you were to take in your previous guidance, and looked at it on a EBITDA basis, given that you give us the EPS, depreciation, interest, tax rates all that. You would have found out that you were as implying something like $205 million of EBITDA, with the new guidance. But previously that number was like $225 million, so that's like a $20 million EBITDA hit quarter over quarter. Now $10 million of that or so is explainable from the insurance reserve, but the $10 million other difference seems pretty significant, and it looks like it's attributed to the margins. A long way of saying, what's happening in the core business that explains where the margins were for the quarter, exclusive of the insurance charge?

Andy, so for the year we expect $14 million of adjustments related to insurance, of which we reported $7 million in the quarter as a cumulative catch-up. And then, for the balance of the year, we'll have an additional $7 million, which include the $3.5 million for Q3. So there's a $14 million impact cumulatively for insurance, of which we reported the $10.5 million in Q3. So there's an additional $3.5 million coming in the period.

In terms of the bridge, so we had one less day for Q4. We have additional discrete items coming through for the quarter of approximately $1.2 million. As we mentioned, our ABES business had significant bookings in Q3, and we expect to turn a good portion of those bookings in Q4, so there's going to be a good uplift related to our ABES business. And as you know, Q4 typically is our strongest quarter, so we feel very comfortable with the revised guidance and the range that we provided.

Okay. So as this relates to 2016 then, if you use the new starting point for what you are guiding for EBITDA, and then recognizing that next year has an extra day which is like a $4 million cost headwind, I'm trying to understand what -- plus now it looks like another 25 to 35 basis points of insurance reserve which I wanted to get into separately, trying to understand if there's any other one-time items that were negative to 2015, that are not expected to happen in 2016? I just -- when I look at the consensus numbers that out there on 2016, I'm trying to understand where we should build off $210 million minus 35 basis points, minus the extra day headwind?

Yes, I don't think there's anything specific in 2015 that I can point to, outside the large insurance adjustment. At the end of the day, when we look at -- we're in as you can imagine, we're currently in the process of building up our budgets for FY16, so we're not in a position to provide guidance at this time. But outside of the insurance headwind which is incremental year over year, we don't see anything on the horizon that's going to fundamentally change our go forward run rate, as it relates to the EBITDA or the margins that I described.

Okay. So let's dig into this extra 25 to 35 basis points of insurance headwind. I would -- I guess, I'm not an insurance expert, but it seems like when you take the big reserve for this year, it's a $14 million difference for this year. If you are accruing it at a new rate, why is there another headwind into next year? Can you just give us a little more detail behind that?

Yes. So our -- when we look at our rates for fiscal years and the go forward, and as we receive that information from our actuary, they provide ranges as it relates to the rates. So our position going forward is to take less of the benefit related to some of the investment that we've made in safety, almost a credit-less perspective. So we're going in next fiscal year with the assumption that it's a full allocation of our insurance rate or the true cost of insurance, with the hopeful discipline on driving safety that will hopefully drive down volatility, we can drive the frequency down. So effectively, the increase in insurance rates going into 2016 is really related to what we have experienced, and then potentially additional exposures going up next year as we grow the business.

Okay. I'm going to do one more, and I might jump back in queue, but I wanted to just talk about the balance sheet and the buyback a little bit, because I think this is important as well. The $200 million buyback I think probably surprises some people in its size. But if I am not mistaken, you guys are talking about potentially operating the business at a little bit higher level than you'd run historically. So is it fair to think about maybe a 2.5 times leverage rate as the normal way of doing business? And then, in that context, if you think over the next couple of years, if you do $100 million of free cash flow which is a rough number, for the next two years that's $200 million. Plus you want to turn up the leverage another turn, so that's another $220 million let's call it. In other words, the $200 million buyback if over two years, that would be like only half of your free cash flow. Why can't that be more? Why can't that be $300 million? Your thoughts on that would be appreciated

Yes, absolutely, Andy. So you're absolutely right, from a leverage perspective I think we're more comfortable stating that we are looking to potentially move to the 2.5 range. And it's not a -- as you can imagine, it's not something that we're going to peg and drive towards. But from an operational standpoint, we are comfortable that 2.5 times gives us enough flexibility with the cash flow, free cash flow, the liquidity, and access to capital to continue to maintain a risk profile consistent to the way we've operated in the past.

And the $200 million, the way we've arrived at that, is really through an evaluation of all those components. And going forward, when we look at the optionality around investing in our business, continue to have the opportunities from an M&A perspective, we want to provide ourselves that flexibility. So we feel really good about the $200 million announcement, and the ability to continue to have the flexibility from the investment standpoint.

Okay. I'm going to do a last last question, guys. I'm sorry, but another one I think is important. Previously different management teams have committed to cost savings that we actually never really saw on the bottom line, because they were reinvested. Scott, can you say here today, that the $40 million to $50 million that you're planning, at least under this wave of restructuring, is something we should see on the bottom line?

We are absolutely committed to it. Now this was part of a long, thought-out review that looked at all areas of our business, externally and internally. And Andy, we wouldn't put it out there, if we didn't feel certain that we could accomplish it.

Okay. I will jump back in queue. Thank you.

Thanks, Andy.

George Tong, Piper Jaffray.

Hi, thanks, good morning.

Good morning.

I wanted to drill deeper into EBITDA margins in fiscal 3Q. The decline was 90 basis points year-over-year, however, you noted that the insurance impact from current period claims was only $7 million, and that translates into about 50 basis points of impact. Were there other areas of the business that may have contributed to the year over year margin headwind?

So $7 million, just to provide some clarity there, the $7 million was a cumulative catch up for Q1 and Q2. The actual impact from an insurance standpoint from our run rate we were on is actually $10.5 million. So there's an additional $3.5 million we recorded in Q3 as part of our normal close process. So that's going to be part of the impact.

Additionally, as we mentioned in Q2 the ramp-up for some of our ABES business shifted to the right. So the turn of that business had a slight impact to our EBITDA margins in the quarter, but we expect a strong Q4, and as I mentioned our booking year-over-year were significantly higher than they were last year at this time. So effectively, I think it's the insurance that's driving the majority of the EBITDA compression. And then, there's little puts and takes here and there, but as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, it's insurance that is the big driver.

Got it. And then, on the insurance side, can you talk about what changes may have occurred in the risk or demographic profile of the employee base that may have contributed to the large claims adjustment?

There is nothing fundamentally that shifted. I think, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we run a very large insurance program, and there's always going to be the potential for volatility. And our investments that we made in safety and risk, those investments we have built in an assumption that they were going to drive down the frequency. They were going to drive down the severity of our claims, that hasn't occurred. So we effectively this is a catch-up of reserves that we thought were going to have a much bigger impact with the investment in safety and risk, that hasn't occurred. So nothing from a demographic or jurisdictional standpoint that I can point to, but we are doing a much deeper analysis as it relates to risk across the enterprise. So more to come on that.

Got it. And then, last question for me, could you provide some thoughts on how you plan to stage your newly announced $200 million buyback?

Sure. So we plan to deploy the repurchase in a disciplined fashion, when we taken consideration other uses of capital. We're going to continue with our conservative risk profile as I mentioned earlier. And barring any other liquidity event, we look at the deployment in line with what we've deployed in the past, which is effectively an anti-dilutive measurement. So I would model in $40 million to $60 million per annum, and then we would adjust depending on opportunities in the market that may either increase or decrease that amount.

Great. Thank you.

David Gold, Sidoti.

Hey, good morning.

Good morning.

A couple things. First, the easy one is tax rate go forward. I know you had noted in your presentation that will be in the 20%s. I guess, a couple questions that tie together. Number one, where are we in the captive insurance process? And number two, are we already benefiting from captive insurance, and therefore is that mid-20%s a good go forward tax rate for us to model?

Yes, so let me give you a little bit of clarity. On the captive, we still have the captive as we mentioned in Q2. We continue to have benefits as it relates to the cash flow relating to the captive, and we achieved an additional $6 million. So that brings our year-to-date captive cash flow benefit to approximately $12 million, and we're continuing with the $15 million to $20 million that we signaled in Q2.

As it relates to the tax rate, the discretes are really being driven off of two main areas. One being, specifically to our energy business, we have 179D tax credits that are built into the way we operate that business, and that's driving the tax rate down. And the second is the reversal of certain FIN 48 positions that we have on the book, that we continue to see some benefit going forward and we're factoring approximately $1.2 million in Q4.

Got you. All right, so then to sum then that up, how do we think about tax rate go forward, given the benefit from the captive?

Well, the benefits in our tax captive (multiple speakers) are really cash flow driven. They don't impact the effective tax rate.

Got it. So where do we think the effective tax rate lands then, once we are normalized?

So challenging question. We will provide details. There is a bunch of discrete tax benefits that we have visibility into, but due to expiring statue of limitations, at this time there's no assurance that any remaining of the reserves will reverse, but the amounts that could have an impact will be disclosed in our 10-Q accordingly

Okay. So just sort of high level, you wouldn't expected to stay in the 20%s then?

No.

Okay, all right. Perfect. And then, just going over -- I know you're -- you'll give more detail on the plan in October. But I'm curious, again high level, when we look at what you've laid out, presumably the bulk of the cost will be done say, by the mid point of 2016. But it looks like from what I understand the bulk of the benefit won't be evident until -- for a full year behind that. Could you just give a little bit more color on the lag, the delay, and how that lays out for you?

Sure, David, I can take that. So as we looked at this, and you may have noticed that I talked about the three phases in the presentation. So think about that Phase I as mostly organizational design, and creating that efficiency. And I think that's where we'll start taking the costs out. But then you move into this mode where you start realizing those benefits. So we're going to have the six-month process of organizational design that will take us through mid-2016, and then we'll start on a glide path of realizing those benefits, especially as we layer on our account management programs and labor management programs. So we really feel like, when you want to look at how we have landed at the $40 million to $50 million, it will be in that first half of 2017, as we move up that curve.

Got you. Okay. All right. So the costs are really on the organizational changes, and so will take out some cost there. But basically, for you to get the big benefit, you really need to get into Phases II and III?

That's right. And it's really, it transitions from the cost side to the growth side, right, where you put the programs in place. You put the business plans in a more robust fashion and you started accelerating.

Okay. And then, just one last one, with the captive, do we change how often we do this actuarial review, or is it still something we expect the big hit every year in the third quarter?

No, hopefully there aren't big hits going forward, but no guarantees there. We are putting in place a biannual review from an actuarial standpoint. Not so much due to the captive, but the captives obviously will facilitate some of that analysis. So we are going to have it biannual, April and Q4 October 31 data points, which will be a Q1, Q3 event going forward.

Got you. Perfect. That's helpful. Thank you both.

Thank you, David.

Michael Gallo, CL King.

Hi, good morning. Just a couple questions if I may. Scott, would you expect to get any benefits in the back half of 2016 from some of these improvements? Or -- I know you won't get the full run rate, but do you expect to start to get some benefits from a cost savings perspective, or you won't see anything until 2017?

Oh no, no we will start in the back half 2016. That's when the organizational design will be set, and you will start seeing run rate, or we'll start seeing run rate savings just on the efficiency side of the organization. So that will start. I think when you talk about this bridge from Phase 1 to Phase II, it's really about a glide path. It's really about when it really starts kicking in when, because it doesn't happen all at once, right. You don't all of a sudden just reset the organization. It's part of a process. So it's about full realization, and giving us the opportunity to understand that. There will be things happening in 2016 in the back half and the front half of 2017, but for you guys to feel comfort, you'll have a data point by mid-2017 as a check-in, that we realize those benefits.

I will provide one (multiple speakers) we'll provide more on the Investor Day.

You may not be ready to provide but I mean, rough numbers? Can it be, I guess, a $10 million to $15 million benefit? I just, I was wondering, as you look, obviously, you're going to have the headwind on the insurance reserve. I was wondering whether you'll actually might see some offset to that from some of the cost savings [at the back]?

Yes, you'll see our org, as Scott mentioned, will be realigned by the first half of 2016, with the benefit on a full run rate at that time. So the costs that we are taking out, as it relates to the realignment and the organizational structure will be run rate starting in 2016. So you'll see some of the benefits. I don't want to get into the specifics, but it -- the majority of the benefit on our targeted range would be starting in 2016, and then, the full run rate on all the other initiatives will be a 2017 event.

All right. Okay. Second question I have, I know you've talked about the cash flow benefit to the captive. Do you expect to recognize any operational income statement benefits, or is it purely, you're purely just getting the cash flow benefit from setting it up?

Yes, it's too early to tell the -- on the income statement side. We are beginning to operate -- and this is one of the initiatives that I have on the way with the team -- is to begin to operate like an insurance company, to ensure that we have the true risk of the operations embedded in the insurance risk, and the goal is to have the right pricing for the long-term. So there could be incremental income statement benefits on a go forward basis, as we start to deploy some of these programs. But it's difficult to pin that down now, but as they occur, we will obviously highlight them.

Okay, great. And then, final question any read yet, as the -- on state unemployment insurance rates, obviously, unemployment has come down significantly. It seems like we are at the point at, part of the cycle where you could actually see a drop in rates next year. So I was wondering if you had any thoughts on -- I know it's early, but what you see for SUI next year? Thanks.

That's --it's a little too early in the process. As you can imagine we're constantly evaluating our SUI rates as part of our budget process, and as part of the go forward. But at this time, it would be premature for me to give guidance around that figure or the impact for FY16

Okay. Thank you.

Joe Box, KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Hey, good morning, guys

Good morning.

So I know you're at the beginning of your plan, but I do just want to push you a little bit more on the details of the $40 million to $50 million of cost saves. Can you give us a sense how much of that might come from supplier consolidation, how much could come from procurement, maybe how much is the organizational restructuring that you alluded to earlier? And then, just a clarification, all of these saves, they do come with or without the security business, right?

Yes. So I appreciate the fact that you want to push us, but we really -- we're next month, we are going to give much more clarity on all these work streams. So you are going to have to give us that time, because we are at the beginning of the stages. And we've been so thoughtful, Joe, about this process to this point, and we've been so methodical. So I am going to ask you to give us that leeway to wait another month for our Investor Day. But we have modeled in security into our business, and we haven't made any decisions yet. We are exploring strategic alternatives.

Well, I understand that. But then why not wait until next month to put out some of these goals or some of these longer-term targets, so we could see some of the meat and potatoes behind there?

Yes, I think what we wanted to provide today was, where we feel, line of sight we have visibility into what we think we can achieve in terms of the savings side, and the costs associated with putting the organization in place. In terms of specificity around the bucket, to Scott's point, we'll provide that as well as the glide path in our Investor Day in October. But these are true costs, that we have line of sight, we are putting in place the plans, and we'll share those plans in October.

I understand that. I'm assuming that you sat back, and you've created a model, and you looked at all these individual items to comprised that $40 million to $50 million. So I'm assuming that you have the data, but we have to model the Company. So we are going to have to put something in. So it would be helpful to have it right here.

Maybe what I could do, is I could ask something more hypothetical. As you sit back and you refocus on the verticals that you can distinguish yourself in -- I don't necessarily disagree with this move -- but it's always kind of been expressed to us that part of ABM's advantage has been its ability to really self-perform a greater number of their services, relative to your competitors. And I think that's been part of the driver why you guys have been able to get above trend organic growth rates. My question to you is, how do you go out, how do you deemphasize some of these businesses and transition to more core markets, yet you still are able to keep some of the same share gains coming, and even accelerate growth?

Yes, I think it's because of the structure, that we're going to be able to do all of this. Now we're really not deemphasizing any businesses. What we're doing is emphasizing businesses, and creating a more streamlined focus, look at our Air Serve business and how it performs. When you approach the market with end-to-end solutions and you really understand the customer, you end up selling more through, and adding more services. Because remember, we have a very robust offering, right? We have -- in addition to security, we're talking about exploring alternatives for, we have our janitorial, we have our parking. We have a very robust station engineering practice. We have a robust mobile engineering practice, and we have our high tech services through our ABES division that is project-based and mobile-based. But we can do lighting retrofits, energy retrofits, so we just have a number of tools and resources to bring to bear on a client.

This is a process of figuring out where we have the best, what again, what we are calling right to win. Because we look at the industry in the market, and whether that market is growing, outsourcing potential, scale advantage, and again where our competitive positioning was. So when we looked at this and when we did this model, we didn't just say, oh, which verticals do we have the highest margins? It was really comprehensive, looking to the future, and where we can expand. So I don't but it's going to be less offerings, I think it's going to be more focused offerings.

Understood. Okay. And then, I'm assuming that there's going to be a lot more detail on my next question at the Analyst Day, but can you just help us understand the simplification of the operating model? I mean, I see the slide in here. But I'm what I'm trying to get at is, if the operating model is going to end up being more client-centric, it does imply that there's going to have to be some type of sales restructuring to get you to that point. How do you ultimately do that, without having it be disruptive?

So again, we're operating in all of these verticals right now. So I think -- let me give you a very simplistic version, but maybe it will give you some clarity. So right now, you may have a branch manager in the operations that has 20 projects, 20 clients, and that may span five or six different verticals because it's a service line approach. Now what we see, is how do you narrow that down, have a branch manager focused on one vertical, where they become expert in it, and understand the client, understand the clients needs, and figure out how to solve problems and be a solutions provider. And I think that's going to create that -- that's the simplification in the model, getting expert people, handling expert service delivery.

And I'm assuming that there will be some comp change to really reinforce this goal, right?

Yes, it's not so much change, its alignment, right? And we have an objective, right, margin expansion, grow the EBITDA, accelerate top line growth with specific industries. People will be compensated with that alignment, talking about safety programs, our account management programs, labor programs. There's going to be a lot more structure going forward, in how we compensate people and how it aligns to the goals that we are setting out in the 2020 Vision.

Great. I look forward to hearing more about it next month. Thanks.

Thank you.

Dan Dolev, Jefferies.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. So can you explain a little bit in janitorial, it looks like organic growth ex that large contract is still healthy. But it does -- it did decelerate from earlier this year, and it is a deceleration from some of the organic growth rates we saw last year. Can you maybe explain a little bit what's going on there, and will you be able to get to those 4% to 5% growth rates?

Yes, Dan, this is Anthony. Nothing fundamental, I think from an organic growth to Scott's point, we're focusing where do we want to grow at the end of the day, and that's driving some of the decision on the expansion. But year over year when you look at it, it was in line with our expectation. We had the large contract that you alluded to that impacted the comparison. But we're still seeing good organic growth, 3.5% excluding that large contract. And we have a platform in the UK now that's contributing to the growth. I know that's one where we're very excited about the go forward plan there. So I think we are going to see -- continue to see good organic growth that we had in the past, in that's 3% to 3.5%, 3% to 4% range.

Understood. And then, just one more question. I think it was slightly alluded to -- in the before. But why security, just to lower -- because of the lower margin quality that it has? Because if I look at the organic growth at least in the last two years, it has actually been outperforming or growing faster than some of your other businesses.

Yes. So Dan, this is forward-looking, right. We're looking to the future, and looking how -- when we look at the service line, and look at what's needed to compete effectively in the verticals that we're going to be in, now it's going to be -- there's going to be a shift from manned guarding which we primarily are, to technology-enabled solutions, and it's going to require investment, And I think you have to look at our security division, and recognize that we don't have the scale. We are not a national provider. We provide in certain pockets, so we are a regional provider in different regions across the country. So as we're going through the strategic alternatives we're saying, are we willing to invest in scale, and are we willing to invest in technology solutions? And we look at that against the backdrop of where else should we invest, and where else should we deploy the capital, and that's the process we're going through right now. So it's not about today, it's about tomorrow.

Got it. And does that also open the gate potentially to parking being excluded, that rationale of not being the market leader?

Well, first of all, we are a market leader right now in parking, right. I think by any standards, we are the number two parking firm, and we have quite good margins there. But I think, look, every service line, every vertical went under a comprehensive review. We've looked at parking, and we looked at the verticals that we want to play in the future, and there's good strategic fit. I mean, I think about how we are in the aviation business. It would be very difficult to talk to an aviation customer about an end-to-end solution, and say that we don't operate shuttle busses, either in front of the gate or behind the gate. Or that we don't park cars in an airport. Because in aviation, it's about the passenger experience from the minute they drive into the airport until they get on the plane. So again, in certain verticals, parking becomes compelling, and that was part of our review.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Adam Thalhimer, BB&T Capital Markets.

Hey, good morning, guys.

Good morning.

The $10.5 million insurance cost, how much of that was in the janitorial segment specifically?

Roughly, the out of period adjustment for insurance for janitorial was roughly $4.5 million of the $7 million. So if you extrapolate that from a percentage perspective, you'll get the adjustment for the $3.5 million for the full three quarters.

Okay. But you also said there were some discrete items that hurt janitorial margins?

No. I think I mentioned that there was a 10 basis point impact to our margins related to other items like SG&A costs, et cetera. The majority of the impacted margins was insurance

Okay

Outside of insurance, it operated as expected.

Okay. And can you give a little more clarity -- you mentioned that your bookings were very good in Q3. You talked about the 3% to 4% organic growth rate. I mean, can you talk a little bit more about just what you're seeing in terms of market demand and the economy?

Sure. On the bookings side, that was just specifically related to our ABES business, which is a component of our BESG operating segment. So year over year, we've seen significant improvements in the bookings, and it's one of the highest in the Company's history. So at the end of Q3, we had $67 million of bookings, which we anticipate approximately $[37] million to be recognized in Q4.

So back to what we mentioned on our Q2 call, BESG is typically a second-half story, and the guys there are really performing exceptionally from a bookings standpoint. As it relates to the on-site business, we continue to expect to see the low single-digit organic growth, 2% to 4% is typically what we are expecting. But again to Scott's point, I think what we're really trying to drive the discipline on the margin. So as we take on new engagements and as we expand, we are also looking at the margin profile to ensure that it's meeting our objectives.

Okay. And then, how are you going to -- maybe you'll talk more about this next month, but how are you going to report? Are the segments going to change, or are you going to start to report by industry vertical results?

Yes, at this time, there is not going to be any change to the segment reporting. As we continue with the evolution from a service line to potentially a vertical line, we'll make the assessment whether to begin to report on a vertical, and then appropriately restate the prior -- the previous three years.

Yes, and until we start operating the business that way, and attacking the market that way, we think it would be premature.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Michael Gallo, CL King.

Hi, just a quick follow-up. Which quarter next year will have the extra day?

I don't have that in front of me Michael, but I can get back to you. Unfortunately, I don't have that readily available. I think we put it on our -- did we put it on our -- Yes, I'll get back to you, Michael.

Okay.

Thank you, and I'm not showing any further questions. I'll now turn the call back over to Mr. Salmirs.

Okay. Well, thanks everyone. We appreciate the questions and the interest, especially at this time of year when everyone is getting ready for the long holiday. So thanks for hanging in there with us, and enjoy the holiday weekend. Take care.

Ladies and gentlemen thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.