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Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the fourth quarter 2008 CECO Environmental earnings conference call.
My name is Erica and I'll be your coordinator for today.
At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode.
We will be facilitating a question and answer session towards the end of this conference.
(Operator Instructions)
I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Mr.
Dennis Blazer, CFO.
Please proceed, sir.
- CFO
Good morning.
I'm Dennis Blazer, CFO.
Also joining us on the call will be Phillip DeZwirek, CEO and Richard Blum, President and Chief Operating Officer.
Before we begin, I would like to caution investors regarding forward-looking statements.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission encourages companies to disclose forward-looking information so that investors can better understand a company's future prospects and make informed investment decisions.
Any statement made today that are not based on historical fact are forward-looking statements.
Although such statements are based on management's current estimates and expectations and currently available competitive, financial and economic data, forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain.
We therefore caution the listeners that there are a variety of factors that could cause business conditions and results to differ materially from what is contained in our forward-looking statements.
For a description of some of the factors which may occur that could cause actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements, please refer to our 2007 Form 10-K and in particular, the discussions contained under Item 1 Business, Item 1 A Risk Factors, Item 3 Legal Proceedings, and Item 7 Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations.
Now I'll do a quick review of our financial results, which will be followed by comments from Mr.
Blum and Mr.
DeZwirek.
We will then open the call for questions.
For the three month period ended December 31, 2008, net sales decreased from $68 million to $58.3 million.
Gross profit increased 34.8% from $11.2 million to $15.1 million.
Gross profit margins increased by 9.4 percentage points.
Operating income increased 57% from $2.8 million to $4.4 million and operating margins increased by 3.4 percentage points.
Other income of $0.9 million represents unrealized foreign exchange gains.
Net income increased $1.6 million to $3.4 million.
Earnings per diluted share increased 58.3% to $0.19 cents for the quarter, up from $0.12 cents in 2007.
For the 12 month period ended December 31, 2008, net sales decreased to $217 million.
Gross profit increased 10.7% to $43.4 million.
Gross profit margins increased by 3.3 percentage points.
Operating income decreased to $8.2 million.
Net income for the year was $5 million compared to $6.3 million in 2007.
Earnings per diluted share were $0.30 cents compared to $0.45 cents in 2007.
And now I'll turn the call over to our Chief Operating Officer, Rick Blum.
- President and COO
Thank you, Denny, and good morning, everyone.
Obviously, we are pleased with our fourth quarter results.
While it wasn't a record from a revenue standpoint, it was a record from a gross margin and income standpoint.
There's some important aspects of our business that I would like to discuss with you this morning.
The first is the diversification of our customer base.
We feel this makes us a much stronger company.
We've always said we work in everything from food to foundries and that is now more true than ever.
The best example I can give you is the fact that two of the largest components of our backlog, in fact the largest two, are the power and refining industries.
Two years ago, those sectors made up almost none of our backlog.
We have also diversified our customer base geographically.
At the end of December, almost 15% of our backlog was for projects located outside of the United States.
We did business last year in 46 different countries.
Key markets were China, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Canada.
We have also broadened the range of air pollution control technologies that we offer.
The three acquisitions in 2008 added technologies such as electrostatic precipitators, scrubbers, classifiers and refinery cyclones to our already broad list of product offerings.
The statement that while we have competition in everything we do, we have no single competitor that can do everything we do, is now more true than ever.
We have seen gross margins improve for two reasons.
First, we have worked diligently to reduce costs and become more efficient.
Those efforts are paying off.
Second, our equipment divisions are generally higher gross margin businesses than our contracting divisions.
They now make up a larger percentage of our business than they did in the past.
By no means, however, are we putting less emphasis on our contracting businesses.
They are the key to the vertical integration portion of our strategy.
That involves providing turn-key solutions and not simply equipment delivered to a customer.
That capability enables us to win a lot of business that we would otherwise would not win.
Looking forward to 2009 and beyond, here are some things that we see.
Number one, more stringent EPA and OSHA regulations will have an effect on our business and that effect will be a positive one.
We think our unequaled variety of air pollution control technologies, coupled with our industrial ventilation expertise, uniquely positions us to help our customers by providing them with turn-key solutions that solve both indoor and outdoor air quality issues.
Simply put, we remove contaminants from workers' breathing zones, and then we clean that contaminated air before it is exhausted to the atmosphere.
That we can do it in such a wide variety of industries makes us unique.
There is also no one better at it.
Any stimulus spending on infrastructure will be positive for the steel and cement industries.
That should be good for us.
We are continuing to grow the service and parts portions of our business.
20% of our revenue still comes from maintenance and parts contracts under $50,000.
We feel that there will be renewed emphasis on energy management, both in the United States and around the world.
We intend to continue to grow our participation in that field.
Three areas that are relatively new, and are areas in which we see potential for significant growth, involve renewable fuels, biomass and gasification.
We plan to become involved in the growth of those fields.
The issue of the large contract we secured in late 2006 has been resolved.
Due to the precarious financial condition of our customer, we decided that the prudent action was to collect all the monies that have been billed and due us and give up any disputed claim for additional reimbursement.
All of the money owed us now has been collected and the project is over.
It had no effect on our fourth quarter results.
And now if the customer receives sufficient government aid or goes into some form of reorganization, we will have the opportunity to bid on potential major retooling work with little, if any, financial exposure.
Looking forward, we plan to continue to grow this company and to continue to be innovative leaders in the air pollution control industry.
We will do this both in North America and around the world.
And now I would like to turn the call over to our Chairman, Phil DeZwirek.
- CEO and Chairman
Thank you, Rick.
First, I would like to thank everyone at CECO for the fine performance last quarter.
The fourth quarter is normally our best and that certainly turned out to be true this year.
We have spoken to you in the past about working hard to improve margins.
As you can see from this quarter and from the entire year's results, we are making good progress in this area.
We have also spoken to you recently about a need to reduce our SG&A expenses.
We have taken steps to cut on an annualized basis approximately $3 million from SG&A and we're also working to cut expenses in other areas.
These reductions began in January and should be fully in effect toward the end of the second quarter.
We are also continuing to look at our expenses and will make whatever reductions, changes or improvements that are necessary as the future unfolds.
I would like to make a brief comment about our common stock.
The last time the market sold, or CECO's market sold at this evaluation, we had approximately $60 million in revenues, $35 million in high interest debt, and we were losing money.
We're now a $200 million plus revenue company with limited and very controllable debt, and quite profitable.
I know that there are hundreds of bargains of stocks in this market right now, but in my opinion, CECO's evaluation is burgeoning on the ridiculous.
Selling at one sixth of sales, we have built up a global platform in a very topical and necessary industry with worldwide demand.
We intend, difficult as it may be in today's financial world, to make a serious effort to increase shareholder value.
We are open for questions.
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you.
(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from the line of Dale Pfau with Cantor Fitzgerald.
Please go ahead.
- Analyst
Good morning, gentlemen.
Congratulations on a pretty spectacular quarter.
I've got a number of questions here for you.
First of all, the gross margins were outstanding during the quarter and I understand that a chunk of that could become because the mix between the business and services.
What can we expect in terms of gross margins looking forward?
Can you maintain this mix differential and do you expect to be able to keep gross margins here?
Are we going to have still quite a bit of variability in gross margins?
- CFO
Rick, I'll take that question.
- President and COO
Okay.
- CFO
I think we can easily sustain these gross margins and gross margin percentages.
The shift from contracting to equipment basically is now a balance of 50%/50%.
Our year-to-date revenues in 2008 were 50% from the contracting group, 50% from the equipment group.
A year ago, that was 65% contracting and 30% equipment.
So a lot of that's due to the acquisitions, which really dropped into the equipment group side of the ledger.
Fisher-Klosterman, for example, was a fairly large acquisition that's now in the equipment group.
We also have a full 12 months of EFFOX in these results versus 10 months a year ago, so I think those margin percentages are definitely sustainable as we go forward.
- Analyst
Are you talking about the full year gross margin, or the fourth quarter gross margin, Denny?
- CFO
Probably the full year.
The fourth quarter is always a better quarter.
Those margins typically come in a little higher because we're closing out contracts and taking off contingencies.
So I wouldn't set the fourth quarter as our target, but in general, I think our margins will improve, be equal to or better than the year-to-date margin percentages.
- Analyst
Great, and then a comment on the expenses.
Clearly expenses in the fourth quarter were a little bit higher than I was expecting.
I understand Phil's comments about cutting $3 million out, which is about $0.75 million dollars per quarter out of your operating expenses.
That would still be a little bit higher than I would expect.
What is the run rate of OpEx, operating expenses you would expect per quarter and was there anything unusual in the fourth quarter operating expenses?
Well, in the fourth quarter, operating expenses, we have some expenses related to conversion of systems.
As you know, we've done six acquisitions in a relatively short period of time.
The new acquisitions bring with them SG&A that has to be consolidated and we're in the process of going live on a new computer system and we'll bring each of these units on one at a time.
One of the things that slowed us down a little bit on this is the Sarbanes-Oxley 404 compliance auditing that we had to do that our limited resources and our fairly small accounting staff, it's a big bite to bite off to get the 404 compliance and testing and auditing finished, as well as integrating these six acquisitions and switching to a new accounting system.
So that's where a lot of this cost came from in the fourth quarter and that's where we anticipate that we'll be able to reduce those going forward.
And then let's talk about backlog.
Backlog came down from the third quarter level.
Could you talk maybe a little bit about your outlook for 2009, how are orders trending here in the early part of the year?
How do they trend toward the back half of last year?
- President and COO
The, the last half of--or the last quarter of '08, we saw a slowdown in December.
It has been -- we actually had a very, very good November and October.
It has been better in January and February than it was in December and March is looking fairly positive.
We've booked a good deal of business so far this month and we have a couple of fairly good size contracts that we think we're going to land, either late in March or early in April.
But there's no question that we're looking at a more difficult environment than we probably were a year ago.
Having said that, there are also some opportunities.
I was at a renewable energy conference where we exhibited yesterday and the attendance and the interest and the number of real inquiries, not leads, but inquiries that we got was very encouraging.
So it's a matter of going where the opportunities are and that's what we intend to do.
- Analyst
Have you seen any impact at all due to Care coming back on the table?
- President and COO
Not yet.
No, it's too soon to tell.
Well, not too soon to tell.
I think Care helps, but the slowdown that we saw in power because of the fact that they rescinded the Care Rule has not yet turned around, but everybody is expecting it to do that, either in the second or third quarters of this year.
- Analyst
Okay, great.
I'll get back in queue.
Thanks.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Ted Kundtz with Needham.
Please proceed.
- Analyst
Hi, everyone.
Again, my congratulations.
That was a surprising nice upside to the quarter.
It was great to see.
Can you talk a little bit more about the outlook for bookings?
Perhaps maybe give us a little more color on some of the specific industries that you're addressing, and if you expect the book to bill to get back closer to the one to one level.
Looks like bookings in the quarter were probably around -- my guess was around $39 million or so for the fourth quarter.
And so quite a--about 0.68 of book to bill.
Wondering what your expectations are for that and maybe a little color on the industries.
- President and COO
Well, the industries where we're seeing activity are still power.
We are still booking business, and some significant business is available overseas and I would expect us to land a good portion of that.
Refining, we're still doing well The chemical industry, we're still doing well.
You know, automotive is not very good unless you are a--one of the transplant companies, a couple of which are going to go forward with facilities.
Other than that, it's a real mix, Ted.
I mean the rest of our business comes in energy management, the foundry industry is seeing some--a definite slowdown.
We expect--there are some steel projects that are on hold right now that we hope that the infrastructure stimulus tips over the edge and puts them forward.
The same thing is true in the cement industry but the rest of it is a real mix of areas.
We see some real opportunities in biomass and gasification.
There's some great opportunities for Fisher-Klosterman in those areas.
- Analyst
Okay.
- President and COO
And that's one of the things we're pursuing.
- Analyst
When would you expect something to develop in those two areas?
- President and COO
I think we'll see--we are getting orders now and I think we're going to see that continue to grow through the year.
- Analyst
Okay.
Could you make an estimate on what you think the book to bill could look like in this quarter?
Do you get the sense that bookings will be an improvement over fourth quarter levels?
- President and COO
I can't--I think they will be, but the jury's still out.
I think our billings will probably exceed bookings again in the first quarter.
- Analyst
I know it's a lumpy business and it's tough to predict.
Okay.
Could you talk a little bit--what was your head count at the end of the year?
- President and COO
Our head count today is about 750.
- Analyst
Okay.
And do you expect to maintain that, or is that--are there cross-cuttings there where we'll see--
- President and COO
Our head count comes in two components.
I think that, first of all, our head count is our blue collar shop and field people, which fluctuates with projects.
So, you know, that's probably down from about 850 some months ago but a lot of that was shop and field people.
- Analyst
Okay.
- President and COO
We're actually--in Cincinnati we're actually putting people on again, believe it or not.
The head count in SG&A will be down, no question.
- Analyst
Okay.
- President and COO
I mean we've made some reductions and so I think we're down, what was it, 25 people, something like that.
- Analyst
Because I know have you an aggressive goal to reduce the SG&A expenses and they kind of went the other way in the fourth quarter than I had anticipated.
- President and COO
Well, the actions we took were taken in January.
- Analyst
Okay.
So we would expect to see a lower dollar number going forward in that category?
- President and COO
As Phil said, I think we should have actions we took in January realized fully in second quarter.
- Analyst
Okay.
- President and COO
And somewhat in first, I hope.
- Analyst
Okay.
- CFO
Ted, you also have to consider that fourth quarter results had the SG&A of Fisher-Klosterman, which was acquired this year, which wasn't in the fourth quarter last year and a full 12 months of EFFOX this year and there was only 10 months of that last year so part of that is incremental due to acquisitions.
- Analyst
That's true, Denny, but it's the percentage I'm sort of concerned about.
You also have the benefit of their revenues and it's the percentage number that's going up as well.
- CFO
Right.
- Analyst
And I know your longer term goal is more like 10% of SG&A as a percent of revenues and you're now--I think you're over 17%.
So it was the jump up that surprised me a little bit as a percentage not even so much the dollar, because I understand the acquisitions.
- CFO
Well, the other part of that formula is the revenue.
- Analyst
Right.
You got to get the revenues in, too, right.
Exactly.
- CEO and Chairman
This is Phil.
I wanted to give one more comment on that.
For years, everybody's been correctly after us on our low margins, fluctuating margins, inconsistency of margins.
And during the period of active acquisitions, it was difficult to control that.
But you can't--the top line, revenue line is out of our control to the extent there's only so much business out there.
There's a world economy, there's competition, there's whatever.
But with the mix of our business now that the higher end margin business is a greater part of our business, and the fact that the one thing we certainly can control is are our expenses, both SG&A and elsewhere, that knowing that revenues in this economy, I think if you stay constant, you're doing really well, and let's hope we do maybe grow a little maybe shrink a little.
If we keep the margins high and cut those expenses, the fact is, just as happened in 2008 with our revenues down, our profits, as they showed in the fourth quarter, can grow considerably with that proper mix of business and control of expenses.
And that really is the--is our program right now because we're going work on what we can control.
- Analyst
Yes, that's great, Phil.
Looks like you're doing that and I was really impressed with the gross margins, so that does help an awful lot.
So you are working towards the model, which is great.
Was there anything in the fourth quarter that favorably impacted the gross margins that were either a little one-time in nature or you mentioned, Denny, I think a lot of year end business sort of gets completed and you get -- some of that's booked at higher margins.
Other than that, was there anything in the quarter?
- CFO
No.
- Analyst
Okay.
- CFO
Nothing unusual at all.
It was across the board.
- Analyst
Okay, okay.
That's really good to see.
Could you talk a little bit about the balance sheet, where the current debt levels, and maybe talk about a little accounts receivable?
Are you seeing any delinquencies cropping up there?
- CFO
Well, as you know, we've collected a big chunk of change from General Motors, which really knocked our accounts receivable back down.
We've got a very small reserve on accounts receivable now because we do an item by item analysis.
We look at each customer and each project and take a look at their credit ratings and their DNB ratings and one of the advantages we have is we have lien rights on these projects so when a customer does get a little bit behind on their payments, we put a lien on the project, which really gets their attention.
And typically, we don't anticipate that we'll have significant collection problems.
Obviously some of the little guys, when you get in the tough economy like this, you'll have some smaller customers maybe that will go bankrupt or have some issues and slow down their payments, but in terms of liquidity and capital resources, we're in very strong shape.
We've got lots of availability on our credit line and we're pretty comfortable.
- Analyst
Okay, and where did cash end up at the end of the year?
- CFO
It was about, I believe it was about at $1.6 million.
- Analyst
Okay, and General Motors contract was collected before the end of the year or after?
- President and COO
No, we collected that in January, so you'll see that on our December balance sheet.
- Analyst
It won't be there, right.
- CFO
We collected that subsequent to year end.
- Analyst
Okay.
Can you tell us how much that was, or not?
- CFO
It was over $5 million.
- Analyst
Okay.
Great.
Thank you very much.
That's great.
- CFO
Okay.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Michael Potter with Monarch Capital.
Please proceed.
- Analyst
Hey, guys.
Congratulations also on a very strong quarter.
Can you give a little greater detail, I'm just trying to get to the adjusted EBITDA number for the fourth quarter and for the year.
What were the noncash charges for the quarter and for the year?
- CFO
Let me grab my cash flow statement.
One of the items, there was a noncash item in the income due to the transaction gain on the currency exchange, but basically one of the bigger ones is depreciation and amortization.
We have about $3.2 million of depreciation and amortization.
That's a noncash charge.
A big piece of that is amortization of the intangibles from our recent acquisitions.
We also have noncash expenses for stock awards, restricted stock awards and those types of things.
So those are the two primary noncash add-backs that take us from a net income of about $5 million to--you add $3 million or $4 million to that for noncash expenses and generated a lot more money than the net income would appear.
- Analyst
Okay.
So what was the D&A for the fourth quarter and for the 12 months and the stock comp as well?
- CFO
The depreciation and amortization for the year was $3.2 million.
- Analyst
Okay.
- CFO
And the stock comp was about $1.2 million.
So there's $4.3 million of noncash charges right there.
- Analyst
And do you have for the fourth quarter as well?
- CFO
No, I don't.
We don't break it down on a quarterly basis in the cash flow statement.
- Analyst
Okay, and then if we could just go back to the balance sheet, can you break down the debt for us as well and how much is available under the current credit facility?
- CFO
The current credit facility is about a $30 million facility.
I believe we're at about $15 million on that facility and we have another $4 million of term debt and in addition to that, we have another $4 million of subordinated debt.
- Analyst
Okay.
And, Phil, you closed out your remarks, you tend to do whatever to enhance value for the shareholders.
Can you give us a little bit more color on what the plans are in the near term to enhance shareholder value?
- CEO and Chairman
Well, firstly, we have a really good story to tell now and we intend to be more active, especially if markets generally settle down.
They don't have to go up, but if they can keep some consistency, so you're not on the road when the market's dropping 400 points a day, to get more active in shareholder and financial public relations and bring our story to more people's attention, especially professionals, and secondly, we're examining every other opportunity.
I mean, as I said, the stock was selling at bargain prices and I received a lot of inquiries about investing in the Company, acquiring the Company, the Company doing merging.
You know, there's so many avenues open to us right now, but our main one is really to keep building the Company and getting the story out.
- Analyst
Does the Company have a share buyback program in place?
- CEO and Chairman
No, we did one buyback on--that was a block.
That came available when an institution was in trouble.
That company bought half and myself and another private investor bought half but we don't have a buyback program in effect right now.
- Analyst
Do we have the flexibility that if another institution or another large block came available that we may be able to participate in it?
- CEO and Chairman
When you say we--we the Company?
- Analyst
Yes, proverbial we.
- CEO and Chairman
Thought maybe it was you, Michael.
The answer is it all depends on our situation with the bank at the time and what our borrowing level is but if another block becomes available, I would certainly be interested.
- Analyst
Okay.
You would be personally, but could--I guess my question is direct.
Could the Company buy back the stock?
Does the Company have the flexibility or would it have to go to the Board of Directors in order to get approval for another plan?
- CEO and Chairman
Well, it wouldn't have to be a plan if it was just a block.
We would have to get Board of Directors approval and more importantly, we would have to get the bank's approval.
- Analyst
I see.
If our covenant's restricted without a prior approval?
- CEO and Chairman
Denny, is that right?
- CFO
It's not actually a restriction of the covenants.
Our covenants only really relate to EBITDA and funded debt ratios and fixed charge coverage, but just as a courtesy to the bank, there are restricted purchases in our credit agreement, one of which is our own company stock but the bank has been very good at working with us.
They approved the last purchase that Phil mentioned.
They thought it was a good purchase.
We had great availability on the credit line at the time and they immediately signed off on it so I don't think that would be an issue.
- Analyst
Okay.
With regards to telling the story and getting, and being more visible, is it the Company's intention to actually hire an IR firm to assist the Company in telling the story and getting out there and making introductions?
- CEO and Chairman
Well, some of our--some of the investment bankers that have been supporting us quite strongly have been suggesting a few firms.
We will be interviewing them and, again, depending on market conditions, make a more sustained effort to get the story out.
- Analyst
Great, guys.
Keep up the good work.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Larry Schumaker with Oppenheimer.
Please proceed.
- Analyst
Hi, guys.
Good quarter.
My questions have been answered, though.
Thanks.
Good luck going forward.
- CEO and Chairman
Okay.
That was fast, Larry.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our next question is a follow-up question from the line of Dale Pfau with Cantor Fitzgerald.
Please proceed.
- Analyst
Yes, I just wanted to talk about your outlook over the course of the year.
Certainly there's a little bit of a challenging first half.
You made a comment earlier that most of the people you were talking to at trade shows and so on are feeling like that there's some light at the end of the tunnel here toward the second half of the year.
Could you elaborate a little bit and what kinds of industries you think might be perking up then?
- President and COO
Well, as I said earlier, Dale, the power industry, we're seeing a good deal of activity in refining.
The steel and cement have--both have some major projects that are sitting there waiting to be approved where the management of those companies is saying when things start to get better, when we see some activity, we'll pull the trigger on these things and then there are other projects that are driven not by that, but by regulations.
So we're pursuing a project right now that has to go forward because the customer will have to shut down if it doesn't.
The mix, as I said, is all over the place.
The other thing where we see some opportunity is overseas.
As I said, we've gotten our backlog back up to being 15% international and we're pursuing a couple of good size projects down in Latin America and with the acquisition of FLEXTOR we sort of have an in road there and we're taking advantage of that to the fullest extent we can.
Does that answer your question?
- Analyst
Yes, that gives us a feel for what's going on with what the trends are out there and right now, are you seeing more of your maintenance and sustained, is that still continuing on at pretty good clip?
- President and COO
That still continues, because unless you're a manufacturer making widgets, unless you're going to shut down, you still have to do those things so that still continues.
The major project activity, especially on the contracting side of our business, is where we see--it's there that we see the most weakness, frankly.
- Analyst
And so might we expect in the first quarter that your maintenance portion of your business is higher than this about 20% that we've historically seen?
- President and COO
Yes, I think there's a good chance of that though I think what we'll see is the contracting portion tend to decrease because that's what the bookings are telling me.
Now, some of that is maintenance work, but I think that's what--there's more of that out there than the larger projects and then our parts business is pretty much a constant.
Its customers are contractors when you come right down to it.
The parts business suffers a little bit, but we are also, especially with the newest product line, we are expanding market share constantly just as we get the word out that that product exists.
- Analyst
Okay.
Well, thanks very much.
Good luck.
- President and COO
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Anthony Marchese with Monarch Capital.
Please proceed.
- Analyst
Hi, good morning.
Excellent job.
I'm glad you bought the stock back.
Hopefully you can buy more at some point.
Couple of questions.
First, are you seeing anything in the way of M&A activity in your industry?
- President and COO
There are opportunities out there.
And that's really--I can't get any more specific than that.
- Analyst
Okay.
The real question is are these opportunities that are realistic in the sense that sellers are coming down in terms of their willingness to sell at a current market price or versus opportunities, yes, we're for sale, but at levels 50% higher than today's valuation, that's sort of what I'm getting at.
- President and COO
Well, that's a matter of negotiation on a particular instance.
- Analyst
Okay, are you saying there is reason to negotiate?
- CEO and Chairman
Well, let's say there's room to negotiate and in some cases, we have been involved in which we were offered and turned down more than one have come down at considerably reduced prices.
- Analyst
Okay.
- CEO and Chairman
And we were known to be the acquirer roll-up guy in the industry.
We're the most active, so they do come to us.
We do look at a lot and the fact remains, we haven't, as inexpensive as some of them may be relative to where they were before, we firmly believe that our stock is the cheapest acquisition we can make.
- Analyst
No question about it.
- CEO and Chairman
And it's very hard to find anything that could be accretive to our stock at our current market prices.
- Analyst
Okay.
Secondly, do you see anything on the horizon in terms of--if for example we have EPA enforcement finally, not a political statement, but if in fact we have EPA enforcement, other regulatory oversight with some teeth in it, would this have--are you seeing that, or would this have a positive impact on your business?
- President and COO
Yes, it would have a positive impact on our business.
I think I said that in my statement.
- Analyst
But are you seeing that?
It's one thing to say it will have it, but are you starting to see that?
- President and COO
We've had a new administration for, what, six weeks, eight weeks?
- Analyst
I understand that.
- President and COO
So not yet.
Except that, you know, I think you'll see activity.
I think you're going to see EPA regulation get a little more stringent.
I think you're going to see OSHA regulation actually, on a scale of how much it changes, there's going to be more activity there and that, as I indicated, that creates opportunity for us also.
It's not just EPA regulations.
It's that quality of the air in an industrial facility that the regulations demand and many of those threshold limit values were left sitting for a number of years and there's been a lot of talk and activity about making them more stringent.
- Analyst
Right.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time.
I will now turn the call back over to Philip DeZwirek for closing remarks.
- CEO and Chairman
Okay.
If nobody has any other questions, I'll give you a couple of seconds in case you do, if not, I would like to thank everybody for attending to our conference.
We are glad to bring you all good news, especially in this environment.
We are quite satisfied with our recent achievement, but it is by no means a standard we intend to just maintain, but to expand upon and we're looking forward to another good year and if anybody has any post conference call questions, they all know where--that we can all be contacted, me specifically, if it's concerning something nontechnical, and we're open to all your questions any time during the year.
So thank you very much for being on the call.
Operator
Thank you for your participation in today's conference.
This concludes the presentation.
Everyone have a great day.