Comfort Systems USA Inc (FIX) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2021 Comfort Systems USA Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference may be recorded. (Operator Instructions)

I would now like to hand the conference over to your host, Julie Shaeff, Chief Accounting Officer. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Carmen. Good morning. Welcome to Comfort Systems USA's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2021 Earnings Call. Our comments today as well as our press releases contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the applicable securities laws and regulations. What we will say today is based on the current plans and expectations of Comfort Systems USA.

Those plans and expectations include risks and uncertainties that might cause actual future activities and results of our operations to be materially different from those set forth in our comments. You can read a detailed listing and commentary concerning our specific risk factors in our most recent Form 10-K as well as in our press release covering these earnings.

A slide presentation has been provided as a companion to our remarks. The presentation is posted on the Investor Relations section of the company's website found at comfortsystemsusa.com. Joining me on the call today are Brian Lane, President and Chief Executive Officer; Trent McKenna, Chief Operating Officer; and Bill George, Chief Financial Officer. Brian will open our remarks.

All right. Thanks, Julie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. We have more information than usual to cover, but considering the events in Ukraine and Europe, we will try to be as efficient as possible and our thoughts are with those who are affected.

We are pleased to report a strong finish to 2021. Our teams delivered excellent execution across our segments, and we are grateful for their hard work. For the fourth quarter, we earned $1.04 per share on revenue of $856 million. Same-store revenue grew by 8% compared to the fourth quarter of 2020 as overall nonresidential building construction and service continue to show broad-based strength.

For the first time ever, we are reporting more than $3 billion in full year revenues. We have good cash flow and our backlog has registered an unprecedented increase. In addition, in January of 2022, we received approvals of previously filed tax refund claims for the past years that will meaningfully impact our first quarter results, and Bill will review those in detail during his remarks.

We had an active fourth quarter for acquisitions. At the beginning of December, we acquired Ivey Mechanical, which services customers across the Southeastern United States. We have known Ivey for 25 years and their mechanical construction and service expertise is well positioned for collaboration and mutual benefits.

On the last day of December, we acquired Edwards Electrical & Mechanical based in Indiana. Edwards brings us a solid, full-service presence in Indianapolis and provides new capabilities in clean room solutions that will complement our off-site construction and prefabrication.

On December 31, we also acquired a strong service and controls business in Kentucky, Thermal solutions. And on that same day, we acquired Kodiak Labor Solutions, a temporary staffing agency that we have worked with on an ongoing basis and which will help us recruit and deploy skilled construction labor in many of our markets.

We are happy to have these strong teams as a great new part of Comfort Systems USA. And we are confident that we have added some wonderful people and strong capabilities.

I will discuss our business and outlook in a few minutes. But first, I will turn this call over to Bill to review our financial performance. Bill?

Thanks, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and good afternoon for those on the East Coast.

So revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $856 million, an increase of $157 million or 22% compared to last year. Same-store revenue increased by a strong 8% with the remaining increase resulting from our acquisitions of TEC and Amteck and 1 month of owning Ivey. Revenue for the full year 2021 was $3.1 billion, an increase of 8% compared to 2020, and the annual increase was a result of our 2020 and '21 acquisitions.

As you know, we and our industry are experiencing delays in the receipt of materials and equipment, which modestly reduced our revenue in the fourth quarter. It is impossible to precisely measure that effect because there are always variances and timing issues relating to materials and equipment.

However, we roughly estimate that our revenue would have been higher without these issues and our best estimate is that the effect on the fourth quarter revenue was a reduction of perhaps 2% to 4%. And we expect to continue to experience these effects for at least the first half of 2022. And we currently expect high single-digit same-store revenue growth for the upcoming year.

Gross profit was $154 million for the fourth quarter of 2021, a $17 million improvement compared to a year ago. Our gross profit percentage was 18% this quarter compared to 19.6% for the fourth quarter of 2020. Our gross profit percentage in our mechanical segment declined to 18.9%, while margins in the electrical segment have increased significantly compared to last year from 10.7% in 2020 to 14.5% in 2021.

The decrease in the gross profit percentage resulted from several factors, including cost pressure and changes in revenue mix as new construction increased in proportion to our revenues, and the fact that we are in the early stages on a disproportionate amount of our project work. For the full year 2021, gross profit increased by $16 million and our gross profit margin was 18.3% in 2021 as compared to 19.1% in 2020.

SG&A expense for the quarter was $105 million or 12.3% of revenue compared to $89 million or 12.7% of revenue for the fourth quarter of 2020. On a same-store basis, SG&A was up approximately $5 million primarily due to compensation-related items. For the full year, SG&A expense as a percentage of revenue was 12.2% for 2021, down from 12.5% for 2020. On a same-store basis for the full year, SG&A declined $7 million primarily due to a reduction in bad debt expense.

Our operating income in the fourth quarter of 2021 was $49.3 million, slightly higher than the same quarter of the prior year. Last year, in our fourth quarter, we got a benefit from earn-out changes that was 11% higher than we reported this year. Each quarter end, we examined our estimates related to our earn-out liability. As a result, this quarter, we reported an overall gain of $3 million or $0.07 per share in 2021 as compared to $7 million or $0.18 per share in the prior year. Our 2021 tax rate was in the expected range at 24.7%.

After considering all of the factors above, net income for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $38 million or $1.04 per share. This compares to net income for the fourth quarter of 2020 at $43 million or $1.17. Our full year earnings per share was $3.93 per share compared to $4.90 in the prior year.

For our fourth quarter, EBITDA increased by 8% to $68 million. And our full year 2021 EBITDA increased to $256 million. Full year 2021 free cash flow was $161 million compared to $265 million in 2020. Our prior year free cash flow was increased by this investment in working capital from COVID and federal legislation that allowed us to defer $32 million in 2020 payroll taxes.

2021 cash was then decreased by $18 million as we paid back a portion of the deferral, thus creating a $50 million timing issue just from that tax issue. Despite these factors, 2021 was a great cash flow year for us. And although we will deploy working capital in the early stages of the various projects we're starting, we believe that we have strong cash prospects for 2022.

Brian mentioned that we closed 4 acquisitions in the fourth quarter. Ivey was acquired on December 1 and is reported in our mechanical segment. It is expected to contribute annualized revenues of approximately $150 million to $160 million and EBITDA of $7 million to $9 million. The other 3 acquisitions closed on December 31, and their results will only be included in our financial results beginning January 1, however, their balance sheets and backlog are included as of December 31.

We expect Edwards to contribute annualized revenues of approximately $85 million to $95 million and EBITDA of $6 million to $8 million. Thermal should contribute approximately $20 million in revenue and consistent margins. And finally, Kodiak, which is a staffing company that was required to augment labor resources, is not expected to materially contribute to revenue or EBITDA on a stand-alone basis. Because of the amortization expense related to intangibles and other acquisition costs, these acquisitions are not expected to contribute to EPS in 2022.

After incurring approximately $130 million to fund these acquisitions, our debt at the end of the year was $388 million. We are continuing to opportunistically repurchase our shares. In 2021, we purchased 363,000 shares at an average price of $74.57, and we have been active in share repurchases over the last few weeks. Since we began our repurchase program in 2007, we have bought back 9.7 million shares at an average price of $21.69.

Before I pass the time back to Brian, I want to describe the tax events that he alluded to and that were mentioned in the press release.

In January 2022, we received approval from the IRS for our previously filed refund claims for the 2016, 2017 and 2018 years. The refunds were primarily due to claiming the credit for increasing research activities that we refer to as the R&D tax credit. As a result, we expect that the first quarter of 2022 will have an incremental benefit of approximately $30 million in after-tax net income or approximately $0.80 per diluted share, and we expect to receive approximately $30 million of operating cash during the first quarter of 2022.

In addition to the immediate gains from these IRS approvals, we will be reassessing the judgments that we have made regarding our taxes for the intervening years of 2019, 2020 and the recently concluded 2021. Since we expect to assert the credit for those years as well, we are assessing the amounts and likelihood of benefit that will result from those credits and will also include that benefit when we report our first quarter. These changes in assessment are ongoing, but we expect that we will reduce our provision for income taxes with respect to these years. And we estimate that we will record additional first quarter income that we currently approximate at $22 million or $0.60 per diluted share.

Finally, our successful assertion of the R&D tax credit will be likely to reduce our effective tax rate in future years beginning immediately in 2022. The tax benefit will vary based on our qualifying expenses each year, but should lower our tax rate by approximately 4 to 5 percentage points in 2022 and in future years until and unless the landscape for these credits, which have been made permanent by the Congress, change.

I'm very appreciative of the hard work done by our tax department and by numerous of our subsidiaries in seeking and documenting these credits. That's all I have on financials, Brian.

Okay. Thank you, Bill.

I'm going to spend a few minutes discussing our backlog and markets. I will also comment on our outlook for 2022 and on inflation and supply chain considerations.

Our backlog at the end of 2021 was $2.31 billion and this is the first time that our backlog has exceeded $2 billion. Sequentially, our same-store backlog increased $224 million with strength in our modular work and in our electrical operations in Texas. Year-over-year, our same-store backlog is up by over $578 million or 38%, a broadly based increase.

Industrial customers were 44% of our total revenue in 2021. We think this sector, which includes technology, life sciences and food processing, will remain strong for us as industrial is heavily represented in new backlog as well as in our recent larger acquisitions. Institutional markets, which include education, health care and government are also strong and represented 32% of our revenue.

The commercial sector is also doing well. But with our changing mix, it is now a smaller part of our business at about 24% of revenue. Year-to-date, construction was 78% of our revenue with 46% from construction projects for new buildings and 32% from construction projects in existing buildings.

Service was strong this year, and our increasing service revenue was 22% of year-to-date revenue, with service projects providing 9% of revenue and pure service, including hourly work, providing 13% of revenue. 2021 service revenue is up by 12%. And with our continuing strong margins, our service earnings were up by a similar amount. Overall, service continues to be a great source of profit for us.

As 2022 begins, we believe that we are returning to good ongoing market conditions and that we have largely recovered from negative impacts to our business due to business disruption caused by COVID-19. At the same time, we are experiencing inflation and some delays in materials and equipment. As we mentioned, supply chain and inflation were factors in 2021, especially in the fourth quarter. And we currently expect that those effects will continue through at least the first half of 2022. We are recognizing these challenges in our job planning and pricing, and we are working with our customers to share the risks and mitigate the effects of these challenges.

In addition, during the first 6 weeks of 2022, we experienced temporary reductions in available labor as Omicron peaked. And that will also add some headwind to what we nevertheless expect will be a solid and profitable first quarter of 2022.

We believe the good trends outweigh the challenges, and we remain optimistic about our prospects for 2022. The headwinds described above will likely be pronounced during the first half of 2022. However, our current belief and expectation is that in 2022, our full year earnings and margins are likely to be comparable to 2021 with an opportunity for improvement as we get further into our backlog as the year progresses.

As we continue to emerge from the various effects of the pandemic, we believe that future demand in our key markets is strong, and we continue to invest in our workforce, technology, execution capabilities and in our service businesses. Underlying demand for our capabilities, especially in our key segments, including industrial and institutional buildings, continues to be very robust. Our fundamental outlook for the next several quarters is very positive, especially with our strong backlog and pipeline.

We are happy with our investments to date, and we are keen to continue to invest, grow and improve in our essential industry. Our skilled workforce is the heart and soul of Comfort Systems USA, and we will continue to develop and reward our unmatched team members as they strive each day to work safely, improve our communities and provide the built infrastructure to serve our many markets.

I will now turn it back to Carmen for questions. Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) Your first question is from Sean Eastman with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

So I wanted to start on the margins. I think you said at the end, Brian, that margins are going to be comparable to 2021. They did look a little soft in the fourth quarter. I think there's some mix elements going on. You mentioned COVID and supply chain. So maybe just some color on what's happening under the hood, how margins should progress over the next 12 months, just the moving pieces in there would be great.

Yes, I'll start and see if Bill wants to follow up, but what gives us optimism is that the work and the opportunities are good, the margins are good in the work that we're winning. We're still executing in January and as the year goes on. So I think we'll hit our average and margins will reflect 2022. I think we're managing as best we can in the supply chain and inflation with our customers, doing everything to satisfy them and be successful.

Yes. I mean -- so if you compare our margins for 2021 with our peak years, especially the really high margins that we hit during COVID, it's not a good comparison because our mix was so much different. We were doing far less new construction, which has a lot more material pass-through. We had not bought a bunch of electrical companies, which even though their revenue -- their margins are up, they do average lower margins and lower SG&A than mechanical companies.

And we're -- for the next several months, we're going to be towards the beginning of a lot of jobs, and we're just not going to be pulling a bunch of profit out until we see how much it rains, until we see how other people on the job do and until we see start-ups and systems and put liquid in some pipes.

And so I think that what we're trying to tell you is we're -- we liked our margins last year. Yes, they -- we could have executed a few places, especially where COVID affected us. But we think what you saw last year is what you'll see through the beginning of this year. As we get deeper into these jobs, there's certainly an opportunity to do better, but we're not popping back up to the 2021 range. We just have a different mix right now.

Okay. That's helpful. And I think you also said at the end, Brian, that earnings will be comparable to last year. I just wanted to clarify that, particularly considering we've got a high single-digit top line outlook and these big tax benefits coming early in the year.

Yes. So there's -- with -- the range of earnings is what we made last year or more. One of the things that we experienced last year was people overreacting to like the supply chain, some of these issues and getting very pessimistic. So what we were just really trying to say is, look, we're going to make a lot of money again, we're going to flow a lot of cash again. We certainly hope to have improvement this year over last year.

But we do have -- early in the year, we do have a little bit of revenue headwind. We had Omicron create absenteeism in January. We do have -- we said we thought our revenue was affected 2% to 4% in the fourth quarter. We'll continue to have chillers show up a little later than we expected and things like that. Less buyout in our jobs, right, it's pretty hard right now to call and ask a supplier for a discount. You actually are just calling and begging them to make sure you get your stuff. So that's why we are predicting what we're predicting.

Okay. Got it. Just sneaking one more in. Just on the tax benefit stuff. So what's the sort of the tax -- what -- how is the tax provision going to look in the first quarter? And then as we advance through the rest of the year, what's the normal tax rate now? And for how many years into the future do you expect to have this 4- to 5-point reduction in the tax rate?

If you can hold on for a minute, Brian's getting out his slide rule.

I'll let Bill answer this one, John.

So essentially, we've been saying we're at 25% to 27% tax rate. Now we're going to be 4%, 5% below that. And that's cushioning that some, right, because we're not making the assumption that we'll do as well in the ongoing [tax years] as we were able to do for those 5 consecutive years that we just [settled] up.

But whatever else is true, after 5 years now of getting this benefit, frankly, we have to bake in that benefit as we look at our tax rates for the next several years, and we think it's going to lower our tax rate 4% or 5%. And so few -- higher future cash flow and -- until something changes.

Your next question comes from Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson.

Brian or Bill, are there a few particularly large projects in the backlog right now that need to kind of hit a certain threshold for margins to move a lot higher? Or is this kind of more of a broader statement across the business in terms of the new construction work you've taken on?

Yes. It's a combination of both. We do have some larger projects that we're very optimistic about, but it's also broad-based in terms of the ranges or the sizes. It's a typical mix, Brent, as we go through smaller work, mid-level work and a few larger projects. And the larger projects are with companies that we know they can handle the larger projects. So I think the mix is pretty typical of what we usually have.

Okay. And then service growth has been a great story here. Maybe you just talked about some of the initiatives you're undertaking to continue to grow that business in 2022. Can we see another year of double-digit growth? How do you think about that?

Yes. I'm still very optimistic about service. We continue to make the investments we've made over the last 10 years. Now our goal is to achieve double-digit growth as we go along, so far we've done it. We'll continue to invest in training, improving our sales process, and we're executing really well in service, particularly on the small project front. So I expect that trend to continue, Brent. There's nothing that tells me it will be different.

Okay. And then just the uptick again in backlog, particularly same-store backlog, it's a great story there. I -- how much of that do you attribute to sort of this industrial vertical versus these, I guess, more traditional, nonresi markets, education office, retail, smaller pieces of the pie? Are those markets starting to become more impactful to the growth in bookings you've seen?

Yes, yes. Really, both on an acquired basis and on a same-store basis. If you look at the biggest -- the subsidiaries -- we mentioned, I think, in the script that we had big increases in modular and in electrical, both of those, the new projects that were booked, are disproportionately industrial, complex, tech, pharma. Some battery, for sure, is waking up. I haven't -- we've only booked a little bit of battery, but there's a ton of battery in the pipeline for electric cars. So yes, 100%, it's a trend.

Yes. So Brent, if you look at the mix and about over 40% of its industrial, but it's a capability we have, it's sort of not a new capability that we're starting. It's the companies that we brought in here that already had a long history of doing it. So we're very comfortable with the resources we have to address that market.

Your next question comes from Julio Romero with Sidoti & Company.

So to your point earlier, the electrical segment margins are inherently lower than mechanical and it's going to pull down the consolidated margins. But if I look at the last few quarters, I think your electrical gross margins are trending upward. And I want to say like the incrementals on the electrical segment seems to be trending nicely. So can you maybe speak to what's going right in electrical and what you're doing there to improve the margins?

Yes. So electrical, and thank you for noticing, has improved. I think we -- the companies have worked really hard. We've got back to some of the basics. I think they benefited some of the training that Comfort provides at our new acquisitions. I think we're back to focusing on the work that we're really good at, data centers, for example, food processing. And I think -- the one thing about the margins, it might be a little lower, but their overheads lower, so if you look at the operating level, they're about the same. But I just think it's just improving on the fundamentals that these companies have done, and they're doing a great job as you can tell from their results.

Okay. That's helpful. And can you speak to what [components or] what equipment you're seeing delays on? I think you mentioned chillers earlier. And do you think it's fair to assume the go-forward impact of those delays to be in the same range you saw in the fourth quarter?

So the things that -- switchgear and generators can be -- have really long lead times. Chillers have long lead times. Some of the commodity stuff has gotten better lately. It's like some stuff is getting better while other stuff gets a little worse. It's very -- essentially, you're -- we're having to order much earlier. Like in our bids, we're telling people, "You have to let us buy this stuff now and you have to pay us to store it or we can't commit to your schedule."

But so far, generally speaking, we get the stuff so it's really hard to predict. Anybody who tells you they know how this is going to unroll over the next year is fooling themselves. But we think we're really good at managing it. And we think that we -- on any given construction job, frequently, not everything's on the critical path. There's always work you can -- generally speaking, there's work you can keep doing. So I think we just think our guys are really great at managing it, but it's definitely a factor, Brian. I mean...

Yes. And if you look at -- we have good partners, and we try to be a good partner. I think that's really paying off. Also, I think the advantage of our size versus maybe more of a mom-and-pop type contractor, we can buy this equipment earlier and put the orders in, I think that's an advantage. Because we, at the end of the day, do not want to disappoint our customers. So we're doing everything we can in order to make sure we get the equipment there to install.

Got it. And then just last one for me would be, can you maybe speak to the Ivey acquisition and the rationale there and how it complements your existing portfolio? And maybe touch on the market sector breakout, whether it's weighted to industrial, institutional, et cetera.

So I'll start. So Ivey is a fantastic company. We -- you may have noticed in the press release, we said we talked to them for 25 years. The statements I put in that press release was taken from a letter that they're -- the guy who runs it wrote to his employees when we bought it. This is a company we've known for a long time. They have really good standing workforces in some very attractive markets like Nashville and Kentucky and North Carolina and of course, Mississippi, Atlanta. They also have a group of workers that travel and has been very expert for many, many years at health care, in particular, hospitals. Hospital jobs have gotten bigger and bigger.

And I think after this long period of knowing each other, I think we and Ivey look at each other and realize just how much benefit it could be to get together because their traveling guys can augment us as we need the new jobs that are bigger than what they used to travel to do, they can split with our guys, with our existing companies. We think it's just a wonderful fit, right?

They -- think of the markets I just said and then think of where Comfort is and where we make lots of money, and they're really good. They're a really good fit from the point of view of our culture, right? They just fit in with our people. Everybody who's interacted with them so far has just been very, very happy.

It's a company -- I'll shut up in a second. It's a company that's shown discipline over many, many years. At times, it's shown discipline we should have shown. So we just think it's a really good fit and a really good opportunity to make each other better and really have some fun.

And Julio, what's really interesting, they've only been here 2 months, and we're already working on some joint projects with them. So this has started off really well.

Our next question is from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson, Davis.

Can we start just on some of the income statement items? Obviously, maybe for Bill. Just thoughts on SG&A, D&A and interest expense because I'm just -- I'm still trying to [square] the comparable EPS comment. So maybe the secret is somewhere around those lines.

Well, the secret is we don't know what's going to happen next year. But I think you'll see interest expense tick up some. It will tick up some because our debt's a little higher. It will tick up a little more probably because as we -- we were paying 1.3% on our borrowings. That's going to be some -- at least tens of basis points higher. It already has started that.

SG&A -- if revenue picks up, we'll get SG&A leverage, so that kind of cuts in the direction of what you're pushing towards. We'll get very good absorption.

What was the other line you brought, you mentioned?

Well, D&A, and it's probably the toughest one to know with the acquisitions.

Well, yes. Although in the 10-K, you can go right back to the footnote, and there's a table, and it will tell you exactly what the amortization's going to be every quarter. That will be -- that -- our amortization would have been a source of lift for us this year. When we did a whole bunch of acquisitions late in the year, it knocked the amortization up, but we have a -- what is a very, very close estimate of that in our footnote, that's going to hide a lot of that income. So what you're going to see is very good incremental increases to EBITDA and that's going to just not filter down to EPS as quickly as it should.

I should also say everything we've set up until now about earnings being sort of similar with upside later in the year kind of update stuff reflects the uncertainty. It has baked into the uncertainty that we're talking about vis-à-vis supply chain and other issues. It also does not count the change in tax rates.

The rules are very clear with this tax stuff that if you get an approval, you can't go back and push it into the prior year. So when we report the first quarter -- like when I said we will be looking at our intervening years, and we expect $22 million of income, we'll be doing a lot more work between now and when we report our first quarter. That number should be at least that big, if not bigger. By then, we'll be able to start baking into the forward stuff, the new lower tax rates. So there's some things that -- it's really important that people understand.

Yes. Okay. That takes care of it.

And then, Brian, can you take us a little bit around the country and what you're seeing in the bidding environment?

Yes, will do. So in general, Adam, the bidding's very good in all parts of the country. In the Northeast, still very strong. If you take a look at Syracuse, New York, we're probably full up this year and half of next year, a lot of plumbing, doing a lot of apartment buildings and health care. If you come down south is where you're seeing a lot of manufacturing, industrial prospects. We're really strong in the Southeast, thanks to the companies that Bill brought in, so see a lot of medical work, data center work. So I'm really enthused and upbeat Southeast down to Texas.

Texas is very strong for us. Texas is doing very well. Dallas, Houston has now picked up pretty considerably in the last 6 months. Austin is extremely busy. In San Antonio, a city that's growing considerably, has a lot of data center work going on. So we're very optimistic about what's going on in Texas.

Out west is -- it's probably -- we see a mixed bag for us. Denver, Phoenix is good, and we're a little bit smaller out there. But in general, the bidding opportunity is strong. If you look at when we look up here, the larger jobs [that were] $5 million, I'm probably looking at more than I've looked at in a long time. So we're pretty optimistic across the board, Adam.

I mean if you look at where things are, and you said, "Gee, what would be happening if we didn't have things like the supply chain and the inflation?" It's pretty -- it's a -- the fact that we can have this much confidence in our go forward with all of the uncertainty, which we really are baking in, suggest that a little bit of good news would go a long way.

Yes. We're really pleased with the workforce, even with the absenteeism due to illness that we're keeping on schedule. So the folks out there doing the work are doing a yeoman's effort to keep our customers happy.

What are you seeing with COVID now? I mean you said it impacted you in January.

It's coming down fast.

Yes, it's coming down fast.

I mean I don't know if anybody's saying it's -- if you talked to our company President mid-February, that was all the -- a lot of people were talking about it mid and late January and virtually...

It's really [quieted down].

It's disappeared. I mean disappear is too strong, but it's really -- it's down...

I hope it does.

Yes.

Yes.

And your last question is from Sean Eastman from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Guys, my clarification question got answered, but I'm just going to hit you with one anyway. How should we think about sort of the capacity of the business? We have a strong high single-digit organic growth outlook in place for 2022. Could you feasibly flex to a number higher than that? And how would you characterize the labor situation? I guess the Omicron variant kind of muddies that up. But just underneath that, is it loosening up? Is it getting worse? How would you characterize that?

I mean if you look at the labor, I think it's the same, it's tight. I mean -- I think what we have going for us is that we're a really good employer. And in the structure we have, our people around the local markets know those markets really well. Whether or not we're hitting the military, community colleges, folks in high school, we've got some opportunities. Maybe some lower-income neighborhoods that -- helping with some training and getting those folks involved in the business.

So labor's tight. I think Kodiak's going to help us with some of the traveling folks. They've got a lot of good trades people. So we can flex it up. But you've got to manage your labor every day. And at the end of the day, you have to be a good place to work, training your people, et cetera, all the things that we are proud of what we do. So I can see that continuing on, Sean, so we'll just keep at it.

All right. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our Q&A session. I would like to turn the call back to Brian for his final remarks.

All right. In closing, I want to again thank our hardworking employees. We are glad we will be seeing many of you on the road again, hopefully.

But in the meanwhile, thanks for your interest in the company. We really do appreciate it today. Please be safe and healthy, and we'll see you soon. Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect. Have a wonderful day.