GXO Logistics Inc (GXO) 2021 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to the GXO Q3 2021 earnings conference call and webcast. My name is Doug and I will be your operator for today's call. (Operator Instructions). Please note that this conference is being recorded. Before the call begins, let me read a brief statement on behalf of the Company regarding forward-looking statements, the use of non-GAAP financial measures and Company guidance.

During this call, the Company will be making certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which, by their nature, involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. A discussion of factors that could [cause] actual results to differ materially is contained in the Company's SEC filings.

The forward-looking statements in the Company's earnings release, or made on this call, are made only as of today and the Company has no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements, except to [the extent] required by law.

The Company also may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under the applicable SEC rules during this call. Reconciliations of such non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are contained in the Company's earnings release and the related financial tables or on its website. Unless otherwise stated, all results reported on this call are reported in United States dollars.

The Company will also remind you that its guidance incorporates business trends to date and what it believes today to be appropriate assumptions. The Company's results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors including: fluctuations in foreign exchange rates; changes in global economic conditions and consumer demand and spending; labor market and global supply chain constraints; inflationary pressures; and the various factors detailed in its filings with the SEC. This guidance also reflects the Company's estimates to date regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its operations.

It is not possible for the Company to actually predict demand for its services and, therefore, its actual results could differ materially from the guidance. You can find a copy of the Company's earnings release, which contains additional important information regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures, in the Investors section on the Company's website. I will now turn the call over to Malcolm Wilson. Mr. Wilson, you may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to GXO's third-quarter earnings call. With me today are Baris Oran, our Chief Financial Officer, and Mark Manduca, our Chief Investment Officer.

This is our first quarterly update following our successful spinoff in early August. In accordance with our can-do culture, GXO's listing was completed in only eight months. This was thanks to the collective hard work and dedication of our 95,000 exceptional team members, the support of our loyal customers and our shareholders. We are extremely excited for the journey ahead as we pursue our secular growth opportunities.

In the third quarter, our operations delivered the highest quarterly revenue and adjusted EBITDA in their history. Not only did we beat market expectations, we surpassed a stellar second quarter. This was the third consecutive quarter of double-digit organic revenue growth. As a result we are raising the midpoint of our full-year revenue guidance to $7.7 billion and raising our midpoint of our pro forma adjusted EBITDA guidance to $622 million.

In the third quarter we won contracts with an aggregate lifetime value of over $1 billion, taking the value of our total wins year to date to $4.3 billion. Wins in this quarter included global blue-chip customers such as: Raytheon, a global aerospace manufacturer; Ross Stores, a large chain of department stores here in the US; Zalando, one of Europe's largest e-commerce companies; and Zara, a global omnichannel fashion retailer. We also won business with a leading US semiconductor company.

These contracts have an average duration of five years. We also implemented solutions in the quarter with Abercrombie & Fitch, Apple and Currys, formerly Dixons Carphone, and we expect new customer wins to have a $700 million uplift to our 2022 revenue, underpinning our growth for next year.

Today, approximately 50% of our revenue now comes from customer relationships that span more than one country. The massive tailwinds of automation, e-commerce and outsourcing remain unabated. And our blue-chip customers rely upon us for our best-in-class solutions and to stand up technology proficient warehouses with speed, reliability and at scale on a global basis.

Our land and expand strategy, underpinned by our global scale and technology leadership, is a key differentiator as evidenced with customers like Asos, Disney and H&M. Year to date we've expanded our operations with 16 of our top 20 customers across 22 new locations. On average we now operate in three countries for each of our top 20 customers.

As we navigate global supply chain disruptions and a tight labor market, we believe that being an employer of choice is critical. We continually hire throughout the year not just for peak, but to meet our growth needs, and we strive to ensure our employee value proposition is compelling.

As a company we pride ourselves on creating a workplace where safety is paramount, diversity and inclusion are valued and competitive compensation and benefits programs are offered. Against this backdrop we are working hard to meet our warehouse recruiting needs.

At the same time, we are increasing the deployment of automation, implementing our best-in-class software and leveraging our e-commerce and warehouse solutions know-how. We have found that the use of technology boosts productivity, improves safety and enhances our employee experience overall.

After spending a few weeks visiting our teams and distribution centers across the US, I've seen firsthand that the good balance of GXO team members and technology makes for a winning combination. I'm also pleased to note that the quarter saw numerous awards granted to GXO, highlighting our leadership in technology and diversity. The Institute of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange recognized GXO for two decades of innovation with Virgin Media and we were also recognized by the Human Rights Campaign on the corporate equality index for LGBTQ+ inclusion.

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome our new Vice President of Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, Letitia James. Diversity and inclusion are at the core of GXO values. Earlier this year we jointly held a diversity and inclusion strategy workshop with one of our largest omnichannel retail customers to find ways to make our distribution centers more inclusive, recruit from a diverse talent pool and serve the community as a strong corporate citizen.

We launched a joint diversity and inclusion advisory board that tracks and measures progress on our diversity goals. All of this enables [us] to be an employer of choice and a great place to work as our partnership expands.

Finally, it gives me great pleasure to announce that we have been awarded a AA ESG rating from MSCI, placing GXO at the highest rank among its largest industry peers. This rating recognizes the importance that our Company places on environmental, social and governance. It also acknowledges the clear targets that we have presented in recent months, including our firm goal to be carbon neutral by 2040.

As a business we want to set the benchmark for ESG across the supply chain, and we are already making good progress on our target set out at our Investor Day. We feel confident about our future as a newly formed entity. We are excited to deliver on our [vast] growth potential as the largest global pure play contract logistics company. I will now pass you over to Baris to take you through our financial performance. Baris, over to you.

Thank you Malcolm and good morning everyone. Today I'd like to walk you through our third quarter financials as well as our upgraded guidance for 2021. In the third quarter we generated revenue of $2 billion, net income of $72 million, including $42 million of one-time tax items, and adjusted EBITDA of $163 million. This revenue represents a year-over-year increase of 24.6% and is up 12% on an organic basis with FX contributing 2% and M&A contributing 10%.

The 12% organic growth is notable in the context of 8% to 12% organic growth rate for next year that we are reconfirming today. Year to date, revenues from top 20 customers have grown approximately 37%, demonstrating the success of our land and expand strategy. Quite simply, we view ourselves as the scaled third-party logistics partner of choice for global brands.

One of the great benefits of our model is its visibility and, as we stand here in early November, we have a strong view on the revenue trends of our business heading into 2022 and even 2023. Moreover, looking back, we would like to note that from 2016 through the end of the third quarter, we have delivered an organic revenue growth CAGR of 7.3%, reflecting the high-growth nature of our business even through a pandemic.

Moving to earnings, the growth in our adjusted EBITDA reflects the robust revenue growth we have delivered via a combination of new customer wins and existing customer expansion, as well as efficiency gains. We had particularly strong open book contract wins. Our contracts are structured to provide resiliency with pass-through cost mechanisms. And in an inflationary environment our third-quarter results reflect this.

We recorded a positive tax adjustment of approximately $42 million in the third quarter. This is a one-time P&L item resulting from the spinoff. Separately, in the fourth quarter, we expect a negative impact of less than $20 million in cash tax effects related to spin.

Our cash flow from operations in the third quarter was $105 million, we spent $55 million in CapEx. Specifically we spent approximately 50% of our total CapEx build on automation, technology and software. We invested for our high-growth future with an associated increase in working capital due to new starts and our recent acquisition. Overall, we generated free cash flow of $50 million, which represents over 30% of our adjusted EBITDA.

Turning to the balance sheet, we had a net debt of $757 million at the quarter end, which included roughly $800 million of notes and about $180 million of finance leases. Our leverage ratio is 1.3 times trailing 12 months reported adjusted EBITDA. This is well within the previously discussed net leverage range of 1 to 1.5 times. We also have an available $800 million revolving credit facility at our disposal and are committed to our investment grade credit rating. I'll now turn the call over to Mark.

Thank you, Baris. As Malcolm and Baris highlighted, this is a rare breed of company, one that combines high-growth with resiliency and dependability. I'm going to expand on the secular themes that Malcolm and Baris highlighted.

Our position as the largest global pure play contract logistics company puts us at the forefront of the growing demand for technology-driven logistics solutions. This is due to three secular megatrends that Malcolm mentioned: automation, e-commerce and outsourcing. These three tailwinds continue to drive our double-digit revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth.

Firstly, automation and technology are key differentiators for GXO in the marketplace, helping boost efficiency and productivity of our solutions and resulting in revenue and margin uplifts for our customers. In the third quarter we increased our technological leadership by the deployment of more than 1,000 new units of technology implemented across our solutions. Total technology and automated systems across our warehouse footprint grew 139% year-over-year in the third quarter. And within that total goods-to-person systems grew 135% year-over-year.

We're also currently testing over 100 new technologies in our sites. Some of this technology has the ability to transform our solutions, bringing further benefit to existing and new customers and inevitably speeding up the cadence of outsourcing. There are multiple technologies across our network that generate value for our team members, customers and also GXO.

For example, we recently trialed and will be implementing a new autonomous collaborative robot capable of transporting heavy weights. It improves safety, reduces manual tasks and increases picking efficiency by 70%. This technology brings a cash payback of significantly less than three years and offers a very high return on invested capital.

Secondly, on e-commerce, we continued to benefit in the quarter from strong secular and persistent growth. Our outbound e-commerce omnichannel retail and technology aggregated revenue increased by 22% year-over-year in the third quarter. And our reverse logistics revenue increased by 21% year-over-year. Looking forward, we expect our customers will increasingly use e-commerce channels to get their products into consumers' hands as fast as possible.

And finally on outsourcing, the runway remains significant with a massive potential addressable market of $430 billion, of which $300 billion is still yet to be outsourced. Year-to-date, our wins have come roughly 40% from new outsourced contracts, 31% from existing customers who are expanding their scope and 29% won from competitors.

Our record sales pipeline indicates continued growth opportunities from never before outsourced contracts. Now [I'd like] to mention we secured contracts with almost $700 million of brand-new revenue uplift for 2022. This is the equivalent to a gross revenue growth rate of 9% even before we consider the opportunity from further wins from our strong pipeline in the fourth quarter and in 2022.

In conjunction with our gross win announcement, I would note that our 12-month trailing revenue retention rate has also improved since our Investor Day and our pipeline at the moment, as of the third quarter, is valued at approximately $2.3 billion.

Now given our leadership in this vertical, it won't come as a surprise to know that more than 50% of our wins year-to-date are from that very same e-commerce omnichannel retail and technology vertical. I'll now hand the call back to Baris to discuss the outlook.

Thank you, Mark. At our Investor Day in July, we highlighted that the majority of our revenue growth comes from net customer wins and our strong performance year-to-date gives us confidence for the fourth quarter of 2021 and into fiscal 2022.

As a business we have good visibility given our long-duration contracts with blue-chip customers. We look forward to a fourth-quarter with strong growth and to 2022 being another year of double-digit revenue growth at the midpoint of our range in this high return on invested capital business.

We continue to monitor supply chain disruptions closely and remain focused on mitigating the impact of any deterioration in the macro environment, including input shortages of components and labor. We upgraded our full-year 2021 guidance in light of our strong third-quarter results and the visibility we have.

We are seeing an increased demand for solutions that tackle direct-to-consumer, e-commerce fulfillment, energy optimization, faster speed to market and ability to reuse returned products. We are delivering tremendous value to our customers at this challenging time.

We now expect that we will generate $7.6 billion to $7.8 billion of revenue is 2021, $607 million to $637 million of pro forma adjusted EBITDA. Meanwhile, our expected tax rate has been lowered to 25% to 27%. We also updated our CapEx guidance to $225 million to $250 million.

Our 2022 financial targets are unchanged. These are 8% to 12% organic revenue growth alongside $705 million to $740 million of adjusted EBITDA. In the present tough supply chain environment we are increasingly pleased with our progress and remain vigilant.

We've demonstrated strong growth while maintaining our high return on invested capital, grew our sales pipeline to a record level and built a world-class team and enviable platform set to deliver long-term sustainable shareholder value. We'll now open the call up to Q&A.

(Operator Instructions). Scott Schneeberger, Oppenheimer.

Thanks very much and good morning, everyone. I'm curious about the ramp up timing of announcing a new win and when we might see it in results. And also the margin profile of initial new wins and how long those margins take to ramp to optimal margins. Thanks.

Thanks, Scott. It is Malcolm Wilson here. I'll cover the first part of that question then I'll hand over to Baris to talk about the margin profile. So, new contracts, they come in all shapes and all sizes. Typically today, because we implant a lot of automation in our facilities, a normal startup period can range between three months and nine months, depending upon the level of automation that's going into the facility.

Due to our scale, clearly we are seeing a relatively good availability of warehouse stock. We are working with all of the large industrial landlords. So, we are not hampered in anything other than just the working with our customer, the detail planning, the work together in terms of the connection of our IT software to optimize the flow of goods through the warehouse. But three to nine months is normal.

It could be a little longer if we are doing a very detailed design and build facility where we are actually starting with a blank canvas and it is going to be a very, very highly automated warehouse. In all circumstances typically the building is physically designed to suit the level of automation. But I hope that gives you a flavor of the situation. Regarding the margin, Baris, maybe you can add.

Hi, Scott. When we start the operation, depending on the size, scale and technology involvement, it takes roughly six months to a year for us to ramp it up to a full scale and to have the margins at a certain level. And remember then, the more technology we employ in a facility, which is increasing these days, a lot of automation and technology is being employed, the margins tend to be higher. On average we see 200 basis points to 400 basis points higher margins in higher technology employed facilities that we operate.

And Scott, as you know, adding to Baris' point about our business, this is a contractual business model, it is not a transactional business model. We have great visibility when we write those contracts that Baris and Malcolm talked about. And with all our contracts at the moment, we aspire to be profitable on day one, aspire to have cash paybacks of less than three years on any CapEx and working capital deployed, and project level returns of more than 33%.

Great, thanks all. Appreciate that. And then as a follow-up, a bit of a kind of a current event question. But just curious, Baris, you touched on it briefly, but if we can go a little bit more in depth. How are you doing with regard to labor availability? And then if you could speak to how wage inflation may be covered in your contracts from a total company perspective. Thank you.

Scott, it's Malcolm here. Let me cover that and, in fact, I am in an ideal place. I've literally just come back from traveling around our US business for the past month and I visited a huge number of locations. What we are seeing is it's key that we provide competitive compensation and benefit solutions.

And the way we do that is we analyze on the ground right down to the ZIP Code level. We have our HR organization very heavily involved in that and we work hand-in-hand with our customers to figure out what is the best solution for each specific location.

Customers actually come to us checking to make sure that we are aligned with the market, because everybody realizes that such a valuable resource is in fact our GXO team members. It is super important to keep those team members in place. And clearly in the current environment of tight labor, it is imperative that we make sure that we are abreast of all of the latest compensation and benefits needs and we're doing that.

And as an overview, the last thing I've got to mention is we do work hard to make GXO a great place for people to work. The combination of lots of technology -- we're really encouraging people to come into the business. And they like to be a part of an organization that is working with a lot of technology. So, those factors combined give us the good solution.

And of course, the robust boilerplate environment that we have in terms of our contracting with customers ensures that those [counts] go fully back to our customers. It's a pretty seamless environment, works very, very well and has really put us in good stead, as you've just seen in our Q3 earnings.

Great, thanks. I'll turn it over. Congratulations on a [good] start.

Brian Ossenbeck, JPMorgan.

Hey, guys, good morning, thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to ask you about 2022. You talked about these large amounts of new contract wins, especially ones that are going to roll forward into next year, which, as Mark mentioned, I think these are gross wins rather.

So, it looks like you've got about almost 10% of revenue growth already underpinned. So, maybe you can talk a little bit more about that, why not raise the guide at this point, especially when it sounds like you've got some revenue retention rates that are also increasing throughout the year.

Good stuff, Brian. Thanks for the question. It's Mark here. So, a couple of good points that you've raised. First of all, the $700 million that, as you know, we've won year-to-date and as of the end of last year. If you accumulate that up and you put that into next year's revenue growth, you will see, as you mentioned, 9% gross wins coming for growth next year. So, that's the first point.

The other thing to combine with that is obviously to go from gross to net you clearly need the revenue retention rate. And you'll be pleased to know that since the Investor Day, that revenue retention rate has improved. The second part of the growth algorithm for the 8% to 12%, as you know, already are in the scoring zone with that 9% growth rate. But you need to think about not just new customer wins, but also existing customer growth. And there's good stuff going on there as well.

Two things to think about. We talked about 3% to 4%, if you remember, for existing customer wins. Well, we are running at or slightly above that run rate at the moment as of the third quarter given what is going on in regards to our price escalators in an inflationary environment, as Malcolm talked about. So, we've got good confidence going into next year for our 8% to 12%. I will hand over to Baris to talk about the inputs of the guidance.

Thank you, Mark. Remember, we are writing our contracts with an expectation of three year cash-on-cash returns, 33% return on invested capital. We can clearly grow faster, but we are careful to grow with the right vertical, right customer with the right credit rating and also right potential. We want to grow with the customers where we make a difference, our solutions can make a difference and we get a good return on an invested capital basis.

All right, thanks guys. I think the other one I wanted to ask on was just the incremental margins here in the quarter and then out to next year. Specifically for 3Q, it didn't look like we got a tremendous amount of drop-down into profitability from the top line. So, maybe it was some of the start-up costs you mentioned earlier.

But if you can clarify that and how it is trending into the fourth quarter, that would be helpful, along with just the building blocks for 2022. Because even if the guidance is unchanged right now, underpinned by the growth you just talked about, we are still looking at a pretty decent pickup in margin expansion into next year.

Thank you. We saw margin expansion organically in Q3 and our guidance at the midpoint also shows margin expansion on an organic basis. Q3 is generally overall a lower margin compared to the prior quarter. It is a fulfillment business.

Generally Q4 is a peak period where we have black Friday and where we have Christmas. Therefore, we generally have lower margins compared to Q3. But on a year-over-year basis our margins are up both for Q3 and Q4 on an organic basis. And looking into 2022, clearly we have a lot of confidence in our growth, in our pipeline, in our model overall and our guidance is reflecting that with a margin expansion.

And just to add to Baris' excellent point, Brian, if you look at the midpoint of the range for the full year, so implicitly we're taking $7.7 billion at the midpoint for revenue and [$622 million] at the midpoint for EBITDA to help you with this math.

I'll give you some numbers so you can get a sense. 8% organic growth is what that's implying for Q4. So, clearly underwriting to a certain degree what we're talking about for next year. And then for Q4 EBITDA, if you take that $622 million at the full year, the implied Q4 midpoint would be $155 million.

As Baris said, the business had Q3 margins up organically, so ex acquisitions, margins were up in the third quarter. The same is true for the fourth quarter at the midpoint of the range. So, we are confident.

Stephanie Moore, Truist.

Hi, good morning. I was hoping you could discuss maybe your current new customer demand environment as well as how you balance profitable growth. And really just on the latter, how the returns of your maybe recently won contracts compared to your current return profile and where you think that can go over time just given the investments that are being made.

Sure. We are writing contracts on average around 33% return and that is still continuing and we start with a growing company. What we see recently is there's a lot more technology involved, automation involved as we are helping our customers resolve challenges that they currently have in their supply chain processes.

So, we see margin expansion, especially in high-tech solutions that we provide. The more automation we provide the higher margin we get. And as I mentioned earlier, [that's] roughly 200 basis points, so about 400 basis points higher compared to a manual solution. So, overall return on invested capital we see on the contracts we are writing is roughly 33% at the project level.

And to Baris' point, Steph, it's all about technology at the moment. There isn't a single contract that we're looking at or have written in the quarter that doesn't have some element of automation or technology within it. So, as Baris said, that's a positive for returns for our business, that's a positive for margins for our business.

If you think about the way that contracts are going, there is a flywheel effect that's taking place in the industry right now, as you know, and it is all coalescing around four forces. One, contracts are moving towards the scale players in the space; two, contracts are moving towards 3PLs that are global, i.e., have a multinational footprint; three, good balance sheet, i.e., good counterparty matters a lot; and as Baris said, it's all about technology advancements for number four. That really spells out -- those four tenets spell out GXO.

Great, thank you. And then more in the near-term, we are seeing a lot of just headlines and commentary from other large companies about how supply chain disruptions, whether it's production issues or lack of supplies, are impacting production availability. How does that impact your business even just in the near-term, if simply goods are just taking longer to get to their end destination and certainly your warehouse?

Yes, Steph, it's Malcolm here. Let me give you some overview on that. Obviously you've just heard Q3 good results. Q4 outlook is very positive. What we're seeing on the ground is clearly manufacturing disruptions on a global basis. In North America we've seen that now channel into port disruption, port congestions, but actually a lot of that cargo, a lot of those products now are channeling into our warehouses. And that's where GXO can make such a difference for all of our customers.

What we've been actively doing over the past months is working with our customers to ensure that we prioritize the right goods, that they can be very efficiently processed through, moved across to the consumer. To do that we've been -- as Mark mentioned, we've been layering in incremental technology across our business, a lot more robotics implemented. And also we've been recruiting not just for the peak but, as we mentioned, for the business that's coming along during 2022 gives us a good head start.

So, the fundamentals are all unchanged. The issues that we're seeing right now we believe are very much temporary. We are anticipating to continue to see them probably into Q1, maybe even into Q2, but definitely it is a temporary issue, it will abate. And again, just to reiterate, we are incurring incremental costs to solve problems for our customers.

But our contractual arrangements really allow us to pass those costs efficiently through to our customers who are really working with us as a true partnership to ensure that all of the different aspects that go for a successful peak season are achieved.

Amit Malhotra, Deutsche Bank.

Baris, I just wanted to come back to the margin question maybe just a slightly different way. If you look at your guidance this year, 2021, you raised it by $100 million on revenue but only $2 million on EBITDA. Can you just talk about that? Because obviously that implies very, very little drop through.

And this is a relatively, obviously, a new standalone company. And so, what I'm just trying to understand is that it could be, obviously, related to startup costs, which could be a very good thing because your growth is very impressive.

And I know you write your contracts for ROIC, but your guideposts are EBITDA. So, I think it would be helpful to just understand, peel back the onion for us on that revenue versus EBITDA move on this year's guidance and just talk about why maybe there are some near-term headwinds associated with that drop through.

We have seen a margin expansion in Q3 organically and we are looking to another margin expansion in Q4 year-over-year basis. But this is a fulfillment industry and Q4 margin should not be converted to Q3 margins as there are a number of things that are happening in Q4 that are not generally happening in Q3. Those are related to the peak, how we scale up our business and how that delivers.

There's a lot of startups, yes, that's true. But despite the fact that we have a lot of startups and phenomenal growth, we are showing further margin expansion in Q4 on a year-over-year basis. And we are confident in 2022 margin expansion as well.

Yes, I get that. I just -- implicitly though, the margin of the business for this year, entirety of 2021, is lower than it was two days ago. Because you raised revenue $100 million and you raised EBITDA guidance $2 million. And so, I think the question I'm just asking is what changed? Is it just you're growing so quickly and so there are startup costs? Or what changed in terms of implicitly lowering the margin for this year? If that makes sense.

Yes. We have sizable growth elements embedded and, as we discussed earlier, the initial period of the first couple of quarters of a startup is not as profitable as a maturity stage. Clearly there is some impact associated with that. And also the integration of acquisition is taking it's time. It is progressing quite well, but still is not -- margin wise it's not improving our margin, it's diluting our margin right now. Ex acquisition, ex [K&N], our margins are better compared to the year before.

Got it, okay. That's very helpful. And then just a quick follow-up if I could. Malcolm, you made this comment in the release about remaining vigilant given the tough environment. I wanted to see if you could provide a little bit more color on that, Malcolm. What specifically are you referring to?

And I don't know if this is a general comment and how GXO serves as the solution provider to this. Or does this vigilant given the tough environment comment mean there's maybe a little bit more risk to the 2022 guidance than maybe you contemplated six months ago or something like that. If you can just give us a little bit more color on that.

Yes, for sure, Amit. What I'm referring to is that we are having to challenge somehow the norm this year. So, all these supply chain disruptions it's really created an unusual year. So, in the past where we would have been quite satisfactory to review wage levels and incentive plans maybe on a six monthly basis, what we found this year is it's pretty essential to do it every other month in some of our locations.

People are in huge demand. Lead times for equipment are extending and we're having to leverage all of the buying power, all of the scale clout we can say that GXO has. So, it's meaning that we are more vigilant than ever, in terms of these key issues, to ensure that we are not caught out certainly in a local market condition where we are under the norm from a wage perspective and we've not been quick enough to recognize a change, and suddenly we are losing some of those valuable resources.

So, we have to stand up whole new ways of working locally on the deck, as it were, on the floor, down in each ZIP Code. Our customers have been super supportive. This is an environment where I've never seen more an environment where customers and GXO stand together in a common environment, common difficulty of labor availability. It has been really very pleasing to see.

But that's really what we mean by vigilant. It's an environment where we have to really be very watchful, laser focused, as we are, and I think you are seeing that in the results that we are providing today and in the outlook that we are giving you for Q4 and for the future.

But does it make it harder to achieve your guidance in that context? Or does it make it easier or does it have no effect because of the way your contracts are structured?

In terms of the way our contracts are structured it has no effect. Our contracts, we've mentioned on a number of occasions we've really got a very robust environment. What I would say is makes it easier in a way. It's much easier to have a discussion with people to recognize these inflationary pressures when they are so visibly and so well reported. But at the same time, we're having to work in slightly different ways just to ensure that we keep that laser focused attention on these key metrics.

So, contractually way of working with customers, no real difference. But in terms of internally how we are working, we are having to be even more focused than maybe last year on certain areas of the business and metric. But I think the results demonstrate we are doing a pretty good job of that.

Just going back to -- it's Mark here, just going back to the point that I made earlier with Brian in terms of the midpoint of the range. If you were to take the top end of the range that we've obviously updated today in terms of revenue for the full year and were to work back to Q4, we are implicitly, at the top end of the range, implying 14% organic growth rate in rents.

And I don't have to remind you of the fact that the comp has become significantly harder between Q2 and Q3 and Q4 over those three quarters. So, there is vigilance, cautiously optimistic. We are fighting on the ground, but at the same time we've put out guidance today that obviously is a confident move in the right direction. And bring it back to the pipeline as well, Amit, the $2.3 billion of pipeline, this is a business that has exceptional visibility.

Congrats, guys. Malcolm (technical difficulty).

(Operator Instructions). Hamzah Mazari, Jefferies.

Good morning. Thank you. I think you had mentioned retention rates improved since the Investor Day. Maybe just a little more color as to what they are trending. Is there -- do you have a target around retention? And as part of that, I know you mentioned 29% of wins from competitors. Maybe just talk about the other side a little. You mentioned contracts are going to scale players and tech leaders. In what instances do you lose to competitors?

I'll take the first portion of that question. You'll remember what we said at the Investor Day, Hamzah, in regard to our 93%. What we have said since then is that revenue retention rates have improved modestly. That is all the tenants obviously have a healthy business, as I mentioned, in terms of that flywheel effect.

In terms of your point in regards to the mix of business, we talked specifically about the fact that within our year-to-date contract wins, new outsourced contracts accumulate to around 40%. So, that's obviously extremely healthy, first-time business coming to market choosing to come to us. Expansion of scope, so an existing customer increasing their warehouse footprint, that same-store sales footprint going up is around 31%. And wins from competitors, as you rightly say, is 29%.

What I would echo is to the point earlier in that these contracts are gravitating towards scale players, customers, to Stephanie's question, that have an e-commerce backbone, i.e., can get direct to the consumer, not having to go via brick-and-mortar, which takes an extra two to six weeks, getting that consumer product into the hands of the consumers quickly.

Having an e-commerce backbone, as we do in this 3PL, is a big, big advantage. And that's why we are winning that very healthy mix of business that we are talking about. Malcolm, is there anything that you want to say in terms of customer mix?

Just to really round off the answer, because I think there was a question of, well, when we do miss out on a new piece of business, what is the real reason. Most of the customers that we work with are big global organizations. Some of the statistics that we saw on the call about the expansion that we've had with our top customers, the number of countries that we are working with, they're really pleasing for us because that's really our drive.

But of course in every country where we work there's always going to be some lower-cost operator, some local type of company. And as Baris mentioned, we are picky -- we're picky and we're choosy. We can be in that situation because we are in a very strong place as an organization. So, we want to contract deals that really give those very high levels of return. We are not going to follow a price down and that is typically the environment where we might find eventually we choose not to progress.

But those kind of customers tend to be more local type of customers. The big international brands, which is really the bedrock of our business, they really prefer, as Mark mentioned, to work with big scale players where they can be satisfied on all of the metrics. The ESG rating that we announced, that's really important. Big international companies -- they love to work with companies that have the same values that they have.

And coming out of the gate with that highest rating from MSC amongst all of our largest industrial payers, after less than 100 days of being a public company, wow, that is just amazing for us. And we were so pleased to receive that. So, it tends to be a very local environment when we ultimately don't move forward with a customer.

Got it. And just my follow-up question and I'll turn it over. Just any thoughts on how to think about free cash flow conversion going forward as you think about next year? And then just any comments on the M&A pipeline that you have today. Thank you.

Yes, on the free cash flow conversion, we have provided over 30% conversion from EBITDA to free cash flow in the third quarter and, on a year-to-date basis excluding $50 million of one-off items related to spin, our free cash flow conversion rate was also 30%.

Looking into fourth quarter, there are two one-off items that we should be all mindful of. There are local country taxes related to spin, which will be paid in Q4, amounting to about $20 million and payment deferred via US CARES Act, which is about another $20 million, will be paid in Q4. Those should be taken into account when we are looking forward to our free cash flow in the fourth quarter of 2021.

And for 2022, you can use the benchmark or rule of thumb we have provided, 30% EBITDA to free cash flow conversion rate, that's going to come on top of a very high rate of organic growth, funding our organic growth and delivering free cash flow on top of that.

Bascome Majors, Susquehanna.

Yes, good morning and thanks for taking my questions. We spent a lot of time on 2022. I wanted to talk a little bit about the pipeline and what it looks like for implementations in 2023 and beyond. And what type of RFPs are you bidding on today that would start to drive organic growth beyond 2022? Any problems you are being asked to solve and how they are different than what you are doing this year and next as far as new business? Thank you.

Let me jump in on that, it's Malcolm. So, as we have mentioned, pipeline is incredibly strong. It's populated with a whole range of different opportunities across the broad spectrum of the different verticals that GXO is working in.

A lot of that is e-fulfillment related. That represents around 50% of our overall business, so no surprise on that. And a lot of that, an increasing amount of that is encompassing a high level of automation. And I think that's just a response to relatively recent tightness of the labor. More people want automation in their facilities.

But it's also a response to generally automation becoming much more available and more usable in a direct application. So, Mark mentioned earlier about a new goods to person [robot] is capable of carrying very heavy weight. That might not seem a lot, but actually that's a real innovation for us. And it opens the door for use in a lot of different customers.

Typically the projects that we are signing today are being implemented in the first half of 2022, but some of those projects go longer and some even into 2023, and that's the kind of normal profile we see. I think the longest project at the moment we have got visibility on even stretches towards the end of 2023.

And that's why, as Baris mentioned, we have this very long visibility, long runway of visibility on what's happening in terms of the top line and how that will crystallize and cascade down through our numbers. So, overall we're in a very good position, very strong pipeline. As Mark has already mentioned, where is that pipeline forming from in terms of the mix. I think we are in a very enviable position.

One thing I would like to add to that, Malcolm, as we go through contract by contract I see a lot of examples of our global brands switching to direct-to-consumer. Therefore our capabilities of serving them on the e-commerce side and returns management side, reverse logistics side is becoming more and more enhanced. And I see a lot of proposals and contracts coming in with high automation and large facilities across the world -- I mean in Europe, in US, elsewhere, that's the trend that we're seeing.

And listen, just to finish the point -- it's Malcolm here again. I'm glad Baris came in on that. And the fact he's explaining what he's seeing, I just want to make the point this is a business that has incredibly strong governance. All of these deals that we settle with customers, they go through a rigorous vetting process.

That's why we talk about being ultra-focused in terms of our financial returns. Everything ultimately is signed off by our finance organization, Baris at the lead. Everything comes to myself also. So, it is a very rigorous process that we have. We are not making very good levels of financial results by accident. It's a very detailed effort that goes into this.

So, to naturally bridge that, I don't know if you want to comment, but how do we think -- I mean, clearly the visibility is huge. But how do we think about the longer-term revenue and EBITDA trajectory through the cycle when we are through some of this exceptionalism that we've seen in 2021 and 2022?

As far as the growth is concerned, e-commerce is only 30% penetrated. It is sometimes lower, so there's a lot of room for growth on that side. Automation, our industry is only 5% automated. Outsourcing is only 30% currently out of a $430 billion total addressable market. So, all of these [three, five years] are driving us forward and we see phenomenal growth opportunities moving forward.

And I mentioned earlier, we see more and more technology being used, a lot more automation being used. In our -- even if we renew our existing contracts, we have to put more automation, more technology. So, you should see a margin expansion if we embed more technology, software and hardware, into our facilities.

And you will know obviously, Bascome -- it is Mark here -- over the last 20 years this business has roughly done a revenue CAGR of around 16%. And if you were to look back into the sands of time and compare that against the 8% to 12% organic growth that we are talking for next year, logically I think one could conclude it wouldn't be crazy to conclude that the 8% to 12%, just based on history alone, is what one could describe as a normal year for this business.

Ravi Shanker, Morgan Stanley.

Thanks, good morning, everyone. Just a couple of follow-ups here. Maybe a short-term one to kick it off. You guys have elaborated quite a bit on how you are fighting on the ground to make the best of the current environment. But what about your customers? Do you see risk to volumes if your customers are struggling to manufacture or pick your products?

Obviously Apple has made it very clear they are struggling with semiconductors. They are a customer of yours. How do you see that as a potential risk for the next couple of quarters? And also your own ability to automate and procure robots, are you seeing any of that being impacted because of the semiconductor shortage?

Hi, Ravi, it's Malcolm here. So, in the first part of your question, no, we are not seeing any significant risk in regard to our own operating model. So, we've seen some of our customers are very busy, almost unaffected by the current supply chain difficulties. Some we can see clearly they have been waiting for product.

I would describe it that this year's peak is kind of feeling like it's going to be a longer peak season and probably, in the end, more condensed from probably middle of November through to the end of the year. And I say that because what we are seeing now is some alleviation of the port congestion. It's going to go on for months, but we're definitely seeing some alleviation of that.

We are seeing lots of containers trafficked, coming into our facilities. And that's why I mentioned it's really important now that we are working so closely with our customers to identify those priority goods and get them out to the consumer. So, in that regard I think we're in good shape and, as I mentioned, the incremental costs that we might incur in that, our contractual model pushes that back into the customer.

And Ravi, in regards to the good shape that Malcolm talked about, remember we've given guidance last night. We are reiterating it because we believe it, we are confident. And the question, which is a very timely question, by the way, it sounds very much like a typical RFP process when you ask it. You provide us with a problem and GXO offers you a solution. That's why customers come to us. They want to have their problem solved.

And the other part of your question was about the availability of materials. I think you're referring to what we need in the warehouse. And that's really, again -- I want to really make a strong point. We are the largest outsource contract logistics company in the world. It gives us colossal buying power.

We are one of the top 10 warehouse real estate renters basically, so we have big power with the industrial landlords. That's enabled us already this year alone to set up over 60 new warehouses, another 15 planned between now and the end of the year.

And we work very collaborative, very closely with all of the big automation organizations. We are not reliant on any single individual company, but by having these strong relationships, they see us as a big partner, they see us as buying a lot of material from them.

We are always at the front of the queue when it comes to getting what we need to stand up our facilities in a timely manner. And again, it just really encourages more and more customers to want to work with GXO because they see that that builds into their reliability proposition that we give to them.

Got it. And Mark, if I can just touch on -- you said earlier that the new business wins have tremendous visibility. Obviously that's a key tenet of the business here. As we head into 2022, any chance we might get longer-term guidance from you guys, just given the visibility you guys have in the business?

For a business such as ours, the capability of being able to give long-term guidance is definitely there. In terms of your question in regards to ability to see out into the looking glass, we've already got around 98% visibility this year and roughly 80% to 85% revenue visibility for next year, to give you a sense, Ravi.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is all the time we have for questions today. I'd like to hand the call back to management for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. Well, I just want to reconfirm, very strong third quarter for our business. We are a very successfully spun off company. It's been achieved in a relatively record time and we've done it very well. This is a strong organization that's set for a very good future.

We're going to benefit from all of those strong secular trends that we're talking about. More and more organizations outsourcing, more of our customers and many customers moving their business more to an e-fulfillment model. And of course, automation is becoming a huge play in the environment that we are in.

We've reported in this quarter 12% of organic, 14% growth on our EBITDA, margins and core business all expanding year-over-year very strongly. So, we are very satisfied with the results. We're very pleased that you were able to join with us on this call today. And I'd just like to thank you for all of your support. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.