Kforce Inc (KFRC) 2011 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by and welcome to the Kforce Incorporated's Third Quarter 2011 Earnings Conference Call. Currently all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions for questions will be given at that time. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder, this conference may be recorded.

And now I'll turn the program over to Michael Blackman, Chief Corporate Development Officer. Sir, the floor is yours.

Great thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to the Kforce third quarter conference call. Before we get started I would like to remind you that this call may contain certain statements that are forward-looking. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the factors listed in Kforce's public filings and other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We cannot undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements.

I would now like to turn this call over to David Dunkel, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Dave.

Thank you, Michael. You can find additional information about Kforce in our 10-Q, 10-K and 8-K filings with the SEC. We provide substantial disclosure in our release and our hope is that this will improve with the dissemination of information about our performance and the quality of this call.

We are very pleased with our record third quarter revenues of $289 million, as well as earnings per share of $0.22. These results represent year-over-year growth of 11.4% and 37.5% respectively.

All of our flexible staffing businesses grew sequentially on a billing-day basis for the first time since Q4 of 2007, contributing to record quarterly flex revenue of $277.1 million. Total technology revenue of $165.5 million in Technology Flex of $160.3 million also represents high water marks for those businesses.

Staffing continues to perform differently in this cycle versus prior ones. We continue to experience solid growth in a tepid GDP environment. While the jury is still out, long-term on the flex supercycle, the data increasingly supports that it really is different this time. We continue to see recovery where a disproportionate amount of private sector hiring is being created through the temp sector as 21% of job creation in this cycle has been through the temp sector versus just 7% in the last cycle.

High skill niches and particularly technology jobs are very supply constrained as college educated unemployment was just 4.2% in September. We believe these dynamics are significant contributors to the strength of our Technology Flex business, which constitutes over half our revenues.

Additionally, continued uncertainty for the U.S. economy may result in clients increasingly turning to flexible staffing, which allows them to quickly adjust to this constantly shifting economic environment and the significant uncertainties surrounding regulatory tax and healthcare reform. Many clients have confirmed that they are reluctant to go long in human capital against this macro backdrop. We remain confident in our belief that there is a sustained secular shift towards a flexible staffing model and that temporary staffing penetration of the workforce may achieve historic highs in the U.S.

As demand strengthens we are seeing improvements not only in increased volume but also improvements in the rate that we are able to bill for our services. The improvement in bill-pay spreads and in particular bill-rate increases drove the 50 basis point sequential increase in flex gross margin. This spread improvement and the leverage that exists in our operating platform allowed us to make continued investments in associate headcount while still delivering strong bottom-line results.

The firm also repurchased 4.6 million shares of stock during the quarter, which represented 10.8% of outstanding shares for a total of 43 million. We believe Kforce is well positioned to service our client's increasing desire for a more flexible workforce during this unique employment cycle. We remain committed to our goal to surpass prior peak earnings with a higher quality revenue stream that is less dependent upon permanent placement revenue.

We remain confident in our highly leverageable operating model and believe that we may be the beneficiary of the secular shift towards increased flexible staffing. We anticipate continued uncertainty during this presidential election year, which may positively affect demand for flexible talent.

I'll now turn the call over to Bill Sanders, Kforce President, who will provide additional insights on operating trends and expectations and then Joe Liberatore, CFO, will provide remarks on overall financial performance. Bill?

Thank you, Dave, and thanks to all of you for your interest in Kforce. We are very pleased to have a record revenue's quarter. Kforce is committed to growing revenue and earnings by providing exceptional service to our clients and consultants.

During the quarter we experienced broad-based strengthening in demand for our services. We were able to take advantage of our highly advanced sales and delivery platform that leverages a combination of our field associates, strategic account executives and national recruiting center to profitably grow revenue with both large and small clients.

Tech Flex continued to have strong demand in the quarter. In Q3 we achieved record revenue in Tech Flex, which is our largest business unit and represents 55% of total firm revenues.

Q3 revenues increased 6.9% sequentially and 16.7% year-over-year. Our key performance indicators such as job orders and client business remain at high levels and fill ratios are improving, which reflects increased efficiency and prioritization of our positions.

The candidate pool for technology consultants is very tight and particularly so for skill sets and demands such Epic, Java and DotNet. Maintaining a pipeline and finding candidates through passive recruiting and social media is a necessity. We expect sequential revenues for Tech Flex to increase on a billing-day basis in the fourth quarter.

Revenues for our finance and accounting flex business, which represents 17% of our total revenues, increased 1.1% sequentially and increased 8.1% year-over-year. The year-over-year growth is impacted by a decline in activity and lower bill-rate positionings inclusive of the mortgage related assignments, which constitutes approximately 18% of our F&A business and was very strong last year.

This portion of our F&A improved quarter-over-quarter, though we expect to continue to experience volatility in this area based upon changes in the housing and mortgage market. Our traditional F&A business improved in September and October. Performance indicators for FA Flex in total are up in September levels and we therefore expect revenues for this unit to be up on a billing-day basis in Q4.

Both of our Tech Flex and F&A Flex businesses benefitted from our cost-effective and highly elastic national recruiting center coupled with our strategic accounts strategy, as well as our highly tenured workforce serving all of our clients.

Currently 29% of technology and F&A revenue is being supported by the NRC. This percentage increased from 27% in Q2 and 25% in Q1. We expect this percentage to stabilize around these levels for a period as the broad-based demand in our small to medium sized clients is now keeping pace with the growth of our strategic accounts.

Our HLS business segment, which represents 16% of total revenues in Q3, 2011, is comprised of our clinical research and health information management businesses.

HIM revenues increased 3.6% sequentially and 17.3% year-over-year. Our HIM revenue trends continue to be promising as hospital spend continues to improve, particularly in the project services and in (inaudible) areas. This business has grown more quickly than all of our other businesses over the past year and has now grown six straight quarters.

We believe in the long-term demand for this profitable business, in particular the opportunities that should evolve for both HIM and Tech Flex for the transition to electronic medical records and with the October 2013 deadline for the adoption of ICD-10. We expect HIM revenues to be up again on a billing-day basis in the fourth quarter.

During Q3 revenues in our clinical research business increased 7.7% sequentially and 5.8% year-over-year. The sequential increase is largely due to headcount growth at our largest client, both for replacement of resources and increasing demand on other projects. Management continues to monitor this changing space, as many long-term drug patents are scheduled to expire shortly and industry consolidation accelerates.

In the past we had been very successful in transitioning our valuable, billable resources to other clients as major projects end. In some cases this has led to improved profitability as we avail ourselves to higher margin opportunities and new or smaller clients. We will adapt to changes as they occur and continue to position this business for success.

We are expecting revenues to grow on a billing-day basis though this business is typically impacted significantly in Q4 by our major clinical research clients closing their operations over the holidays and has only 58 billing days in Q4.

Revenues for Kforce Government Solutions, our prime government contracting business, increased 8.8% sequentially but declined 8.8% year-over-year. The sequential growth was driven by a combination of new project wins and other product focused business opportunities. We believe we have made significant progress in repositioning this profitable unit for success. However, government contractors continue to see the negative impacts of the challenging federal procurement environment and, as a result, revenue visibility remains limited.

We remain focused on our key competencies of technology, finance and accounting and project management. Our senior management and business development teams are executing on their strategy and are fully prepared to take advantage of opportunities and niches where we excel as the environment improves. This project-based business is constantly looking ways for to deploy our talented employees.

Earlier this year we began investigating ways to further penetrate commercial clients to meet their project needs and to diversify opportunities to utilize our KGF employees and we had begun to win commercial project opportunities. The near-term uncertainty in the government space only intensifies our desire to develop this business. This unit also has only 58 billing days in Q4.

As we look forward to Q4 we anticipate revenues will be flat to slightly up on a billing-day basis, providing there is no disruption in government funding. However, further impacts to the revenue trends in this business could result in a non-cash impairment charge on this unit's intangible assets.

Perm revenues from direct placements and conversion, which constitute 4.1% of total revenues, decreased 2.6% sequentially and increased 12.4% year-over-year. We continue to make measured investments in our field and in our search teams to support our high quality revenue stream though our financial targets are not predicated on returning to prior peak perm revenue levels.

Perm revenues are very difficult to predict and typically decline from Q3 to Q4. In terms of core headcount trends, we increased the pace of hiring in Q3, focused in areas of greatest demand and specifically in Technology Flex.

Sales headcount inclusive of the NRC and strategic accounts have increased 7.5% sequentially and 12.2% year-over-year. We expect to continue to make selective investments in our sales headcount as we reach productivity metrics. We are particularly pleased that despite the increased hiring in Q3, the revenue per employee increased 2.2% sequentially and is now 5.3% higher than a year ago.

We believe our diversified service offerings fortified by our tenured field teams and our national recruiting center and strategic account executives will result in continued revenue growth as we move further through this economic recovery. Our priorities are continuing relentless focus on retaining our great people and improving client satisfaction while driving continued profitable revenue growth.

I will now turn the call over to Joe Liberatore, Kforce CFO and Executive Vice President, who will provide additional insights on the operating trends and expectations. Joe?

Thank you, Bill. Total revenues for the quarter of $289 million increased 5.5% sequentially and increased 11.4% year-over-year, driven by broad-based growth in our flexible staffing and government businesses.

Quarterly revenues for Flex of $277.1 million increased 5.8% sequentially and increased 11.3% year-over-year.

Search revenues of $11.9 million decreased by 2.6% sequentially and increased 12.4% year-over-year.

Overall revenue trending Q3 showed mild improvement in July followed by flat August and then considerably stronger September. Sequential monthly revenues for Tech Flex improved each month throughout the quarter. Sequential revenue trends for FA Flex and HLS Flex were up in July, down in August and then rebounded strongly in September.

Search was slow in July but strengthened in August and September. Flex revenue trends for the beginning of the fourth quarter 2011 are up slightly from September. For the first three weeks of October, Tech Flex is up 16.1% year-over-year, Finance and Accounting Flex is up 8.9% year-over-year, and HLS is up 13.4% year-over-year.

Search revenues are down 26.2% year-over-year for the first four weeks of Q4 2011. We caution that early quarter trends don't necessarily accurately reflect potential full-quarter results.

Net income of $8.4 million in earnings per share of $0.22 in Q3, 2011 increased sequentially 24.5% and 29.4% respectively compared to Q2, 2011.

Year-over-year net income in earnings per share increased 31.1% and 37.5% from $6.4 million and $0.16 in Q3, 2010. A strong bottom line results are the result of a combination of revenue growth, gross margin improvement and SG&A leverage as scale increases.

EPS in the quarter benefitted by approximately $0.01 from the reduction in weighted shares outstanding from the prior quarter due to our significant stock repurchases during the quarter.

Our overall gross profit percentage of 31.8% increased 20 basis points sequentially but decreased 40 basis points year-over-year. Our Flex gross profit percentage of 28.9% in Q3, 2011 increased 50 basis points sequentially but decreased 40 basis points year-over-year. The sequential increase was driven primarily from increasing bill rates and improvement in bill-pay spreads.

The year-over-year decrease is impacted by the benefit realized in Q3, 2010 from the new higher tax credit. This benefit added 50 basis points to flex margins in Q3, 2010. The new higher tax credit also added 90 basis points to flex margins in Q4, 2010. This program expired at the end of 2010 and thus does not impact margins in 2011.

Sequentially bill rates in Tech Flex improved 1.8%. Bill pay spreads in Tech Flex improved 80 basis points sequentially and 90 basis points year-over-year.

Bill rates in F&A improved 0.1% sequentially and were impacted by business mix. FA Flex bill pay spreads have improved 50 basis points sequentially and 90 basis points year-over-year.

Over the past two years the U.S. economy has been growing at a relatively slow rate. Bill-rate spreads improved as the quarter progressed and coincided with strengthening in revenue trends in September. We continued to be highly focused in this area a believe that the current supply-demand environment suggests that pricing power will continue to improve over time, though it may not be at the same rate seen historically.

As we look to Q4, flex margins will be negatively impacted by paid time off in our technology, government and clinical research units and is therefore expected to decline.

We are very pleased with the declining trends in operating expenses. Operating expenses were 27.1% of revenue in Q3, 2011, which decreased 40 basis points from Q2, 2011 and decreased 90 basis points from 28% in Q3, 2010. Over time we expect to see additional operating leverage as revenues increase though the reduction in billing days in Q4 will have a negative impact.

Our accounts receivable portfolio continues to perform very well. Write-offs continue to be small and the percentage of receivables aged over 60 days remain at low levels decreasing to 3.7% on September 30th as compared to 4.1% on June 30th.

The firm's cash flow continues to be strong. EBITDA was $20.1 million, or $0.52 per share in Q3, as compared to $17.3 million, or $0.43 per share in Q2. Year-over-year EBITDA increased 27.8% from $15.7 million in Q3, 2010.

In September we entered into a new five-year $100 million credit facility. This extremely attractive new facility features pricing and flexibility similar to our previous arrangement and includes an accordion feature for another $50 million in financing.

Bank debt at quarter end of $59.4 million is up $40.5 million from $18.9 million at the end of Q2 driven by $43.1 million in stock repurchases in the quarter. Borrowing availability under a credit facility as of the end of Q3 is $26.9 million.

The firm repurchased approximately 4.6 million shares of stock at an average price of $9.33 in Q3 representing 10.8% of shares outstanding. For the year we have repurchased 5.6 million shares representing 13.1% of shares outstanding.

Additionally, on October 27th the Board of Directors authorized a $75 million increase in authorization to repurchase shares. There is currently 84.2 million available for future stock repurchases under the current Board of Directors' authorization. We'll continue to be opportunistic in future repurchases as cash flow and market conditions warrant.

With respect to guidance, the fourth quarter of 2011 has 61 billing days compared to 64 billing days in the third quarter. We expect revenues may be in the $278 million to $285 million range. Earnings per share may be $0.17 to $0.20.

Our effective tax rate in Q4 is expected to be approximately 37.6% with approximately 35.5 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding.

The full quarter impact of stock repurchases made in Q3 will benefit Q4 by $0.01 relative to Q3. This guidance does not consider the effect, if any, of charges related to the impairment of intangible assets, acceleration of equity incentives, cost related to the settlement of any pending legal matters, the impact of revenues of any disruption in government funding or the firm's response of regulatory legal or tax law changes.

We continue to be confident in our long-term success as we strive to capitalize on the changes in the external environment and the impact on our businesses. Our mix of service offerings, particularly in Tech, FA and HIM, position us well as we see continued secular shift towards flexible staffing.

Our gross margin profile is already one of the most attractive in the industry, but the capability to cost effectively meet customer needs for speed and quality allows to drive EBIT both through increased gross and through operating efficiencies and flexible compensation structures. We have a high quality revenue stream and balance sheet, a highly tenured associate population as well as the strongest management team in the firm's history. We expect to capitalize on the capacity that exists in our associate base to grow revenues and improve earnings.

Hughey, we'd like to now open up the call for questions.

(Operator Instructions). Our first questioner in cue is Paul Ginocchio with Deutsche Bank.

Thanks for taking my question. Just of the Tech Flex gross margin, can you talk about the Q-on-Q trends looking at both your VMS clients and your non-VMS clients? Just within Tech Flex, what are the gross margin trends? Is there any divergence? And if you could just remind us the mix again in Tech Flex between VMS and non-VMS? Thanks.

Yes, Paul, relative to what we saw in the sequential trends, we saw that our spot market continues to improve, probably a little bit more than what we're seeing in strategic accounts. We saw on sequential growth in both the strategic account base as well as the spot market and overall our largest customers, our firm-sponsored customers, actually showed the greatest increase in sequential margin improvement.

Is that because of re-pricing in contracts or what's driving that? Is it contract renewals?

Yes, it's really, it's more driven -- it's the larger customers are no different than the spot market. I mean in their price to market for the most part, so what ultimately is taking place, because we do hire volumes in those customers, whenever we see movement we're going to see it a little bit more disproportional in those clients?

And what's the mix of business in techs between the strategic and non-strategic or smaller, I should say?

In tech overall it's about 27%. In tech it's approximately 30%.

Great; if I could just sneak one more in on headcount growth, it was 7.5% sequentially versus revenue growth of 5.5%. Just maybe talk about why headcount at this point in the cycle is growing faster than revenue growth and sort of what you're doing now? I guess is it -- why are you growing headcount quicker than revenue? Thanks.

Well we certainly -- this is Bill. We certainly have increased our revenue and therefore there is capacity issues. We monitor productivity very closely and that's how we grow. Now, the nice thing is the increase during the quarter was approximately even throughout the quarter and so the math works against you because it usually takes six months, nine months, 12 months to ramp up to minimum levels and a couple years to be really profitable for us. So when you think in terms that we were able to add that many people and that we were still to improve productivity per person, we're very pleased with that and we will continue to add as long as the per product metrics are there to allow us to do that and will continue to grow. But steady growth is important.

Okay thank you.

Kevin McVeigh, Macquarie.

Hey, Dave, I wonder if you could give us some color on just -- obviously there's been a lot of concern in the market and your trends are clearly outperforming significantly, but just that we're going to go back to an '08, '09 type scenario and just as you look at key performance indicators internally, how are things trending today relative to back then? I mean, obviously the results look very, very strong and the buyback was very well executed and just any thoughts around that from a market perspective and client sentiment?

Yes I'll comment and then Bill can jump in as well. One of the -- we look at several factors. As you know, we have a very sophisticated front-end system that we call AMP, which tracts KPIs and is very accurate because it's coming directly out of our CRM system.

What we have seen is, as Bill mentioned in his comments, is the KPIs are still at a very high level and we've seen no indication of drop off in demand and we've combined that with conversations with clients, which we get from our sales force and then also direct conversations with clients that we are having. As you know, we are out often in the field and we'll be out again on the second week of November to meet with a substantial number of clients across a cross section of our markets in the U.S.

But I would say at this point in the game the supercycle theory would appear to have validity because clearly the GDP metrics do not support this kind of growth. And, by the way, it's been not only in Kforce but also our peers and competitors, so clearly there's a dramatic shift in the way that people are hiring with 20 plus percent coming through the temp space.

So I would say that we're relatively confident that the uncertainty and then all of the other drivers are going to continue as we go through the next year with the presidential election, which should work to our advantage, particularly in the tech area. Bill, do you want to add any comments?

Well, I would add to that, Dave, that as you and Joe mentioned, September was a very strong month for us and the KPI was growing at that point as well and through the beginning of October the KPI's had remained at or very near those benchmarks depending on their particular segment you're talking about.

And, Dave, just want to comment real quick, what type of GDP growth do you think, because obviously the numbers have been very, very healthy but just on a go forth basis what type of GDP growth do you think you need to sustain this type of growth?

It can stay right where it is as far as I am concerned. It seems to be working pretty well for us but roughly 3% to 4% would be double-digit staffing growth. We're in the 1% to 2% and we've seen consistency so I think that, coupled with the regulatory environment is probably what's going to, that uncertainty, is probably what's going to benefit us this time around as clients again seek great flexibility and they're laying off employment risk on firms like ourselves. They don't want to go long and make a commitment to human capital.

I agree and then just real quick, Joe, for modeling purposes what share count do we use in Q4?

Probably about 35.5.

Super thank you.

Mark Marcon, Robert W. Baird.

I wanted to go back to the prior question. In terms of the super cycle and your sense that you're continuing to see strength, to what degree to what degree do you think it's a function of the market as opposed to all the improvements that you've made with regards to your processes and gaining share within your client base?

I would say, Mark, judging by the performance of our competitors and peers that it's broad based. I think we've certainly benefited from our model change and our NRC delivery capability and the flexibility that it's given us. As we've said in the past, we're still refining that. It worked very well for us in 2008 and '09 during a declining market. We've made adjustments as we're in more of a growth market now and we're starting to see the impact of some of those adjustments that we've made because we really hadn't experienced an up cycle and hadn't leveraged the NRC.

So we're shifting resources, refocusing, re-prioritizing so those things are benefiting Kforce specifically but certainly I would acknowledge the performance of our competitors and I would suggest that it's fairly broad based and certainly the drivers in tech today with the investment in the tech cycle and the shortages in those skill areas coupled with all of the uncertainty. And, again, I think the presidential election year is just going to keep a cloud over all of this stuff and should continue to benefit us, regardless really of the GDP growth unless it goes negative, unless we see something that turns it negative, at which point we've already pretty much demonstrated we know how to function in that environment as well.

Sure and then can you talk a little bit about talent shortages, particularly as it relates to IT? Are you seeing or are you able to fill the same percentage of positions as you were able to before? Do you have flexibility with regards to bill rates relative to pay rates? How should we think about that?

This is Bill. I would say to you that, as we look at the skill sets and how that particular segment of our business is growing, it is -- I would say that there's a very high demand for those people and those particular skill sets. It's a certainly there's a difference between large clients and small clients but the demand and the skill sets that are available to people or to our clients is tightening. It's tightening in basically in all of our groups, not as much in S&A but certainly more in tech, KCI, HIM where it's a very tight labor market and as that continues we will continue to improve upon our ability to execute.

Yes in tech I would say that you're looking at you've got Java.net, Epic, some of the high demand areas. We're seeing significant shortages. We've also seen in the F&A area a shift towards the higher skilled workers as well. When you look at the mortgage related activity I think the refinancing part has slowed but the restructuring and the re working the portfolio seems to be getting traction and attention now as well so it's pretty broad based and pretty balanced across skills and geography.

And if I would take it back to the metrics what we saw throughout the quarter and then here into the early part of Q4 is we saw all the metrics up pretty much slightly across the board and all the ratios are pretty much holding constant.

Great and what about your conversations with the clients in terms of if you do want to improve your fill rates you need to increase the bill rates. I know you've had a few of those. What's the response been?

It's obviously we're getting some traction there and the market is speaking. I mean we can tell them but when their people start vanishing or the people that they're making offers to are taking competing offers, the market is really doing the job for us so the cycle in our industry generally in tech runs about six months, which is the assignment length so those refresh. They kind of tend to get re-priced and we're certainly seeing that. And, as Bill mentioned earlier, I mean one of the issues that we ran into earlier in the year was the deluge of demand and we really overwhelmed a lot of our field people and in particularly the NRC so we've gone through a forced prioritization and actually used some of the new technology to drive that prioritization, which in turn is giving us some data that we can go back the clients for pricing then.

Great and one thing that we've always wondered about is how the NRC would hold up as demand continued to ramp. How effective have they been in terms of filling positions now that there are multiple offers and in some cases there are local competitors with recruiters on the ground. How's that going?

Actually speed and quality are the drivers today and I would say they're geographically neutral. It doesn't matter where they're located with the technology and the resources that are available. The NRC is still in positions all over the United States across time zones, across skill sets, across geographies, really not an issue relative to the on-the-ground folks. The issue really comes back to prime buying models and prioritization again so, as we look at the efficiency that we're starting to gain from refining our approach in the NRC, we're seeing improvements in fill rates. We're seeing improvements in the ratios and we're not where we want to be but certainly we're making real progress there.

And I think at a high level that's demonstrated by from Q1 to Q2 on the NRC contributed a higher percentage of revenue as well as that continued into Q3.

With no additional hires.

Correct.

That's great to hear. Thank you.

Tobey Sommer, Suntrust.

I wanted to follow up on the NRC question. I think I gathered from your prepared remarks that while you've seen an increased proportion of revenue over the last few quarters that over the next few it might be sort of a stable percentage of revenue. I was wondering if you could give us some more color as to why we may be plateauing here for a moment. Thanks.

Well, as we just mentioned, we haven't continued to increase that capacity but the prioritization prioritization process has elevated the productivity of this group and their continued improvement and tenure continues to suggest that productivity is going to be significantly higher. So what we're actually seeing is higher productivity with the same number of people at the same time our overall revenues are increasing. So we'll obviously use people in the field in passive recruiting and social media and a variety of other approaches so from our standpoint we want steady. At the moment, we have the capacity so we want steady productivity or we want steady headcount with improved productivity and we want them to continue to do at least the same percentage of total revenue that they were before.

And, Tobey, the field based performance is improving as well. We've seen, as Joe mentioned, the smaller mid-sized client demand is picking up so as a result, because of our base that that's coming off of, that we're seeing that grow and it because it's a larger percentage of the overall revenue then it's kind of masking the effectiveness that we're having with the NRC but overall we're pleased with both.

Thanks, David. That's a good piece of color. And then given the kind of improving growth out of those smaller and medium sized clients, do you have a kind of a bias that would suggest that that gross margin should be going up on that kind of mixed shift?

Well, certainly we're going to price to market and it's a rate volume question and always we look at every client and say okay does this fit our longer-term customer profile. I mean clearly client selection is important there because we're looking at clients that are going to work with us in multiple geographies, that are going to work with us in multiple functions, that are more stable, that give us a greater demand.

So many of those by the way become eligible to become firm sponsored or strategic accounts and, as we have refined that strategy, we actually have a pipeline of new clients that are coming through that would be possible firm sponsored accounts. So it's really working now as we're looking at the growth rate and the customer life cycle of each of these clients in the local markets all the way through that we're able to select these clients and look at them for a longer term relationship so as we think about pricing we think about it in that context.

And within our spot market and comparison to our strategic account customer makeup I mean at any given point in time we've seen 100 to 300 basis point differential in pricing.

Okay thanks. Last question I'll ask is the government services, that segment was strong sequentially. Was there a specific set of contract wins? I mean you talked about looking at the commercial sector a little bit. I think you mentioned product, which I can't recall in prior quarters, just trying to get a sense of what specifically kind of drove that and what kind of visibility you have at this point.

Well honestly the last part of that question first visibility is extremely limited with all the uncertainty around the government but we have continued to build a first class business development team and improve our activities in the federal government and so I would say to you it is a result of those activities. We have won some new contracts. Recompletes this year were on the low side.

There are additional contracts that we may win that have been protested but there is really a lot of uncertainty in the federal government. Request for proposals, renewed contracts have been delayed. Existing task orders are actually being delayed as people work out what's going to happen with this continuing evolution and the super committees so it is a very uncertain time. But they continue to perform. We have some great people that are talented employees in that group and so it's primarily federal government but they are branching out into the commercial sector and having some success.

And I would add sequentially from Q2 to Q3 on the product side we saw, as a percentage of revenue, that improved probably from a little below 2% of revenue to about 9% of revenue.

Thank you very much. I'll get back in the queue.

Gerry Krishnan, Credit Suisse.

A quick follow-up question on KGS, could you -- what percentage of contracts in KGS come up for renewal in 2012?

Approximately 30%.

30%?

Yes.

Okay and I wanted to also revisit what some of the longer-term targets you had prior to giving guidance for Q3. I guess, given Q3 came in better than expected and what seems to be a better demand environment, have you guys reassessed what you've stated as your longer-term targets prior to providing guidance for Q3 and how should we think about that?

Actually we're going to stand pat where we are right now just due to the lack of visibility. When we originally established those targets we did so with an eye towards a greater visibility, what appeared to be a more predictable GDP growth and an environment that would have suggested greater visibility and clarity. Clearly as the year has unfolded the level of volatility in the market, the level of uncertainty and the impacts both from a geopolitical standpoint as well as international monetary standpoint, if anything, the visibility has gotten to be less than it was before. So at this point we're going to go quarter to quarter and at some point in the future the hope would be that we'd have greater clarity over a longer horizon but not now.

Okay thanks a lot.

John Healy, Northcoast Research.

I wanted to follow up on the government business. I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit more about the opportunities on the commercial side. I don't necessarily remember you guys calling that out specifically in the past and I was just trying to better understand how you're kind of using the government business to maybe go after some of those opportunities and maybe within what verticals do you see potential there?

Well, this is Bill. We have approximately 600 full-time employees in that group that are very high class in the technology space and the F&A space and we believe that their activities are easily transferable into the government space so, as we saw approximately nine months to a year ago the difficulties that were going to occur, we began to spread their influence and their projects management into our sales staff and working with our over [3,000] clients so they have put out a number of RFPs and they are working with a number of commercial clients that we are investing in that procedure and process such that we think we can in fact grow this overall business into a projects solutions group that has both federal government and commercial clients in it.

Great and then I just wanted to ask a big picture question. Your growth rates have surpassed a lot of your peers and one of the questions I was wondering was if there's been a lot of M&A in the space and some of the specialty verticals; do you feel like you guys are winning, I don't know, talented sales people or talented recruiters from your competitors? I mean is this -- is the M&A that we've seen in the last maybe 18, 24 months do you think resulting in a net benefit to Kforce and, if so, what are the areas that you're picking up some of the benefits do you think?

Yes I think more of the benefit we're picking up is we've continued to have low single-digit turnover over most tenured and seasoned workforce and these people just have so much relationship and they're so much more productive than when we have to hire people in green so yes we've been fortunate that we've been able to acquire some proven talent out of the competitive marketplace but I would by no means say that's the main driver. I think it's really our core population continuing to be more productive and leveraging the tools that we put in place and then our ability to hold on to them.

Josh Vogel, Sidoti & Company.

Joe, I apologize. I think I may have missed what you said when you were talking about HIM. I was just curious. You know, you're seeing pretty tremendous growth there and I was curious about where the growth is coming from and you made a comment about electronic medical records.

This is Bill. Electronic medical records are one of those areas where HIM is primarily an operation with coding in it. It's approximately 80% of what they do and there is this new rule that's come out from the government that is taking -- it's called ICD-10 which is taking approximately 14,000 codes and translating that into 140,000 codes and therefore there is a tremendous change in both technology and a variety of other ways of managing how a hospital, doctors, pharmacists, all of these people operate so it's not only in the coding area. It will also be in the technology area and other type of activities so there -- and that is due, that changeover if you want to be paid you must have that in process at the beginning of October, 2013.

And I -- and those are really what I would consider more the future prospect opportunities associated with the business. The current business we're benefiting from -- we probably started talking about this going back three years ago when we started to reposition that business on terms of how we were structured and attacking the marketplace, what our go-to-market strategies were and we -- it took some time to get that business repositioned and we deteriorated for a period of time. But what's happening today is all execution on the core business. What Bill is referencing is really what we see as the future prospects because of the opportunity.

Okay that's helpful; thank you. And just one more, as we approach year-end I was just curious about when you start planning for [SUDA] increases and can you maybe talk about visibility here and your dialogue on the state level as well as with clients with regard to potential pricing increases.

Boy we never expected this question.

We started preparing about a year ago and I -- this is going to be a continued focus for the foreseeable future. I mean, if you read some of the newer documents that are coming out, based upon the current economic data and the continued indications, we should anticipate basically higher federal and UI taxes for possibly the next five to 10 years based upon what you want to believe and what people are putting out there. I mean the current state of what's taking place and what's happening in Congress and then even the federal budget proposals and what's going to happen from a UI there's just so many decisions that haven't been made we really don't know what's coming at us. All we know is we're preparing and I'd say the good news is with each passing quarter our customers are demonstrating a greater awareness and appreciation regarding these escalated costs that are taking place so I think we're out ahead of it internally and we've been in constant communication with our customers.

A lot of clients are actually building in to contracts a regulatory price flexibility because they're experiencing it as well so I think of it as a fuel surcharge but that's the sort of thing that's happening now because these states are not only coming in and raising rates but they're also doing it retroactively so it doesn't look like that's going to be getting any better any time soon.

All right great. Thank you.

Paul Ginocchio, Deutsche Bank.

Thanks for the follow-up. Did you say search was down 27% in October and, if so, what disciplines are driving that?

Yes actually it was I think 26.2% is where it was for the first four weeks of the quarter. Part of that is the segmentation of search from an FA, from a tech and from an HLS standpoint so in our HLS businesses last year on the search side of the house we had a number of conversions that took place early in the quarter as they were contracted we were exiting and we transitioned people to a competitor, which we obtained some urgencies for so that's why I always state that when you look at just a several weeks, whether it's on the flex side or the search side, you've got to be careful in extrapolating it out so that dynamic is happening earlier in the quarter. From a finance and accounting and from a tech standpoint those businesses are down roughly about 20% through the first four weeks of the quarter.

It just sounds like on a sequential basis search fees will be down Q-on-Q. Does that sound right to you?

Well, historically Q4 is typically a lighter search quarter than Q3.

The forward pipelines would suggest that the demand is still there so at this point we're still confident that we should be in good shape in Q4.

Great thank you.

Mark Marcon.

I have a follow-up on CRS. You saw really nice growth there. Can you talk a little bit about that part of the business and specifically what your take is on what's going on with your largest client there and how that business is going to unfold?

Well, certainly that is an issue that we are -- this is Bill, Mark -- that we have been following closely and we continue to diversify their group so for example we now have 47 clients in that group, which is a 50% increase over last year and it's a 12% increase quarter-over-quarter so that coupled with a consultants being very high demand with a very, very tight labor market we have had very little issues in transferring our consultants. Many of them are very long-term with us from one client to another when necessary.

But our largest client I think, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, that has continued to grow this year, we believe that that will be stable to potentially growing next year and so we do not have, at least in the short-term, a significant amount of uncertainty when it comes to that particular group. Even in the long-term, because of the long-term nature of the consultants with us and their very high demand and our ability to grow our client base, we're not sure what the effect will be. I don't want to start predicting today but I also don't want to suggest that there's going to be a significant problem.

Great, that's wonderful to hear. Thank you.

Morris Ajzenman, Griffin Securities.

Hey, guys.

It's so great to hear your voice.

I know it's been a little while. Hi.

Been a long time.

Well, at this point in time all the questions have been pretty well picked over but just kind of one follow-up just on the pricing front, talked about flex gross profit, flex margins and you exited the quarter 28.9% overall, which is actually modestly up versus last year adjusted for the tax, the credits you were referring to earlier. In this environment you've been asked this in different ways throughout this call here but your GDP you talked about a 1%, 2% environment. Can we really expect to see gross profits on the flex side actually increase from this level assuming we have a sort of modest GDP growth over the next year or two?

Also really the key answer to that question is supply/demand. We don't set the pricing in the market. No one really sets the pricing in the market so supply/demand is going to drive that and when you look at what the professional sector is in terms of the unemployment rate it appears we're in a healthy supply/demand environment as well as when you look at the various professional sectors and what they are growing on a sequential and year-over-year basis. So, as long as those things continue we believe we will be able to continue to drive pricing opportunity.

Sure.

Morris, I have a question for you. Are you still playing basketball and how is your game?

Still am and it's still there.

Good.

Let me -- I'll follow up either off line on that but let me ask one more question on that. Assuming pricing stays flattish is there enough you can do controlling cost, getting better leverage throughput whether it's NRC, whatever, where you can still drive margins hypothetically environment where pricing stays flat?

Yes we had actually -- a couple quarters back I had shared on the call that we've run different scenarios in different models and we believe with our current operating platform that we can drive our operating expense as a percentage of revenue south of 26%. And we believe even operating at a 4% or slightly less mixture of search as a percentage of revenue and if you were just to take flex margins kind of in the 30% range, which is 110 basis points from where we are today, which is still below where we peaked last time, we believe we can exceed our prior peak operating margins.

Thank you.

And at this time we have time for one final questioner. Our final question for today comes from Tobey Sommer with Suntrust.

My question was answered so thank you very much.

Tobey, how's your game? Okay we want to go ahead and close off the call and thank all of you for your interest in Kforce and once again thanking all of our team members and also our clients for the opportunity to serve them. We look forward to speaking with you in January and hopefully we don't have too many snowstorms between now and then. Thank you and goodbye.

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