Radiant Logistics Inc (RLGT) 2016 Q3 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • This afternoon, Bohn Crain, Radiant Logistics Founder and CEO, and Radiant's Chief Financial Officer, Todd Macomber, will discuss financial results for the Company's third fiscal quarter and nine months ended March 31, 2016. Following their comments, we will open the call to questions. This conference is scheduled for 30 minutes.

  • This conference call may include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The Company has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations and projections about future events. These forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions about the Company that may cause the Company's actual results or achievements to be materially different from those results or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

  • While it is impossible to identify all the factors that may cause the Company's actual results or achievements to differ materially from those set forth in our forward-looking statements, such factors include those that have in the past and may in the future be identified in the Company's SEC filings and other public announcements, which are available on the Radiant website at www.Radiantdelivers.com. In addition, past results are not necessarily an indication of future performance.

  • Now I'd like to pass the call over to Radiant's Founder and CEO Bohn Crain. Please, go ahead.

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • Thank you, Emily. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining in on today's call. We're very pleased to report another record quarter and what was generally a soft freight environment in our seasonally slowest quarter ended March 31, 2016.

  • We posted revenues of $173.3 million, up $71 million, or 69.4%; net revenues of $41.8 million, up $14.7 million, or 54.2%; and adjusted EBITDA of $4.7 million, up $1.3 million, or 36.4% over the comparable prior-year period.

  • Normalizing our adjusted EBITDA to exclude $600,000 in nonrecurring transition costs associated with SBA's redundant back-office operations, we would have reported adjusted EBITDA of $5.2 million, up $1.8 million, or 52.9%.

  • In addition, we also reported record cash from operations for the nine months ended March 31, 2016, up $19.2 million.

  • We also took the opportunity in April of this year to retire $25 million of subordinated debt that we originally obtained in April of 2015 in connection with our acquisition of Wheels Group. Given the cash that we've been accumulating on our balance sheet and the fact that we had virtually no amounts outstanding under our $65 million senior credit facility, we took the opportunity to retire the $25 million of sub debt. And excluding a one-time payment of $750,000 for a prepayment fee, we will capture what we estimate to be approximately $2 million in annual cost savings associated with reduced interest expense going forward.

  • Even after giving effect to the payment -- the repayment of the subordinated debt, we had approximately $10 million in net debt outstanding under our senior credit facility and remain well-positioned to continue our disciplined approach of acquiring non-asset-based businesses.

  • We have low leverage on our balance sheet, strong free cash flow and continue to search for acquisition candidates that bring critical mass to our current platform with respect to geography, purchasing power and complementary service offerings.

  • We've also updated our guidance for fiscal 2016 to reflect current market trends and our recent retirement of the $25 million in subordinated debt, with normalized adjusted EBITDA in the range of $27.5 million to $29.5 million on revenues of approximately $790,000 to 800 -- excuse me, $790 million to $830 million. This equates to adjusted net income of attributable to common shareholders in the range of $7.8 million to $9.1 million, or approximately $0.16 to $0.18 per basic and fully diluted share.

  • Going forward, we will continue to execute our multi-pronged growth strategy that includes both organic and acquisition growth initiatives. Our organic growth strategy will continue to focus on strengthening existing and expanding new customer relationships, leveraging the benefit of our new truck brokerage and intermodal service offerings, while continuing our efforts on the organic build-out of our network of strategic operating partner locations.

  • In addition, we will also continue to focus on integration and productivity improvement initiatives to drive further margin expansion, enabled in part by our ongoing investment in technology.

  • With that, I'll turn it over to Todd to walk us to the numbers in detail.

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • Thanks, Bohn, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, we will be discussing our financial results, including adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA for the three and nine months ended March 31, 2016.

  • Quarterly net income results -- for the three months ended March 31, 2016, we reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $2,230,000 on $173.3 million of revenues, or a loss of $0.05 per basic and diluted fully diluted share. Which include $789,000 of transition and lease termination costs, a $442,000 expense on change and continued consideration, and approximately $840,000 in nonrecurring legal and accounting costs.

  • For the three months ended March 31, 2015, we reported net income attributable to common stockholders of $825,000 on $102.3 million of revenues, or $0.02 per basic and fully diluted share. This represents a decrease of approximately $3,055,000, or approximately 370.4%, over the comparable prior-year period.

  • Quarterly adjusted net income results -- for the three months ended March 31, 2016, we reported adjusted net income attributable to common stockholders of $1,766,000, or $0.04 per basic and fully diluted share. For the three months ended March 31, 2015, we reported adjusted net income attributable to common stockholders of $1,368,000, or $0.04 per basic and fully diluted share. This represents an increase of approximately $398,000, or approximately 29.1%.

  • Quarterly adjusted EBITDA results -- we reported adjusted EBITDA of $4,650,000 for the three months ended March 31, 2016, compared to adjusted EBITDA of $3,408,000 for the three months ended March 31, 2015. This represents an increase of $1,243,000, or approximately 36.5%. Adding back transition costs associated with SBA's back-office, representing an additional $544,000, adjusted EBITDA would have been $5,204,000, or an increase of $1,796,000, or 52.7%.

  • Now moving along to the nine-months' results are as follows. For the nine months ended March 31, 2016, we reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $4,930,000 on $598.9 million of revenues, or a loss of $0.10 per basic and fully diluted share. This includes a $3,680,000 impairment on the customer list for On Time Express; $5,109,000 of transition and lease termination costs; a $628,000 charge on change and continued consideration; and approximately $1,591,000 in legal and accounting costs that we anticipate will be nonrecurring.

  • For the nine months ended March 31, 2015, we reported net income attributable to common stockholders of $2,161,000 on $306.4 million of revenues for $0.06 per basic and fully diluted share. This represents a decrease of approximately $7,092,000, or approximately 328.1% over the comparable prior-year period.

  • For the nine-months' adjusted net income results, for the nine months ended March 31, we reported adjusted net income attributable to common stockholders of $9,002,000, or $0.19 per basic and fully diluted share. For the nine months ended March 31, 2015, we reported adjusted net income attributable to common stockholders of $4,710,000, or $0.14 per basic and $0.13 per fully diluted share. This represents an increase of approximately $4,291,000, or approximately 91.1%.

  • For nine-months' adjusted EBITDA results, we reported adjusted EBITDA of $18,986,000 for the nine months ended March 31, 2016, compared to adjusted EBITDA of $10,723,000 for the nine months ended March 31, 2015. This represents an increase of $8,263,000, or approximately 77.1%.

  • Adding back transition costs associated with SBA's back-office, representing an additional $1,931,000, adjusted EBITDA would have been $20,917,000, or an increase of $10,194,000, or 95.1%.

  • With that, I will turn the call back over to our moderator to facilitate any Q&A from our callers.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions) Jason Seidl, Cowen.

  • Jason Seidl - Analyst

  • A couple of quick ones for me. Talk a little bit about how that cross-pollination of business is going from the Wheels into the legacy Radiant logistics for us.

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • Yes, sure. There's a couple of different flavors of that. One is our freight-forwarding network beginning to use -- or access Wheels for purposes of accessing truck brokerage capacity. Historically, we would call and interact with a number of third parties and brokerage operations, and we continue to gain momentum on that front. So that's kind of one aspect of it. And it is slowly but steadily growing month over month in terms of network participation and support of that initiative.

  • Similarly, we have opportunities to try to effectively sell the Canadian competency back into our installed customer base across North America. And there, too, it is slow but steadily improving month over month, quarter over quarter. And as we think about integration as the tween Wheels in our legacy forwarding platform, we're really starting at what I'll call the customer-facing side of the integration.

  • So, we've got various members of our leadership team working on kind of developing a common CRM where we can see customer activity across the platform to look for opportunities to kind of leverage each others' relationships to continue to grow the business. So there's a few kind of anecdotal comments.

  • Jason Seidl - Analyst

  • I think you used the word slowly twice on both of those items there. Is it going slower than you had initially hoped?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • No, I don't -- well, we always would like it go faster, so I guess I'll concede that. But I think the fact is that it takes time to get adoption. And kind of, I guess, further to that as it happens later this week, we actually have our annual meeting where we've got -- will have approximately 250 of our operating partners coming together in Fort Worth later this week. This is our annual meeting where we bring all of our operating partners together to kind of continue to emphasize the message and the opportunity to come together and continue to build momentum.

  • You know, for us, there's no better kind of internal marketing tool than case studies and success stories of folks who have made use of the tool and won incremental business through that process. And so it continues to incubate and it does continue to grow, but it's not -- I certainly couldn't say it's the big bang theory either in terms of that growth.

  • Jason Seidl - Analyst

  • Okay, well, that makes sense. Now, your forecasts were -- on the EBITDA basically was right in line with at least what I was expecting, which is actually encouraging to me because things feel like they've definitely slowed down here of late. Could you talk a little bit about your end-markets and what you're seeing out there?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • Sure, I think a couple -- I guess the way that I would attack it is we're seeing a little softness in Canada in terms of what's going on in the Canadian marketplace and the Canadian economy. And then I think, more broadly and as a reminder, through the Wheels acquisition we now enjoy some intermodal as part of our business mix.

  • As you know, Jason, there's always some kind of component of the business that can shift back and forth between truck and rail. And kind of that marginal freight with fuel prices coming down and kind of the natural competition between truck and rail. I think we along with the broader industry are facing a little bit of headwind relative to that dynamic. SO, those are some of the things that we're kind of working with on a day-to-day basis.

  • But having said that, we are here with the multimodal solutions, so we're here to try to work and support our customers irrespective of the market environment and whatever modes that would suit their particular needs at the time. But that's definitely a dynamic that's coming into play.

  • Jason Seidl - Analyst

  • Okay. And what about the freight-forwarding portion?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • I think on the freight-forwarding side, I think it's holding reasonably firm. We are not seeing -- I don't feel like we're facing kind of macroeconomic headwinds on the forwarding side the way we are on what we would call the brokerage side, meaning Wheels Canada and Wheels Clipper.

  • Jason Seidl - Analyst

  • Okay. That's fair enough. Last one for me before I turn it over to somebody else -- can you talk a little bit about the market for future tuck-in acquistions? And has that changed any? Are you still seeing the same amount that you saw before?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • I would say that we have -- we remain very interested in that component of the strategy. We continue to look for opportunities that make sense. We have looked closely at a few things in the past couple of months. But ultimately -- I won't say that it's to our surprise, but the fact is the multiples have -- are a little richer than we've had the appetite for. So we've basically engaged in and passed on a couple of M&A opportunities.

  • And I think the short answer is -- I think the PE firms are continuing to kind of bid up from our perspective, bid up multiples for businesses, and we are not prepared to chase at this point and in this environment. So we'll continue to be what we used to call patiently persistent and looking for deals that kind of fit our business model and philosophy, while at the same time really kind of sharpening the pencil and looking internally for productivity improvements and cross-sell opportunities.

  • There's a lot of things that we think we can do internal to the organization to drive improvement from here, that being partially enabled by technology and what we're doing kind of on that side of things. So, I think that's kind of a long-winded way of saying we are still interested in M&A. We certainly expect to continue to get things done in that leg of our strategy. While at the same time, we've got a lot to do internally around technology and integration that will drive value and should continue to drive improvement in our margin expansion as we think about our EBITDA as a function of gross margin.

  • Jason Seidl - Analyst

  • It's good to hear that you not chasing things that are too highly priced or too richly priced. Bohn, I appreciate the time as always, sir, and I'll turn it over to somebody else here.

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • All right. Thank you.

  • Operator

  • Kevin Sterling, private investor.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • Bohn, if I look at your EBITDA guidance for the full year, you're targeting from your fourth-quarter EBITDA to be the second strongest EBITDA quarter in fiscal year 2016, just behind Q1. Is that part seasonality or maybe some synergies you see there beginning to bear fruit?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • I think it's a combination of those things. So we should continue to pick up momentum quarter over quarter through the balance of the calendar year, which is kind of the traditional cycle that we would expect. And we certainly are expecting some ongoing improvement in the operations through cross-sell opportunities and synergies as we continue to move forward.

  • So I think it's a combination of things. And we certainly -- notwithstanding the good -- we're very excited with the cash flow characteristics of the business and what we've been able to do there. While at the same time, we've had a bunch of nonrecurring costs, legal costs, lease termination costs, some of these other things that have been consumers of cash as well.

  • SO, I think as we kind of get those things behind us, I think we're going to continue to build on the momentum, and the balance sheet will continue to get stronger. We're really happy to have gotten the debt paydown done and what that's going to do for incremental free cash flows from here.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • That's great. You talked about the free cash flow generation, and I can look out and see that looks to be quite strong. Have you bought back any stock under your repurchase program?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • We have not yet.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • Okay. So you've still of that dry powder. All right, so let me ask you since I'm just a dumb sell-side analyst and not a smart private investor. How do I get to your EPS guidance for the full year $0.16 to $0.18? Because if I make all the adjustments, we are already at $0.18. So, what am I missing there? Maybe you could walk through, quarter-to-quarter, the EPS numbers you're using to help us get to your EPS guidance for the full year.

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • I'll have to defer to Todd (multiple speakers) --

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • Yes, I'm going to have to circle back with you on that one. I don't have that one in front of me as far as -- I just don't have it here in front of me. I'll have to come back.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • All right. Because my question is, Todd, if I use you guys' adjusted EPS number, kind of the operating number, we are already at $0.18 for the first three months of the fiscal year.

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • Right.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • So, yes, if you could follow up or whatever, I'd appreciate that. Okay. Thanks.

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • Yes, no problem, no problem.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • Bohn when can you guys pay off the preferred?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • The preferred? When we put the preferred in place, it had a five-year no-call. I think that takes us technically to December of 2018. And then just as a reminder, we can call that at par. So the preferreds had no appreciation right in our common stock, but we can call it at par in December of 2018 -- in all or part.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • All right. Great. And Bohn, how about organic growth in the quarter? Could you touch a little bit on that?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • Organic growth, excluding On Time, which everybody knows we had some challenges with that, was relatively flat for the quarter and for the nine months was trending at about 8%.

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • That's at the net revenue line item.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • Yes, so is that typical organic growth typically flat in your fiscal year -- in your Q3 since it is your seasonally weakest quarter?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • I haven't looked at -- I haven't organized the data to respond to that particular question. I think it's fair to say we would like to have seen a little stronger organic growth in the quarter. But we are continuing to invest -- if you remember, we added Joe Bento, and we certainly expect to make some progress on the front in prospective quarters.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • Yes, okay. And you mentioned on time, and we know you had a loss last quarter because you lost a major customer. Where does that stand with on time? Is it still operating at a loss or is it maybe breakeven or even slightly profitable? And have you won any of that business back?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • Yes, it was effectively breakeven for the quarter. But the good news inside of that the quarter is that it lost money in the first month and then -- it lost significant money in the first month and then made money in the two subsequent months. So we believe we've kind of turned that around and are now profitable, and it will be a net contributor in prospective quarters from here.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • Okay, great. Last question here -- you mentioned SBA redundant back-office operations. Are we going to see another quarter of those where we still see the redundancy? And when do you expect to -- I guess get those normalized or eliminated?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • I think we're going to -- we will incur those for one more -- I think the short answer is, yes, I think we'll see them for one more quarter. But coming into our new fiscal year, I don't know that we'll -- I wouldn't say that we'll have them all out, but we should see some meaningful progress made on true net net cash dollar savings from getting cost out of that side of things.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • I've got you. Okay. And just kind of wrap up here, Bohn, as I think about this fourth quarter, we are expecting, it looks like, a pretty nice bounce-back in EBITDA, at least on a sequential basis from Q3. Is that right?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • That's correct.

  • Kevin Sterling - Analyst

  • Okay. Thanks for your time this afternoon.

  • Operator

  • Mark Argento, Lake Street Capital Markets.

  • Mark Argento - Analyst

  • Maybe you could review for us kind by modality or by segment where you have exposure relative to the truck or freight, rail in there. If you have just general percentages of gross bookings, or I guess with revenue, just maybe help us better understand kind of where you guys are now given the acquisitions of everything over the last 12 months.

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • I'll take the first stab at it and Todd can hop in. But just to kind of bracket things, if we think about Wheels' legacy operations, on the US side their business was about -- well, let me back up. When we acquired Wheels, their business was approximately 50% in the US and 50% in Canada. Then when we looked at, to your question, relative modalities, in the US it was about 70% intermodal, 30% over the road and just the inverse of that in Canada, about 30% intermodal, 70% over the road.

  • Mark Argento - Analyst

  • And then the mix of the rest of the business in terms of where you're buying services, [air] versus other truck. Because one question we get is trying to better understand obviously trucking rates have been -- there's overcapacity, oversupply, rates have been soft, which is a positive for your customers. But trying to better understand kind that impact (multiple speakers) half of your business truck right now? Or how do you think about it?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • On the forwarding side, that dynamic generally should not have any meaningful negative effect and hopefully will allow us to source capacity more favorably for the benefit of our customers and ourselves. That's on the forwarding side.

  • And then on the truck brokerage side, I would generally expect that we will see some pressure on intermodal, with hopefully some offsetting benefit for the truck side that we do do, if you will.

  • Mark Argento - Analyst

  • Got you. That's helpful. And then getting back to more kind of the housekeeping question, the previous caller had asked as well about this. But if I'm looking back -- I'll have to go back in. But at least in my model, if I add up the first three quarters of the year, I'm getting something over $20 million in adjusted EBITDA. And I know you guys talked kind of a $19 million number for the year.

  • Do you have the pieces that the first -- I guess it would be Q1 and Q2 because now we have Q3, but the pieces that get you to this $19 million for the first nine months? I just want to make sure, we are kind of --

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • Well, certainly -- and, again, Todd can correct me. But for me, the easiest place to look at it is in the attachments to the press release. The very last page will drive all the way to adjusted and even normalized adjusted EBITDA. And that's a good clean reconciliation that will show the various line items that will take us from our GAAP base results for the numbers that we were speaking from here today.

  • Mark Argento - Analyst

  • Got it. I'll give it a shot. And if I can't figure it out, I'll give you a call. Thanks, guys.

  • Operator

  • Marco Rodriguez, Stonegate Capital.

  • Marco Rodriguez - Analyst

  • Just real quick follow-ups here on some previous questions. Just looking at the M&A market out there for you guys, obviously, Bohn you mentioned some of the valuations are still little a rich here, maybe being driven up by the PE firms. Just kind of curious on your thoughts there. Just kind of given the weak environment that we're in, just kind of curious why you think PE firms are driving up multiples, just given where we are and everything. Is there something that they are thinking is not happening? Or just any kind of color there would be helpful.

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • I'm certainly not the authority on it, but it's my understanding -- I guess I'll just leave it at that -- that as a general rule of thumb, the PE firms are compensated based upon -- as a function of assets under management. They are kind of less sensitive to short-term or perhaps even intermediate-term valuations of public company comps in terms of their own thinking. But, again, I'm not a -- I don't come from the PE world, but that's my perception of at least part of the thinking.

  • Flip it around from our side, we certainly do transactions with the intent of creating shareholder value and accretive transactions. And so we'd be hard-pressed to pay, as a multiple of a company we would acquire, an implicit valuation that's higher than the multiple we are receiving on our own stock at the time. And so, ultimately that dynamic comes into play as we think about deployment of our own capital and how we create shareholder value.

  • Marco Rodriguez - Analyst

  • Got you. Thanks. That's helpful. And then also in terms of use of capital here for you guys kind of going forward, you mentioned, Bohn, you had some other potential opportunities internally, just kind of internal investments, I'm assuming -- I think you said on technology; also, I'm assuming, on sales and marketing. Can you just kind of go into little more detail there on what sort of opportunities you might have there? And also, would they be sort of one-quarter type events or multi-quarter events? Any kind of color there would be helpful.

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • We certainly recently added Joe Bento. We're trying to bring in more what I'll call commercial orientations to help drive organic growth. And over time I would expect we will invest in a few incremental sales resources to help act as a catalyst on that side of things.

  • Having said that, I think from a financial impact standpoint, I think what we do in technology, both in terms of the capital we deploy against it and the returns that we will receive in exchange for it, will be significantly higher on the technology side as we work to drive productivity improvement and hopefully migrate to a singular system between forwarding and brokerage that will allow us to further standardize and streamline processes for the benefit of the organization and the end-customers that we serve.

  • So, that type of stuff doesn't happen overnight, so I think -- I'm certainly expecting that we will have kind of an ongoing and continuous investment in our technology moving forward. Part of our opportunity and, candidly, I think, part of our responsibility is to try to deliver state-of-the-art technologies to our operating partners to allow them to be as competitive and as successful as they can be in the marketplace. And so we'll be spending more time, more energy and more money around technology to deliver against that vision.

  • Marco Rodriguez - Analyst

  • Got it. Thanks a lot. I appreciate your time, guys.

  • Operator

  • David Campbell, Thompson Davis and Company.

  • David Campbell - Analyst

  • Your forecast of fiscal year of gross revenues, if the gross margin percentage is roughly the same as the March quarter, you're going to have some organic growth in the June quarter. Or is the increase in net revenues in the June quarter all SBA? I'm coming up with about a $5 million increase in net revenues in the June quarter, assuming $200 million of revenues or the midpoint of your range. But you just said there was no organic growth in the March quarter. So, is there something more optimistic about the June quarter or is it all SBA?

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • There is a little bit of organic growth in the quarter. I don't have the model in front of me; we are in the conference room. So it's, yes -- some of it is SBA, of course, too. But, yes, we are anticipating a nominal amount of organic growth.

  • Typically, we've had decent organic growth, and this last quarter it was -- I don't remember the exact number, but it was light. So, my model though does anticipate a little bit of organic growth.

  • David Campbell - Analyst

  • And SBA was acquired -- was that acquired in June last year?

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • Yes, it was like June 10 is -- somewhere around there.

  • David Campbell - Analyst

  • So you have the whole quarter of it, then -- virtually a whole quarter. And that will contribute to the year-to-year growth in net revenues.

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • Correct.

  • David Campbell - Analyst

  • And other than that, that's about it, though, right? There's no other M&A of significance contributing?

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • Yes, nothing significant.

  • David Campbell - Analyst

  • Right. And as far as fiscal -- looking at the fiscal 2017, I mean, would it be a mistake to multiply the June quarter by 4. And for four quarters, it would be somewhere around $200 million of net revenue next year excluding M&A? Would that be too optimistic or would that be something you would consider normal?

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • We certainly have some seasonality to it that you've got to factor in, Dave. I'd have to go back to the model. Typically, I wouldn't take this last quarter -- I think we had a pretty good baseline. We haven't had material transactions in the current year. So I think it's -- this current year, I think, is a good baseline. And then some sort of a nominal increase year-over-year is probably how I would project forward through 2017.

  • David Campbell - Analyst

  • Okay. Thank you.

  • Operator

  • Jeff Kaufman, Buckingham.

  • Jeff Kaufman - Analyst

  • I apologize; I got on the call little bit late, so I don't want to be repetitive. But it looks to me like you brought down the EBITDA guidance for this year by about $0.5 million, high and low end of the range, but the earnings guidance by about $0.04 to $0.05. What helps me the bridge that difference between $0.5 million change and about $0.04 in earnings?

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • Well, the $0.5 million we dropped just based on the seasonality and kind of where the numbers were projecting. We looked at Q3. And it's hard to know at all times where we're going to -- where the numbers are going to fall in, but it's our best projection, of course, going forward.

  • Jeff Kaufman - Analyst

  • Well, yes, I'm just taking a projection you have. And if I say, okay, we are going to earn $0.5 million less than EBITDA than we thought, then that shouldn't be $0.04 in earnings. So is there something else going on with the tax rate or below the line that might not pop into my head naturally that would cause such a big difference in your earnings guidance?

  • Todd Macomber - SVP and CFO

  • I'd have to look at the model. I'm sitting here in the conference room without the model in front of me, and so I can't answer that without diving into the model.

  • Jeff Kaufman - Analyst

  • Okay, and then just one follow-up. You talked about how the prices for third-party acquisitions in the market were a little higher than you liked. But historically, you've grown a lot by bringing agents into the fold. Could you just give us an update -- given that net revenues been growing a little bit more slowly, where do we stand on some of those agency opportunities? Is there a reason the pipeline is not as strong as it has been? Or how should I think about your internal growth opportunities as opposed to your external growth opportunities?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • Jeff, as you're alluding to, kind of onboarding new agent stations historically has been kind of a contributing factor to our growth rates. I think now more than ever, we're top of mind with folks. (background noise) Sounds like you're at a baseball game.

  • Jeff Kaufman - Analyst

  • Indeed I am -- little league playoffs. Thank you.

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • Well, excellent, I hope they scored. I'm sorry, I kind of got lost in the question on the home run. What was your question again?

  • Jeff Kaufman - Analyst

  • Well, you talked about how the market for external growth is a little bit expensive.

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • I'm sorry, yes. So for agent stations, that's still a very interesting area that we continue to pursue. And I think we've done a good job of positioning ourselves in the marketplace to continue to be top of mind. As we talked about, there can be any number of catalysts that would cause a potential partner to be ready to make a change. And we're actively engaged with folks trying to make sure that when they are ready, we are ready.

  • And I think, as we've also talked about before, when you get one, it's not unusual to get more than one out of a particular network. So that's something that we continue to pursue and something that we would expect a thematic under which we would expect to continue to put points on the board in our business model going forward.

  • (multiple speakers) But there's nothing that we have -- we certainly haven't abandoned that strategy. And it's not something we no longer have an appetite in, and it's not something that you should not expect from us going forward. That remains part of the equation.

  • Jeff Kaufman - Analyst

  • Okay. So, near-term growth is a little slower than we'd like, but a big keg of powder if the right things comes up?

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • Fair.

  • Jeff Kaufman - Analyst

  • Okay. Thank you very much, guys.

  • Operator

  • There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Bohn for any closing remarks.

  • Bohn Crain - Chairman and CEO

  • All right, thank you. Let me close by saying that we remain very excited with our progress and prospects here at Radiant, and we remain very bullish on the growth platform that we've created and the scalability of our non-asset-based business model.

  • We continue to make good progress in executing our strategy, leveraging the Radiant platform to bring value to our operating partners. And we remain very excited about the opportunity to grow our business organically both through same-store and new store growth and by completing acquisitions of other companies that bring critical mass from a geographic standpoint, incremental purchasing power and/or complementary service offerings, which will benefit the broader network.

  • At the right place, at the right time, with the right value proposition, we look forward to reporting further progress in terms of both organic and acquisition initiatives in the quarters ahead. Thanks for listening and your support of Radiant Logistics.