Rollins Inc (ROL) 2013 Q2 法說會逐字稿

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  • Operator

  • Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Rollins Inc second quarter 2013 earnings conference call.

  • During today's presentation all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation the conference will be open for questions.

  • ( Operator Instructions )

  • This conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, July 24, 2013, and I would now like to turn the conference over to Marilyn Meek. Please go ahead.

  • - IR

  • Thank you. By now you should have all received a copy of the press release. However, if anyone is missing a copy and would like to receive one, please contact our office at 212-827-3746 and we will send you a release and make sure you are on the Company's distribution list.

  • There will be a replay of the call which will begin one hour after the call and run for one week. The replay can be accessed by dialing 1-800-406-7325 with the passcode 462-8395. Additionally the call is being webcast at www.zsi.com and a replay will be available for 90 days.

  • On the line with me today is Gary Rollins, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Harry Cynkus, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Management will make some opening remarks and then we will open up the line for your questions.

  • Gary would you like to begin?

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • Yes. Thank you, Marilyn, and good morning. We appreciate all of you joining us for our second quarter 2013 conference call.

  • Harry will read our forward-looking statement and disclaimer and then we will begin.

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • Our earnings release discusses our business outlook and contains certain forward-looking statements. These particular forward-looking statements and all other statements that have been made on this call, excluding historical facts, are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and actual risks may differ materially from any statement we make today. Please refer to today's press release and our SEC filings including the risk factors section of our form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2012 for more information and the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ.

  • Let me now turn the call over to Gary.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • Thank you, Harry. We are pleased with the solid increases that we made in growing our revenues and our profitability for the quarter and six months. As you might recall this year started off slower than last year due to the reversal in weather patterns, extremely cold and snowy in the first quarter this year versus record-setting warm weather in the first quarter last year. But spring finally came, though a little bit later, and pest activity is increasing.

  • Revenue for the quarter increased 4.8% to approximately $351 million and net income increased 8.7% to $36 million. Revenues for the first six months rose 4.2% to $650 million and net income increased 5.3% to $59 million. The increasing demand for our services was reflected first in residential pest control which was up 5.8% for the quarter while commercial, excluding fumigation, rose 4.4% and termite revenues increased 5.1%.

  • As I mentioned on our last call we have been working with a Boston consulting group in studying our commercial pest control rate cards and our commercial price increase program. Based on their modeling we were able to identify segments that were inappropriately priced and in some case we identified existing accounts that should have been receiving more aggressive price increases. As a result, on June 1 when we rolled out our annual commercial price increase program, we were able to address more customers than last year and process price increases more in line with the customer's market sector. Early results have been promising.

  • One of the most valuable assets is clearly the Orkin brand. We might have a pristine balance sheet but if you want to know why our Company has achieved to so much of what it has, it has a lot to do with the Orkin name. And we see the power and benefit of this brand in so many ways.

  • A good example of that power was when we were selected recently to do an Undercover Boss segment. John Wilson, our Company's President and COO was featured working with four randomly selected Orkin technicians on the CBS Emmy award-winning show which aired May 3. As you can imagine only world-recognized companies have been selected to participate in this series. The four technicians and locations were picked by the producers of the program exemplified the quality of our people and the service we provide every day as well as illustrated the confidence our customers have in us and the personal relationships we build. Keep in mind that we had no voice in or control over their selection of our employees.

  • Orkin showcase on Undercover Boss can almost be regarded as a one hour complimentary infomercial. The reaction of the viewers and our employees have been tremendous. The program generated an audience of 7.2 million viewers and helped break virtually all of our previous web traffic records.

  • As an example in the week leading up to, due to the show's promotion, and the day following the broadcast we experienced the most of Google searches for Orkin in any week over the past two years. Furthermore our human resource teams as a result were kept extremely busy. The day after the segment ran the number of visits to our Orkin careers webpage increased fivefold from 500 to 2,500. In the next week the number of people taking time to complete an application online with Orkin increased over 70%.

  • Since one of our female technicians was featured on the show, the female candidates applying for a position jumped nearly 40%. This was terrific as we want more and more women to join our Company. We are anxiously awaiting for a rerun of Undercover Boss.

  • On our last call I spent time describing some of our new marketing programs and the new Orkin advertising campaign directed towards establishing Orkin as the pest control expert. We specifically focused on the Orkin man and his knowledge of pests and the science-based approach utilized to solve pest problems. This theme has been the focal point of this year's advertising, digital presence and our supporting marketing programs. We are pleased to report that we are already seeing higher levels of brand awareness from the campaign versus our campaign last year.

  • Copy test, for those of you not familiar with the term, is a market research technique that determines in advance and adds an effectiveness based on consumer responses, feedback and behavior. The results of these tests confirmed that our new campaign would be highly effective in making Orkin top of mind when consumers experience pest control problems. Our new advertising is targeted to grow our market share and our customer base. As a result of this positive response, we will be increasing our advertising spend in the second half of this year.

  • As we continue to expand our commercial business we began rolling out this week application for our account managers and commercial prospects. It follows the same fundamentals as our residential HomeSuite app which I talked about last quarter. It permits us to show a prospect pictures via laptop or an iPad of what our inspection of their property uncovered while describing the full array of our commercial offerings. The app allows the sales inspector to graph the customer's facility, document pest activity and illustrate a customized treatment program.

  • Additionally our commercial customers will be able to see in advance who will be servicing their facility as well as who they will be speaking with in our office. We are very excited about this tool helping to improve closure and the average dollar sold by our salespeople.

  • Shifting gears, I'm sure most of you have seen the statistics of the improving residential home sales. This has had a direct bearing on how Rollins' HomeTeam are benefiting in this regard. We are very pleased with HomeTeam's first quarter when installs were up nearly 35% but the second quarter topped that was installs year-over-year being up better than 48%. This resulted in making it a record quarter for installations, the best since we acquired them in 2009. Harry will discuss the impact of this surge on our financials later.

  • We are also proud that HomeTeam received for the third consecutive year the Partners of Choice award from the prominent national homebuilder David Weekly Homes. HomeTeam earned an A rating for service in David Weekly's national trading partner survey. We are the only pest management company to ever receive this well-respected award and one of only eight suppliers to earn an A rating this year. Congratulations go out to HomeTeam.

  • Let me give you an update on our CRM branch operating system initiative. First, since we last talked, we have added to our iteam a senior level leader with substantial industry experience in this type of system development and implementation. We are already seeing improvements in our pace and programming quality. Our new system is currently being tested and operated in a number of different environments, from Orkin branched to administrative centers as well as two of our recent acquisitions.

  • In conjunction with this new CRM branch operating system, we began piloting this month the use of iOS, or iPhone, technology in a residential branch application. This device will take the place of handhelds. The technicians love this change as it simplifies their day.

  • Its application is expected to reduce the project capital costs by over $5 million initially and reduce of the ongoing cost of ownership by $2 million a year when rolled out Company-wide. There will be some delay in the project resulting from switching to iPhones instead of handhelds but the long-term benefits make it worthwhile. We anticipate having an extraordinary branch operating system that will benefit all of our brands.

  • Well we are back on track to meet our goals for 2013; furthermore we remain committed to the continuous improvement of our businesses. I feel very fortunate that we have assembled a team across our Company that shares this same commitment.

  • I will now turn the call over to Harry.

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • Thank you Gary. Good morning and thank you for joining us on the call. Since spring has now sprung we don't need to talk about the weather and with my poetry not earning many accolades last quarter it might be best that I just talk about the numbers.

  • Second quarter revenues were $350.8 million representing 4.8% revenue growth, enjoying good sequential growth across our three service lines. More about that in a minute. Net income increased 8.7% to $36 million or $0.25 per diluted share compared to $33.1 million or $0.23 per diluted share for the same period last year.

  • For the first six months of 2013 my revenues rose 4.2% to $650.5 million compared to $624.3 million last year. Net income for the first six months of 2013 was $59.2 million or $0.40 per diluted share compared to the same period last year representing a year-to-date 5.3% increase in diluted earnings per share.

  • The fundamentals that drive our business remain positive. Pest control lead growth strengthened over the course of the quarter while termite leads showed good improvement as well. We saw a positive improvement in closure while pricing held steady.

  • Retention is running good as we expected. Clearly we continue our positive momentum within the key drivers of our business. As Gary has said before, we are pleased, just never satisfied.

  • Last quarter we ran our annual price increase test which showed little change in elasticity and as a result, as Gary shared in June, Orkin implemented its traditional annual price increase program for eligible residential and commercial customers. HomeTeam's price increase program rolls out in July. Both will begin to more favorably impact us in the third quarter.

  • Price increase eligibility is determined based on age of customer, variance in price to current rate card and contract terms. This year we had a smaller pool of residential customers eligible but a larger pool of commercial. Overall the price increase program increased revenue somewhat, 6/10 of 1% in the quarter.

  • Let's talk about the service lines that make up our business, starting with residential pest control which represented nearly 41% of our revenue and improved 5.8% this quarter, growing sequentially from 5.4% in the first quarter. We are pleased with this momentum and feeling that our advertising will help strengthen lead growth over the course of the year.

  • When I talk about our commercial business in the past I have sometimes distinguished with and without fumigation. For those new to the Company the reason being while the fumigation business is a small portion of our overall business, less than 2.5%, it makes up less than 7% of our commercial pest control business. The revenue can fluctuate greatly from quarter-to-quarter.

  • Food manufacturing and process fumigations are not necessarily scheduled to occur at the same time from year-to-year. This fluctuation in the business can distort the quarter-to-quarter comparison. For example, this quarter, our total commercial pest control improved 3.6%, down slightly from the first quarter's 3.7%. However, when you exclude fumigation from the calculation, our basic pest control -- our basic commercial pest control grew 4.4%, a nice improvement from the 3.7% in the first quarter.

  • This paints a completely different picture of the health of our commercial business. The fumigation portion of our commercial business didn't perform well in this quarter, down 7% or about $1.5 million. Some of this business we got earlier in the year and some will fall in the next quarter.

  • As a result when the fumigation portion of our commercial business distorts the view of the commercial business I will mention it and when it doesn't, I won't. The last service line, termites, came back strong in the quarter as we expected with a late spring. Rather than termites swarming as they did last year in February and March, they waited until it got warmer. They are not fools and they did it in good fashion this quarter. Our termite business, which makes up approximately 19% of our revenues, was up 5.1%.

  • For those waiting anxiously to learn about our bed bug business it was up double digits to $12.1 million for the quarter, with residential outpacing commercial in growth both in dollars and percent. This overall growth was the slowest we've seen although still very healthy. Stay tuned; bed bugs have not gone away.

  • Gross margin for the quarter decreased 10 basis points to 50.3% for the second quarter versus 50.4% in the prior year due to a nearly $800,000 impact from the increase in HomeTeam's labor and material supply costs related to the substantial increase in pay X, tubes in the wall installs as well as a small decrease in overall productivity. Overall the Company was up staffed in advance for what turned out to be a late spring.

  • While the large growth in HomeTeam installs, nearly 22,000 this quarter versus almost 15,000 last year, hurts our margins in the short term, it's the driver for HomeTeam's future growth, recurring revenue and profitability. Installs don't drive revenues significantly; however they do drive costs. We view this loss on installation as customer acquisition costs and it is a reasonable one at that. We chose to be conservative and don't defer or capitalize it on the balance sheet, expensing it as incurred.

  • Depreciation and amortization expense for the quarter increased slightly, $155,000, totaling $9.8 million. Depreciation was $3.7 million and amortization of intangibles was $6.1 million. For the full year, amortization of intangibles, typically from value assigned to customer contracts acquired in an acquisition, will represent a significant after-tax non-cash charge of $0.11 this year.

  • Sales, general administrative expenses for the second quarter increased $3.5 million or 3.3% to 31.2% of revenues which was favorable from 31.7% for the second quarter last year. The decrease in cost as a percentage of revenues was driven by our ability to leverage our administrative and sales salaries along with reductions in bad debt expense. These savings more than offset increase in professional services related to our commercial pricing initiative as well as higher advertising expense related to our new advertising campaign.

  • The tax rate for the quarter came in favorably at 37.2% for the quarter as we were able to resolve the last of our known state tax issues. I expect it to return to around 37.6% for the remainder of the year.

  • We continue to operate from a solid foundation. We have confidence in our fundamentals, the Company is performing well, the balance sheet is strong.

  • As always our first priority for our remarkable cash generation capabilities remains investing in what we know best, pest control and only pest control. At the same time, we recognize our responsibility to our shareholders. Yesterday the Company declared its regularly -- regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.09 per share.

  • Earlier this month we announced the Company repurchased 172,589 shares at a weighted average price of $24.41 per share. In total 5.125 million additional shares may be purchased under the share repurchase program.

  • With the year half over, we are pleased, just never satisfied, and well-positioned for a great 2013. I look forward to talking to you next quarter. Let me express our continuing appreciation to all the Rollins associates whose hard work is behind our outstanding results. We likewise are most appreciative of our customers who make everything we do possible.

  • Thank you for your time and interest. With that I will now turn the call back over to Gary.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • Thank you, Harry. We are now ready to open the call for any questions that you might have.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions)

  • Sean Kim, RBC Capital Markets.

  • - Analyst

  • Hi, thanks. I have a few questions. First of all on the commercial side with the new pricing, can you quantify what positive impact on growth you will see in the coming quarter since you just implemented it in June?

  • And, secondly, on -- in terms of HomeTeam, I think new home starts are running at close to about 1 million units this year and I think in the past you said you are expecting at least 70,000 installations this year. So that is about a high singles to maybe 10% penetration. How do you -- are you trying to drive penetration higher? What is your strategy there?

  • Lastly, on the balance sheet, I think you basically have note that your cash balance is basically at an all-time high. What is your plans here in terms of where you deploy capital? Are you looking for -- are you looking to accelerate buybacks or are you waiting for more acquisitions? Thanks.

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • Okay. Let me start with HomeTeam. HomeTeam has about, if I remember the numbers from last year, about -- almost 25% penetration in the markets that they are in. They are in 50 markets across the US. What our plan is, is to concentrate in those markets.

  • The issue is when we look at additional markets it is not necessarily as warm climate, there is not much pest pressure. And based on their experiences, they've moved north, it hasn't worked as well for them as the climate that they're in. So right now, they deal with all of the large US builders about, think the number was over 40% of their installs so far this year have come from the three largest US builders.

  • I think the trend that is happening in the home building industry, for example, most of the land has been bought up by the larger home builders. The smaller independent homebuilders are having trouble getting financing. And the model seems to be changing where very likely the larger builders are going to be even more dominant than they have been in the past. Our relationships with and having national agreements with those larger -- the largest US builders should help HomeTeam in the 50 markets they are in.

  • Let's see, their question was plans for capital. Yes, you are right, we have a lot of cash. I think we ended the quarter with over $90 million in cash and no debt. Our first priority has been for many -- a number of years defined and buy other leading regional and smaller pest control companies. We continue to have discussions, build relationships and we would love to do more pest control acquisitions.

  • Unfortunately, it often is that life-changing event that finally brings them to the table but will continue to -- for that will continue to be our number one priority. In terms of utilizing that cash if we can't make acquisitions, we review our dividend policy each year in the January Board meeting and I am sure they will -- we have a nice track record, I think it is, how many years now, 11 consecutive years we have increased the dividend to a minimum of 12.5%. Last year we did have a special dividend.

  • And stock buyback. We bought back, we would have loved to buy more shares. We only bought back about 178,000 shares this past quarter, average price we bought was under $25 and the stock ran up late in the quarter and we slowed down our purchases. We will continue working what has worked for us with the cash.

  • Lastly the positive impact in commercial. We -- price increase was, what, about 0.6%. It was a little -- we gathered a little over $2 billion from the pricing action in June. Some of our customers are monthly, some every other month, so we will see how it falls in July. Plus we will get the added benefit from HomeTeam which price increase does not go into effect in July.

  • The ultimate impact also is you have to look at what the retention is and on the accounts and whatnot. So it's kind of hard at this point to project but it should be better than I would think $6 million in total but that is both commercial and residential and I do not have the breakdown handy. But the commercial was more weighted -- commercial than it was residential this year. I hope that all helps.

  • - Analyst

  • Great. Thanks for taking all my questions.

  • Operator

  • Joe Box, KeyBanc Capital Markets.

  • - Analyst

  • Good morning, guys.

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • Good morning.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • Good morning.

  • - Analyst

  • Harry, just for the record, big fan of the poetry. (laughter)

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • I told him about that. (laughter)

  • - Analyst

  • A little disappointed but look forward to hearing what we get on 3Q.

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • Okay. I will work on it.

  • - Analyst

  • Great. I know you guys don't want to talk about weather and I certainly respect that but obviously it negatively impacted leads in 1Q and there probably was some unfavorable weather comps in the early part of 2Q. I guess I'm just curious if you could maybe run through how lead growth trended per month throughout the quarter?

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • On the residential side, June was -- June -- start with April, and you are right, I remember the Atlanta Braves out in Colorado playing a day game the first week in April and the temperature I think was a record 23 or 24 degrees. We definitely -- spring came in mid April. And come mid April the phones start ringing, we saw some -- overall some modest lead growth in April. And each month, April to May, May to June, we saw better lead growth and ended up with strong lead growth in June, and July is trending well.

  • How much is weather, how much is our new advertising? I think at this point it is no longer weather, it is the case of brand recognition. I think Gary talked about -- I don't think a lot of people after watching Undercover Boss ran out and bought pest control but it did plant the thought in their mind, 30 days, 60 days, when they see that cockroach or the ants, they are going to have a very favorable impression and should have the right impression as to the great service that Orkin provides.

  • Termites start swarming in April and we saw consistent strong lead growth April, May and June in termite. And commercial -- our commercial team is -- that is not so much a lead-driven business. We changed management less than a year ago in our national account commercial sales team and they seem to be re-invigorated and we are getting some good traction there. So we feel good about our prospects for the rest of the year here.

  • - Analyst

  • That is a good directional commentary by month. Can you maybe give us the year-over-year change? If my memory is right I think leads were actually down 20% in 1Q. Do you have with that comparable number was in 2Q?

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • They weren't down quite 20%, I don't think it was.

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • That's the first quarter.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • In the first quarter, yes. The second quarter, it approached double digit lead. I don't have that data right here.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay. Perfect. So basically you saw it snap back?

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • Oh, yes.

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • And the good thing is that if you're going to have a down quarter you want the first quarter to be down. (laughter) It's just the size of the quarter.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • As Harry said we're very encouraged with our advertising and the interest that it's creating. We have a way to keep up with the data as far as our Internet pits and we can really back cast as far as looking at the generic Google information to see really if -- is it the season or the advertising? We will be able to -- wish we could determine that as we go but we will be able to determine what had the biggest impact.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay, thanks. Just a high-level question for you on your longer term top-line growth rate. If you go back it looks like revenue growth peaked at around 6% back in 2011. We've seen it moderate over the -- for the last couple of years into the high 4% range.

  • Obviously this is a strong number given where the macro stands. But I'm just curious with HomeTeam coming on nicely and potentially an opportunity to structurally chang how you commercially price to your customers. Do you think that that implies a re-acceleration in top-line growth or are we looking at a stabilization of top-line growth in this high 4% range?

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • I can tell you we are not satisfied being less than 5%.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • I think a fair answer would be yes. We certainly think that the HomeTeam ramp up is going to contribute but if there is a lag time, the house has to be completed after we do our install. It has to be sold.

  • And then we are contacting the customer for capture so it is like planting a garden. Clearly, they are going to be making a bigger contribution going forward. It is going to be very interesting to see the results of our commercial price increase and this rate card project, so we are working on different areas to try to increase the growth rate.

  • - Analyst

  • So bottom line, it might be somewhat conservative to assume that the growth hangs around this mid to high 4%?

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • Yes.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay, great. That's good color.

  • Just one clarification on the prior question regarding pricing. Did I hear you right that so far you have only generated $6 million of incremental pricing? Doesn't it typically come in much better than that? Can you give us a -- ?

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • That was the impact on one month.

  • - Analyst

  • On one month.

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • It wasn't $6 million; it was 0.6%. It was $2 million and that was one month.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay. So when you net it out I know it is still early and you don't have the retention, net-net do think that pricing is going to end up shaking out better than last year, flat to last year maybe even down a little?

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • It is better than last year.

  • - Analyst

  • And is that solely a function of what you are doing on the commercial front or no?

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • It is commercial because as I mentioned there were less residential customers falling into the pool of eligible customers. So the commercial -- the residential price increase dollars were down 14%, 15% from last year but it was more than made up for by the commercial side.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • Well you also have to factor the average commercial customer pays more than the average residential customer. So when you -- if you increase both of them 4% you're going to get a larger dollar figure out of the commercial account.

  • - Analyst

  • Perfect. That's a great clarification. Thanks, guys. Have a good day.

  • Operator

  • Jamie Clement, Sidoti.

  • - Analyst

  • Gary, Harry, good morning.

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • Good morning.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • Good morning.

  • - Analyst

  • Just curious -- and I understand that for competitive reasons you can't go into everything. But as you all -- you've talked about your residential price -- your annual residential price increase, sort of the methodology and how you thought of that over time and how that process has evolved. How similar as you evaluated the commercial market for price increases -- how similar was that methodology to the residential market or was it complete out difference between apples and oranges? And is there any additional color you can give in terms of the pressure points if you will that you guys and your consultants looked at in the commercial market that maybe you wouldn't have looked at in the residential market?

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • Yes, I would say it is different. The residential, we look at what our closure rate is by market in term -- which tells us where we are -- how are we doing competitively. And if we see closure in Tucson is substantially less than what we are getting up the road in Phoenix, I might say, oh, gee, we are getting ahead of ourselves and we are behind or whatever.

  • On the commercial, we took a different tack because one of the things we were able to do this year is to actually calculate our labor costs -- or our profitability down to an account level. So we were able to identify accounts we were losing money on. And then when you figure out you are losing money you have to then look at why are you losing money. Is it because something we are doing that we are not doing a good job in solving the customer's issue and we have a lot of call backs that don't generate any revenue or it was just priced wrong.

  • That we thought -- and so on the commercial, commercial is all about recapturing your labor. So what we spent a lot of time doing is looking at that relationship as to what the revenue per labor hour was and are we being paid for the work we are doing at a fair return? So it was a much more in-depth look on the commercial side and a different approach versus residential.

  • - Analyst

  • Well said. That is very helpful.

  • Gary or Harry, whoever wants to handle this question, for years we would have assumed to see higher rates of revenue growth in your commercial business just as a result of market dynamics and how fast the market was growing. Now you have a more robust housing market which is favorably impacting your residential business. As we look out over the next, let's say, four to six quarters, should we view it as a tossup on a quarter-to-quarter basis as to which you think would post the higher revenue growth number?

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • I would expect that percentage-wise that the commercial revenue would be growing faster.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • And I think that some of the things that we are doing with the rate card, and as Harry explained, with our making sure that our accounts are priced properly, I think is going to give us a boost as far as our revenue is concerned. We have been fortunate in the national account area that we have ramped up our sales force and our success rate there. So I really think that commercial will be growing faster than residential.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • We will take residential increase it --.

  • - Analyst

  • Yes. No. Absolutely and I was not asking the question. There was no motive behind the question other than you throw in a stronger housing market. It will be interesting to see what will happen with the numbers.

  • - SVP, CFO, and Treasurer

  • And HomeTeam's a wild card. There is no doubt about that. Sometimes the homes are completed in 90 days, sometimes they are completed in six months, it just depends on -- there's a lot of variables but we have a pretty good model.

  • We know what it was doing when we bought it and we know when it was -- when the garden came to fruition we know what happens then. So -- and the rate of growth is greater than any that they have ever experienced. So it is going to be interesting to see how that plays out.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • And on the commercial side, I saw last week we just sold a substantial national account up in Canada that will represent $2 million in annual revenue. So the sales team is selling.

  • - Analyst

  • Okay. Very, very good. And, Harry, I think would be remiss without commenting that during that cold stretch of April, your outfielder, Justin Upton, hit 12 home runs and has only hit four since. (laughter)

  • Okay. Take care. Thanks a lot for the time.

  • Operator

  • (Operator Instructions)

  • Dan Dull, Jefferies.

  • - Analyst

  • Thanks for taking my question. I just want to talk about the big picture marketing plan that you had. It seems like just a few years ago you were spending about 4.1% of your sales on marketing and that is down to about 3.8%.

  • I think some of your -- a key competitor of yours spent about 5% of their sales on advertising. I am just curious, Gary, you mentioned the market spend increase in 2H, how should we think about the percent of sales on marketing longer term over the next year or two? And are you worried about being out-spent by your key competitors and any color on that would be great? Thank you.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • I am not worried about the competitors; maybe I should be, but I'm not. I think we look at our advertising very carefully. We have the ability to, as I mentioned earlier, to relate that to really the weather or the seasonality. We can look at demand searches and relate that to what we are experiencing.

  • Frankly, we believe that we will be increasing our spend this year based on the early results that we're seeing from our advertising. I would think that we would be spending a greater percentage on advertising this year but we have found out over the past -- in the past you can't spend yourself rich. There is a point of diminishing returns. You can't stretch a season, you can't make a season start earlier and you have just got to be careful that you are getting a return as far as what you are spending.

  • - Analyst

  • Got it. Thank you. Appreciate it.

  • Operator

  • I am showing no further questions in the queue at this time. Please continue.

  • - Vice Chairman and CEO

  • Okay. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to the next quarter and we will continue to work hard to grow and improve our business. Thank you again.

  • Operator

  • Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude our conference for today. If you would like to listen to a replay of today's conference, please dial 303-590-3030 or 1-800-406-7325 with access code 462-8395. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.