Stagwell Inc (STGW) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning from STACK wells, global headquarters at One World Trade Center in New York City, and Welcome to STAG Holdings' earnings webcast the Q4 and full year 2023. My name is Ben Allison and I lead the Investor Relations relations function at Stagwell. With me today are Mark and Steve Wills, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and frankly, new to the Chief Financial Officer. Mark will provide a business update, and Frank will share financial review. After the prepared remarks, we will open the floor for Q&A.

位於紐約世貿中心一號大樓的全球總部 STACK Wells 早上好，歡迎收看 STAG Holdings 的 2023 年第四季和全年收益網路廣播。我叫本‧艾利森 (Ben Allison)，負責領導斯塔格韋爾 (Stagwell) 的投資者關係部門。今天與我在一起的有董事長兼執行長馬克威爾斯 (Mark Wills) 和史蒂夫威爾斯 (Steve Wills)，坦白說，他們是新任財務長。馬克將提供業務更新，弗蘭克將分享財務評論。準備好的發言結束後，我們將開始問答環節。

You're welcome to submit questions through the chat function.

歡迎您透過聊天功能提交問題。

Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that the following remarks include forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial data. Forward-looking statements about the company, including those related to earnings guidance are subject to uncertainties and risk factors addressed in our earnings release slide presentation and the company's SEC filings. Please refer to our website, sangamo, global.com, forward slash investors for an investor presentation and additional resources. This morning's press release and slide deck provide definitions, explanations and reconciliations of non-GAAP financial data.

在開始之前，我想提醒您，以下評論包括前瞻性陳述和非公認會計準則財務資料。有關該公司的前瞻性陳述，包括與盈利指引相關的陳述，受到我們的盈利發布幻燈片演示和該公司向 SEC 提交的文件中提到的不確定性和風險因素的影響。請參閱我們的網站、sangamo、global.com、forwardlash Investors 以獲取投資者介紹和其他資源。今天早上的新聞稿和幻燈片提供了非公認會計準則財務數據的定義、解釋和調節。

And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Mark back.

說到這裡，我想將電話轉回給我們的董事長兼執行長馬克。

Thank you, Ben, and thank you to everyone joining us for our fourth quarter and full year earnings with 2023 behind us we are ready to return in 2024 for a political year for the organic growth at Stagwell short year after year since its inception, while we strongly execute our strategy to transform marketing through the right combination of technology and talent. 2023 saw a combination of unique factors weigh on the marketing services industry, persistent worries about a potential recession rising interest rates and fuel political risk resulted in significant restructuring actions, particularly at tech companies as well as meaningful cuts across marketing budgets.

謝謝 Ben，也感謝大家加入我們的第四季度和全年盈利，2023 年已經過去，我們已準備好在 2024 年回歸，迎接 Stagwell 自成立以來年復一年有機增長的政治年，同時我們大力執行我們的策略，透過技術和人才的正確結合來實現行銷轉型。 2023 年，行銷服務業受到一系列獨特因素的影響，對潛在衰退的持續擔憂、利率上升和政治風險加劇導致了重大重組行動，特別是在科技公司，以及行銷預算的大幅削減。

Add to that a banking crisis and strengths within autos and entertainment industries. Despite all this, Stagwell grew market share with some of our largest customers, continued to win significant new business and delivered another year of strong adjusted EBITDA generation by taking prudent cost management steps. We also made significant moves with a lasting positive impact on our business. In the first quarter, we successfully completed a secondary offering, which helped to boost our liquidity. The equity research analyst community has taken note of increased interest and cycle after this offering, and we now have eight cover now in the second quarter, we moved to simplify our capital structure to remove that overhang by buying out AlpInvest. This transaction and other buybacks completed to out the year successfully reduced our share count by 12% in the fourth quarter, we completed the sale of Concentric life to Accenture for $245 million, representing a sale an 18 times EBITDA and approximately four to five times our mission. This sale of a company that I had never been asked about by investors or analysts is representative of the Company's underlying value produced a taxable gain of about $175 million this year. We've already replaced the revenue and EBITDA given up by the transaction while only using a fraction of the price. We believe that modest portfolio turnover at multiples higher than those we pay for acquisitions is a vital part of our operations moving forward. As I've previously mentioned, we expect to close another profitable disposition later this year.

除此之外，還有銀行業危機以及汽車和娛樂產​​業的優勢。儘管如此，Stagwell 仍然在一些最大的客戶中增加了市場份額，繼續贏得重要的新業務，並通過採取審慎的成本管理措施，又實現了強勁的調整後 EBITDA 生成。我們也採取了重大舉措，對我們的業務產生了持久的正面影響。一季度，我們成功完成了二次發行，這有助於增加我們的流動性。股票研究分析師社群已經注意到這次發行後興趣和週期的增加，我們現在在第二季有八個封面，我們開始簡化我們的資本結構，透過收購 AlpInvest 來消除這種過剩。這項交易和今年完成的其他回購成功地將我們的股票數量在第四季度減少了12%，我們以2.45 億美元的價格完成了將Concentric life 出售給埃森哲的交易，相當於EBITDA 的18 倍，大約是我們的四到五倍。使命。我從未被投資者或分析師詢問過的這家公司的出售代表了該公司的潛在價值，今年產生了約 1.75 億美元的應稅收益。我們已經替換了交易所放棄的收入和 EBITDA，而僅使用了價格的一小部分。我們相信，適度的投資組合週轉率比我們為收購支付的周轉率高出幾倍，這是我們未來營運的重要組成部分。正如我之前提到的，我們預計將在今年稍後完成另一項有利可圖的處置。

We also move to strengthen our services, grow our geographic footprint and invest in innovation to keep us at the forefront of digital. We acquired leaders in digital technology and emerging platforms left, field labs and movers and shakers. We made our first acquisition in Ireland in the company of Husky's. Recently, we welcomed the digital first collect creative collective Sidekick and our first French creative agency. What's next? We grew the size of our Marketing Cloud capabilities and commercialization path through unique partnerships with tech leaders. We created a partnership with Google to co-build gen AI. solutions and get placement out of our AI enabled products in their clouds. And we created a partnership with MAN, the leader in performance TV to give access to our SMC influencer and content products from our clients as well as help clients in our media business with performance marketing strength.

我們還加強我們的服務，擴大我們的地理覆蓋範圍並投資於創新，以保持我們處於數位化的前沿。我們收購了數位技術和新興平台領域的領導者、現場實驗室和推動者。我們在愛爾蘭首次收購了赫斯基公司。最近，我們迎來了數位首個集合創意團體 Sidekick 和我們的第一個法國創意機構。下一步是什麼？透過與技術領導者的獨特合作關係，我們擴大了行銷雲端功能的規模和商業化路徑。我們與Google建立了合作關係，共同建構人工智慧時代。解決方案，並在他們的雲端部署我們的人工智慧產品。我們與演出電視領域的領導者 MAN 建立了合作夥伴關係，讓我們的客戶能夠使用我們的 SMC 影響者和內容產品，並幫助我們媒體業務的客戶發揮演出行銷實力。

On the third quarter call, I said we were seeing positive signs of a turnaround in our business and expected recovery over the next two quarters. We saw the central and partially in the fourth quarter as we return to sequential net revenue in the quarter, Stagwell posted $655 million of revenue and $551 million of net revenue as we started to see the challenges that have impacted our business a bit. For the full year, revenue was $2.53 billion and net revenue was $2.15 billion performance. Media and data capability continued to post good results in the fourth quarter, growing net revenue by 1% and 5% for the year. Strong performance among our media and buying and strategy brands is leading the group. Both brands posted 7% year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter, their best quarterly growth figure in the last two years. This strength was offset somewhat by macro-driven challenges and some of our owned media. Importantly, our digital transformation businesses showed meaningful signs of a rebound. Excluding advocacy, digital transformation declined 3% year over year in the US, a significant improvement sequentially after posting a 17% decline ex advocacy in the third quarter, we once again grew the size of our relationships with our biggest, most important customers, something we did consistently through 2023. In Q4, our top 100 customers representing approximately 48% of net revenue, grew 13% year over year. Our international businesses also continued their momentum with growth of 3% in the quarter, led by 19% growth in the UK, we posted a very strong quarter of net new business wins over $65 million for the last 12 months, we have delivered more than $270 million of net new business of all time LTM. In the fourth quarter, we continued to focus on effectively managing our cost structure so that we're well positioned for 2024.

在第三季的電話會議上，我表示我們看到了業務好轉的積極跡象，並預計未來兩季將出現復甦。我們在第四季度看到了核心部分，因為我們恢復了本季連續的淨收入，Stagwell 公佈了6.55 億美元的收入和5.51 億美元的淨收入，因為我們開始看到對我們業務產生了一些影響的挑戰。全年營收為 25.3 億美元，淨營收為 21.5 億美元。媒體和數據能力第四季持續取得良好業績，全年淨收入成長1%和5%。我們的媒體、購買和策略品牌的強勁表現在集團中處於領先地位。兩個品牌第四季都實現了 7% 的同比增長，這是過去兩年來最好的季度成長數據。這種優勢在某種程度上被宏觀驅動的挑戰和我們自有媒體所抵消。重要的是，我們的數位轉型業務顯示出明顯的反彈跡象。不包括宣傳在內，美國的數位轉型年減了3%，繼第三季不包括宣傳在內的數位轉型下降17% 後，這是一個顯著的進步，我們再次擴大了與最大、最重要客戶的關係規模，到 2023 年，我們始終如一地這樣做。第四季度，我們的前 100 家客戶約佔淨收入的 48%，年增 13%。我們的國際業務也持續保持成長勢頭，本季成長3%，其中英國業務成長19%，我們公佈了一個非常強勁的季度淨新業務收入，在過去12 個月中超過6500 萬美元，我們交付了超過LTM 史上淨新業務額達 2.7 億美元。第四季度，我們繼續專注於有效管理成本結構，以便為 2024 年做好準備。

On staffing, we took actions in the fourth quarter that resulted in incremental annualized savings of $16 million for the full year, we took $98 million of actions. We are seeing the results of the new business gain and cost reductions in a strong channel. We also continued our efforts to consolidate our real estate footprint and back-office functions, resulting in $4 million of real estate savings and more than $4 million of savings to our shared services. I'm delighted to report that as of the end of 2023, we've principally achieved ahead of schedule, the $30 million of synergies that will price. We are now focused on achieving the $35 million of incremental deposits that we announced earlier this year. As a result, we produced another strong quarter of profitability, delivering $95 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing a 17%. We did this even while continuing to meaningfully invest in the Stagwell Marketing Cloud. For the full year, we delivered $360 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing a 17% margin. We invested approximately $20 million out of operating funds on development of new tech and investment, I consider proportionate and critical to our future. Our approach to the use of capital remains the same this year. We reinvested in growth through buybacks, acquisitions and internal tech development. And we did see expanded media working capital requirements that we're working to reduce overall deferred acquisition costs are a fraction of the past and were reduced by $60 million this year and are projected to be only about $40 million total by 2025. We released leverage will be close to two by the end of the year. But our principle goal is seen to the vision of the Company and achieving above average industry this year. We expect to deliver organic net revenue growth of 5% to 7%. We expect adjusted EBITDA to grow 11% to 25% year over year, delivering adjusted EBITDA of $400 million to $450 million. We also expect to convert approximately 50% of our EBITDA to free cash. It's important to realize that Stagwell started at zero just eight years ago, and the same energy we put in that is at work today and moving this company to be the next great company in market going from global full-service to platform ourselves that means we have at play critical strategic initiatives to generate above industry average growth. And White, first and foremost is to grow our market share concurrent to grow our share of market by expanding our global technology footprints. This has been evident in our new acquisitions and the steady stream of awards. Our agencies, whose creative work at the Super Bowl far exceeds our relative size with five national in game spots and more than a dozen other client campaigns for the NFL, E-Trade, Paramount, United Airlines, the Agio, Budweiser and more as a result, Staples agencies have been invited to more RFPs with bigger account inspiration days with Fortune 100 companies that ask what else can Stagwell do are becoming nearly a weekly event last year, we saw a 20% increase in pitches that we were invited to totaling almost $1.2 billion. We expect to see similar growth in 2024, record-breaking new business wins laid a strong foundation for us to return to growth this year. In the fourth quarter, our digital transformation revenue from technology customers grew by 30%. This resulted from a combination of increased spend from existing customers and the acquisition of LED CMT clients are calling our agencies to transform their operations and customer touch touch. Federal is helping Polycom, for example, enable the future of AI for developers and across everyday devices. While next month, we'll tear politics will roll out a new AI overlay to their historical pulling database that will help user search results in new and engaging way as we continue to receive new mandates with major wins at Samsung and Shopify as well as notable account expansions with Amazon and Google our international expansion efforts are paying off as we saw 13% international growth in 2023. We'll continue to diversify the Company's geographic footprint, which is critical to expanding our global client agreement. We expect to enter 10 new markets in 2024, bringing our non-affiliate footprint to 44 in Amea, net revenue grew 7% last year, and this year. We're expanding further launching new European headquarters in London at the Blue Fin Building and appointing change accounts. And as our 1st of the year, our admixture businesses in 2023 and nonelection year shrunk 22%, but posted 16% growth versus 2021.

在人員配備方面，我們在第四季度採取了行動，全年節省了 1600 萬美元，我們採取了 9800 萬美元的行動。我們在強大的管道中看到了新業務成長和成本降低的結果。我們也繼續努力鞏固我們的房地產足跡和後台職能，從而節省了 400 萬美元的房地產費用，並為我們的共享服務節省了超過 400 萬美元。我很高興地向大家報告，截至 2023 年底，我們基本上提前實現了 3000 萬美元的協同效應。我們現在的重點是實現今年稍早宣布的 3500 萬美元增量存款。結果，我們又實現了強勁的季度獲利，調整後 EBITDA 為 9,500 萬美元，佔 17%。我們在繼續對 Stagwell 行銷雲進行有意義的投資的同時也做到了這一點。全年，我們實現了 3.6 億美元的調整後 EBITDA，利潤率為 17%。我們從營運資金中投入了大約 2000 萬美元用於新技術的開發和投資，我認為這對我們的未來來說是相稱且至關重要的。今年我們的資金使用方式維持不變。我們透過回購、收購和內部技術開發對成長進行再投資。我們確實看到擴大的媒體營運資金需求，我們正在努力降低整體遞延收購成本，這只是過去的一小部分，今年減少了 6000 萬美元，預計到 2025 年總計僅為 4000 萬美元左右。我們發布的槓桿率到年底將接近2。但我們的主要目標是公司的願景，並在今年實現高於行業平均的目標。我們預計有機淨收入將成長 5% 至 7%。我們預計調整後 EBITDA 將年增 11% 至 25%，調整後 EBITDA 達到 4 億至 4.5 億美元。我們也預計將約 50% 的 EBITDA 轉換為自由現金。重要的是要認識到，Stagwell 八年前從零開始，而我們投入的同樣精力今天仍在發揮作用，並將這家公司從全球全方位服務轉變為我們自己的平台，成為市場上的下一個偉大公司，這意味著我們發揮關鍵策略舉措以實現高於行業平均水平的成長。懷特首先是透過擴大我們的全球技術足跡來增加我們的市場份額，同時增加我們的市場份額。這一點在我們的新收購和源源不絕的獎項中得到了體現。我們的代理商在超級盃上的創意工作遠遠超出了我們的相對規模，擁有5 個全國性的比賽場地以及NFL、E-Trade、派拉蒙、聯合航空、Agio、百威啤酒等十幾個其他客戶活動。結果，Staples 代理商被邀請參加更多的RFP，並與財富100 強公司進行更大的客戶靈感日，詢問Stagwell 還能做什麼，去年幾乎成為每週一次的活動，我們看到我們受邀參加的推介幾乎增加了20% 12億美元。我們預計 2024 年將出現類似的成長，破紀錄的新業務勝利為我們今年恢復成長奠定了堅實的基礎。第四季度，我們來自科技客戶的數位轉型收入成長了30%。這是由於現有客戶支出增加以及 LED CMT 客戶的收購共同導致的結果，他們要求我們的代理商轉變其營運和客戶接觸方式。例如，Federal 正在幫助 Polycom 為開發人員和日常設備實現人工智慧的未來。下個月，我們將在其歷史拉動資料庫中推出新的人工智慧覆蓋層，這將幫助用戶以新穎且引人入勝的方式搜尋結果，因為我們將繼續收到新的任務，在三星和Shopify 上取得了重大勝利，並且取得了顯著的成就透過亞馬遜和谷歌的帳戶擴張，我們的國際擴張努力正在取得回報，我們看到 2023 年國際增長率為 13%。我們將繼續使公司的地理足跡多元化，這對於擴大我們的全球客戶協議至關重要。我們預計到 2024 年將進入 10 個新市場，使我們在 Amea 的非附屬足跡達到 44 個，去年和今年的淨收入增長 7%。我們正在進一步擴大規模，在倫敦藍鰭大廈設立新的歐洲總部，並指定變更帳戶。作為我們今年的第一年，我們的外加劑業務在 2023 年和非選舉年萎縮了 22%，但與 2021 年相比增長了 16%。

The last off cycle, while the presidential election gets the most focused, we expect fiercely contested multi-hundred million dollar down ballot. We view this as an encouraging sign that political spend records are going to be shattered in 2024 with more than $12 billion sticks Second, we are rolling out more products from the Stagwell marketing-type team. The group grew 31% in 2023. High-risk Quest. Our AI-enabled research suite signed its 150th enterprise customer in 2023. On Monday, we unveiled our new product unlock surveys, potentially the most significant our research panel launched nearly a decade. And as opening day approaches. We are excited to share that around our immersive platform for stadiums. It's just been incorporated into Major League Baseball's native ballpark and approved for use by all major league baseball teams and stated, this is a major milestone for this emerging technology from Stifel.

最後一個非週期，雖然總統選舉最為關注，但我們預計數億美元的下一輪選票將競爭激烈。我們認為這是一個令人鼓舞的跡象，表明政治支出記錄將在 2024 年被打破，超過 120 億美元。其次，我們正在推出更多來自 Stagwell 行銷型團隊的產品。該集團到 2023 年增長了 31%。高風險任務。我們的人工智慧研究套件於 2023 年簽署了第 150 位企業客戶。週一，我們公佈了新產品解鎖調查，這可能是我們的研究小組近十年來發起的最重要的調查。隨著開幕日的臨近。我們很高興能圍繞我們的體育場館沉浸式平台分享這一點。它剛剛被納入美國職棒大聯盟的本土球場，並批准所有美國職棒大聯盟棒球隊使用，並表示，這是 Stifel 這項新興技術的一個重要里程碑。

Third, we are embarking upon an aggressive AI data and media strategy. We are building solutions that help our agencies and clients transform with the three years of AI enablement across operations, efficiency and marketing and engagement with consumers. We have built private GPTI. environments for our agencies and clients to utilize advanced AI without putting their data into the public domain. We'll continue building on this approach, and we've already signed a large domestic office supply retailer into our platform on the data side will develop an identity solution. The Stagwell ID graph, which encompasses information on hundreds of millions of people globally, fueled the top of our existing data lake. This solution will make consumer information available to fine tune all our performance, marketing campaigns across all our sites. We expect to acquire or build the last mile of the media chain so that our offerings will go from planning, targeting and audience creation down to placement and media, we will move more from fee-for-service pricing to performance price. This will result in margin expansion overtime and guaranteed ROI for clients as our media business continues to grow and client scale on site, remember that more than one in 10 Stagwell employees are engineers and that we're well positioned to apply AI to the clients' needs as they make their websites, apps and customer interfaces to incorporate AI. We are also applying AI to our own processes with products like profit that read news releases, Paris cresting over analyze its focus groups and smart assets and help sort out content directed to where it's likely to be most effective Fourth, we will continue to streamline operations, both the back office in our offerings. We are significantly offshoring our finance and other services and applying AI to tasks by region and in putting hundreds of thousands of media bills we receive each year. In addition to launching our own survey research panel, we will also consolidate production of scaled content to a central operation reducing outside production bills by an estimated $20 million to $30 million over the next 18 months, all the major agencies within our group for partnering on this, and we expect it to be operational by midyear.

第三，我們正在實施積極的人工智慧數據和媒體策略。我們正在建立解決方案，幫助我們的機構和客戶透過三年的人工智慧支援在營運、效率、行銷以及與消費者的互動等方面進行轉型。我們已經建立了私有GPTI。為我們的機構和客戶提供利用先進人工智慧的環境，而無需將其資料放入公共領域。我們將繼續採用這種方法，並且我們已經與一家大型國內辦公用品零售商簽約進入我們的平台，在數據方面將開發身份解決方案。Stagwell ID 圖包含全球數億人的信息，為我們現有資料湖的頂部提供了動力。該解決方案將提供消費者訊息，以微調我們所有網站上的所有績效和行銷活動。我們希望收購或建立媒體鏈的最後一英里，以便我們的產品從策劃、定位和受眾創建到投放和媒體，我們將更多地從按服務收費轉向按效果定價。隨著我們的媒體業務不斷增長和現場客戶規模不斷擴大，這將導致利潤率不斷擴大並保證客戶的投資回報率，請記住，超過十分之一的Stagwell 員工是工程師，我們完全有能力將人工智慧應用於客戶的業務他們在製作網站、應用程式和客戶介面時需要融入人工智慧。我們也將人工智慧應用到我們自己的流程中，產品包括閱讀新聞稿的利潤，巴黎頂峰分析其焦點小組和智慧資產，並幫助整理出可能最有效的內容第四，我們將繼續簡化運營，都是我們產品中的後台。我們正在大力外包我們的金融和其他服務，並將人工智慧應用於按地區執行的任務，並投入我們每年收到的數十萬份媒體帳單。除了啟動我們自己的調查研究小組外，我們還將把規模化內容的製作整合到一個中央營運部門，預計在未來18 個月內減少外部製作費用2000 萬至3000 萬美元，我們集團內的所有主要機構都​​在合作我們預計它將在年中投入運營。

In conclusion, I want to reiterate our excitement and confidence to 2024. We believe we're set up for a return to profitable organic net revenue growth in 2024, in line with the guidance I outlined earlier, thanks to a multitude of factors, the abatement of the headwinds that weighed on the industry in 2023, combined with outstanding new business trends, continued momentum in our Marketing Cloud products and what we expect to be a record-breaking political cycle as well as our prudent steps to manage costs, strengthen our services and expand geographics. We expect to return to outperforming legacy competitors in 2024.

最後，我想重申我們對 2024 年的興奮和信心。我們相信，由於多種因素、2023 年對該行業造成壓力的不利因素的減弱以及突出的新業務趨勢、我們的營銷雲產品的持續發展勢頭、我們預計將出現破紀錄的政治週期，以及我們在管理成本、加強服務和擴大地域方面所採取的審慎措施。我們預計到 2024 年將重新超越傳統競爭對手。

But now I'll hand things over to Frank Lee Rudow, our Chief Financial Officer, to walk you through some of our financial results more detail.

但現在我將把事情交給我們的財務長 Frank Lee Rudow，讓您更詳細地了解我們的一些財務表現。

Thank you, Mark. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our fourth quarter and full year results. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question after the prepared remarks conclude, please feel free to submit them through the chat function. Our 2023 results were significantly impacted by the combination of prevailing macroeconomic conditions, multiple industry-specific events and the cyclic AMP election year impact on our advocacy business. When comparing our net revenues to the most recent nonelection year in 2021, our net revenues on a like-for-like basis increased 5% for the full year when we discuss our Q3 results a few months ago, market closed for about in line with this in the fourth quarter, there were indications that the macroeconomic and industry specific challenges experienced throughout the year were beginning to abate. For the quarter. We reported revenue of $655 million, a decline of 8% as compared to the same period in the prior year. Net revenue, excluding pass-through costs, declined 6% for the same period to $551 million, but importantly, increased sequentially from $535 million in Q3. We also observed additional positive trends developing over the year. Throughout 23, we saw our largest customers, invest in their relationship with our agencies. Top 100 customers in 2023 grew to 48% of total net revenue. For the full year, this group of customers increased our year-over-year net revenues by 7%. This growth was more pronounced among our top 10 customers, which drove an 11% increase in our year over year. These companies are among the most recognized brands in the world leaders in technology, business services, consumer and transportation. The growth resulted from both increased spending on existing projects as well as the addition of several new assignments examining the revenue kit by capability.

謝謝你，馬克。大家早安，感謝您加入我們討論我們的第四季和全年業績。提醒一下，如果您在準備好的發言結束後想提出問題，請隨時透過聊天功能提交。我們 2023 年的業績受到當前宏觀經濟狀況、多個行業特定事件以及週期性 AMP 選舉年對我們宣傳業務的影響的顯著影響。將我們的淨收入與 2021 年最近的非選舉年進行比較時，當我們幾個月前討論第三季度業績時，我們全年的淨收入同比增長了 5%，市場收盤價約為在第四季度，有跡象表明全年經歷的宏觀經濟和行業特定挑戰開始減弱。對於本季。我們的營收為 6.55 億美元，比去年同期下降 8%。淨收入（不包括轉嫁成本）同期下降 6%，至 5.51 億美元，但重要的是，淨收入較第三季的 5.35 億美元環比增長。我們也觀察到一年中出現的其他正面趨勢。在整個 23 年間，我們看到我們最大的客戶投資於他們與我們代理商的關係。2023 年前 100 名客戶佔總淨收入的比例將成長至 48%。全年來看，這群客戶使我們的淨收入年增了 7%。這種成長在我們的前 10 名客戶中更為明顯，這推動了我們的同比成長 11%。這些公司是科技、商業服務、消費和運輸領域全球領導者中最受認可的品牌。這一增長源於現有項目支出的增加以及按能力檢查收入工具包的幾項新任務的增加。

The fourth quarter marked the turning point for both our digital transformation and consumer insights businesses after bottoming in the third quarter. While headwinds have not completely dissipated for the capability, the year-over-year decline in net revenue was significantly smaller in the fourth quarter than it had been in the prior quarters during the year. In Q4, digital transformation delivered $133 million in net revenue, a decline of 9% year over year. For the full year, net revenue was $529 million, representing a year-over-year decline of 15%, excluding advocacy, which is in an off election cycle year. The capability declined a much smaller 3% for the quarter. This is a significant improvement compared to the 17% decline in revenue in the third quarter. The sequential ex advocacy improvement was driven by technology customers, which began putting dollars to work with our digital transformation agencies. This gives us optimism that digital transformation will return to growth in 2024 for consumer insights and strategy reported $52 million in net revenue in the fourth quarter, a decline of 3% year over year. For the full year, net revenue declined 4% to $199 million. The writers of the Actors Guild strike had a residual impact on this capability running over into the fourth quarter, but we were still able to post sequential improvement overall for the quarter, the decline of 3% in the fourth quarter is a meaningful improvement over the 9% decline in Q3, providing more optimism that the trend is reversing outside of the media and entertainment verticals. The capability performed well in 23, posting 6% growth, led by gains in automotive, consumer products and transportation performance. Media and data reported $75 million in net revenue for the quarter, an increase of 1% over the prior period. The nonrecurrence of a large automotive media placement weighed on the growth during the quarter, despite the full year's net revenue increased 5% to $285 million. Creativity & Communications delivered $235 million in net revenue in the fourth quarter, a decline of 6% over the prior year. Excluding advocacy, the net revenue decline was 5% for the full year, excuse me, for the full year, creativity and communications posted $936 million in net revenue, a decline of 3%. Excluding efficacy, the decline was only 2%. Capability was impacted by several factors in the quarter, including the aftereffects of strikes on our auto customers and macroeconomic uncertainty weighing on some of our Retail and Technology Stagwell Marketing Cloud group delivered $55 million in net revenue in the fourth quarter, representing a 6% decrease over the prior comparable period. $45 million of this net revenue came from our advanced media platforms group and approximately $10 million was derived from our software platform products. For the full year SMCG. delivered $198 million in net revenue representing a 31% increase over 2022 suite of software products continues to be a key strategic investment priority for us. For the full year, we increased our investment in this product group by $20 million over the prior year. International delivered 17% of our consolidated net revenue for 23 and grew 13% for the full year, led by particularly strong growth of 17% in India and 5% in Asia Pacific. Management has taken decisive actions in response to the persistent pressure on revenue during the year. In the fourth quarter, we took additional steps to align our staffing costs with trending revenue, eliminating $16 million of annualized salaries and bringing our full year annualized actions to $98 million our headcount exiting the year was 4% lower than at the beginning of the year. Our actions have resulted in a reduction in the staff cost ratio to 64.3% in Q4 from 60 point-- 67% at the end of first quarter, an improvement of 270 basis. And we continue to monitor closely, of course, carefully as we transition to increasing revenues in 2024.

第四季是我們數位轉型和消費者洞察業務繼第三季觸底之後的轉捩點。儘管該能力的不利因素尚未完全消散，但第四季淨收入的年減幅明顯小於今年前幾季。第四季度，數位轉型帶來淨收入 1.33 億美元，年減 9%。全年淨收入為 5.29 億美元，年減 15%，不包括宣傳活動，因為該年正處於非選舉週期。本季該能力下降了 3%，幅度也小得多。與第三季營收下降 17% 相比，這是一個顯著的改善。連續的前宣傳改進是由技術客戶推動的，他們開始投入資金與我們的數位轉型機構合作。這讓我們樂觀地認為，數位轉型將在 2024 年恢復成長，因為消費者洞察和策略報告第四季淨收入為 5,200 萬美元，年減 3%。全年淨收入下降 4% 至 1.99 億美元。演員工會的編劇罷工對這一能力產生了殘餘影響，一直持續到第四季度，但我們仍然能夠在本季度整體上實現環比改善，第四季度3% 的下降比上一季度的下降是一個有意義的進步。第三季下降 9%，這讓人們更加樂觀地認為媒體和娛樂垂直領域之外的趨勢正在逆轉。在汽車、消費品和運輸業績成長的帶動下，該能力在 23 年表現良好，成長了 6%。媒體和數據報告稱，該季度淨收入為 7,500 萬美元，較上一季成長 1%。儘管全年淨收入成長 5% 至 2.85 億美元，但大型汽車媒體投放的不再出現對該季度的成長造成了壓力。創意與傳播第四季淨收入為 2.35 億美元，較上年同期下降 6%。不包括宣傳，全年淨收入下降了 5%，請問，全年創意和傳播淨收入為 9.36 億美元，下降了 3%。剔除療效後，下降幅度僅2%。本季的能力受到多種因素的影響，包括汽車客戶罷工的後果以及宏觀經濟的不確定性給我們的一些零售和技術部門帶來壓力Stagwell Marketing Cloud 團隊在第四季度實現了5500 萬美元的淨收入，下降了6%與上一可比期間相比。其中 4500 萬美元的淨收入來自我們的先進媒體平台集團，約 1000 萬美元來自我們的軟體平台產品。全年 SMCG。交付了 1.98 億美元的淨收入，比 2022 年軟體產品套件成長了 31%，這仍然是我們的關鍵策略投資重點。全年我們對該產品組的投資比前一年增加了 2,000 萬美元。國際業務佔 23 年合併淨收入的 17%，全年成長 13%，其中印度成長 17%，亞太地區成長 5%，成長尤其強勁。管理階層已採取果斷行動應對年內持續的收入壓力。第四季度，我們採取了額外措施，使員工成本與收入趨勢保持一致，取消了1600 萬美元的年化工資，並將全年年化行動達到9800 萬美元，今年的員工人數比年初減少了4 % 。我們的行動使員工成本率從第一季末的 60 個百分點降至第四季的 64.3%，提高了 270 個基點。當然，隨著我們在 2024 年向增加收入過渡，我們將繼續密切關注。

General and administrative costs accounted for 18% of net revenue in the fourth quarter. This is an improvement of 60 basis points versus the first quarter as we took steps to lower discretionary spend. Noteworthy specifics include real estate consolidation, which has been a significant priority for us since the merger in 2023, we realized an additional $4 million of annualized savings, bringing the total annualized savings from real estate actions to more than $7 million since the merger. The implementation of our global ERP and HR systems is now nearly complete. Our focus is now shifting to consolidating our agencies finance organizations to our shared services platform based on actions taken throughout 23, more than $4 million of annualized savings have been realized through the submission. And the HR team has taken further steps to reduce costs by consolidating resources where appropriate and recruiting the implementation of a new global applicant tracking system has reduce recruiting costs by more than $2.5 million year over year. The totality of our action has led to Q4 adjusted EBITDA of $95 million or 17% margin on net revenue. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $360 million, also at a margin of 17% as I mentioned previously, we continue to make strategic investments in the strat rubber Marketing Cloud. Excluding the incremental $20 million of investment in 2023, our full year adjusted EBITDA margin would have been approximately 130 basis points higher or approximately 18% during the quarter. We also sold Concentra life, which was no longer core strategic asset in our portfolio. Gross proceeds from the transaction were $245 million. Adjusting for transaction costs, we received approximately $230 million in cash, resulting in a taxable gain of $175 million. The amount reported in our year-end financial statements is lower than the taxable gain as a result of the approximately $100 million of non-cash goodwill relief from the balance sheet in connection with the sale. As a result of our collection of actions in the fourth quarter, we generated consolidated net income of $46 million as compared to a net loss of $43 million in the prior year. For the full year, consolidated net income came to $42 million versus $50 million in 2022.

第四季一般和管理成本佔淨收入的 18%。由於我們採取措施降低可自由支配支出，這比第一季提高了 60 個基點。值得注意的細節包括房地產整合，自2023 年合併以來，這一直是我們的一個重要優先事項，我們實現了額外的年化節省400 萬美元，使自合併以來房地產行動的年化節省總額超過700 萬美元。我們的全球 ERP 和 HR 系統的實施現已接近完成。我們的重點現在轉向根據 23 年採取的行動將我們的機構財務組織整合到我們的共享服務平台上，透過提交已實現了超過 400 萬美元的年度節省。人力資源團隊已採取進一步措施，透過在適當的情況下整合資源和招聘來降低成本，實施新的全球申請人追蹤系統使招聘成本比去年同期減少了超過 250 萬美元。我們採取的全部行動使第四季度調整後 EBITDA 達到 9,500 萬美元，即淨收入利潤率 17%。全年調整後 EBITDA 為 3.6 億美元，利潤率為 17%，正如我之前提到的，我們繼續對 strat Rubber Marketing Cloud 進行策略性投資。如果不包括 2023 年新增的 2,000 萬美元投資，本季全年調整後 EBITDA 利潤率將高出約 130 個基點，約 18%。我們也賣出了 Concentra life，它不再是我們投資組合中的核心策略資產。此次交易的總收益為 2.45 億美元。調整交易成本後，我們收到了約 2.3 億美元的現金，產生了 1.75 億美元的應稅收益。我們年終財務報表中所報告的金額低於應稅收益，這是由於與出售相關的資產負債表中約 1 億美元的非現金商譽減免所致。由於我們在第四季採取的一系列行動，我們產生了 4,600 萬美元的綜合淨利潤，而上一年的淨虧損為 4,300 萬美元。全年綜合淨利為 4,200 萬美元，而 2022 年為 5,000 萬美元。

And moving to the balance sheet, we continue to take actions to improve the strength of the long-term balance sheet. Starting with deferred acquisition consideration. We reduced obligations by approximately $60 million from year year-end 2022 to $101 million at the end of 23. Excluding the impact of our recently announced acquisitions, the year-end debt balance would have been $97 million in line with what we communicated previously. We are now on track to reduce our debt obligations to approximately $40 million by the end of 2024. We also acquired 3.3 million shares during the quarter at an average price of $5.21 per share for approximately $17 million This brings our total buyback activity year-to-date, inclusive of the AlpInvest transaction announced on our first quarter call to approximately $209 million, representing approximately33 million shares at an average price of $6.30. Our existing buyback authorization as of year end has $139 million in remaining availability, CapEx and capitalized software for the quarter was $11 million, bringing our full year CapEx and capitalized software to $42 million, which is in line with our guidance. As a result, we ended the quarter end year with cash of $120 million and drawings under our revolver $59 million, our leverage ratio at year-end was 2.9 times.

轉向資產負債表，我們繼續採取行動提高長期資產負債表的實力。從遞延收購考慮開始。我們從 2022 年底減少了約 6,000 萬美元的債務，至 23 年底為 1.01 億美元。排除我們最近宣布的收購的影響，年終債務餘額將為 9700 萬美元，與我們先前溝通的情況一致。目前，我們預計在 2024 年底前將債務減少至約 4,000 萬美元。我們也以每股5.21 美元的平均價格在本季收購了330 萬股股票，收購價格約1,700 萬美元，這使得我們年初至今的回購活動總額（包括第一季電話會議上宣布的AlpInvest 交易）達到約2.09 億美元，相當於約 3,300 萬股，平均價格為 6.30 美元。截至年底，我們現有的回購授權剩餘可用性為1.39 億美元，本季資本支出和資本化軟體為1,100 萬美元，使我們全年資本支出和資本化軟體達到4,200 萬美元，符合我們的指導。結果，我們在季末時擁有 1.2 億美元的現金和 5,900 萬美元的提款，年底的槓桿率為 2.9 倍。

And finally, moving to 2024 guidance. As highlighted by Mark in his remarks, we are guiding to full year 2024 as follows. Organic net revenue growth is expected to be between 5% to 7%. Organic net revenue, excluding advocacy growth, is expected to be 4% to 5%. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $400 million to $450 million. We expect to deliver approximately 50% free cash flow conversion and adjusted earnings per share is expected to be between $0.75 and $0.88.

最後，轉向 2024 年指引。正如 Mark 在演講中所強調的那樣，我們對 2024 年全年的指導如下。有機淨收入成長預計在 5% 至 7% 之間。有機淨收入（不包括宣傳成長）預計為 4% 至 5%。調整後的 EBITDA 預計在 4 億至 4.5 億美元之間。我們預計將實現約 50% 的自由現金流轉換，調整後每股收益預計在 0.75 美元至 0.88 美元之間。

That concludes our prepared remarks for this morning. I will now turn the call back over to Ben Allison to open the Q&A portion of the call.

我們今天早上準備好的演講到此結束。我現在將把電話轉回本艾利森，以開始電話的問答部分。

Thank you, Frank. If you have any questions, please do submit them via the chat button at the top of the screen that we're going to start today with a question from Steve kale. Steve Steve has asked here. We've seen cool creative slow at some of the some of your peers, was that part of the Q4 trend that results in growth and EBITDA coming a little bit below expectations.

謝謝你，弗蘭克。如果您有任何疑問，請透過螢幕頂部的聊天按鈕提交，今天我們將從 Steve Kale 提出的問題開始。史蒂夫 史蒂夫在這裡問。我們看到一些同業的創意緩慢，這是第四季度趨勢的一部分，導致成長和 EBITDA 略低於預期。

And I think that is that a lot of our core creative tends to be a little bit more project oriented. So I think that it can ebb and flow are they in or more easily than some of the others. I was generally satisfied with the performance of the core creative given the overall marketplace. And I think that if you look then a lot of stuff pushed into this year because I think we have a really strong.

我認為我們的許多核心創意往往更加以專案為導向。所以我認為，如果他們比其他一些人更容易或更容易潮起潮落。考慮到整個市場，我對核心創意的表現整體感到滿意。我認為，如果你看的話，今年會推出很多東西，因為我認為我們非常強大。

Yes.

是的。

Our next question from MasterCard, which over at benchmark.

我們的下一個問題來自萬事達卡，它在基準測試中就超過了。

And can you provide a bit of an update on your big tech client spending and has the visibility here improved a little bit this year?

您能否提供有關大型科技客戶支出的一些最新資訊？今年這裡的可見度是否有所提高？

I think we're saying fintech is up. I think that we really saw this dramatic, but back to beginning of last year that extended through the year. I think in the fourth quarter, as I said, I thought it would take about two quarters to see recovery. I think we have one tech company really where we are expanded almost 50% to 100% without even without even a pitch. Some of the companies that have cut back and gone into zero. So I'm not going to say that they're back to a full spend, but I think that they are and sugar we started to ease up and we saw that start happening in the fourth quarter, and I expect that to continue into the into the first quarter.

我認為我們是在說金融科技已經崛起。我認為我們確實看到了這種戲劇性的情況，但要追溯到去年年初，一直持續到這一年。我認為在第四季度，正如我所說，我認為大約需要兩個季度才能看到復甦。我認為我們確實有一家科技公司，我們甚至在沒有推廣的情況下就擴張了近 50% 到 100%。一些公司已經削減開支並歸零。因此，我不會說他們已經恢復全額支出，但我認為他們已經恢復了全額支出，但我們開始放鬆支出，我們看到這種情況在第四季度開始發生，我預計這種情況將持續到進入第一季。

Look, I think that the work that they're going to need to get a working and coordinated and with their with their own consumers is going to be huge. I think you see it in companies introducing AI products and then having to pull back how much work is really going to be required in the digital transformation world ended that I think it's just a matter of time before those floodgates get open. I don't think they're appropriate yet. I'd be surprised if they didn't open up by midyear.

聽著，我認為他們需要與自己的消費者進行工作和協調，這將是巨大的工作。我認為你可以在引入人工智慧產品的公司中看到這一點，然後不得不撤回數位轉型世界中真正需要的工作量，我認為這些閘門打開只是時間問題。我認為他們還不合適。如果他們在年中之前不開業，我會感到驚訝。

And maybe playing off that. A question from Matt from Jason Kreyer over at Craig-Hallum. Can you just walk through some of the digital transformation trends we're seeing today and how that has played into guidance for the year.

也許會利用這一點。Craig-Hallum 的 Jason Kreyer 向 Matt 提出了一個問題。您能否簡要介紹我們今天看到的一些數位轉型趨勢以及這些趨勢如何影響今年的指導。

AIMEI. as I. look, I think that this is going from the year of efficiency where I think the tech companies, our managed to recover their bottom line very strongly by cutting back what they're doing into what is a year of competition. I think nobody owns the cloud anymore. I think nobody and I think the two biggest things out there now are going to severely active competition, and that means the big tech companies are going to have to invest in both their own products and in the marketing of those products and winning over consumers.

艾美。在我看來，我認為這是從效率年開始的，我認為科技公司透過削減他們正在做的事情進入競爭的一年，成功地恢復了他們的利潤。我認為沒有人再擁有雲端了。我認為沒有人，而且我認為現在兩個最大的事情會發生激烈的競爭，這意味著大型科技公司將不得不投資自己的產品以及這些產品的營銷並贏得消費者。

Maybe on the a question of Jeff Van Sinderen of B. Riley. Can you speak more about your AI initiatives for 2024 and where you expect to gain the most traction? Maybe touch a little bit of margin contribution that collection.

也許是關於 B. Riley 的 Jeff Van Sinderen 的問題。您能否多談談您在 2024 年的人工智慧計畫以及您期望在哪些方面獲得最大的關注？也許會觸及該集合的一點利潤貢獻。

Look, I think ultimately the most traction will be in developing AI applications for our client. I think you have to look at every website and say is it doing the best job ever that it can do given a.

看，我認為最終最大的吸引力將是為我們的客戶開發人工智慧應用程式。我認為你必須查看每個網站並說它是否在給定的情況下做得最好。

I look at some of the things we're doing, where people were going to say something like, wow, I want to hold an office party or I want to hold an earnings, tell me all the things I need. So rather than having to go specify everything, AI is going to figure that out for you, it's going to transform the shopping and communication experience that people have. I think that is going to be the biggest area and our biggest area of weakness over this year, which has been the digital transformation coming by the digital transformation industry saw weakness across the board and a lot of the players here. I think that's going to fill up with these kinds of assignments. Obviously, we're incorporating in our products, profit, Quest guy, and obviously, we are looking to simplify our own internal procedures and even down to like the reading of all the hundreds of thousands of bills that come in is an AI. So it is at all levels. But I think the biggest thing is that is there out there virtually every company is going to get organized now figure out how is it going to apply, particularly to the last mile, how you communicate with your consumer.

我看看我們正在做的一些事情，人們會說，哇，我想舉辦一個辦公室聚會，或者我想持有收益，告訴我我需要的所有東西。因此，人工智慧不必指定所有內容，而是會為你解決這個問題，它將改變人們的購物和溝通體驗。我認為這將是今年最大的領域，也是我們最大的弱點，數位轉型產業的數位轉型全面疲軟，這裡的許多參與者都出現了弱點。我認為這將充滿此類任務。顯然，我們正在將我們的產品、利潤、Quest人員納入其中，顯然，我們正在尋求簡化我們自己的內部程序，甚至讓人工智慧來讀取所有數​​十萬張帳單。各個層面都是如此。但我認為最重要的是，幾乎每家公司現在都會組織起來，弄清楚如何應用它，特別是在最後一英里，如何與消費者溝通。

Great. And just pivoting to advocacy for second question about advocacy spend it last week at TV broadcast to put the Trump campaign using the funds for legal fees versus appetite and you see 2020 for political ad spend at risk versus price?

偉大的。轉向第二個問題，上週在電視廣播中，川普競選團隊將這些資金用於法律費用與胃口，您認為 2020 年政治廣告支出面臨風險與價格嗎？

I know I could, but I think that if anything, you can be sure this is going to be an all out slug fest of the highest possible dimensions and proportions the closer the country is and this is a very close country. The more political spending does to candidate because that very last vote determines the fate of the nation literally. So I think all indications are and are all early indications that that is going to be the strongest political cycle.

我知道我可以，但我認為，如果有的話，你可以確定這將是一場全面的戰鬥，其規模和比例越接近，國家就越接近，這是一個非常接近的國家。政治支出對候選人的影響越大，因為最後一票實際上決定了國家的命運。因此，我認為所有跡像都表明這將是最強勁的政治週期。

And maybe a question for Frank here.

也許這裡有一個問題想問弗蘭克。

Just a little bit. How should we think about Q1 seasonality relative to a year ago as baked into the guide?

只是一點點。我們該如何看待指南中相對於一年前的第一季季節性？

I think the overall pattern remains the same. I think of the actions, though that we have taken and particularly on the cost side, put us in a better position than perhaps last year entering the first which is generally the softest quarter of the year and maybe on the costs as well at Laura Martin, Needham says great year-over-year cost cutting in Q4.

我認為整體模式保持不變。我認為我們已經採取的行動，特別是在成本方面，使我們處於比去年更好的位置，進入第一個通常是一年中最疲軟的季度，也許勞拉·馬丁的成本也如此Needham 表示，第四季的成本較去年同期大幅削減。

How much more cost-cutting do you think you can achieve in 2024?

您認為 2024 年可以進一步削減多少成本？

I think we'll see more cost cutting. And Omar talked about the $35 million initiative that we have out there. So we're pursuing that. I mentioned in my script that we've nearly completed the rollout of the ERP systems and the big platform systems. Now we're going to start to move the organizations onto the shared service plan, which we expect to realize incremental savings from. So I think there is room for more savings here.

我認為我們會看到更多的成本削減。奧馬爾談到了我們的 3500 萬美元計劃。所以我們正在追求這一點。我在腳本中提到，我們已經幾乎完成了 ERP 系統和大平台系統的推出。現在我們將開始將組織轉移到共享服務計劃，我們希望從中實現增量節省。所以我認為這裡還有更多節省的空間。

But I don't think you have to look at savings just in terms of kind standard in our cutbacks, I think you look at the kind of inventive things that we're doing to save the application of AI internally, the creation of a new central production, right? That will that will greatly reduce internal production costs.

但我不認為你必須僅僅根據我們削減的標準來看待節省，我認為你應該看看我們正在做的創造性的事情，以節省內部人工智慧的應用，創造一個新的中央生產吧？這將大大降低內部生產成本。

The creation of a new survey panel, we spent $50 million on outside surveys to the ability to in-house and produce more of those basic cost of goods is really going to, I think, be very much behind the next phase of cost reduction as well as the kind of offshoring that we're doing for simplify tasks that people aren't in the office and find this will be in the office a long, long way to lower cost jurisdictions. So I think that we're going to apply all of those things to continue to drive cost down and what I believe is the cost declining industry.

創建一個新的調查小組，我們花費了 5000 萬美元進行外部調查，以了解內部和生產更多基本成本商品的能力，我認為，這確實會極大地支持下一階段的成本削減，因為以及我們正在做的那種離岸外包，以簡化人們不在辦公室的任務，並發現這將在辦公室中降低成本管轄區的很長一段路要走。因此，我認為我們將應用所有這些方法來繼續降低成本，我認為這就是成本下降的行業。

Couple of questions, just to wrap it up and first from an investor can management comment on any other noncore assets that might be for sale and what would be an approximate range of value for these assets?

有幾個問題，總結一下，首先，投資者可以對可能出售的任何其他非核心資產發表評論嗎？這些資產的大致價值範圍是多少？

I think we're looking, we're looking at a sale that I thought might take place by the end of the year that I think it's going to be later in the year, probably something like that a half or a little bit more than half the size of the last dispositions I have one or two others. I do think that we're going to continue to look at our portfolio, I'd say look at those things that are not and somewhere between $100 million and $200 million a year, say maybe we can better invest at a lower multiple and the areas that are core to us and also take advantage of the fact that we have an incredible platform and we've grown some amazing companies over time have spectacular values that aren't fully realized in the marketplace.

我想我們正在考慮，我們正在考慮一項銷售，我認為可能會在今年年底前進行，我認為這將在今年晚些時候進行，可能會比之前的一半或多一點點我還有另外一兩個配置，是上次配置的一半。我確實認為我們將繼續審視我們的投資組合，我會說看看那些不存在的東西，每年 1 億美元到 2 億美元之間，也許我們可以更好地以較低的倍數進行投資，我們的核心領域也利用了我們擁有一個令人難以置信的平台這一事實，隨著時間的推移，我們已經發展了一些令人驚嘆的公司，這些領域具有市場上尚未完全實現的驚人價值。

Great. And final question, and this is on guidance. We've had it from a few people from Boston over at Rosenblatt and from Steve at Wells Fargo.

偉大的。最後一個問題，這是關於指導的。我們從波士頓羅森布拉特的一些人和富國銀行的史蒂夫那裡得到了它。

Can you just talk a little bit about some of your learnings from the guidance process last year and they tend to what makes this year's guidance sufficiently derisked and you'll?

您能否簡單談談您從去年的指導過程中學到的一些經驗教訓以及這些經驗教訓使得今年的指導過程充分降低了風險，您會這樣做嗎？

Yes, well, look, I think we've heard you I think that's the first. Many of the moves that occurred in the marketplace were unprecedented. We've been doing this for eight years or so. And outside the pandemic, we haven't had a situation as we did. We say three major clients cut back $50 million of fees. So quickly, as you saw the year of efficiency come in. I think second, we have really cut costs, you know, significantly during the year a have significant additional goals, cutting costs. And I think we were coming off of that, a really strong heavy in 2022 that had really high or high levels of labor. And so and also, this is a political year and what we expect to be a political year. And we have hedged the budgets here to really tried to be prudent in the kind of projections that would make. So and finally, as I mentioned, we're informed by being able take a peek at the numbers coming in.

是的，好吧，聽著，我想我們已經聽到你的聲音了，我想這是第一個。市場上發生的許多舉措都是前所未有的。我們這樣做已經八年左右了。在大流行之外，我們還沒有遇到這樣的情況。我們說三個主要客戶削減了 5000 萬美元的費用。如此之快，正如您所看到的，效率之年到來了。我認為第二，我們確實削減了成本，你知道，這一年我們有顯著的額外目標，削減成本。我認為我們正在擺脫這種情況，2022 年的勞動力水準非常高或非常高。因此，今年是政治年，也是我們期望的政治年。我們已經對沖了預算，試圖在做出的預測中保持謹慎。最後，正如我所提到的，我們透過查看傳入的數字來了解情況。

And that's the end of the Q&A session from us.

我們的問答環節到此結束。

And thank you, Mark and Frank, and we hope you'll join us on the Q1 call coming up later this year.

謝謝馬克和弗蘭克，我們希望你們能參加今年稍後舉行的第一季電話會議。

Thank you.

謝謝。