APi Group Corporation (APG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

It's my pleasure to have up next APi Group, Russ Becker, CEO; and Adam Fee, Investor Relations. So thanks very much, both of you for being here.

Maybe start off with -- there was the financial update yesterday morning. It feels a long time ago now. But maybe just provide some summary of kind of main messages in that, how you see the current demand environment.

Yes. So the update yesterday announced that we came in above our guidance on revenue for the full year 2024 and at the midpoint, adjusted for a couple of million bucks of FX headwinds since we put our Q4 guide and also talked a little bit about 2025 and set our full year guide as it relates to the year upcoming. And we expect to come back to more normalized organic growth levels in the upcoming year after we annualize against our customer and project selection initiatives at this past 1.5 years or 2 years. So...

And on that point on the sort of project selection, I think investors sometimes were confused about how much was sort of deliberate versus customers moving things around, which with project activity can often happen. So maybe help us understand kind of is that pruning completely finished, number one? And then number two, how have you seen the customer pace of project completion and progress?

So I would say that the pruning efforts are really never over, Julian, I mean -- so we need to always be deliberate and purposeful in looking at our customers and where we're making money and where we're not making money. And I shared with one of our investors here not too long ago is that what I hope is that the disciplined effort that we've brought forward from a customer and project selection perspective stays at a heightened level, and it becomes more like business as usual. That being said, we kind of went through different buckets of pruning. So in our international business, we inherited a number of kind of poor-performing service and maintenance contracts that some of them we just couldn't get out of and we had to run the course and worked through that 3-year period. And so we feel like that's behind us. Our HVAC businesses, we were very purposeful in kind of reducing the project work and being more selective in the project work. We feel like that's behind us. Our Specialty Services segment had a little bit of both. They had some purposeful pruning in it, and they also faced some project and customer delays. I would say that as we've moved into 2025 and with some of those clients, we've become smarter about how we are anticipating the ramp-up of their work and being more realistic, and you could argue, maybe more conservative in how we're forecasting and planning that work so that we don't endure the same impact that we did over the course of this past year. And then even in our North American safety business was not immune to it. We have one particular fire Life Safety business that is more weighted towards project-related work. And in some niche -- some of their niche markets, they -- with the high interest rate environment that they were facing, they had less opportunity. And that was a headwind for our North American safety business. And we also had a large semiconductor project that was delayed that will kind of is pushing forward as we speak. So it's just -- some of that is just a confluence of things that came together simultaneously, but we feel like it's mostly behind us.

And do you feel that sort of customer confidence in initiating new projects and that type of thing? Like how has that changed or evolved from, say, 6 or 12 months ago? Or it feels very steady, that environment?

Well, I think you've heard me say this before, like end markets matter. And I think the end markets that we've predominantly chosen to play in remain really strong and have a lot of robust opportunities. I mean there's a lot of chatter, I think, with the new administration and what some of the policy shifts or changes could impact. But in general, we feel confident. Our project backlog is very strong as we move into this fiscal year. I think on a year-over-year basis, we're up 9% organically from last year as we move into 2025. So we feel really good about our coverage there. And our business is really in a good place as we move into this year.

Got it. And your point is that sort of pruning exercise, it's still happening, it always will, but it won't be a -- it's not a material headwind on the revenue this year?

That's correct.

And then what should investors expect from that specialty business. There's a realignment effort around HVAC. So kind of what should we expect for growth in that business? How should we think about the margin progression from here?

Well, I mean -- so from a growth perspective, like we have the same expectations for that business as we do for our Safety Services business. And we've been openly sharing with folks that we've guided our businesses to high single-digit organic growth in the inspection, service and monitoring piece of their business and low single-digit growth in projects component of their business. And our revenue mix today sits at 54% inspection, service and monitoring. So it kind of averages out to mid-single digits. And that's the expectation that we have for Specialty Services. As it relates to margin, we expect their margins to continue to expand and to grow. And that's where you'll see us potentially reviewing our portfolio of businesses in that segment and taking action as appropriate to make sure that we're continuing to expand the margins for the segment that are going to be more in alignment with our overarching goals. And as you know, we have an Investor Day coming up in May. Our guidance that we issued yesterday basically shows that we're going to achieve -- plan to achieve our 13% EBITDA margin target for 2025. And in May, we plan to share with the broader group, if you will, what that next target is and what that looks like and how we plan to get there. I didn't talk about the realignment. I think there's 2 things there [Audio Gap] into specialty. It sets the Safety Services segment up as more of a pure-play kind of services business, focused on fire, security and now elevator. And then the operational benefits we have is that our Specialty Services segment leader kind of came from an industrial HVAC space. And we feel that he will really enable and help our existing HVAC businesses kind of continue to improve their performance, and we feel like it's a better home for those businesses. So it's kind of a -- it's really -- it's a both and for us because it kind of cleans up safety, and it provides the operational support that we feel like our HVAC businesses need and will get from his leadership.

Got it. And what were kind of some of the main learnings in that HVAC piece that -- what are some of the course corrections that are taking place versus the prior strategy? Are there sort of 1 or 2 big things you'd focus on, I'd say, this is what we had to amend or adjust?

Well, I mean -- well, there's a few things that we have done. So I don't -- I guess you can put them in a lessons-learned bucket if you want to. But we basically took our HVAC businesses, put them on a common business system and have really started to amalgamate their shared service opportunities inside the business so that we can potentially streamline the SG&A inside those businesses. So to me, that's something that's a positive outcome on how we're looking at that business. And I think that for us, it's really just bringing that element of discipline around project selection. I mean, I hate to say it, but you can go out -- we could do an extra $200 million in revenue and project-related work if we really wanted to, but it's not going to be at our margin goals. We have a really nice, robust kind of service, maintenance, temperature controls business, which is what we consider the service side of that business. And in the core part of that business, it's probably pushing 50% of the total revenue, which means that the margins in the -- on the project side of it need to continue to improve. And that means that you have to be even more selective in the type of work that you're doing. And in the HVAC space, if you're not careful, you can get caught up. It's much more traditional. And the gross margins on some of that project work just aren't where we need them as an organization to be. So...

Got it. And you talked about HVAC a bunch. How do we think about the sort of strategies and exposure in the data center and power verticals?

Well, in the HVAC space, we have done data centers. Our business is more central, I guess, in the Midwest. We're not going to travel to Albuquerque, where Meta has a massive facility and chase a $400 million HVAC job. That's just not our business model. Our HVAC business is really -- it's less than 10% of our total revenue. So we do data center work, but most of our data center work is centered in the Midwest, and it's not a huge percentage of our overarching revenue. Now our Safety Services business, both internationally and domestically, we do a lot of data center work. We don't really -- I don't know off the top of my head what it is as a percentage of our overall revenue. We're planning on updating our end-market data for the Investor Day in May. Adam can maybe add some color to it. But we're doing a lot of work on both the kind of expansion side of it, but more importantly, on the inspection and service side of it. So like if you look at our business model, like we're doing project-related work, but we want to do project-related work that is supportive of our existing customers where we're doing inspection and service work. And our -- we're building our business really focused on inspection and service work. So you're not going to see us go out and grab $400 million contracts to -- in the data center space. You're just not going to see that. Do you want to add -- do you have anything to add?

No, I think you covered it well.

You should say that. I'm his boss. That's supposed to be funny. Technically, I'm not his boss, actually. So...

Inspection, service and monitoring...

We got to have fun with this stuff, people.

The -- so inspection, service monitoring, it's, as you said, Russ, it's like 54% today. As you've done the sort of reorganization of specialty, and I suppose you'll obviously address this at the Investor Day, but what's the right long-term ratio? Is it like 2/3 should be that type of activity within the overall business or...

Inspection, service and monitoring? Yes, i Mean, our goal, as it sits today, is we want 60% of our revenue to come from that. I mean we've been improving it like 1 percentage point a year over the last number of years. I mean, as the number gets bigger, it gets tougher to make that big of an impact. But we're going to drive until we get to 60%. When we get to 60%, we're going to move the goalpost, and then we'll be at 65%. And I mean -- and that's the way we're thinking about it. And I think it's the right way for us to be looking at our business long term.

I think the Elevated deal, I think it's been in the business, what, 9 -- well, yes, it's been in several quarters now. How has that been integrated? And I suppose, how quickly should we expect you to add on other elevator assets around it now you have that good core brand?

Well, our integration leader is sitting right down here in the front row. We have Anna Yang with us today. She's shadowing us, so she gets a chance to see what the investment community finds important in our business. I should get her up here and have her answer the question. But the reality of it is -- so Elevated, we're viewing Elevated as more of a platform for us to continue to build. We've said openly that we think that there's an opportunity for us to build that into a $1 billion business. And so the level of like actual integration is somewhat lower. We're putting them on our insurance programs and some things like that where we can take advantage of our buying power and our scale. But the idea is that we're going to grow around that business. We took one of our best up-and-coming business leaders and have kind of put him into a role as like the President of what we're calling APi Elevator, which Elevated sits in. And he'll bring kind of that APi mentality and APi culture to that business. I've been trying to level-set expectations around bolt-on M&A as it relates to the elevator space with folks because the reality is one of our gating criterias when we look at bolt-on M&A is, does the company that's going to receive that business have the capacity and the capability to integrate it. And Anna's job, from an integration perspective, is to be the quarterback, to be the facilitator, to be the coach, be the mentor and help the company integrate the business. And so like a realistic goal for us for this year is to buy one company, bolt it on and integrate it successfully without disrupting the business. And if we can do that, then we'll turn around and we'll go do another one. But I think the worst thing that we could do would be to go buy 2 or 3 and just say, "Here you go, game, good luck. And see you, Anna. We'll see you in a few months." And that would be probably a big mistake. And so want to do one, want to integrate it really well, and then we'll go -- and we'll move on and we'll do the next one. And we have lots of opportunity, and we already have a number of opportunities in our pipeline.

And how do you think about that mix with that industry? I know it's highly skilled, a lot of training for the technicians, a fair amount of unionized workforce, depending on the area. So how do you sort of navigate that labor element within -- as you get bigger in the elevator industry.

Well, I think that -- I don't view that as any different than our fire businesses or any other aspect of the company. I think, Julian, our purpose -- enduring purpose as a company is building great leaders. Our culture as an organization is centered on that purpose. And we have been on a journey of leader development since 2003. And those men and women that work in the field every day, we are investing in them as leaders as well and as human beings. And I think that's one of the things that differentiates us the most from our competitors and our peers in the industry. It shames me to -- it saddens me to say this, but the industry in general has left those men and women behind. And it's almost like the industry has looked at those folks like they're less than. And at APi, we look at them like they're greater than. And we think that making that investment in them will help us retain them and then becomes a recruiting tool for us to help bring additional people into our ranks. So I don't view the elevator space any different than the fire space. And in the elevator space, there's -- the decision to be union or nonunion is probably a little bit more distinct than other aspects of our business. We've chosen to be nonunion. And we think in this space, as it sits today that that's an advantage for us.

And when you look at the pool of potential targets in elevators, I understand it will be a very measured build-out, depends on the capacity of the platform to absorb new businesses. But do you see a very wide range of assets that have that sort of 20-plus percent EBITDA margin profile in that industry?

Are you asking me if you see that?

Yes.

Well, I would say that yes and no. I mean -- so we've seen businesses that are there, we've seen businesses that aren't there. When I feel like -- when we look at bolt-ons, and really, this doesn't just sit in the elevator space, the margin profile doesn't necessarily have to be at, like, say, 15% or higher for us to be interested in it. We have to see a path to 15% or higher. And one of my favorite stories is we bought a company by the name of Cogswell in Boston and from 3 siblings actually, and they -- all 3 still work for the company today. But when we bought the business, it was roughly a $25 million, 7% company. And today, it's 30% -- or $30 million at 15%. And that business has -- in that 15% has 3% corporate allocations to it. So it's really an 18% company. And this was over a 4-year period. So it's like not a very long period of time. And number one, like they're really good people in this business, like really good people in this business, and they bought into this inspection-first mindset. And when you have people that are open-minded to change and you get more disciplined in project selection and you start building a robust inspection and service business, like really good things can happen, and that's a perfect example.

Got it. And then we're, it feels like, many years into the Chubb integration. And I guess, sort of where do we sit today on that? How did you end up with that final sort of synergy run rate? What were some of the biggest kind of surprises along the way of that multiyear integration?

Yes. So -- well, I'll answer the math part of your question first because I'm really -- to me, I'm not focused on the math part of it anymore and focused on doing what's right by the business. But from a math perspective, we identified $125 million of what we're calling Chubb value capture. We are at $90 million at the end of the year. So we've got an additional $35 million with the majority of that happening -- will take place in 2025 with some trailing into 2026. But where my brain is at is like I'm like [Audio Gap] usual now. Like we have some restructuring that we're doing. We're consolidating some of our monitoring centers, where we've got a pretty good-sized integration effort going on in Benelux with the SK business in the existing Chubb business. Our leader there is doing a phenomenal job. And Fulco's listening. Thank you, Fulco. And -- but doing a great job. And -- but I'm just looking at it like it's business as usual, even though some of it's restructuring. Super happy with where we're at. I think November of '22, at our Investor Day, we shared that Chubb would be a 15% EBITDA business by 2025. We're on track to deliver that. So we feel really good about the trajectory and where that business is going. There's a lot of people that have contributed to that. Biggest surprise. I honestly can tell you that the biggest surprise was probably, for a company that was a public company for as long as it was, how far behind they were from a SOX compliance perspective. And we feel really good about where we're going to be at as it relates to material weaknesses, and no material weaknesses here at the end of this year as we finish up our audit and everything else. We feel really good about where we're at. I should feel really good. And -- but if there was one surprise, that was probably it. It's like, really? You've been a public company forever. So...

That's very clear.

Want to add anything?

No. That was -- I think that's the biggest area where we've had to really dig in and do a lot of work. And I think the team's done a good job getting this to a spot where, like Russ said, knock on wood, we're in a good spot and hopefully won't have any material weaknesses this year.

Good. And then when we think about the margin aspiration, it sounds like you're on track for that 13% EBITDA margin for the total company. You mentioned we've sort of been talking on and off about pruning and selectivity kind of all through the conversation. But for you to grow at that mid-single-digit-plus organic growth rate for the next 5 years, call it, is that possible with the current portfolio and just keep pushing the margins higher? Or do you -- is the risk -- let's say you aim for 15%, 16% margins. With the current end-market mix, is that possible without giving up a lot of market share?

We're taking market share every single day. So like when we talk about double-digit growth in inspection, obviously, some of that's price, but in general, we're taking market share. And so we're going to continue to take market share. And we got into a conversation, I think it was yesterday actually, at your peer's conference. And we were talking about like market share and like what location do you have the highest percentage of market share. And like even in Minneapolis, St. Paul, like I don't have the exact data on it, but Minneapolis, St. Paul, like we have less than 10% of the market. You know what I mean?

Yes.

And our competitor -- our biggest competitor in the market would have less than 10%. And so there's so much runway and there's so much opportunity for us to continue to take market share and expand our margins. And like I'll give a -- I know this guy is listening, but a special shout-out to David Dixon, who runs one of our businesses and his team. But like their our first company going back a number of years that got to 20% EBITDA margin. And I've got actually a funny story about that, but we don't have time based on your shot clock. And -- but we do have a -- funny story, but David, we said -- we reestablished a goal. And at the time, our goal was just to be a 10% business. And everybody was bitching, can't do it, can't do it, can't do it. And David not only got his business to 10%, then he just kept on going and got it to 20%. And all of a sudden, the draft came behind it. You know what I mean? It's like when Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile barrier. And so I mean the opportunity for us to continue to grow the business and expand our margins, like it's legitimate and it's real.

Is the expansion of SK and Chubb, and you just mentioned some consolidation in the Benelux region there. What's like to do non-U.S. M&A versus domestic? Again, it's been several years, 4 years -- call it, 4 to 5 years since SK and Chubb.

So it's just that the [Audio Gap] we're going to bolt it on to have the capacity to that. We feel like probably -- I mean big part of our international business is ready for that. And so we're actually actively looking at a number of bolt-on transactions in our international business as we speak. So we did one small one last year, first one and feel like there's opportunity for us to continue to expand on that. So we feel good about it.

Great. With that, we have to switch to audience response questions. So the first question is around current ownership of APi. [Voting]

I don't have a clicker. I could press Yes.

No. No, not allowed. 60% is no. Second question is around current perspectives towards the company. [Voting]

So generally, a positive bias. Third question is around sort of EPS growth versus the multi-industry average. [Voting]

So generally, sort of in line to above. Next question is around capital deployment. What should excess cash be used for? [Voting]

Now this will be an interesting one.

So almost all say small acquisitions. Next question is on the valuation. What PE multiple should API trade at? [Voting]

Julian, I'm going to say on the negative -- people who are negative on the stock that we should have had Adam talk more.

Next time. So generally, a sort of a slight discount to the market. And then sort of why does it deserve that discount? So instead of a premium, what's the biggest issue? [Voting]

So generally, organic growth. So with that, thank you so much, Russ and Adam, for being here.

Thank you.