Q4 2020 CRA International Inc Earnings Call
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Good day, everyone and welcome to Charles River Associates fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 conference call.
Today's call is being recorded today's release and prepared remarks from Cra's Chief Financial Officer are posted on the Investor Relations section of Cra's website at sea or AI Dot com.
With us today are <unk>, President and Chief Executive Officer, Paul Malley, Chief Financial Officer, Dan Mahoney, and Chief Corporate Development Officer, Chad Holmes at this time I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Mahoney for opening remarks. Please go ahead Dan.
Thank you, Rob and good morning, everyone.
Please note that the statements made during this conference call, including guidance on future revenue and non-GAAP EBITDA margin and any other statements concerning the future business operating results or financial condition of CRA, including those statements using the terms expect outlook or similar terms are forward looking statements as defined in section 21 of the exchange.
Jack.
Information contained in these forward looking statements is based on management's current expectations and isn't inherently uncertain.
Actual performance and results may differ materially from these those expressed or implied in these statements due to many important factors, including the extent and duration of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, what our financial condition and results of operations.
Information regarding these factors is included in today's release and in Cra's periodic reports, including our most recently filed annual report on form 10-K, and quarterly reports on form 10-Q filed with the SEC share.
<unk> undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statements. After the date of this call.
Additionally, we will refer to some non-GAAP financial measures and certain measures presented on a constant currency basis on this call.
Everyone is encouraged to refer to today's release and related CFO remarks for reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to their GAAP comparable measures and descriptions of the calculation of EBITDA and measures presented on a constant currency basis.
Let me now turn it over to Paul for his report Paul.
Thanks, Dan and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.
Theories fiscal 'twenty 'twenty topped a record setting fiscal 2019 as revenue increased by 13%. This growth was balanced across our lines of business with legal and regulatory expanding by 15% and management consulting increasing by 7%. This balance was also observed.
Graphically that's on.
North American operations grew 14% and our international operations increased by 7%. In addition, CRA continue to grow profits with non-GAAP net income earnings per diluted share and EBITDA growing by 8%, 11% and 15% respectively.
During the fourth quarter, we experienced strong demand across our portfolio of services is every practice grew year over year contributing to the firm's 15% year over year revenue growth. We also achieved double digit revenue growth across both our north American and <unk>.
National operations for the firm as a whole head count increased six 7% year over year and utilization reached 70% in the fourth quarter.
Most importantly, CRA is top line expansion during the fourth quarter resulted in profits growing faster than revenue as non-GAAP net income earnings per diluted share and EBITDA grew year over year by 20% to 23% and 24% respectively. Moreover.
The fourth quarter of fiscal 'twenty 'twenty marked our 20 <unk> consecutive quarter of year over year growth over this five year period theories revenue has grown by 70% with non-GAAP net income earnings per diluted share and EBITDA growing substantially faster.
At 165 per cent 205 per cent and 104% respectively.
I'd like to now spend a few minutes highlighting some of the services provided during the quarter within legal and regulatory our antitrust and competition economics practice grew revenue by double digits and recorded its highest quarterly revenue ever as M&A markets continue to rebound from pandemic low.
<unk> worldwide deal, making during the second half of 'twenty 'twenty increased by 90 per cent compared to the first half of the year and marks the strongest second half per deal, making since records began in 1980 against this backdrop CRA worked on transactions across a range of industries N G.
The AGA fees for example, during the fourth quarter colleagues from our European competition practice advised Uber on its acquisition of a majority stake in corner shop as it received unconditional approval from the Mexican antitrust agency. Additionally, our competition antitrust economist.
Work for our consumer products company and its defense against claims by competitors and a class of buyers that its contracts harmed competition and allowed the company to maintain monopoly power looking more broadly at the legal market total case filings continue to rebound after.
After year over year declines in Q2 and Q3.
Of 19, and 16% respectively total case filings in the fourth quarter were down only 4% year over year, focusing on a subset of litigation matters that more closely aligns with CRA services case filings actually increased by 2% during the.
Fourth quarter within the courtroom the number of total judgments during the fourth quarter were down approximately 14% relative to the fourth quarter of 2019 again this reflected improvement from the 34% year over year decline observed in Q3, but it continues to suggest.
The court rooms remain constrained in their ability to handle normal litigation case loads in light of these market conditions the performance of our legal and regulatory services during the fourth quarter is especially remarkable.
As previously noted every practice grew revenue year over year with our antitrust and competition economics financial economics, forensic services intellectual property labor and employment and risk investigations and analytics practices expanded by double digits.
The intellectually intellectual property practice advised on multiple high Stakes patent and trade secret matters, covering a broad range of industries, including Homeland Security financial services, Social media medical devices software and computer hardware on.
I P expert successfully testified in multiple trials during Q3 and Q4 ranging from all our virtual proceedings to live jury trials with Covid protocols, notably our CRA IP expert help secure a favorable damages verdict in a patent jewelry true.
While in the Eastern district of Texas involving voice activated smart speaker technology enabled by our cloud based artificial intelligence system and another matter involving a patented drug formulation. The court of appeals for the for the federal circuit affirmed $100 million of damages.
That was awarded by the jury upon the testimony of our CRA expert.
Our forensic services practice continues to experience strong demand from companies that need help responding to allegations of financial state and fraud cyber crime money laundering bribery and other types of misconduct for example in connection with allegations of a complex securities in it.
Counting fraud scheme at a publicly traded transportation company CRA has retained was.
To assess claims that the books and records had been force had been falsified in connection with cyber incident response needs. The forensic services practice was retained by a broad range of clients, including a global insurance broker a managed service provider and a national health care organization.
To contain and eradicate malware identify confidential data at risk and respond to clients and regulator request.
The practice is also increasingly being called upon to navigate crypto currency and other blockchain applications. As we investigate alleged misconduct for example, when an NFL football player claimed to have lost tens of millions of dollars by trading in crypto currencies. The practice was retained by the bank.
From C trustee to trace these crypto currency investment transactions in order to assess whether recoverable assets existed.
During the fourth quarter, the risk investigations and analytics and analytics team continued to build capacity and momentum executing several multi jurisdictional investigative assignments, we assisted our major Swiss bank in response to a multibillion dollar D O J Perea investigation.
<unk> and lawsuit related to securitization practices and conducted transaction related due diligence for underwriter underwriter's counsel related to both traditional and spec ipos net.
Next I'd like to turn to our management consulting services. Our life Sciences practice continues to lead the way recording double digit revenue growth year over year during the quarter CRA conducted a detailed physician segmentation project for European Pharma company to support its new drug launch.
Leveraging our expertise in market research CRA provided detailed insights into position traits attitudes and behaviors via air analytics team. These insights were subsequently transformed into key differentiators that determined that target segments and go to market plan for the.
New product on.
Our mayor Com practice is supporting our newly appointed CFO CEO and the board of a major European insurance company to renew their enterprise strategy aligning it with you we knew sustainability and ESG objectives, and reshape its portfolio to ensure value maximization for the long term.
Marathon continues to partner with the leadership team of a leading paper and packaging company on its annual review of portfolio strategy and priority setting. The ongoing relationship has resulted in leading business position and performance. During this turbulent time for the industry.
I'm grateful to all of my colleagues for their hard work as we helped our clients address their most important.
Important challenges, while adapting to a COVID-19 altered environment and still delivering strong financial results for the full year on a constant currency basis, we exceeded our revenue guidance of $498 million to $504 million and achieve the upper half.
Our non-GAAP EBITDA margin guidance range of nine 7% to 10.2% recapping, our fiscal 'twenty 'twenty financial performance revenue on a constant currency basis was $507 9 million consisting of $508 4 million.
On a reported result, less point 5 million adjustment for currency tailwind relative to fiscal 'twenty 19, full year, non-GAAP EBITDA and non-GAAP EBITDA margin were unchanged on a constant currency basis at $50.7 million.
And 10.0% respectively.
Our fiscal 'twenty 'twenty financial performance demonstrates our continued.
Success in the marketplace, we will look to build on our trend of broad based profitable growth in the years ahead for full year fiscal 'twenty 'twenty, one on a constant currency basis relative to fiscal 'twenty 'twenty, we expect revenue in the range of 530 million to 550 million.
And non-GAAP EBITDA margin in the range of 9.5% to 10.2%. While we are pleased with CRA strong performance in 2020, we remain mindful that short term challenges arising from uncertainties around global economic business health and political.
Additionally, can affect our business before I turn the call over to Chad and Dan I would like to provide a few thoughts on CRA is capital allocation philosophy CRA remains committed to maximize long term value per share through the prudent deployment of capital share given CRA strong cash flow.
<unk>, we expect to invest in the business for profitable growth, while simultaneously returning meaningful capital to our shareholders annually over the past five years, we have returned on average $25 million through a combination of share repurchases and dividend payments.
[noise] equals nearly 40% of our adjusted net cash from cash flows from operations.
Looking forward, we aim to increase this payout and return half of our adjusted net cash flow from operations to shareholders, while still investing in the growth of CRA with that I'll turn the call over to Chad and then Dan for a few additional comments chat.
Thanks, Paul.
Want to provide a few comments about our capital deployment during the quarter.
As Paul referenced against a challenging economic backdrop, CRA again generated strong cash flows for fiscal 'twenty 'twenty Cra's adjusted net cash provided by operating activities was $97 $1 million or 19, 1% for fiscal 'twenty 'twenty revenue on.
Adjusted net cash provided by operating activities was 57% higher than a year ago, driven primarily by the growth in our business and reduce SG&A spending.
Tying back to the five year period referenced earlier, we've seen our adjusted net cash provided by operations grow by 178% during.
During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, we spent $1 $4 million on capital expenditures as we completed our office build outs in New York Oakland Toronto in Zurich.
In total we spent $17 $1 million on capital expenditures for fiscal 'twenty 'twenty for.
For fiscal 'twenty 'twenty, one, we expect to spend less than $5 million on capital expenditures.
As Dan will describe in greater detail during the quarter, we repaid $38 million of our borrowings under our revolving line of credit to bring our outstanding debt to zero as we have ended in prior years, while our cash balance increased by $21 $6 million during the quarter.
To end the year at $45 $7 million, we also returned $6 $7 million of capital to our shareholders during the fourth quarter, consisting of $2 $1 million of dividend payments and $4 $6 million for share repurchases of approximately 91000 shares.
For the full year, we returned a total of $29 million to our shareholders through a combination of share repurchases and quarterly dividends demonstrating our confidence in our long term outlook and our commitment to returning capital to shareholders.
Supporting this view as announced on February 10th CRA as board of directors authorized an expansion to our existing share repurchase program of an additional $40 million in value of shares of common stock.
Just on Q1 share repurchase activity through yesterday March 3rd and reflecting this recent expansion we have approximately $41 million available under our share repurchase program.
And now I'll turn the call over to Dan for a few final comments Dan.
Thanks, Chad.
As a reminder, more expansive commentary on our financial results is available on the Investor Relations section of our website under prepared CFO remarks.
Before we get to questions. Let me provide a few additional metrics related to our performance in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020.
In terms of consultant head count we ended the year at 831, which consisted of 137 officers 471, other senior staff and 223 Junior staff. This represents a six 7% increase compared with the seven 779 consultant head count reported at the end of fiscal 2009.
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Non-GAAP selling general and administrative expenses, excluding the two 3% attributable to commissions to non.
Unemployed experts was 13, 9% of revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, compared with 18% a year ago. This quarter's ratio was positively impacted by the strong revenue for Q4 and effective management of our overhead.
Travel and entertainment expenses were significantly lower year over year, primarily due to ongoing travel restrictions in various jurisdictions and work from home policies continued.
Discretionary.
Surely manage risk and proactively mitigate the financial impacts related to the pandemic.
The effective tax rate for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 on a non-GAAP basis was 26, 2% compared with 22, 8% on a non-GAAP basis for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019.
The increased rate in the fourth quarter of 2020 was primarily attributable to a lower benefit arising from the accounting for stock based compensation.
Turning to the balance sheet.
DSO at the end of the fourth quarter was 102 days compared with 113 days at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2020.
DSO in the fourth quarter consisted of 73 days of billed and 29 days of Unbilled.
The company's liquidity remained strong totaling approximately $221 million when taking into account the available capacity on our recently expanded revolving line of credit and our cash balance.
Looking more closely at the components during the fourth quarter, we paid down $38 million on our revolving line of credit to bring the outstanding balance to zero at the end of Q4, we concluded the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 with $45 7 million.
Cash and cash equivalents with the majority residing internationally.
Lastly, I would like to provide a brief update on our internal control over financial reporting.
As discussed more fully in our 10-K, which we filed this morning. We are pleased to report that as of the end of fiscal 2020, we have remediated, our remaining internal control material weaknesses. The team worked hard to execute the remediation plan detailed in our fiscal 2019 10-K can we remain committed to maintaining effective internal control over financial.
On reporting.
That concludes our prepared remarks, we will now open the call for questions. Rob. Please go ahead.
We will be conducting a question and answer session if you'd like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad.
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For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys, one moment, please while we poll for questions.
Our first question comes from Andrew Nicholas with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, good morning.
You noted record revenue in the entire transplanted from the quarter and spoke to several key engagements, which is obviously great to hear I'm wondering if you could speak to project size is in that business right. Now would you say engagements are outsized relative to typical average is or was it pretty consistent with previous periods.
Good morning, Andrew on our antitrust and competition economics practice really had a fantastic year.
Quite frankly, working virtually and less than ideal conditions.
The practice enjoyed success both here in the United States and also abroad.
The average practice size during on average project size during the quarter was pretty consistent with what that practice has experienced in quarters past the antitrust and competition Economics average project size is typically larger on average than the company.
As a whole, but we did not see any kind of aberration in terms of size during Q4.
Got it. Thank you that's helpful.
And then SG&A was down pretty considerably compared to the prior year, both as a percentage of revenue and also on an absolute dollar basis. So with that in mind I was hoping you could speak to whether you expect any permanent changes to the cost structure post pandemic now that you have nearly a year on year about in this new environment.
And any thoughts on kind of where you think real estate and teeny span shake out in the long term and how that impacts how you think about the margin profile on the out years that'd be helpful.
Sure. Let me begin by first addressing fiscal 2021, we still believe for the majority of fiscal 'twenty 'twenty. One we will be worked from home.
Basically you're operating in a virtual environment, we hope towards the second half of fiscal 'twenty one to start resuming.
A bit of normalcy and our company operations, So returning back to a normal set SG&A.
For example, as we were in 2019 I still believe is probably you know 12 or so months out.
With that with that said, there's been a lot of learnings that have happened over the past 12 months and I think there are great opportunities for us to improve the efficiency of how we deliver corporate services to the company.
So I think there are opportunities for margin enhancement the exact level still remains to be seen but historically, we were running at SG&A, excluding performance payments at right around 18% of net revenue.
There's opportunities for a sizable reduction to that level going forward.
Yeah.
Great. Thank you and then and I wouldnt.
If you don't mind, one more follow up sure kind of tails off.
Your answer there, but just kind of thinking about 2021 from a macro perspective, obviously there are a million different factors that could impact performance, but just wondering kind of how you're thinking about the different macro drivers next year, whether it be M&A activity levels or you know the reopening of the court systems or you know more generally.
The overall economic backdrop, this year and how hot up on pumping your guidance. Thank you.
Yeah, I think you hit all of them. So our guidance does not assume a.
Another dip into the pandemic world in terms of a resurgence of high infection rates and a clue.
Closing down of the economy, we assume.
Basically business as usual during the first half being business during our 2020 pandemic here during the first half of 'twenty 'twenty, one with a planned return to the office during the second half of 'twenty. One so we're still gonna be virtual during that first half.
We are still expecting the courts to be rather backed up.
But hopefully that the resurgence that we see and M&A activity will continue there are a lot of positive signs to that both from a macro standpoint, and what we're observing on a micro deal basis.
Great. Thanks again thank.
Thank you Andrew.
Yeah.
Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Stankey with Barrington Research. Please proceed with your.
Question.
Good morning, good morning, Kevin.
I wanted to start off by looking back at 2020 here kind of really remarkable when you look at it that you actually came in near the high end of your original pre pandemic guidance for revenue.
Which clearly indicates that you had a lot of momentum coming into 2020 that you might have actually been able to exceed the original guidance, but you know any any thoughts on.
Kind of how how much.
On the pandemic slowed you down have you been able to measure that in any way in terms of the revenue impact and you know I'm trying to get a sense as to where you might have been able to end up.
Without.
Without all of this happening, but that might be difficult, but just wanted to kind of get your thoughts on that.
Yeah as always all the credit goes to my colleagues are really.
An extraordinary job on their part both by their ability to deliver exceptional services to clients in this virtual world and also by their ability to continue to generate new business opportunities and Uk's originations.
Yes, we entered 2020 with a great backlog, but without replenishing that backlog throughout the year and building on that you would not be able to deliver double digit revenue growth and even better profit growth.
As we have during Q4.
So truly an exceptional job.
We set out our guidance in 2020.
With cautious optimism that we may be able to surpass that we have the degree by which we could have surpassed that.
On a non pandemic world is really hard to ascertain there Kevin but we were clearly bullish.
As we enter 2020 and are really pleased with how the firm has delivered on those initial expectations.
Great.
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So as we think about the the EBITDA margin are non-GAAP EBITDA margin guidance for 2021, I know you said it will take maybe 12 months to get back to kind of more normalized.
SG&A levels in terms of travel on what have you, but what are we assuming how much are we assuming comes back in in 2021 relative to you know what what are you reduced run rate in 2020.
Yeah, I'm going to go back to singing the accolades on my colleagues because we basically did not see.
Our margin contraction during 2020.
And because we clearly saw lower utilizations lower productivity and thus higher cost of sales, but our consultants working with the corporate services side.
Our company, we're able to largely mitigate those higher cost of sales with our bottomline profitability remaining unchanged. So it was great team effort on that part the reason I raise both sides of that equation cost of sales and on SG&A because going forward.
It's really the combination of those two that will ultimately yield.
Yield what we think will be improved profitability.
In the years ahead on the cost of sales side, you know we are not operating optimally.
We reported a utilization.
70% during Q4 and as you know for several years. Prior we were operating our utilization levels in the mid seventies, so as utilization returns to more historical levels of productivity.
Productivity.
So will the gross margin.
That comes with that on the SG&A like the question that Andrew asked US. We believe there are opportunities for efficiency gains as we resume a more normal level of business activity. The exact levels I guess, there's still remain to be seen but wood.
Quite excited about our ability to expand margins towards the latter part of 'twenty, one and and entering fiscal 'twenty two.
Okay. What are you assuming in terms of.
How quickly utilization can come back.
As we move throughout.
2021.
Right now, we're just assuming a hopefully a gradual progression.
From Q1, all the way through to the end of the year.
Given the fact that our backlog doesn't give us visibility that.
That much more than three to six months out.
It is really very difficult and speculative to start estimating utilization say in Q3 or Q4.
But we're happy of where our project inventory sits on.
We're happy on the successes, we're having in the marketplace. So we have seen no reason to believe that we can't get.
Get back to historical levels of utilization it just may take.
You know 12 to 18 months or so to resume those to resume those levels.
Okay, alright that makes sense.
You know its interesting you your in the prepared comments.
You talked about completing office build outs in New York and elsewhere.
Net it's it's a little bit different from the commentary we've been hearing from another of other companies, who are really retrenching with their office space and exiting leases and what have you and so I just wanted to get your sense of how you view your real estate.
Did you longer term and in the culture of how that relates to your culture and if real estate is something you're contemplating in those savings you're talking about going forward or if you are planning to continue kind of on as you were pre pandemic.
I think throughout the pandemic, Kevin we've tried to be as clear as possible.
In stating that we believe we are better together, we are better when we are all in the office and we will return to the office when it is safe to do so.
On that view hasn't wavered as we've gone through and I know theres some articles on some people companies retrenching.
They're real estate, but I'm also happy to see that there's also several articles of you know other companies, stating and realizing the benefit of getting their people back under one roof.
I just don't know how you continue to build the fabric of an organization how you continue to grow organically.
Without being together, so we will resume our operations when possible hopefully in the second half of 'twenty, one the real estate savings will come because we're gonna be more fully utilizing the space as we continue to grow I believe in.
Weather was a call or two ago right now with the current build out our occupancy rate is right around 80% of our real estate portfolio.
So we believe there is quite a bit of room, there for us to grow without incurring additional real estate cost. So it's not that the dollars are we expect to decrease in the quarters and years ahead, but the percent of that expense relative to revenue we.
Do expect to decrease.
Okay, Great. That's helpful. I Lastly wanted to ask about.
Just the pipeline for talent in this environment if if.
You know the pandemic disruption as maybe created more opportunities for you to find talent and how you're thinking about hiring.
And adding to your talent as you move through 2020 one.
Yeah, you know throughout all my this Q&A in the prepared remarks has been sort of a celebration of the contribution of my colleagues.
And I'll begin by singing the accolades are Chad Holmes and his team for his ability to continue to recruit and really difficult challenges. The reasons CRA has been able to grow and grow consistently quarter after quarter year. After year is because we're able to.
<unk> top talent, we're able to retain top talent and develop that talent. So when you know very rarely are we filling holes associated with revenue departures I think that's a big part of our success.
We have added a key senior resources across the portfolio across legal and regulatory and on the management consulting side during 2020.
It is harder it is harder because we're doing all of this virtually there is no in person meetings. There is no in office meetings with these candidates. So the courtship is longer than we have experienced some pre pandemic, but I think it's pretty safe to say.
I feel comfortable in saying that the pipeline that we have for talent opportunities is as rich now as we have seen over the last several years.
Okay, great well congratulations on the very nice results in this environment. Thank you, Kevin I think pretty nice results in any environment, but I appreciate the comment [laughter] true very true. Thanks.
Our next question comes from the line of Marc Riddick with Sidoti and company. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning, Hey, Mark good morning.
So I wanted to pick up on a little bit on the commentary around returning capital.
Capital of shareholders would you you've been always kind of buttons on the robot for quite some time, but I wanted to sort of pick up a little bit on on on what you've mentioned in your prepared remarks, and maybe even some of the thought process behind that around.
The percentage that you mentioned on sort of how that's kind of.
Paul where or how we should thinking about well how you're looking at that.
Yeah.
Yeah, one of the comments and.
Maybe I'll ask Chad to interject as opposed to me flipping through my script here.
How much of our adjusted cash flow from operations grown in the last five years Chad.
Last five years it was the 178%.
So our revenue has grown approximately 70%.
And our adjusted cash flow from ops has grown 178%. So we are generating more cash from those same dollar low revenues today than we were five years ago.
And we think that cash provides us ample opportunity to still reinvest in the business, which has always been our top priority and increase the share on the take out to our shareholders going forward. So this is by no means is a retrenchment.
In our growth philosophy, and our value creation through that growth, but we just think the improvement in net cash flow yield provides us the opportunity to increase those distributions to our shareholders.
Okay. That's that's certainly encouraging and then I was wondering if you could touch a little bit on the.
On a competitive landscape that you're seeing a broad as opposed to you on the states and certainly encouraging to see that day.
The growth was broad based on.
Both geographically and service our offering was so I was wondering if you'd touch a little bit on maybe some of the trends that we're seeing outside of the states and maybe if there's anything that gives you confidence there.
Yeah.
No I think.
Our marketplace is filled with very competent.
Competent set of competitors. So we're having to work hard to achieve the results that we are achieving.
And what is nice is quarter after quarter, you know its almost gets to be a throwaway line. When we talk about broad based contributions.
But it is so true.
We our practice centric.
Our practices operate on a global basis, and we're seeing those practices enjoy success. Both here in the states and also abroad and that goes from our antitrust and competition practice through our life Sciences practice.
We're seeing them enjoy that success across both marketplace. Many of the same characteristics that we enjoyed in the market that we enjoyed during Q4 also applied in Europe M&A activity also saw improvement.
In Europe antitrust enforcement.
Enforcement has probably been a bit ahead of the United States in prior years.
Across the European Union there.
So there are many factors.
On that we're benefiting from here on the states also exist internationally.
And the.
You know the headwinds are really still all to do with the pandemic and a return to more normal business operations.
Okay. That's helpful. And then I was wondering if you could touch a little bit certainly.
It didn't even get the updates on maybe what you're seeing.
And what you experienced from a litigation standpoint.
Court filings and judge on activity and what have you I was wondering if you could touch a little bit on the.
Do you get a sense and this might be a bit anecdotal, but still we get a sense that the courts are coming a little more efficient with more time under their belt and dealing with the pandemic and I know you've made mention of a virtual activity and in some of the the the testimony that your debt you folks who've worked on I was wondering if your debt.
The sense that there's more.
You can see from the courts themselves.
Thank everyone I think the courts are really trying on that efficiency I can't say I have noticed a discernible change or an improvement on that front.
I do believe as the statistics bear out that the number of case filings seems to be steadily picking up.
And on the legal regulatory side, so we do see that demand growing.
But so far I can't say I have seen.
The court flow.
You know markedly improving.
Okay, and then I guess last last from me is at least right now I was sort of thinking about.
We've seen several things in the news that they kind of you know, especially since the year began around some of the cyber security challenges and and and and and and and.
Some of the things that maybe need some folks take a pause as to what.
What their needs are there and I was wondering if maybe you could discuss a little bit about what you're seeing and whether or not I mean, it's certainly seems that was already starting to begin with but I was just wondering if you got a sense of maybe.
Does the phone ringing more when you see these high profile breaches from alike.
Well clearly I phone has rang more given the financial results, we reported on and we're very appreciative of that but there's a lot of competition for those client dollars.
So that's why the reason I raised or are highlighted the appreciation to my colleagues because it's them.
On creating those business opportunities for our firm.
We're enjoying that inflow, but it is a very competitive market and.
And I think we are winning more than our share.
Share of those engagements.
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So it's it's wonderful when the phone rings and were retained on the spot but quite frankly.
That is not.
As commonplace as.
You know more of the traditional competitive.
Uh huh.
Inbound.
Well, certainly a strong way to finish it on what has been a challenging year all on on some certainly really appreciate that thank you.
No. Thank you. Thank you know it has definitely been a a challenging year, we're very pleased with our financial results our shareholders deserve nothing less and you know I think with the guidance, we provided and the anecdotal evidence that we have seen we're quite bullish about how we're in.
During 2021, so again, thanks to everyone for joining US today. We appreciate your time and interest in CRA will be participating in virtual meetings with investors in the coming weeks and months and we look forward to updating you on our progress on our first quarter call be safe.
Thank you and that concludes today's call.
This concludes today's conference you may disconnect your lines at this time and we thank you for your participation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.