Q1 2021 Computer Programs and Systems Inc Earnings Call
1021 earnings conference call.
During this call we may make statements regarding future operating plans expectations and performance that constitute forward looking statements made pursuant to the safe Harbor provisions of the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
We caution you that any such forward looking statements only reflect management expectations and predictions based upon currently available information and are not guarantees of future results or performance ash.
Actual results might differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements as a result of known and unknown risks uncertainties and other factors, including.
Including those described in our public releases and reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to our most recent annual report on form 10-K.
We also caution investors that the forward looking information provided in this call represents our outlook only as of this date and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements to reflect events or developments. After the date of this call.
At this time I will now turn the call over to Mr. Boyd Douglas President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead Sir.
Thank you drew good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us today.
After my comments I'll hand, the call over to Matt <unk>, Our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide additional color regarding our first quarter results.
And the conclusion of our prepared comments the two of US along with David <unk>, Our Chief growth Officer, and Chris Bauer, Our Chief operating officer will be available to take your questions.
I'd like to begin by sharing how much I am looking forward to the day when the COVID-19 pandemic and many ramifications and has created are behind us.
Until then I feel compelled to continue offering our appreciation for the tireless efforts of the health care providers and the communities we serve.
Community Hospital service, the epicenter of health care for their families friends and neighbors from miles around especially throughout the pandemic.
And with rural communities disproportionately at risk to COVID-19 due to their increased vulnerability. The January start of COVID-19 cases hit many of our customers, especially hard.
Shortly following and March efforts were focused on the initial rollout of the vaccination.
All told the first quarter of 2021 left our community customers and measure we affected as a result of this ongoing fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
I respect is stronger than ever and the proud we have and our partnerships across the country is unwavering.
The end of the first quarter of 2021 marks a strong start to the transformation underway at CBS.
As we began our journey executing on and aggressive yet attainable plan to increase shareholder return over the next three years.
As a reminder, there are three components to our plan.
Core growth.
And optimization and tangible upside growth through digital innovation.
Matt will provide more detail around our solid financial results from the first quarter. However, I would like to highlight a couple of key drivers that are directly related to core growth and margin optimization.
With a notable improvement and patient volumes across our true bridge client base true bridge achieved record quarterly revenue of $31 $6 million and more importantly increased revenue visibility and predictability with 90% of Cps saw total revenue now being recurring in nature.
Following the organizational realignment last quarter, we are leveraging 2021 to build the foundation necessary to realize meaningful cost savings.
And those building blocks are currently in flight and include automation of our revenue cycle services outsourcing through expanded partnerships that will help absorb work related to medical coding and accounts receivable management services, and finally diving deeply into our operations in order to eliminate waste and drive.
<unk>.
For example, our transformation management office has begun rolling out the lean processes and methodologies to help our employees to be more efficient and their job through training tools and ongoing evaluation.
Following extensive training from the Virginia Mission and Institute, a well respected organization across the world and a leader and the and applying process improvement and methodologies to the health care setting we began piloting some of these methodologies within our private pay and accounts receivable management services teams and the <unk>.
First quarter.
The results so far are promising as employees become empowered to improve how we do things always having the customer and mine whether that customers' internal or external.
In terms of automation, we have been investing and development resources dedicated to equipping our revenue cycle workforce with modern tools and processes to reduce labor intensive work.
Finally, and partnership with key outsourced Labor partners, we are making good progress and our effort to apply outsourced resources related to medical coding and accounts receivable management services for the emergency Department.
With these transformational changes underway within our operations, we expect to realize $1 million to $2 million and cost savings as we exit 2021 with significant momentum building throughout 2022, four and anticipated $7 million to $9 million and run rate savings.
With continued acceleration through 2023, we expect to drive a total run rate cost savings of 11 million to $15 million as we enter 2024.
Along with the return of a healthier revenue stream. These efforts contributed to an improved profitability this quarter with and adjusted EBITDA of 11, 8 million and non-GAAP earnings per share of <unk> 64.
Finally, and important initiative of our core growth plan is maintaining a healthy retention rate across our EHR base and the pursuit of conservative growth of new EHR clients as they are critical to driving cross sales of our true bridge services.
While our client retention rate for the first quarter remained within our goal of 95%. We are disappointed and our bookings performance that came in just under $9 million this quarter.
And as I mentioned earlier, the first quarter of 2021 brought and intensified pressure on our market as health care providers and decision makers address the more immediate needs of their communities due to COVID-19.
Understandably the unique environment created a first quarter and mostly stalled decisions. However, we continue to be encouraged by the healthy pipeline and the historical win rate that consistently trends in our favor.
While we can't predict the exact timing of when this pause and sales activity will fade. We are laser focused on making up this ground and achieving our annual bookings goals.
Shifting to our progress related to upside growth through digital innovation. The first quarter proved successful and our efforts to accelerate a culture of innovation necessary to thrive in that and the dynamic markets we serve.
And with a flatter organization, we have turned our attention toward improving employee engagement.
Accruing and creating an environment that sparks faster decision, making at.
As stated in our earlier releases, we have added two key senior leadership positions, including a chief people officer, and a chief Innovation Officer.
We are energized by the contributions that are modest and mccomas and west Cronkite will make on our path to growth through digital innovation.
To that and it is also worth mentioning that our company.
Roots remain in mobile, Alabama, However, we have moved our corporate headquarters to downtown mobile to foster a new mindset for innovation amongst our employees with fresh surroundings that encompasses a modern and open environment that is common in today's technology workplace.
We expect a significant portion of our employee base to continue to work remote or and a hybrid model post pandemic and therefore, our real estate strategy is twofold.
While decreasing our real estate footprint, we will look to renovate key regional offices over the coming months and years to generate and innovative spirit companywide.
With employee engagement at the heart of these initiatives, we will take a thoughtful approach to creating workplace environments, where ideas can be shared and bounced around while we also continue to introduce and implement tools systems and resources that support our goal of operating smarter and helping our customer tackle.
Obstacles.
With that I would like to turn the call over to Matt for a deeper dive into the financial results.
Thanks, Boyd and good afternoon, everyone on today's call and I'll provide a high level overview of the quarter, including some additional detail on bookings performance and a brief walk through our first quarter financial results.
As you heard from Boyd's opening remarks, the week decision environment led to bookings results that shouldn't distract from an overall successful quarter for <unk>.
Continued execution on our strategy of increasing sources of recurring revenues combined with improving patient volumes and efficiency gains led to a quarter that surpassed internal expectations on the top and bottom lines.
As we look to the rest of 2021, we see these two developments, namely bookings below expectations and true bridge patient volumes continuing to exceed expectations as effectively offsetting each other and as a result, there is no update to the guidance. We gave back in February as those range is still reflect our internal expectations.
Moving onto bookings total bookings for the first quarter of $8 $8 million were clearly disappointing as the pandemic attack bookings, creating stingy decision environment, the likes of which we can't recall seen before the.
And the early part of the quarter saw a severe uptick and COVID-19 cases, while the latter portion of the quarter. So our clients' facilities rightfully preoccupied with vaccine distribution efforts.
Many rural communities are effectively health care deserts with our hospital customers, serving as the loan oasis, making them critical to vaccination efforts and these communities.
As a result, we ended up with quarterly bookings that don't reflect the market's warmth and excitement for our products and services.
System sales and support bookings were down 45% sequentially and 38% from the first quarter of 2020, and the stingy net new decision environment simply didn't yield many decisions either for us or against us.
This same dynamic medical presence felt and our true bridge bookings as well, which were down 73% sequentially and 72% from the first quarter of 2020 with the decline in bookings from outside our EHR base outpacing declines from cross sell opportunities.
Including add on sales and subscription arrangements made up 31% of the first quarter's total EHR bookings as we continue our efforts towards driving recurring revenue growth through greater emphasis on our SaaS offerings throughout the sales process.
By steering more of our new business towards SaaS offerings, we're increasing the prevalence of recurring revenues within our top line mix, leading to enhanced predictability for revenues and cash flows.
Turning to the financial results for the period, the combined effects of shifting license mix dynamics, and our EHR business and the continuing improvement and patient volumes for true bridge customers resulted in rent recurring revenues, increasing 4% sequentially and 7% over the first quarter of 2020.
Recurring revenues for each of our acute care EHR post acute EHR and true bridge segments saw their third consecutive quarter of sequential gains ending the quarter at an all time high of 90% of total revenues compared to 88% and the fourth quarter of 2020, and 82% and the first quarter of 2020.
And this momentum and recurring revenues was enough to drive a modest sequential increase and total revenues, while the renewed emphasis on our SaaS solutions created significant headwinds when compared to the first quarter of 2020 with declines in non recurring revenues outpacing recurring revenue gains for a slight decrease in the year over year total revenue.
Line.
On the profitability front and the seasonal cost dynamics outpaced the sequential revenue increase, resulting and a half a million dollars or 4% sequential decrease in adjusted EBITDA, while non-GAAP net income increased $1 3 million or 17% as our effective tax rate normalized after an unusually high rate.
And in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Compared to the first quarter of 2020 efficiency gains led to margin improvement such that adjusted EBITDA was effectively flat. Despite the two 5% decrease and total revenue with EBITDA margins, improving nearly 40 basis points from 17% to 17, 4%.
Non-GAAP net income increased $600000 or 7% compared to the first quarter of last year, mostly due to improved interest expense, resulting from a more favorable rate environment, and a decrease and debt of over $30 million due to aggressive delevering over the trailing 12 months.
And looking deeper at our segments true bridge revenues increased 5% sequentially on continued improvement and patient volumes and our client hospitals with the related margins pulling and slightly to 50% compared to the fourth quarter's record 51%.
Compared to the first quarter of 2020, which was largely unaffected by the pandemic revenues increased $3 $1 million or nearly 11% driven by increased demand from our accounts receivable management medical coding and true bridge RCM offerings.
This solid execution on the top line was met with continuing efficiency gains across the spectrum of true Bridge service offerings propelling true bridges gross margin to a 280 basis point increase from the first quarter of 2020, 47% margin.
Next system sales and support revenues saw a slight sequential decrease as the $600000 or 11% decrease in non recurring revenues was partially offset by a $300000 or 1% increase and recurring revenues comp.
Compared to the first quarter of 2020 overall system sales and support revenues are down $4 8 million or 12% as our continued emphasis on our SaaS offerings in new customer decisions creates a challenging environment for non recurring revenues, which decreased $5 7 million or nearly 54%.
This decrease in year over year nonrecurring revenues should not distract from the gains we've made in two areas that are key to our long term growth strategy.
First acute care SaaS revenues increased 20% sequentially and 51% from the first quarter of 2020.
Testament to our focus on prioritizing, our SaaS offerings, and new customer conversations and successful attempts to convert existing customers to SaaS.
Second our post acute segment posted another modest two 6% sequential increase and recurring revenues its third consecutive quarter of recurring revenue growth. Following a period in which 11 of the previous 12 quarters posted sequential declines.
We view this as evidence that our efforts to revitalize our post acute offerings are being recognized and appreciated by the post acute market.
From a margin standpoint in the first quarter of 2021 gross margin of 52% was effectively flat sequentially, but mark for 270 basis point decrease from the first quarter of 2020 as the sharp decline in non recurring revenues has a severe impact on margins.
We currently anticipate five new client facilities going live with our thrive solution and the second quarter of 2021 with all expected to go live and a cloud or SaaS environment.
Moving onto operating expenses product development cost increased 2% or less and $200000 both sequentially and year over year, due mostly to expanded resources and slight changes and project mix impacting capitalization opportunities.
Sales and marketing costs were down $400000 or 6% sequentially as recent business transformation initiatives have led to a flattening of our sales organization lowering overall expenditures.
Compared to the first quarter of 2020, the aforementioned decrease and year over year nonrecurring revenues resulted in decreased commission costs that worked in tandem with the flattening of our sales organization and the continued impact of COVID-19 on sales travel, resulting in a cost reduction of $1 7 million or.
24%, while revenues were down only two 5%.
General and administrative costs increased $1 3 million or 11%, both sequentially and year over year due mostly to $2 1 million of severance costs associated with the reduction in force that we announced and our 8-K filing on February nine of this year.
Closing out the income statement, our effective tax rate during the quarter was 19% compared to 23% during the first quarter of 2020 with most of the decrease coming from more favorable tax consequences related to restricted stock vesting.
We continue to expect and effective tax rate of 18% to 19% for the remainder of the year normalized for discrete items.
Sure.
From a cash flow standpoint, operating cash flows of $13 $7 million March and 80% improvement over the first quarter of 2020, driving trailing 12 month operating cash flows to a record $55 million or 28% increase over trailing 12 month operating cash flows from a year ago that has allowance.
EPS side to reduce bank debt by over $30 million and the past year, while increasing balance sheet cash by nearly $14 million.
A little over three years ago, we set a capital allocation priority of right sizing our leverage profile setting a target leverage ratio of two five times debt to EBITDA that was achieved during 2019 and sensor past.
With the improved health of our balance sheet, coupled with robust cash generating capabilities Cps is poised to confidently deploy capital and opportunistic ways that enhance shareholder value and support our growth strategy.
In late 2020, our board authorized the first share repurchase program in company history, allowing for a maximum of $30 million of share repurchases to be executed over a two year timeframe.
At the same time, our board suspended our longstanding quarterly dividend and definitely all with the goal of optimizing flexibility as we pursue our multifaceted capital allocation strategy.
This strategy includes using value based stock repurchases, while maintaining abundant capital to continue to invest and our business and pursue attractive acquisitions that strengthen and broaden our market position using a disciplined approach to M&A that will be added into the organic growth plan that we unveiled in February.
During the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 12000 shares for approximately $350000 on the open market. While another 21000 shares were purchased to fund required tax withholdings related to restricted stock vesting.
Our primary rationale is to capture value from undervalued shares using the program as a flexible tool to enhance shareholder value and return capital and prudent.
And the cadence and volume of our repurchases will be influenced by a number of factors with valuation being cheap, but also considering capital needs and availability potential M&A cost of replacement capital and other capital allocation alternatives.
Capital allocation alternatives and priorities may evolve over time, so a lack of repurchase activity and a given quarter may not reflect our views on the intrinsic value of our stock.
To wrap up our prepared remarks, we clearly have some ground to make up and bookings, but we like what we're seeing and the sales pipeline and don't see the relatively dry first 90 days of 2021 as indicative of a prolonged sales drought.
Our bookings are comprised of a relatively low volume of high value deals and that kind of composition is naturally more prone to severe shocks when decisions are artificially suppressed when.
And the pace of decisions recovers from this COVID-19 induced shock, we fully expect renewed bookings success to amplify our growth trajectory as we continue on our path towards $80 million of EBITDA by 2024, and with that we'd like to open up the line for questions.
At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad and confirmation tone will indicate that your line is and the question queue. You May Press Star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue.
For participants using speaker equipment and may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys, one moment, please while we poll for questions.
Our first question is with Donald Hooker from Keybanc capital markets. Please proceed with your question.
Great Good morning.
And everyone.
Hey quick question you referenced.
My knee you all referenced bookings targets for the year.
And you referenced a healthy pipeline and I think we can all understand that the bookings and the quarter were challenged due to sort of macro conditions with COVID-19, but can you maybe elaborate on your reference to a bookings target for the year and sort of the healthy pipeline is there a way to put numbers to that.
Yes, Hi, Donald David Doll here.
Approximately were about $10 million behind as of the end of the quarter, where we want to be.
And as has been the both both stated in the prepared remarks. Our goal right now is to we've been saying internally is to get back to even par by the end of the year.
And the three month pipeline as we exited the first quarter was a good notice actually the best number that we've seen since September of 2019, and the last quarter of that year. The following quarter. It was a really good quarter from an execution standpoint, so we certainly hope to repeat that.
And we've gotten off to a fair start, but we still got room to go and the second quarter, but the <unk>.
Market is definitely picking up we're getting onsite meetings. The engagement is the vaccine rollout has slowed and obviously the surge is behind us hopefully for good and we certainly all hope that and the engagement levels have increased dramatically just over the course of the last couple of weeks. So we're hopeful that we're going to have a.
Good quarter, this quarter and get back some of that with the goal of getting it all back by the end of the year.
Superb.
And then in terms of can you help us think about I guess, you referenced the real estate strategy and it sounds like youre going to make some investments and capex in the coming quarters can you kind of update us on your view on free cash flow and Capex does that do anything to our models in terms of expectations there.
Yeah, So Don and I wouldn't expect anything material to come through on the Capex line Boyd mentioned that we recently moved our corporate headquarters from our our Wall Street campus and mobile to downtown mobile and Fortunately for US the location and we moved into was relatively turnkey. So there may be some remodeling costs painting the walls things like.
That but nothing nothing material and Thats kind of what we expect for the rest of our locations as well. So if I had to put a number on it and I'd say, it's probably for the year is going to be somewhere around $250000 yourselves and clearly not material compared to overall free cash flow.
Gotcha and then maybe last question for me I guess, what's sort of.
I guess some people are concerned about inflation.
Broadly and the US economy, and just wondering if <unk> seen any sort of wage or cost pressure and can you kind of give us some thoughts on and CPA sides pricing power across various products and services.
Yes speaking to pricing pressure at least for the resources that we consume which is mainly.
Or are people as the true <unk> line is very service intensive we really haven't seen any demand or any pressure on those wage levels, just yet, but it's definitely something that we keep an eye on to see what's happening and the macro trends is to a certain extent the geographies that we're in due tend to kind of lag.
<unk> behind them.
And kind of macro economy and total.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah.
Our next question is with George Hill from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.
Oh, Hi, Nexium for George Thanks for taking the question.
So last year, you guys talked about you need to solve what's the additional value for hospitals and switch to a subscription based model.
Could you give us some update on the progress on speeding up the transition.
And sorry can you repeat the question.
Yeah.
And you guys talked about you need to solve what's the additional value per hospital, just switch to a subscription based model.
And I was just wondering if you could give us some update on the progress on speeding up that transition.
Yes, I think.
Good question and Matt touched on it and his and his commentary and I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think it was.
And the SaaS.
THR revenue was up I believe 50% year over year from the from the prior period, which speaks to that progress.
Some of that is.
Some of the new sales and.
Installations that occurred in 2020 and going into 2021, a higher percentage of those have continued to be SaaS as opposed to the license model, but and in addition to that I believe we sold 18 and trust.
Subscriptions into our current customer base from 2020 as well so youre starting to see the fruits of that.
Flowing into the income statement as well.
And I think another thing to point out Matt said it in his prepared comments that all five of the installs for for second quarter, our SaaS as well.
Thanks, that's very helpful and maybe just a quick follow up could you give us some color on what you're seeing in the <unk>.
Cross sell true bleach.
Accounts receivable.
Accounts receivable management services I think last time, you mentioned you had around 10% penetration within our existing EHR base.
Yes.
Obviously that didnt improve a whole heck of a lot and the first quarter given the bookings performance, but the pipeline is certainly there to continue to do so again going back to entrust.
And that's a large part of our strategy there I mean, clearly the way we view the revenue cycle management space, both within our current customer base and outside of our EHR basis that were.
And it's extremely Underpenetrated, it's similar to the where the EHR market was in 2010.
Prior to meaningful use and we're positioned to capitalize on it so.
And we hope to do so and the pipeline supports that we just need to execute on that pipeline now.
Okay.
Our next question is what the Joy Zhang from SVP Leerink. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. Thank you for taking my question and just wanted to follow up on the bookings question and Alex asked earlier and you.
Can you provide more color on what you and assumptions are baked into your FY 'twenty one guidance.
For example, does the midpoint of guidance assume that similar booking levels as last year at that $20 million per quarter run rate Alright. There is some question around Bill day.
Yes, so the guidance we gave in February which we still feel kind of reflects our expectations for the year revenue wise I'd say that that's a fair assessment and that kind of 20 ish.
And on bookings on a quarterly basis, perhaps just modest very slight increase over 2020 levels.
That's very helpful.
And as a follow up.
I was wondering if you saw any uptick in small hospital M&A through the pandemic that would lead you to and assume a higher attrition risks or FY 'twenty one and.
And you mentioned that retention with 95% and line can you does your guidance for FY 'twenty, one and assume a similar level to that or would it be slightly lower.
Yes, Joy, we did not see a pick up and M&A activity with the community health care market I am sure a lot of that had to do with the with the government assistance that was provided as a result of the pandemic, we would say it's flat to down and.
And thats reflected in our retention rates.
Yes, and as far as the retention assumptions that went into our guidance.
2020 retention of 95%, we're expecting 2021 to follow it pretty close to that and we've been pretty encouraged by what we've seen so far into 2021 with the numbers actually trending slightly ahead of that but we do expect it to normalize back down to somewhere from 2020 levels by the end of the year So that 95.
5% retention is kind of what we're peg and as our.
Our goal for 2021.
That's super helpful. Thank you very much.
Our next question is with gene Manheimer with Dougherty and company. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks, gentlemen, and congrats on the good quarter.
With respect to the true bridge bookings in the quarter when when do you generally see that convert to revenue as they are generally three to six month lag between between those bookings and revenue rec.
Yes, gene so youre hidden it nearly spot on and kind of a three to six month lag between ink on paper for the contract and when we get the customer up and running on Rev. Rec. So I know when we model it internally and is generally either a one or two quarter lag.
Probably more and more consistently a two quarter lag between when the bookings hit and when revenue begins.
Okay perfect and.
And with respect to your your longer term goal for EBITDA of $80 million.
And I'm, just trying to get a sense for.
How much of that will be driven by margin optimization as you call it versus organic growth and versus inorganic or acquired growth is there a way we should think about that.
Yes, Jim Boyd did a good job on the last call of laying out the details of how we expect to get to this $80 million.
And in EBITDA by 2024 and.
And the first thing to point out is that the expectation is that will all be organic now any any of our disciplined M&A contributions will be just additive to that $80 million number.
But as far as the margin that the cost margin optimization side, a and you avoid pointed out on the last call a $25 million.
Cost reduction as far as the impact to the margin margin impact and and the rest is just the incremental organic recurring revenue growth.
Great. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad.
Our next question is with Donald Hooker from Keybanc capital markets. Please proceed with your question.
Okay, Great and just a couple of follow ups, if you don't mind.
We have time here.
The gross margin and Trowbridge was was was very strong and I'm trying to sort of.
And I understand kind of how to think about that going forward my intuition is that.
Aside from synergies and cost efficiencies that margin might trend down over time to the extent you have more revenue cycle outsourcing business.
And my hunch, but can you update and but it sort of went the other direction over the past couple of quarters can you give us sort of an outlook for and the true bridge gross margins.
Yes, Donald a little bit of that comes from what the what the sales mix is so depending on if its accounts receivable management.
Coding or the early out business, obviously, that's a little bit more labor intensive and tentative it's going to pull the margin down if that mix is heavier on the true ridge RCM side, where we run at a higher margin more.
In line with your traditional software margins, we see a pickup there.
Boyd also referenced in his opening comments, our efforts to improve efficiencies through automation and some offshoring initiatives throughout the coming years.
So I would think that the margin that youre seeing right. Now is the is a good indicator of where we look to hold going forward as we as we see the bookings picked back up.
Okay. That's super helpful. And then I just I'd also love to hear with the with the balance sheet continually continuously improving.
Can you give us any kind of teasers and terms of what kind of acquisitions you might be looking at over time or are there areas. I know this can be asked of you every quarter, but a common question, but I'd love to hear.
Any kind of areas of interest that you guys might consider and then coming years. So on the M&A from.
Yes, Donald Boyd outlined this as well.
Last quarter and in his prepared remarks, and the strategy remains unchanged and is really a key function of.
Of our next 36 initiatives that we just want to be thoughtful and specifically.
And look at opportunities to drive true bridge growth via.
Via cross sales and new markets.
That's where our focus is.
Okay Super I'll leave you guys alone and thank you so much.
Net.
<unk> I'll just add on to that I think again and I said it last time, but I think it's worth repeating the value of our customer base is something that we're really feel there's a lot of untapped potential there both with the existing three rich services and then with <unk>.
Future M&A, so that's really kind of the driver.
Behind that and just kind of follow up on that question as well.
Operator are there any more questions.
We have reached the end of the question and answer session I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Douglas for closing remarks.
Thank you for your time. This morning, it was a pleasure sharing the solid start with made and our transformation. This first quarter, we believe wholeheartedly that our strategic plan. While aggressive is achievable. We will continue to apply a laser focus on the three components of our plan core growth margin optimization.
And the tangible upside growth through digital innovation with the objective to increase shareholder return over the next three years.
And while there is still plenty of work ahead of US we believe the progress we covered today has already begun to have a positive impact on our effectiveness efficiency and value delivered to our shareholders clients and employees.
Thanks, everyone for being on the call and have a great rest of your day.
This concludes today's conference you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.