Q4 2021 CRA International Inc Earnings Call
Good day, everyone and welcome to Charles River Associates fourth quarter and fiscal year 2021 conference call.
Please note that today's call is being recorded.
Company's earnings 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 Cra's, 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, Dan. Please go ahead.
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 Act.
Information contained in these forward looking statements is based on management's current expectations and is inherently uncertain actual performance and results may differ materially from 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 on our financial condition and results of operations.
Additional 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.
CRA 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.
We have also provided certain quarter over quarter percentage changes on an adjusted basis to show those changes as if Q4 of 2020, which had 14 weeks included the same number of weeks as Q4 of 2021 , which had 13 weeks and reflects a pro rata reduction equal to one week of Q4 'twenty 'twenty results.
I will now turn it over to Paul for his report Paul.
Thanks, Dan and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today theories fiscal 2021 topped a record setting fiscal 'twenty 'twenty as revenue increased by 11% to $565 $9 million.
<unk> on this revenue growth CRA also posted record profits as non-GAAP net income earnings per diluted share and EBITDA grew 57%, 64% and 35% respectively compared with fiscal 2020 Cra's revenue.
Growth was balanced geographically as both our North American and international operations increased by 11% or expansion was led by legal and regulatory services, which grew by 19% year over year six practices, specifically, our antitrust and competition economics energy.
Financial economics, intellectual property labor and employment and risk investigations and analytics practices delivered double digit revenue growth.
For the fourth quarter reported revenue declined one 9% compared with the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, as Dan just mentioned when considering.
Year over year growth.
Oh rates. It is important to note that the fourth quarter of fiscal 'twenty 'twenty contained one more weak than the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 after making a one week pro rata adjustment to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, Cra's revenue expanded by 6% in the fourth quarter.
Fiscal 2021 demonstrating the continued expansion of our business, leading the way with double digit revenue growth, where our antitrust and competition economics energy and risk investigation and analytics practices.
For the firm as a whole head count increased three 6% year over year and utilization reached 72% for the fourth quarter Cra's fourth quarter topline expansion. Once again resulted in profits increasing faster than revenue non-GAAP net income increased 15%.
Earnings per diluted share increased 20% and EBIT grew 9% year over year I would now like to spend a few minutes highlighting some of the services provided during the fourth quarter within legal and regulatory.
Our competition, our antitrust and competition economics practice recorded its second highest quarterly revenue ever as M&A markets remained strong worldwide transaction activity reached one and a half trillion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2021, marking the sixth consecutive quarter to surpass.
One trillion dollars of deal activity and ranking as the second largest quarter for worldwide M&A activity against this backdrop CRA worked on transactions across a range of industries and geographies for example, during the fourth quarter.
Our CRA team presented economic analysis to the Federal Trade Commission and support of a third party concerned about the effects of the Lockheed Martin's proposed $4 $4 billion acquisition of Aerojet Rocketdyne.
Would have on the innovation in prices if permitted to proceed this merger would have eliminated the last independent provider of propulsion.
Critical input for guided missiles produced by Lockheed and other defense Prime contractors. The theory team developed and presented to the FTC a vertical merger simulation model a bit.
Competitions for defense and other industries that quantified the foreclosure effects of the combination on January 25th 2022, the Federal Trade Commission voted four to zero to challenge the acquisition and three weeks later Lockheed Martin a band in the merger.
Additionally, colleagues from our European competition practice advised Microsoft and nuance on Microsoft $19 7 billion dollar acquisition of nuance a global provider of speech recognition AI for the health care sector. The European Commission investigated the horizontal overlap between.
The parties and transcription software several vertical and conglomerate links between the parties products as well as whether access to new wants data would allow Microsoft did distort competition to the detriment of competing health care software providers on December 20, <unk> 2021 the European <unk>.
Emission unconditionally cleared the acquisition concluding that none of those theories of harm raised competition concerns.
Looking more broadly at the legal market trends and activity levels.
<unk> levels were mixed total case filings during the fourth quarter of 2021 were down 9% year over year, which was an acceleration relative to the year over year decline of 3% observed in Q3 within the courtroom. The number of total court judgments during the fourth quarter was up 1%.
Relative to the fourth quarter of 2020, this reflected a significant slowdown from the approximately 20% year over year increase observed in Q3 in light of these market conditions. The performance of our legal regulatory services during the fourth quarter is especially noteworthy the group is.
Expanding by 3% year over year or 11% after adjusting for the extra week in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020.
In addition to their merger related.
Merger review work theorize antitrust and competition economics practice continued to support clients in the context of legal disputes during the fourth quarter CRA experts were retained by private parties and regulators on a variety of antitrust investigations, including matters addressing price fixing manure.
Optimization and merger related claims these projects have touch industries as wide ranging as high Tech Entertainment transportation and food and agriculture.
Within our labor and employment practice CRA provided statistical review and analysis of employee interchange associated with ongoing petitions in front of the National Labor Relations board to establish location specific collective bargaining units and another matter CRA assisted in the review and <unk>.
Reconciliation of four years of payroll and time, keeping data to assess unpaid regular rate overtime premium payments, and California meal and risk premium payments related to our recent California Supreme Court decision theories calculation, where the basis of individual employee paint.
And the settlement of the alleged class action matter.
In addition to this important client work I'm also extremely excited about the announcement, we made earlier this week regarding Cra's acquisition of Welch consulting at a time when issues a fair treatment in the workplace are receiving more attention. This transaction approximately doubled the size of our labor in them.
Floyd in practice as Welch consulting has averaged $15 million of annual revenue over the past three years. The wet consulting team consists of approximately 45 consulting and corporate colleagues, who share cra's cultural commitment to exceptional client service on behalf of <unk>.
Everyone at CRA I want to extend a warm welcome to our new colleagues.
During the fourth quarter, the risk investigations and analytics practice executed a range of large multi disciplinary investigative assignments within the United States and abroad, including assisting outside counsel and an internal fraud investigation involving conflict of interest improper payments to come.
Management by the companies customers and vendors.
A team.
Data analysts forensic accountants, and digital and investigative staff collected and analyzed more than 10 years of financial data and conducted detailed transaction testing to identify the size and scope of the improper activity which results.
With results brief to the U S Department of Justice.
The practice also assisted plaintiffs' counsel in a complex theft of trade secrets matter spanning multi jurisdictions in Asia, Latin America, and the United States through the on ground deployment of investigative resources and the use of sophisticated analytic tools CRA help verify potential buyout.
<unk> of U S Court issued an injunction and provided political context and background to cancel regarding counterparties the risk investigations and analytics practice continues to establish itself as the go to provider of due diligence services for banks and Underwriter's counsel with respect to initial pulp.
Click offerings.
Within our management consulting offering the energy practice continued to grow its core business of advising to the energy industry as well as providing expert opinions in energy disputes. For example, the practice helped a European utility improve operations at its subsidiary in support of a carve out.
<unk> provided resource planning services for U S utility and provided testimony and a major case related to gas pipeline acquisition.
We also have expanded our offering to support our client and operational improvements at our major water distribution utility I'm grateful to all my colleagues for their hard work as we helped our clients address their most important challenges.
Recapping our record financial performance CRA reported revenue for fiscal 'twenty, 'twenty, one a $565 $9 million or $559 5 million on a constant currency basis. After adjusting for the $6 4 million of currency tailwind.
Full year, non-GAAP , EBITDA was $68 $4 million or $67 7 million on a constant currency basis. After adjusting for $7 million of currency tailwind non-GAAP EBITDA margin was unchanged on a constant currency basis.
At 12, 1%.
Our fiscal 2021 financial performance demonstrates our continued strength in the marketplace. We will look to build on our trend of broad based profitable growth in the years ahead.
For full year fiscal 2022 on a constant currency basis relative to fiscal 2021, we expect revenue in the range of 585 million to $605 million and non-GAAP EBITDA margin in the range of 10, 8% to 11.5.
5%, while we are pleased with CRA strong performance in 2021, we remain mindful that short term challenges arising from uncertainties around macroeconomic business public health and political conditions can affect our business before I turn the call over to Chad and Dan I would like to.
Highlight one final item earlier.
Earlier today CRA published its inaugural sustainability report this.
<unk> report formalize the Cra's ESG framework and describes our efforts across four key areas employee empowerment community Advancement ESG Advisory services and environmental stewardship I encourage you to review this report, which is now which is now on our website.
And I look forward to providing updates on our progress with that I'll turn the call over to Chad and then Dan for a few additional comments.
Chad.
Thanks, Paul Hello, everyone I want to update you on our capital deployment initiatives during the quarter.
CRA once again generated strong cash flows for fiscal 2021 cra's adjusted net cash provided by operating activities was $106 million or 17, 8% of fiscal 2021 revenues.
Demonstrating our commitment to value, creating growth our fiscal 2021 adjusted net cash provided by operating activities was 4% higher than a year ago and it has increased 59% over the past three years and 85% over the past five years.
The fourth quarter of 2021 saw cash outlays of $4 $9 million for forgivable loans in connection with talent investments. We also spent $900000 on capital expenditures, bringing the full year amounts to $2 $6 million for fiscal 2022.
We expect to spend $5 million to $6 million on capital expenditures.
We returned $7 $4 million of capital to our shareholders during the fourth quarter, consisting of $2 $4 million of dividend payments and $5 billion for share repurchases of approximately 51000 shares for the full year. We returned a total of $53 million to our shares.
Holders through a combination of share repurchases and quarterly dividends. This represents 53% of CRA is 2021 adjusted net cash flows from operations and exceeds our previously stated aim of returning half of our adjusted cash flows from operations to shareholders.
During the quarter, we also repaid $6 million of our borrowings under our revolving line of credit to bring our year end outstanding debt to zero as we have typically done in prior years, our cash balance increased during the quarter by $46 $5 million to end the year at $66 $1 million we.
Continue to have confidence in our long term outlook as we look to invest in the business for profitable growth, while simultaneously returning meaningful capital to our shareholders. Furthermore, as announced on February seven Cra's Board of directors authorized an expansion to our existing share repurchase program of an additional 20 million.
In value of shares of our common stock with this expansion, we have approximately $55 million available under our share repurchase program.
With that I'll turn the call over to Dan for a few final comments.
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 2021.
In terms of consultant head count we ended the year at 861, which consisted of 140 officers 477, other senior staff and 244 Junior staff. This represents a three 6% increase compared with the 831 consultant head count reported at the end of fiscal 2020 non.
GAAP selling general and administrative expenses, excluding the 2.9% attributable to commissions to non employee experts was 16, 1% of revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 compared with 13, 9% a year ago. This quarter. This ratio was impacted primarily by an increase in travel and entertainment expenses.
For the full year of fiscal 2020 . One the ratio was 14, 2% compared with 15, 2% for full year fiscal 2020, we will continue to monitor our discretionary expenses to properly manage risk and proactively mitigate the financial impacts related to the pandemic.
The effective tax rate for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 one on a non-GAAP basis was 27, 4% compared with 26, 2% on a non-GAAP basis for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020.
The higher rate in the fourth quarter of 2020 , one was largely 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 101 days compared with 112 days at the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2021 DSO in the fourth quarter consisted of 70 days of billed and 31 days of Unbilled.
We concluded the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, with $66 $1 million in cash and cash equivalents and a further $178 million of available capacity on our line of credit for total liquidity of $236 $9 million.
That concludes our prepared remarks, we will now open the call for questions. Rob. Please go ahead.
Thank you at this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session.
You'd like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad.
Confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You May press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue.
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, Thank you for taking my questions.
The first one I wanted to ask you is just on the margin outlook for 2022, I was hoping you could kind of walk us through the puts and takes there how much of the year over year trend or contraction as a consequence of higher labor costs versus certain SG&A expenses coming back online post COVID-19 versus you know any.
Other factors worth calling out.
Oh fine good morning, Andrew.
So you're right there are a lot of factors impacting what goes into our EBIT guidance I would.
Just warn people to view the guidance range provided as a contraction.
For a couple of reasons one embedded in our EBITDA margin in any given year is a large noncash charge.
Charge called drive Forgivable loan amortization, so the actual cash profitability as I would describe it.
<unk> may differ from that portrayed as EBITDA margin when you add EBITDA margin to the forgivable loan amortization historically.
Our not forgivable loan amortization hovers around 6% in.
In 2022, we expect that to be roughly about 50 basis points higher as we have a number of talent investments coming online with expected performance awards and also in anticipation of.
Some additional talent investments that we have in our queue in the market.
The guidance range was 10 eight to 11, 5% I think if you take in consideration the forgivable loan amortization the difference year over year is negligible.
That's that's very helpful. Thank you I appreciate that.
I guess for my follow up I was hoping you could add a bit more color on the size of the current pipeline and how that's evolved over the past couple of months and then within that question Ali.
Also I was hoping you could speak to whether there's been any noticeable change in the size and length of projects, you're seeing added to the pipeline, particularly on the antitrust side I think one of the things that we're certainly watching or are we read about quite a bit is is some potential headwinds to large scale M&A.
And just wondering how youre thinking about that that dynamic within the project size dimension. Thank you.
Sure just one clarification question that I have since we were just talking about forgivable loan amortization and talent investments. When you use the term pipeline are you referring to our talent acquisitions.
Acquisitions are you, referring to lead flow and new project originations.
Yeah, My apologies that I I was switching switching topics altogether and you sort of I was referring to the ladder.
Okay great.
So we did see a slowdown in activity during Q4, our new project originations during Q4 were down roughly about 3.5% give or take in the second half of the year, we were up about 4% on new.
<unk> year over year and for the entire year 2021, we were up about 18%. So you can see we have been experiencing some headwind in the litigation marketplace.
I really believe that is tied to what we're observing in what we have shared with investors with respect to.
The legal market as a whole specifically the total case filings in the case decisions flowing through the court system.
We anticipate as omicron continues to subside and decline, we will see that pick up in activity.
As we get as we continue into 2022.
Yeah.
Great and with it and the last one I think you mentioned I'm, sorry on the M&A activity and the outlook.
We're all waiting to see exactly how all the various factors will impact global M&A activity. What I can tell you is to date, we haven't observed any slow down both in terms of the macro statistics.
Statistics that I quoted and in terms of the lead flow coming into CRA. Both here in the states and in Europe .
Our next question comes from Kevin Stankey with Barrington Research. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning.
One of the follow up just on the margin outlook for this year.
You know obviously, we are anticipating that.
SG&A expenses would continue to come back.
As the pandemic subsides and.
You know you had talked about maybe that SG&A, excluding commissions settling out at about a little over 16% of revenue and that's where it landed in the fourth quarter of 'twenty. One is that still a reasonable benchmark or level to think about.
For 2022, maybe that 16%.
Plus level for.
The rest of them.
Sure It is.
As you can imagine that first of all good morning, Kevin I'm, sorry about that.
As you can imagine the level of SG&A activity and specifically travels in incidentals has a lot to do with the state of our world as it relates to the pandemic.
So are we going to be returning to the office or our consultants.
<unk> going to be traveling more are the clients willing to accept.
Our consultants onto their premises if we reach more of what I would call a steady state exit from this pandemic and activity looks more similar to 2019 than it did in 2021, I would expect SG&A excluding performance payments.
To be in the range of about 15, and a half 216% of net revenue.
Alright, great.
Helpful.
And what you know what is kind of the.
The state of your consultant basis now in terms of.
Working from home versus returning to the office I think you've always taken the approach that your offices are open and if someone wants to come in but have you.
I suppose that hasn't necessarily happened recently with omicron, but.
What kind of do you anticipate or what trends are.
Do you think you'll see your or are you seeing in.
Is there some point, where you just you know you you want to just get everyone back into the office.
I think the biggest change that I can describe as say pre pandemic to what we hope to achieve.
Like here in the states as we will be.
Asking our colleagues to begin returning to the office at the beginning of April CRA is always afforded its consultants and our corporate team flexibility as to how they complete their work.
That I mean, the hours, they're keeping a wet the time, they're spending in the office versus at home or on the road at client sites, we've always afforded them that flexibility I think the one thing the pandemic has done as required us to be more explicit.
As to what we mean by flexibility, particularly with a company that has been as fast growing at CRA. Many of our colleagues don't have a long pre pandemic history to know what is the norm. So we are working on being more explicit.
With what we mean.
By flexible or a hybrid.
Type of situation. We are also working much harder on being explicit as to what are the benefits when people come to the office. If the only benefit you are providing to our colleagues when they come to the office as you have a new desk other than the one that you're home that's.
Not going to cut it in today's world. So you need to be more explicit as to the gathering of individuals' the sharing of an eye of ideas. The innovation process that happens when people get to interact.
In a more haphazard matter on it so all of these things are adjustments.
Now that we have in place and hopefully.
Make for more welcoming and productive office environment as my U S colleagues begin to return to the office beginning of April in Europe has been a bit ahead of us.
With respect to their return to the office, so they've been returning and larger numbers for the last say four to eight weeks.
Yeah.
Alright, that's helpful commentary and you know you talked last quarter.
Seeing some heightened vacation time, among consultants and that's not really something you can.
Control, but you know what are the trends you're seeing there.
I actually noticed a recent conference appearance, you're actually talking about maybe encouraging some vacation usage just given you know the separation between.
The office and you know.
Being at home and you know maybe that would be beneficial for consultants. So just any color commentary on that would be interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah. This has been a challenging two years with respect to forecasting activity not just revenue, but a lot of the inputs that go into the determination of revenue.
Vacation usage is clearly one of them you went from all time lows and vacation usage too in 2022 more all time highs during the second half of 'twenty one on vacation usage. The other thing we're trying to balance is the.
The so called you know the potential for increased attrition rates as people ponder their future on the return to the office on that so there's a lot of variables that are going into it.
The last thing I want is because we've been busy for such an extended period of time as my colleagues to feel they do not have the ability to take time off.
Because if that ends up being the feeling of our colleagues you're going to have the attrition increase.
<unk>, which is much more costly than higher than expected vacation usage. So it although we had a higher second half of 2021, I expect us to start.
You know going towards the pre pandemic mean on vacation usage I don't expect anything out of the ordinary in 2022.
We're also going to work hard to keep attrition rates in 2022 to be consistent with pre pandemic levels, which I should note in 2021 and for the year as a whole the aggregate attrition rate at CRA was consistent with rates observe.
And years prior to the beginning of the pandemic.
Okay got it and then.
Just lastly wanted to ask about the acquisition of Welch consulting in Europe .
You don't do too many acquisitions and just.
What attracted you to them and how did it come about and.
Roughly how many consultants doesn't Ed I know he said five at the VP level 45 staff total maybe metrics like revenue contribution or anything else that you could share would be helpful.
We've been admiring well its consulting for probably about 15 years now.
We have shared our admiration to.
Two Welsh.
To them at previous times, and tragically about a year and a half ago. The founder of Welch, a really brilliant man and great entrepreneur finest Welch passed away.
And there was a transition in place within that firm, we began talking to the principals.
At them, we shared a lot of the same sentiment we had shared previously.
And there started to be a meeting of the mines where they.
Agreed that CRA would be a.
A really productive home.
For that so we were honored.
That they selected CRA in this process, we welcomed 45 total employees joining us of that 40 of them are on the consulting side of the operation.
Okay. Thank you for taking the questions I appreciate it.
Thank you Kevin.
Our next question is from Marc Riddick with Sidoti and company. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning, everyone.
Mark.
So I wanted to continue on on that thread a bid in and thank you for the color on how a Welsh came to because quite frankly that was going to be my first question. So I wanted to follow up with that as to maybe how that is.
Is there sort of a general view of what you're seeing right now of the overall acquisition pipeline. That's what was what's your first purchase in about five years, and I'm sort of thinking through with.
You know emerging from the pandemic, whether the the acquisition pipeline for you it looks maybe a little different than it did maybe even six months or a year ago.
Sure again, I have nothing but accolades and excitement about the addition of Welch consulting.
To CRA.
The one qualification I want to make with I think both the statement that you made mark and also a statement that Kevin made.
Yes, CRA has not had a lot of what I would call a.
Formal accounting acquisitions.
Like we did for Welsh consulting like we did foresee one consulting but we are constantly in the market for revenue generating talent.
You know, sometimes they take the form.
Like they did and see one consulting in Welsh consulting, but a lot of times, they're individual recruits or group hires and we actually have had a number of those.
In the past half dozen years.
So we don't necessarily define the acquisition vehicle, we're just looking for top talent.
To join the CRA family.
So I think our pipeline is a talent opportunities is rather robust.
But as we shared with you.
During this pandemic.
The lead time and the courtship timeline has been longer.
During the pandemic just because of the difficulty of meeting in person for having broader groups to meet with with the prospective candidates has slowed.
So just the courtship period is a bit longer but the actual pipeline is as rich as we've ever seen it at cri.
Okay excellent and then I wanted to circle back to something you you made some comments around but I wanted to get a little bit more flavor around it the the pace of filings litigation.
Filings I was just sort of thinking through I think you've touched on it but I want to make sure I sort of interpreted this properly is that it seems as though there was some somewhat of a connection as far as that pace slowing down with the timing of the omicron Maryanne and and is there any reason to believe that.
There were any other factors other than just the the rise of demand and in sort of the impact that it had on society.
To the best of our ability in terms of reading all the tea leaves are reading the activity levels of our law firm clients are tracking mergers and second requests at the various commissions.
Looking at the performance of our peers.
I have not seen cra's performance to be out of line with what we are seeing thus I don't have evidence right now to say, we are losing market share that CRA has experience is an aberration relative to what we are observing.
And the market as a whole are if anything I do believe we've actually been increasing.
Our market share over the last several years, but it's something we're closely tracking.
You never want to take the easy road and just say all of these are market variables impacting your performance you have to be critical as to what is happening.
If it is omicron and the lack of in person activity that is impacting court activity, then we need to adjust as a firm to be more effective in operating in that environment, but to date I feel comfortable that we're doing the right things.
And that we are not falling behind the market as a whole.
Excellent and then the last question for me as I was sort of curious as to whether or not there are any particular practice areas that mi.
That you think have been accelerating a bit that maybe we haven't had the chance to talk about or highlight or maybe any particular spaces, where your your maybe a little more positive on currently given the current climate that there may be folks that might be a little under the radar for some of the folks like us. Thank you.
Yeah, I don't know, whether I would say any of them are under the radar, we do our best to try to highlight.
What I would call exceptional performance of parts of our unit.
You always have to begin and end with what the performance has been of our antitrust and competition economics practice.
They once the M&A marketplace.
Return to some level of normalcy during the second half of 2020, they really have been going like gangbusters.
So a lot of accolades go out.
Two our practice here in North America and over in Europe with that performance.
You know you have opportunities like we highlighted in labor.
When I say, we are always looking for investment opportunities for all parts of our portfolio, we mean it.
We mean it we loved.
The little Gem, we had in our labor practice at CRA and have been looking long and hard of how we can make that practice even stronger.
But this also demonstrates the commitment to only bring on the right.
The type of people into your organization bigger is not always better and you know our 15 year patience with the courtship of Welch pay.
Paid off.
As I've said previously I would love to have opportunities to continue to expand our energy practice I really think they are.
Under represented.
In scale in the marketplace.
And CRA can do a better job to support them with finding the right investment opportunities in Europe and in North America for that unit, but I don't have any what I would call information that I haven't either shared on this call are previously about our portfolio and growth.
<unk>.
Excellent. Thank you so much thank.
Thank you.
We've reached the end of the question and answer session. At this time I'd like to turn the call back over to management for closing comments.
Again, thanks to everyone for joining us today, we appreciate your time and interest in CRA, we will be participating in virtual meetings with investors in the coming months and who knows maybe in person meetings as well and we look forward to updating you on our progress on our first quarter call these safe and with that that.
Concludes today's call. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference you may disconnect your lines at this time and we thank you for your participation.