Q4 2022 Badger Infrastructure Solutions Ltd Earnings Call
Speaker 2: 2022 Fourth Quarter Results Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star-1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised.
Speaker 2: To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Trevor Carson, Vice President Investor Relations and Corporate Development.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Josh, and good morning everybody. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2022 earnings call. On the call with me this morning are Badger's President and CEO Rob Lachadar and Promote the TF, Badger's VP Finance and Interim CFO .
Speaker 3: The address of the 2022 fourth quarter earnings release, MD&A and financial statements were released after close yesterday and are available on the investor section of our website as well as on Twitter.
Speaker 3: We are required to note that some of the statements made today may contain forward-looking information. In fact, all statements made today which are not statements of historical fact are considered to be forward-looking statements.
Speaker 3: We make these forward looking statements based on certain assumptions that we consider to be reasonable. However, forward looking statements are always subject to certain risks and uncertainties and undue reliance should not be placed on them as actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied.
Speaker 3: For more information about material assumptions, risks, and uncertainties that may be relevant to such forward-looking statements, please refer to Badger's 2022 MD&A along with our 2022 AI. Thanks.
Speaker 3: Further, such statements be only as of today's date and badgers not undertake to update any such forward-looking information.
Speaker 3: I will now turn the call over to Robin.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Trevor. And good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter earnings call.
Speaker 4: As always, we would like to start the call with a health and safety update.
Speaker 4: We have managed through some extraordinary operating conditions over the past several years, but under all conditions, our operating practices have remained the same, focused on Badger's objective of putting our employees and customers' safety first.
Speaker 4: It is our mission to be the industry's most efficient, safe, and reliable non-destructive excavation service provider.
Speaker 4: We have introduced many new safety measures and programs over the past year, as well as made significant investments in AI-enhanced tools to help our operators out of harm's way, tools such as Linux.
Speaker 4: We look forward to sharing more about these exciting initiatives in our ESG report that we posted to our website and to CDAR yesterday.
Speaker 4: Now on to the company's performance.
Speaker 4: We are pleased with our fourth quarter and annual results for 2022.
Speaker 4: reflects the resiliency of our business model.
Speaker 4: Our focus on pricing and fuel recovery coupled with our operating and cost management efforts resulted in meaningful year-over-year improvements in our operating leverage and margins.
Speaker 4: All of our operating regions contributed to year-over-year annual revenue growth of 26%.
Speaker 4: This resulted in better operating leverage as highlighted in our year-over-year EBITDA margins.
Speaker 4: Now let's talk more about.
Speaker 4: Now let's talk more about our revenue trends.
Speaker 4: Revenue for the quarter and full year were up 23% and 26% respectively from 2021.
Speaker 4: This gives us confidence that our sales strategy implemented in early 2022 is building momentum. While we are pleased with our fourth quarter revenue contribution, it is important to note that revenue was negatively impacted during the last two weeks of December due to winter storms that shut down a significant portion of our operation.
Speaker 4: Most of these jobs were pushed forward in January , which has contributed to a solid start for 2023.
Speaker 4: During investor day, we shared our strategy to rate the shoulders in our most seasonal quarters. Early indications suggest the strategy is working.
Speaker 4: All operating regions experience strong EBITDA growth, or strong revenue growth.
Speaker 4: due to improved pricing and utilization which resulted in adjusted EBITDA margins for the quarter and the year improving to 18.8% and 17.5% respectively compared with 11.1%.
Speaker 4: improved pricing and utilization which resulted in adjusted EBITDA margins for the quarter and the year improving to 18.8% and 17.5% respectively compared with 11.1% and 12.8% last year.
Speaker 4: As a reminder, in 2022,
Speaker 4: we establish a focused sales and marketing function.
Speaker 4: including a National accounts team.
Speaker 4: The objective of this function is to leverage Badger's broad operating footprint, business scale, and customer relationships to facilitate growth and add operating leverage.
Speaker 4: This focused commercial strategy helps the company target the significant market opportunity that we see for non-destructive excavation and related services.
Speaker 4: Our investment in our sales and marketing teams have helped us drive more consistent volume over the course of the full year with the intention of improving margins and shoring up our operator retention and turnover headwinds that we typically see in the colder months in Q4 and Q1.
Speaker 4: We continue to be excited about our asset utilization improvements. Annual revenue per truck per month or RPT was just shy of $40,000, which was up 22% versus last year.
Speaker 4: RFPT Q4 was approximately $42,000 or up 25% compared to last year, highlighting our continued asset utilization improvements.
Speaker 4: We added trucks and markets that demonstrate strong revenue growth and high return on invested capital.
Speaker 4: Our ability to manage our available fleet in real time is a significant competitive advantage.
Speaker 4: As we position the fleet strategically, we can drive utilization and higher pricing where we have good opportunity. As we have said in the past, improving our utilization has a material impact on how we manage retirements, how we think about the number of units needed.
Speaker 4: to achieve our growth targets and the appropriate level of invested capital.
Speaker 4: Now, speaking about our fleet size, we ended the year with 1,387 nondestructive excavation units compared with 1,371 at the end of 2021.
Speaker 4: reflecting a net increase of 16 units.
Speaker 4: we manufacture.
Speaker 4: 115 non-destructive excavation units in 2022 versus 32 in 2021.
Speaker 4: For 2023, we are forecasting to build between 200 and 230 units and retire between 80 and 100 units.
Speaker 4: Our manufacturing team.
Speaker 4: position the plant well for higher production levels and volume efficiencies.
Speaker 4: We are also well positioned for supply chain components.
Speaker 4: We built up our inventory stock in 2022 and remain comfortable with chassis and key component availability and do not expect to be impacted materially by supply chain disruptions.
Speaker 4: This positioning is a plus for Badger's ability.
Speaker 4: to place new equipment into service versus competitive manufacturers as truck chassis are still in tight supply.
Speaker 4: Market indications are that equipment will be difficult to source in the short term.
Speaker 4: which makes Badger's manufacturing and vertical integration that much more valuable.
Speaker 4: Additionally, we are implementing proactive programs that we expect will enable us to extend a useful life.
Speaker 4: our existing assets. We believe these incremental investments will yield positive contributions to ROIT.
Speaker 4: as we continue to optimize our capital investments.
Speaker 4: As I've shared previously, our units spend the majority of the time digging on customer sites as opposed to racking up significant mileage.
Speaker 4: Conversely, we run at higher RPMs.
Speaker 4: to perform our excavation services. With this in mind, we may choose to selectively replace critical components, namely the engines, transmissions, transfer cases, or blowers to extend the life of a well-maintained chassis. Unless there are geopolitical or macroeconomic disruptions, the
Speaker 4: We see conditions to be favorable.
Speaker 4: for continued progress in growing the business, improving our operating leverage, and returning to historical margins as the recovery continues and we execute on our commercial strategy.
Speaker 4: I will now turn the call over to Ramod to discuss our financial results.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Raghav, and good morning, everyone. Our revenue for the quarter was 149 million and for the year 571 million up 23% and 26% respectively.
Speaker 4: Gross margins were 25% and 24% in the post quarter and full year respectively in 2020.
Speaker 4: During the year, we continue to invest in our sales and marketing capabilities to support future growth. As a reminder, sales costs are included in direct costs.
Speaker 4: As reported, just in a bit, there was approximately $28 million and $100 million was reported and fully expected. But you can do that with the latest data the same way as withGoogle, later today.
Speaker 4: Adjustity for down margins improved to 18.8% for the quarter and 17.5% for the year compared to them 0.1% and 12.8% respectively in 2021.
Speaker 5: Now onto the balance sheet.
Speaker 5: The budget maintains a focus on ensuring the strength of the balance sheet and financial flexibility.
Speaker 5: We have continued to make meaningful progress in accounts receivable management, particularly the collection of long-age receivables. At the end of Q4, 71% of our receivables' portfolios aged less than 30 days, suggesting a stronger portfolio position.
Speaker 5: than the DSO of the calculated approximately 83 days. We believe there is still room to improve our DSO which we continue to work towards.
Speaker 5: We continue to maintain our Canadian $400 million in committed credit facilities, which provides us ample liquidity and financial flexibility to fund both near-term and long-term growth and complementary capital allocation decisions. Finally, we are going to continue to invest in the financial services industry.
Speaker 5: The Board has approved an increase to the quarterly cash dividend of 0.1725 per share for the first fiscal quarter of 2023. With payments to be made on or above April 15, 2023, all shareholders are elected at the close of business on March 31, 2023.
Speaker 5: This represents an annual dividend of 69 cents or approximately a five percent increase.
Speaker 5: an annual dividend of 69 cents or approximately a five-person increase from 66 cents in 2022.
Speaker 4: I would like to turn things back over to Rob for some final comments. Thanks, Pramod. So before we open it up for questions, I'd like to share a few last thoughts.
Speaker 4: In 2022, we continue to improve our margins by tightening up our operating discipline and managing expense levels to anticipated revenues.
Speaker 4: We remain focused on our end markets and customers while ensuring that we have trucks available for their projects.
Speaker 4: Our view of the significant US and Canadian long-term opportunity for non-destructive excavation services and Badger's long-term growth prospects is unchanged.
Speaker 4: The required focus on infrastructure in North America supports demand for non-destructive excavation.
Speaker 4: Badger stands ready to help strengthen and maintain that infrastructure. So just before we open up for questions, as you all may have seen in our news release recently that went out a couple of weeks ago, we're pleased to welcome our new CFO , Rob Dawson, who will be joining the team on April 10th.
Speaker 4: Rob brings over 25 years of finance experience and we are thrilled to have him join the team. I would like to thank Promote for his service as interim CFO and Trevor on the investor relations side.
Speaker 4: who have both stepped up and supported the company during this transition period and look forward to their continuing contributions to Badger in the future.
Speaker 4: So with those comments, Joss, let's turn it back over to you to field questions.
Speaker 2: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again.
Speaker 2: Our first question comes from Daryl Young with TD Securities. He may proceed. The shout out goes to ex creatives at a local pharmacy based on Rivals Hotel.
Speaker 6: Good morning everyone. First question is just around financial guidance for this year. Truck build is obviously a healthy improvement and it sounds like the end market demand is very very strong but I was just wondering if you could give us some goal posts around.
Speaker 6: maybe where you think RPT could fall out this year, and as well the cadence of maybe a recovery in margin.
Speaker 5: So at this point I will say a couple things. One, we are obviously really pleased with where our utilization and RPT is landing in 2022. A good improvement for us. members of RPT With a nameset for all 37
Speaker 5: As you well know, RPT is driven by a couple different factors, both on the pricing side as well as the utilization side, and we will continue to test those levels in 2023. From a quote-unquote guidance point of view, I would still point you back to our conversations in at the investor day late last year.ikoaaaa...
Speaker 5: We feel pretty confident that the 15% revenue category that we talked about in the investor date is still something that is achievable over a near term. From a margin perspective, the range that we provided on direct costs, 65%, 75%, I feel that we are well within those, that we are going to hit as evidence in the Q4 and the point of that number too.
Speaker 5: And the final piece I'll say is G&E, which for 2022 we were about 39 million. The range of 30 to 40 million that we provided, I think we will be well within that. So I probably will not want to go any further than that. So remain confident. That's the upward trajectory that you're seeing. We feel pretty confident about that. Okay, thanks.
Speaker 6: And then with respect to the National Account and the failed strategy, is there an intention to continue? Obviously going very well, utilization is strong, but is there an intention to...
Speaker 6: and keep adding body and athletes to the
Speaker 4: Carol, we were having some technical difficulties here, but I could hear, I think you were asking are we going to continue to add salespeople or bodies to our National Health Program.
Speaker 4: And the answer is we may bring in an additional one or two, but right now we are just now in April will be at the one year mark of when we launched National Accounts.
Speaker 4: and we don't believe that we need to continue adding, but rather we need to continue to develop the accounts we have. So we may bring in one or two for the remainder of the year. But right now, we still have a lot of runway with the existing team we have and actually going wider and deeper.
Speaker 4: Again, because we're just at the one year mark here in April . So we feel comfortable where we are and we still believe that we're going to see a lot of growth out of the National Council.
Speaker 6: Okay, great. And then so in terms of the 200 basis point drag that you called it last quarter, is that what you would expect to see across this year as well?
Speaker 5: No, Gator, promote again. As you continue to flex, the top line, and Rob indicated that too, I would say think about the operating leverage that's generating. So no, that would not be a continue problem in 2020.
Speaker 6: Okay, great. I'll hop back in the queue.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Dumit with Scotiabank. You may proceed.
Speaker 6: Hey, Gordon, how are you guys doing this quarter? Helpful guidance for the 23 on the G&A and the revenue. I wanted to dig in a little bit more on the gross margin. I think in, we talked about this in key three, versus the comparable COVID-19, we were 500 basis points below.
Speaker 6: In Q4, we're now about 400 bases below the comparable quarter. So we're seeing a nice improvement. I'm just thinking as we think about 2023, if you think about kind of that 400 basis points gap to start with, and then maybe just talk on top of that where you think you're getting confidence to close the gap further.
Speaker 6: whether it's price utilization or cost and maybe again if you can help us get a sense for how much too, that would be helpful.
Speaker 4: Sure. So I'll start and then I'll let Pramod pick up wherever I leave off here. So regarding the gross margin, and especially as you relate to kind of our historical years of 2019, we've seen a
Speaker 4: of continued improvement in our gross margin and will continue to as we grow the business. If we did nothing, we were pretty well positioned from support levels to grow the business. And then since that time during COVID and even a little bit later, we've been able to
Speaker 4: As we grow the revenues, obviously we're going to grow the gross margin and drive the business.
Speaker 4: The biggest opportunity for the company though, and we continue to believe it, and the biggest opportunity for 2023 and beyond is our focus on pricing. We've shown as a company we can drive utilization. You can see that through the RFPT and the RFPT growth. But when we get our focus, we're going to have to be very careful.
Speaker 4: and we continue to hone and improve on our pricing, that's where you're gonna see the gross margins really start to accelerate and promote if you wanna add something to that. Yeah, and of course that was great, Rob. So, a couple things there maybe just to point out, in 2022 obviously a lot of investment.
Speaker 5: that went through in our sales and marketing commercial capabilities. 2023, we don't really think that it's going to be a lot more. So, you know, back to my operating leverage comments, as the revenue pipeline continues to grow, so that should be a lot of flow-through into the gross margins and adjusted with that. Second point I'll say, you know, our PT level, I think our last and another question.
Speaker 6: to say you know improvements in growth margin and and they just deliver the margin we are confident about. That's really helpful thank you. So maybe just switching over to the trucks. You know the PACE department this year implies that you're planning effectively to stress the life of the truck and you've commented on that. You talked about maybe some of the investments that
Speaker 6: I guess the bigger picture, should we reconsider that 10-year timeframe for a truck in terms of the economic life? Maybe if you can expand on what the incremental costs would be and even quantify them for us. I think most conditions defer to a particular petroleum throats Carriemit wise.
Speaker 4: Sure, so I'll share some thoughts along the...
Speaker 4: the truck strategy that Trevor and I recently shared, I think in January at a conference in Vancouver, north of Vancouver, that as we started to look at the assets and we're getting more and more robust data coming out of.
Speaker 4: our system and our fleet management team.
Speaker 4: We're starting to realize that the trucks themselves, the chassis themselves, are not heavily used even though they are heavy spec or heavy built Peterbilt chassis.
Speaker 4: But where we're really running hard are the engines, the transmissions, the T-cases, transfer cases, and then the blowers on the unit.
Speaker 4: And we started looking at, okay, as we ramp up the plant and we become more efficient in the plant, and we are, and the plant continues to perform and perform at a solid level.
Speaker 4: And then our commercial strategy is creating more and more demand for our trucks.
Speaker 4: We're starting to realize that if we continue to do a one in, one out at the 10-year mark, we are going to continue to have lumpiness in our replacement cycle because as several folks know on the call that we have large...
Speaker 4: years of where we manufacture and then we have years where it slows down a bit. We really wanted to steady out that manufacturing.
Speaker 4: capacity and the plant output. The way we've thought about it, we've modeled it out, is instead of just retiring right at the 10-year mark, we're selectively identifying trucks.
Speaker 4: that either were not used with a lot of hours during COVID, or were not in harsh conditions. And for example, harsh conditions being in the far north. So our northern environments, a lot of salt, sand, things that can really...
Speaker 4: wreak havoc on a frame. But we have a lot of trucks that don't have those issues. And so we've said, if you look at an engine, transmission, T-case, and blower, for anywhere from $100,000 to $125,000, we can actually put in
Speaker 4: new or refurb componentry with a warranty and extend that truck life for approximately three to five years. That also starts to improve even greater the company's ROIC. And so we're pretty excited about moving toward this strategy.
Speaker 4: you look at it and you say okay so do we need to change the 10-year life cycle to 12 years 13 years it's still early days as we're doing this so I I would not recommend changing that we're still targeting 10 years but as this
Speaker 4: the solid demand for it this year and next, we believe we're going to take advantage of it. Instead of retiring as main units.
Speaker 4: actually try to extend the light a little bit. So hopefully that makes sense. But I wouldn't recommend changing that model because at this point today, we may advise at a later quarter or early next year.
Speaker 4: that we're getting a lot more life out of it. But at this point, we're extending life just a little bit. But again, for a little bit of investment, we believe we can get three to five years additional. So it's pretty exciting, but we're not doing that on every single asset. It's on a selective basis.
Speaker 6: That makes the time sound. Thanks.
Speaker 7: Ac.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Our next question comes from Krista Friesen with CIBC. You may proceed.cosUGC
Speaker 8: Hi, thanks for taking my question and congrats on a good quarter. I was just wondering if you could provide just a bit more detail on the National Accounts Program. It sounds like you're pretty much fully staffed up there. What are the next steps as you kind of progress there and what inning would you say you're in, in terms of how you're going to move forward?
Speaker 8: of rolling out the program and maybe versus kind of what inning you're in, in terms of seeing the full extent of the program kind of take effect.
Speaker 4: Thanks for asking, Kristen. We're looking at, I'd say, on rolling out the program. We're probably in the sixth or seventh inning as far as getting the value and everything out of the program and it functioning.
Speaker 4: being on full eight cylinders and giving us full performance out of it. We're probably only in the, I'd say the third inning. The interesting thing with this program is no one else in the HydroVac industry really has the footprint that Badger has, as well as the capability or the experience level on the team we put together.
Speaker 4: coming out of the first nine months, eight, nine months of last year and then what we're seeing in Q1 so far on the national count side. But it's still early days. We believe that there's a handful of things that will start to get us to further into the inning so we could be in the sixth or eighth inning.
Speaker 4: and those things are this, actually getting all the different subsidiaries of the national accounts using us and utilizing Badger as a first call or sole source or primary provider supplier.
Speaker 4: And then the second aspect of it, and this is where it really starts to look good for the company.
Speaker 4: is our ability to actually go wider and deeper and broaden out our number of national accounts we have.
Speaker 4: An earlier question was, are you going to continue to add heads? While we could, we don't want to outpace our ability to service our customers.
Speaker 4: and we also are trying to do it in a very orderly way. It's just, again, 11 months ago, coming up on 12 months ago, we didn't even have a National Health Program.
Speaker 4: Now that this has helped us to drive our utilization in the business, we're starting to realize, you know what? Let's really continue to hone the account base that we've currently been supporting, and let's go wider and deeper within that account base.
Speaker 4: But the next level, and we believe we're going to be able to start really doing this Q4 and Q1 of next year, is start to actually add some additional accounts. We've actually limited the number of national accounts we have just due to the sheer amount of our sheer ability for us to be able to supply and support it.
Speaker 4: gives you a little bit of insight there.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's great. That makes a lot of sense. And then I was also just wondering on the demand side of things, I know you gave your outlook for 2023, but can you give us any more granular comments on maybe what areas you're seeing the most strength in when it comes to either industry or geography? And then
Speaker 4: any areas that are maybe a bit weaker than you expected? Sure. We're seeing in most of our in-markets pretty good demand, and we see in some of our larger accounts and our larger projects.
Speaker 4: Some of them are having record backlogs and especially some of our largest national accounts, they have record backlogs that they've ever had in the history of their companies right now for the next two to three years. So that is very, very encouraging for us and especially having this new program that no one else in the industry has.
Speaker 4: So, from purely a national health program, we're enjoying seeing that. We're also seeing a lot of demand from...
Speaker 4: areas that are like data centers and anything that's infrastructure related, including the grid, supporting the grid, and supporting any kind of power, any kind of
Speaker 4: infrastructure improvements and refurbishments. Especially in the United States specifically, there's just a lot of demand because the government has really said they're going to put a lot of money in infrastructure and starting to flow.
Speaker 4: Regarding certain areas of the company and what we're seeing specifically geographical, most areas of the company have solid demand. There's not one pocket that you would say the Southwest or the Southeast or the Northwest.
Speaker 4: Across the board, there's been solid demand. What's been very interesting for us is, as we've seen some of the demand across Canada in the winter time here. So normally, some projects that..
Speaker 4: we think that would not be happening in February and March are happening now. It's pretty exciting. We believe some of those projects were actually pulled in a little earlier to launch. That's helping to drive some of the business improvement as well, our Canadian operations.
Speaker 5: just recently definitely had seen good demand. Anything you want to add on that? Not really. I think you covered really good. Maybe Krista, the only thing I'll say is this isn't just one end user market that's thriving. That's probably for me the most pleasing part is pretty broad based. We are of course focused a lot of the face of marketing and focusing on a lot of our key markets.
Speaker 5: going deeper into there too, but both ways in those geographical markets and an auto end use market. Pretty broad based demand over there just as what I would say.
Speaker 8: Perfect. Thank you so much. I will jump in with you. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thank you and as a reminder to ask a question please press star 1 1 on your telephone
Speaker 6: Our next question comes from Daryl Young with TD Securities. He may proceed. Hey, thanks for the follow up. Just in terms of the labor environment, have you seen any improvement in recent months and how you're feeling about the ramp up for next year? It does seem like the commercial construction activity is exceedingly strong for next year, so probably lots of demand on labor.
Speaker 4: because of the concept of lifting and raising the shoulders in the seasonal months. Our operators have gotten a lot more hours and so obviously our turnover and retention has improved in the right way.
Speaker 4: So we haven't had to go as much out to the market as we would have in previous years, but we still are actively growing the business and you can look at our truck count in our field and we're going to need additional operators across the organization. One of our opportunities that we found that's starting to work pretty well.
Speaker 4: is some of the people that are exiting, some veterans that are exiting the military and ending their military service. We continue to be excited about recruiting former Canadian and US military veterans and really enjoy having those.
Speaker 4: those folks join our team.
Speaker 4: The other aspect that we're seeing regarding being able to recruit is some of the over-the-road, long-haul freight carriers, some of those companies, especially the more local and regional, their business has slowed down. And because of that, we've been able to find more local CDL.
Speaker 4: operators and drivers within our markets. But it takes a unique person to come and work with Badger and on a Badger truck because it's just a different business model and a different...
Speaker 4: job than just driving long haul or over the road. It's just a lot different because they're actually, you know, in the dirt.
Speaker 4: You get dirty, you work hard, but it's very rewarding and you never do the same thing twice. So from that perspective, it's very interesting, fulfilling work, but it's totally different than if someone's working long haul. But so far, again, we're seeing, I think we've been able to fulfill most of our roles. In the next video, we're going to be talking aboutuid all He parameters which where moving guards and on With all things mutual patience can use it to our needs and
Speaker 6: We're not taking as much pressure as we had in previous quarters for being a pro-proo. That's great, Color. One last question. Just in terms of executing on the replacement of engines and blowers to keep the trucks on the road longer, would you see that happening at the Red Deer facility or would you be looking to outsource that to third parties across the U.S. to complete that?
Speaker 4: We have one in Canada today. None of them are going back to Red Deer, nor do we want them going back to Red Deer. The reason being is the Red Deer plant is operating efficiently and putting out really high quality Gen 5 new trucks. And we want to keep the focus on that. We don't want to distract and have the Red Deer facility.
Speaker 4: start to think more about replacing engines and transmissions. We want to just keep them focused on the manufacturing because we believe we're going to need to keep the pressure on the manufacturing here for the foreseeable future. So, but we found outside shops to do it. It's not really the highest and best use of our own employees.
Speaker 4: To be replacing engines and transmissions, especially when we can do it through third party services. Got it? Okay, that's it.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Our next question comes from Trevor Reynolds with Acumen Capital. You may proceed.
Speaker 6: Hey guys, just a couple quick questions. Just on the pricing, maybe you can just walk us through how the how the customers are accepting of price increases. In the current environment.
Speaker 5: Do you want to? Sure, I was just starting and I'll clarify. Hey Trevor, so I think as Rob touched on some of that in his comments, you know with the inflation in 2022, you know our focus obviously is on pricing and making sure we are decoding that too. You know one instance of that maybe I just share.
Speaker 5: is on the fuel recovery pre-surcharge program as well, which I would say was pretty well received.
Speaker 5: and went to absolutely fine, which is a good indication. On the pricing side, again, I would say at this point, there is not one simple answer over there because our customers are spread across different geographies, different industries. So almost a bit of sort of answer around those geographies, competitive nature in some markets versus the other.
Speaker 5: So that's my, I'm sorry for the bigger answer, but that's kind of what the truthful answer is. The reality is it's a big focus for us and we will continue to push that. Obviously everyone is conscious of inflation. We have seen costs increase.
Speaker 5: That's my, I'm sorry for the vague answer, but that's kind of what the truthful answer is. The reality is it's a big focus for us and we will continue to push that. Obviously everyone is conscious of inflation. We have seen cost increases all of the time.
Speaker 4: and to allow our customers. So we demand focus on it. This is easier than in some markets versus the others. I think to get probably a little more grainier on the customer level, just like every one of our customers, Badger has seen inflation in some of our own costs and basically.
Speaker 4: and training that we've given our sales teams and our managers are just being mindful of how you would want to receive the message. And it's actually working as long as we're reasonable in our request and how we deliver the request for additional pricing.
Speaker 4: So far, again, I'm not saying it's been well received, like everyone loves a price increase. There's not one person on the phone call who likes that. But it's just real. That's the world we're in today. And in our inflationary environment, we need to make sure that we're not going backwards with our pricing.
Speaker 4: And so while we realized a solid pricing improvement for 2022, we're going to continue to focus on that for 2023 because we believe that alongside of the utilization is what will make the company healthier and we're very, very happy to focus on that.
Speaker 6: Got it. And then just to follow up on the national account side of things, is that built into contracts pricing increases or is that something you have to wait to apply pricing increases on that side of things? Yeah, so typically our national accounts customers
Speaker 4: will have annual or two or three year pricing. And the interesting thing about us kind of launching the National Account Program from scratch is we had a lot of large accounts.
Speaker 4: some with these two or three year pricing agreements. Some of them have escalators in them for pricing and some of them have, where they take to CPI or they'll take to other various metrics to have price increases come out go along throughout the contract period. Both the
Speaker 4: But the interesting thing that we've noticed though is
Speaker 4: because we are starting this from scratch with both existing customers and some new customers. There's not one period where we're launching all these agreements all at the same time. And so it's throughout the period, throughout every month of the year there's a pricing, or rather a customer contract.
Speaker 4: that is sunsetting and another one that is starting up or a renewal period. On our go forward, we're not really setting up any of our national account customers with flat fixed pricing beyond one year period, just because we don't know what's going to happen within the inflationary markets.
Speaker 4: And the customers, again, most of our customers really appreciate our services. And we teach our salespeople this, but as long as we're giving them good value, and our new National Cal program gives great value, because it's super simple for someone to work all across North America, we make it very, very easy.
Speaker 4: A term that I was sharing with a colleague is we're making our business, trying to make it more and more frictionless, where it's very easy to work with Badger. There's great value in that. Our customers, again, while no one loves the price increase.
Speaker 4: As long as we're keeping it reasonable and that's what we're trying to do. They've been accepting of that so far Great, thanks for taking my question.
Speaker 4: reasonable and that's what we're trying to do. They've been accepting of that so far. Great, thanks for taking my question. Thank you, bud.
Speaker 4: And this concludes the Q&A session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Rob Blackadar for any closing remarks. Thank you, Josh. So thank you, everyone, for the good questions, and I'm happy to report the quarter, and we'll be doing it again here in May. So on behalf of all of us here at Badger, thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks to our customers, our employees, our suppliers and shareholders for your ongoing support that helps to drive Badger's success. Josh, you may now end the call. Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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