Q4 2022 Quad/Graphics Inc Earnings Call
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Quad <unk> fourth quarter conference call.
During today's call all participants will be in a listen only mode.
Should you need assistance at any time, we see no a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero.
A slide presentation accompanies today's webcast and participants are invited to follow along advancing slides themselves.
To access the webcast follow the instructions posted in the earnings release. Alternatively, you can access the slide presentation on the investors section of Quad website under the events and recent presentations link.
Please also note today's event is being recorded.
At this time I'd like to turn the conference call over to Eddie Krebsbach Quiet Investor Relations manager Katy. Please go ahead.
Thank you operator, and good morning, everyone with me today are Joel QUADRA achieve quite chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tony stand here quite as Chief Financial Officer, Joe I'll lead off today's call with a business update and Tony will follow with a summary of <unk> fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial.
Our results followed by Q&A.
I would like to remind everyone that this call is being webcast and forward looking statements are subject to safe Harbor provisions as outlined in our quarterly news release and in today's slide presentation on slide two courts financial results are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. However, this presentation also contains non-GAAP .
<unk> measures, including adjusted EBITDA adjusted EBITDA margin adjusted diluted earnings per share free cash flow net debt and debt leverage ratio. We have included in the slide presentation. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures. Finally, a replay of the call and the slide presentation will be available on.
The investors section of <unk> com shortly after our call concludes today I will now hand over the call to Joel.
Katy and good morning, everyone beginning on slide three I am pleased to report that we delivered strong 2022 results meeting or exceeding our guidance across all metrics, including outperforming our topline guidance with an 11% increase in net sales when excluding divestitures. These results reflect increased sales in.
All our offering or offerings, including increases in pricing to partially offset inflationary cost print segment share gains from both new and existing clients as well as continued growth in our agency solutions offerings and international locations as.
As far as earnings we achieved adjusted EBITDA near the high end of our guidance range ending the year with higher adjusted EBITDA than 2021 when excluding a nonrecurring $13 billion property insurance carrier.
We also continued to pay down debt in 2022 and have reduced net debt by $489 million or 47% over the past three years.
We ended 2022 with a debt leverage ratio of 2.16 times, beating our guidance of approximately 2.25 times and achieving our lowest leverage level since 2018.
By the end of 2023, we expect to have paid off.
$564 million in debt, which would be at 55% debt reduction since January one 2020.
Throughout 2022, our team has skillfully navigated many challenges, including paper and supply chain disruptions inflationary cost pressures in labor shortages and our efforts to mitigate these impacts included price increases to partially offset inflation.
The most recent of these increases went into effect on January one 2023.
While we can to do continue to see growth in the agency solutions part of our business led by our digital marketing agency rise interactive.
The uncertainty has prompted some clients to take a more conservative approach to the start of the year and pulled back on their near term print advertising spend.
As always we take a disciplined approach to managing all aspects of our business treating all costs as variable and we will continue to align our cost structure to revenue opportunities at the same time, we are aggressively pushing forward on our growth strategy as a marketing experience or Amex company servicing marketers needs from end to end this.
<unk> and increased investment in our people processes and technology, including enhancing our agency solutions offerings, and bringing aboard experienced business development professionals, who can sell into our critical growth verticals of direct to consumer financial services health care insurance and consumer packaged goods.
Yeah.
Slide four shows how we continue to diversify our revenue into higher value and higher margin offerings.
In 2022, we achieved net sales growth in all our offerings, including targeted print and international increasing as a percentage of our total net sales.
Large scale print decreased as a percentage of total net sales due to expected organic declines that we were partially offset by segment share gains.
The increase in our international locations was primarily driven by stronger sales in Latin America, especially in Mexico, a strategic extension of our U S platform.
Turning to slide five I'm pleased to share that we have strengthened and diversified our strategic leadership at the governance level with the recent appointment of death, and he said to Quad the board of directors.
Beth and he has a deep background in advertising marketing publishing a digital transformation and understands firsthand the challenges facing our clients.
For example, what with Accenture, She's led C suite engagements for prominent brands as they evolved and transformed drawing on her widespread digital marketing and digital media experience.
We look forward to leveraging Beth and expertise to enhance our competitive position and drive continued revenue growth.
Turning to slide six we highlight our three key competitive advantages integrated marketing platform excellence ongoing innovation and culture and social purpose.
We continue to strategically invest in our integrated marketing platform, which includes all the resources our clients need to plan create deploy measure and optimize their marketing efforts across all media channels offline and online.
This is a key differentiator for quad.
We were able to reduce the complexity of working with multiple agency partners and vendors and increase the efficiency of marketing processes.
We do this while maximizing the effectiveness of our clients' marketing efforts to our ability to target and reach the right audiences.
Gail resources more efficiently, while increasing speed to market.
Chief better integration of offline and online channels opt.
Optimize media performance drive consistent consumer experiences and realize meaningful cost savings.
A key aspect of our integrated marketing platform is dedicated onsite in near site teams that serve as an extension of our client's internal marketing departments.
We have more than 80 onsite locations at client companies, where our employees fulfilled traditional agency execution of roles. While also providing production efficiencies at scale for content creation creative production and marketing deployment.
We also continued to strengthen relationships with innovative partners like flow code, the leading online to offline to online QR solution for building powerful connections and measurable conversions for brands and consumers.
Earlier this month in the lead up to the Super Bowl and Advertising's biggest stage.
Hello quota announced the launch of its Omnichannel QR and data platform for global brands agencies sports and web three backed by existing strategic investors, including Quad.
Scan the flow quarter on slide seven for more information on this announcement, including flow code solutions for enabling first party connections with consumers across all branded touch points.
Quad is proud to partner with flow co to advance the effectiveness of marketing products through first party data that helps clients better identify audiences and their passions.
On slide eight we show how we recently expanded our relationship beyond traditional print media execution with Meyer, a leading regional retailer that operates more than 500 Super centers neighborhood markets and grocery stores.
Myers with seeking a better way to manage its traditional and digital media spend.
Our quad BDO team presented a comprehensive solution for integrated media planning and placement across all channels, including search engine optimization, social media programmatic TV radio out of home and print.
A key feature of our solution was our ability to offer advanced Cross channel performance management via our proprietary connector technology.
With connects Meyer is not only able to uncover performance trends by audience creative product and location.
But also identify specific growth opportunities and take immediate actions to accelerate media performance.
We are also leveraging our cloud based software as a service or SaaS platform for managing workflow, which includes the ability to streamline personalization at scale across multiple media channels.
We are pleased to have expanded our relationship with Myer and its subsidiary fresh time, drawing on the strength of our integrated marketing platform innovative proprietary technology solutions and deep experience with an understanding of the retail grocery industry.
Turning to slide nine we show how our commitment to ongoing innovation is driving business results for a large and complex National Health insurance company, with whom we have had a longstanding relationship for traditional media execution.
This client needed a better way to create and execute nationally consistent and locally relevant provider and product marketing for new member acquisition.
We introduced an automated data driven and scalable solution that also leverages, our SaaS platform connecting a remote teams streamlining marketing execution, including dynamic messaging and optimizing media across all channels.
Through this solution, we were able to help our client create consistently branded customized advertisements with fewer touches and then a fraction of the time in fact, they can now execute targeted marketing efforts in mere minutes versus weeks, allowing them to focus on more value driven marketing efforts.
We are proud to be their agency of record for their provider program and look forward to introducing them to media mix optimization. Another one of our integrated marketing services.
On slide 10, we highlight our third competitive advantage.
It meant to culture and social purpose.
Our long standing focus on creating a better way is a reflection of our maker culture in which employees not only envision solutions, but also create and execute them.
This approach a hallmark of our company for more than 50 years inspires creativity, and how we address environmental social and governance matters.
And 2022 we advanced multiple environmental and social commitment.
<unk> improving the representation among our U S employees and U S management team in both gender and race and ethnicity.
Incorporating diversity equity inclusion competencies and performance reviews for U S leaders, achieving an 18% increase in annual spend with diverse suppliers and partnering with clients to increase our certified paper usage to 80%.
To learn more about these and other commitments you can access our 2022 ESG update on quad dot com or scan the flow code on slide 10 of today's presentation.
Before I turn over the call to Tony I would like to thank our employees for their continued hard work and commitment to performing well for our clients, while we proactively manage all aspects of our business for long term strength and stability.
I have great confidence in our team and continue to be enthusiastic about our growth as an amex company.
I'll now turn the call over to Tony for the financial review.
Thanks, Joel and good morning, everyone.
Slide 11 provides a snapshot of our fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results. We finished the year strong delivering 4% net sales growth and 32% adjusted EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to the fourth quarter of 2021 the <unk>.
Proactive investments we made during the first half of 2022 and hiring and training labor proved effective during our seasonal peak driving strong operational performance.
For the year, we met or exceeded all of our 2022 guidance metrics, including 11% net sales growth, excluding divestitures, beating our guidance range of 8% to 10% growth free cash flow generation of $94 million, beating our guidance range of $70 million to $90 million.
And reduction of our debt leverage ratio to 2.16 times, beating our guidance of approximately 2.25 times.
As we look ahead to 2023, we are closely monitoring the economy and we'll remain disciplined with our capital allocation. Our primary focus remains debt reduction and we estimate we will reach the low end of our long term targeted debt leverage range of 2.0 to two five times by the end of 2023.
We also.
Expect to continue pursuing opportunities to invest in the growth of the business and return capital to shareholders such as the $10 million. We used in 2022 to repurchased three 1 million shares of class a common stock, which was more than 5% of our outstanding shares.
Net sales were $885 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 up 4% from 2021 for the full year net sales were $3 $2 billion up 9% from 2021.
After excluding the 2021 cloud Xpress divestiture net sales increased 11% and 2022 compared to 2021 due to sales growth in all of our offerings.
Including pricing increases to partially offset inflationary cost print segment share gains and sales growth in our integrated solutions offerings as well as in our international locations. We will continue to be nimble with our pricing to mitigate the negative impacts of cost inflation.
Adjusted EBITDA increased sequentially each quarter in 2022, as we expected, culminating with $79 million of adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter, which represents a $19 million or 32% increase in adjusted EBITDA compared to $60 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Higher adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of 2022 was driven by continued sales growth and proactive investments made in labor inventory and equipment. During the first half of 2022 that increased production efficiency during our seasonally higher production period.
For the full year adjusted EBITDA was $252 million near the high end of our guidance range of $235 million to $255 million.
2021 adjusted EBITDA was $261 million, which included a nonrecurring $13 million property insurance gain.
When excluding the 2021 property insurance gain adjusted EBITDA increased $5 million in 2022 compared to <unk> 2021 due to net sales growth.
Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased one point from 2021, primarily due to cost inflation investments made in hiring and training labor in the first half of 2022, the negative impact of supply chain disruptions and the 2021 nonrecurring property insurance gain partially offset by increased earnings from net sales growth.
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Adjusted diluted earnings per share increased to 41 in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to 10 cents in the fourth quarter of 2021 on.
On a full year basis adjusted diluted earnings per share increased to 89 in 2022 compared to 60 cents in 2020 one.
These increases in the fourth quarter and the full year were primarily due to increased recurring earnings and were also benefited by our $10 million of share repurchases during 2022.
Free cash flow increased $8 million to $94 million in 2022, primarily due to increased cash generated from operating activities, partially offset by a $10 million increase in capital expenditures.
With our long term automation strategy during 2022, we invested $60 million and capital expenditures to drive efficiencies.
Slide 12 includes a summary of our debt capital structure.
Net debt declined by $79 million to $545 million at the end of 2020, two as compared to $624 million at the end of 2021 and the debt leverage ratio decreased 23 basis points to 2.16 times. This represents the lowest net debt leverage we have reported.
Since the end of 2018.
We maintained our strong liquidity with up to $400 million of availability under our revolving credit agreement and $25 million of cash on hand at year end 2022.
Our nearest significant debt maturity is $88 million occurring in January 2024, with the majority of the debt maturity is not due until late 2026.
Effective February one 2023, we entered into 275 million dollar interest rate collar contracts to reduce the variability of cash flows from interest payments and to give us greater protection in the current rising interest rate environment.
With the interest rate collars approximately half of our debt has kept interest rates.
At our year end pro forma blended interest rate of six 2%. We are expecting an increase of approximately $20 million in interest payments in 2023 compared to 2022, despite our lower debt balance.
Slide 13 illustrates our dedication to debt reduction.
We have made significant progress on our multiyear plan to reduce debt through the use of our free cash flow and proceeds from asset sales.
Over the past three years, we have reduced net debt by $489 million or 47%. Despite challenges from the COVID-19, pandemic inflationary costs supply chain disruption rising interest rates and ongoing economic uncertainty.
By the end of 2023, we expect to reduce net debt to $470 million.
Representing $564 million of debt pay off or up 55% debt reduction since January one 'twenty 'twenty.
On Slide 14, we have included our 2023 financial guidance, we anticipate continued growth in agency solutions in 'twenty twenty-three however, with economic uncertainty we expect the decrease in net sales from lower print volumes will exceed the benefits from ongoing agency growth and as such the midpoint of.
2023, net sales guidance range reflects a two 5% decline from 2022 net sales we are reducing costs in response to expected decreases in large scale print net sales while also continuing to continuing to advance our long term integrated marketing platform strategy by investing.
In growing parts of the business such as agency solutions and targeted print.
Full year 2023, adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between 210 and $250 million with $230 million at the midpoint of that range, representing a $22 million decline from 2022, adjusted EBITDA due to lower net sales and an $11 million decrease of <unk>.
Noncash income from our pension plans consistent with 2022 we expect adjusted EBITDA to be lower in the first half of 2023, and then improve in the second half of 2023 with higher sales during our seasonal peak.
We expect 2023 free cash flow to be in the range of $50 million to $90 million with $70 million at the midpoint of that range, representing a $24 million decline in free cash flow compared to 2022.
In 2023, we expect free cash flow will be most impacted by higher interest payments as well as increased restructuring payments and higher capital expenditures, partially offset by improvements in working capital.
Increased capital expenditures are expected to be in the range of $65 million to $75 million with $70 million at the midpoint.
The majority of the spend will occur in the first half 2023, so we can benefit from the new equipment during our peak production season.
This represents a $10 million increase compared to 2022 and is consistent with our long term strategy to invest in automation and technology and our integrated marketing platform.
Finally, with our strong free cash flow, we will continue to prioritize debt reduction and expect to further reduce our debt leverage ratio to be at approximately 2.0 times by the end of 2023, representing the low end of our long term targeted debt leverage range of two point out to two five times.
Slide 15 includes our key investment highlights.
We have built our integrated marketing platform to serve the expansion of advertising and marketing space, We believe better than any other single company with a truly one of a kind breadth of offerings that enables us to deliver through the line strategic data driven and technology based solutions spanning offline and online channels approximately two.
900 current clients trust quad to meet their advertising and marketing needs, including growing verticals, such as consumer packaged goods financial services insurance health care and direct to consumer.
We are winning segment share and we will continue diversifying our revenue and adding new clients with strategic investments in agency talent business development and marketing.
Our proven ability to generate strong free cash flow with $310 million of free cash flow since twenty-twenty that we used primarily to reduce debt as a resulted in what we believe is an industry, leading financial foundation that enables us to invest in growth while supporting returns to shareholders. As we did in 2022 with $10 million of share repurchase.
Yes.
We both we believe quad is a compelling investment we will continue to accelerate and scale. Our growth strategy is our marketing experienced company, while ensuring quads continued financial strength.
With that I'd like to turn the call back to Katie for questions. Thank.
Thank you Tony because we compiled questions in advance of today's call, we will not ask for colors to enter the queue.
Thank you to everyone who has submitted a question we have three tap questions that were submitted.
First question relates to client trends. It asks how are your clients being impacted by the current macroeconomic environment and how is the macro environment affecting the trends you are seeing across the various parts of the business. Yes. Thanks, Katy and I. You know this one is always want to try and answer consistently in terms of where.
We see volumes of Justin if I start at looking at the print products that we have because quad comes from print.
The print products is the part that.
Has a bigger impact on our volume as we go forward and soy leg to kind of share with you. What we're seeing there and then I'll make some comments, though on your question about the different types of clients and how it's impacting us and so I always start with large scale print. This is the area that we have expected decline we've talked about it for years.
We've seen it and we manage for it and so starting with retail inserts. These are the coupons it such that retailers or grocers will put in your Sunday newspaper for distribution to you and because of all those factors, we've seen a 20% decline in 2022.
In terms of volume, there, which is not unexpected the other area, where we've seen decline is publications.
And these are large run publications and there in 2022 for the year, we saw about a 12% reduction but that was heavily impacted by several large titles that closed and ceased publication.
And so that's that segment and those two together is the part of our print.
Hi, there.
<unk> to shrink while the other parks grow and that is planned for the catalog side of which to US is a very important media channel for driving.
Revenue for our clients across many different segments was off about 4% for the total year, but that was heavily focused in the fourth quarter as we saw some pullback in demand, but also some impact from supply chain challenges as there was a very tight paper market, where people had to shift some of the printing that they.
Did because of availability of paper.
But when I look at like direct mail packaging and in store direct mail was off about 2% again. Another story that was impacted by the ended the year, which was really led by the insurance and financial sectors as interest rates increased we saw a big decline in personal loan advertising for obvious.
Reasons, and you know from that point forward, we continued to see softness as we sort of reflect on what's going forward for a bit direct mails much more transactional in the switch gets turned on and turned off faster than some of the segments and packaging. It's a different story, we were up 16% for the year that.
Due to new client wins, especially a whole new category of testing kits that we did which was one of those silver linings that come out of the pandemic and on the in store signage part, which is a big beneficiary. When you think about printed products of our services segment, where people are looking to be more effective and how they market throughout the channels was up over 26.
6% for the full year.
And so I say that that you know it's important to understand that what I just went through our current products. They have large invoices and so those volumes ebb and flow as we've transformed our company, but the verticals that they support our things like retail direct to consumer financial services health care insurance and consumer packaged goods, where we said.
Several times through the script of where we're focused and keep in mind that while we see these ebbs and flows on the print volume when we're engaged on the services side with these verticals people need help in marketing and oftentimes like and admire example, we not only won what they were looking for but we want.
Other technologies outside of what they're looking for because of our our expansive offerings.
And by the way, we do a lot of print for them and so you'll continue to see this interplay of where we go with those verticals, we focus on but it's important to note that they also still lead to a lot of downstream revenue into the into the print periods and so what we're seeing economically to answer the last part of your question is look it's it depends.
On who you talk to obviously the R word is out there recession and whenever that happens. We typically are at the front of the spear in seeing people either freeze or pull back on print spend because it's the more expensive spend while they digest what goes on with the economy. So we're watching that closely but I'll also remind you.
That we know how to react to those types of volume swings through the pandemic, we saw retailers significantly pulled back because they just shut their doors, but then we still paid off a significant amount of our debt during that period and so as we go forward. We're actually excited by the growth of the service aside which we expect to continue into this.
Coming year and keep in mind, when things are hard and the economy, that's what marketers need more help on things like services and so I'm bullish on what happens there regardless of any ebb and flow we might have on the volume side on the bigger invoice ticket items of print.
Well, thank you Joe well that leads into our second question. It's regarding cloud as an investment. It asks how is cloud ensuring its financial strength and the current economy and the ability to deliver value to shareholders going forward.
Well I mean, it sort of wrapped up in some of the what I just talked about it's managing the core business that creates the cash flow for us to invest in the transformation, we've done upstream to the place where marketers really need help and so we've been very disciplined about that and I'll, let Tony further comment on it but I think we're very proud.
I think I don't we're very proud of how we've been able to manage both sides of the coin here.
What's the product line that we have to deal with those changes in dynamics, while growing into an area that people can't seem to be really responding to and so with that I think having that discipline, but being able to play defense and offense in a bad economy is what our strengths will be and I'm very confident that our approach and our commitment to <unk>.
Pulling back on the offensive part while I manage the defensive part.
It is very much part of what we're going to do here Tony in terms of.
We're mainly yet in the financials. So on financial strength me, where we're very happy with how we would reduce debt over the past three years and will continue to next year, we'll be at as we said earlier over $564 million of debt Paydown and we'll react reduced our debt in half and that strong balance sheet is a benefit to our shareholders because it's that.
That along with our ongoing strong free cash flow generation that allows us to invest in growth, while seeking opportunities to provide returns to shareholders.
Thank you both.
Our last question is regarding clients growth strategy. It asks with agency solutions being an important part of your strategy what actions are being taken by client to continue to invest in its long term growth while it's to continue to invest in the services side and under that is that just you know the idea of Hell.
<unk> people decide where to spend but it's the analytics behind driving that answer so investing in the talent there investing in content creation talent, but also in and expertise of our people who know how to help our customers deal with the problems because that talent is coming from their world and is helping.
US guide our investments so you'll you'll continue to see us be very committed to driving the services side, while also aggressively and appropriately managing the cash flow side that helps us invest in in the whole pie together and that's what will make us successful and into the future.
Thank you. This concludes the Q&A portion of today's call and now I would like to turn the call back to John for closing remarks, Thanks, Katie and thank you everyone for joining today's call I just wanted to reiterate that we are committed to creating a better more purposeful and sustainable way forward for all of our stakeholders and we will remain nimble and <unk>.
Just as necessary to the changing economy, but also be prepared to take advantage of it with that we will see you next time.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for your participation you may now disconnect.